Garett: 00:28

Welcome to the deeper you go, the more it gets. I'm your host, Garrett Renin. So this episode is on one of the most powerful and most fascinating plant medicines on the planet, and that is tobacco. But the problem with tobacco is that when most people think about it, they think about it in terms of cigarettes, which is essentially a dead product that has been stripped of the heart, soul, and spirit of the tobacco plant. See, tobacco has been used by nearly every indigenous culture on the planet for ceremony, healing, and protection, and not just indigenous cultures, but tobacco has a history with all cultures.

Garett: 01:15

Anyway, tobacco is extremely fascinating. Before we get into that, I have some announcements. So if you are enjoying the show, please like it, subscribe to it, and share it. And, also, I have products. I have podcast gear, t shirts, hats, hoodies.

Garett: 01:38

I also have pine pollen, Elysian tallow, the unplugged journal, which is a fantastic tool for helping you with your daily practices. And speaking of daily practices, I have my ninety day initiation challenge, starts September 8. So there's still time to join. And this program includes five transformational phases, daily practices, weekly challenges, upgraded health protocols. There will be live group coaching calls, energetic resets, and spiritual frameworks.

Garett: 02:16

And just to give you a little sneak peek at the five phases we will do over the ninety days is phase one is where we will build a foundation, strip away the noise, help you build structure, and prepare your soil for future growth. Then phase two, we will awaken, and we will unplug from the matrix, and I will help you reclaim your attention and help you remember who you are. Then we will go into phase three where we will rebuild. We will choose a pursuit and go deep and increase our focus and train with intention. And then phase four where we reconnect, we slow down, we tune in, and we start to visualize and align ourselves with our future self.

Garett: 03:04

And then finally, phase five where we rise, we begin we start to embody the new version of ourselves, and we will cap it off with a forty eight hour fast from food, technology, and input. So remember, the next ninety days are going to go by no matter what. So the only question is, what are you going to do with that time? Anyway, that's all I got. Let's get on with the episode.

Garett: 03:34

Okay. So I wanna talk about one of the most fascinating plant medicines in the entire world, and that is tobacco. Now tobacco is extremely interesting because it is both revered and demonized. And there's a lot of confusion around is it safe? Is it a medicine?

Garett: 04:00

How do you use it? And it's really interesting for me on my journey because I smoke tobacco, which seems like a contradiction because for my whole life, I've been all about health and fitness and trying to be the best version of myself. So when it came to tobacco, I never thought I'd be smoking because, right, tobacco is bad for you or cigarettes are bad for you. And just the other day, I was talking to my dad and he was kind of asking me why I smoke tobacco in kind of an accusatory way of almost being a little disappointed, wondering why I was smoking tobacco. And, you know, to answer that, first of all, we have to realize that there is a huge difference between tobacco and cigarettes.

Garett: 04:57

While this should seem obvious, there's still a lot of confusion and people have a hard time knowing the difference. Well, first of all, when it comes to cigarettes, know that they are an industrialized product. They are essentially a poison that has stripped away the spirit and beauty of tobacco. See, a cigarette has hundreds, if not thousands, of added chemicals and up to 69 of those chemicals are known as carcinogens, which means that they are cancer causing chemicals. And some of the examples of the chemicals added are ammonia, arsenic, hydrogen cyanide, benzene, sugar, and molasses which when burns creates formaldehyde.

Garett: 05:54

And the purpose of these chemicals are to increase your addiction to their product, to control the burn rate, to ensure that the cigarettes burn evenly and stay lit, to increase the flavor of the smoke, which makes it easier to inhale, and prolongs the shelf life. And that's completely different from tobacco. See, tobacco has one main active alkaloid and that is nicotine, whereas cigarettes also contain nicotine but a whole host of other cancer causing chemicals. They are not the same thing. See cigarettes, you have to remember that cigarettes are engineered for a purpose and that purpose is profit.

Garett: 06:43

So they engineer these things to get you addicted, to keep you coming back no matter the cost of your health. Alright. So let's get into so that that's the difference between cigarettes and tobacco, but I wanna talk a little bit about the spiritual aspects of tobacco because this is where you start to see the beauty of tobacco. See in in indigenous cultures, and at least in the sheeple culture, tobacco is considered the grandfather. It's kind of considered if there was a hierarchy of plant medicines, tobacco is considered to be at the top.

Garett: 07:24

And the fact that it's considered to be the grandfather is very fascinating, especially when you think of Ayahuasca. Right? Because Ayahuasca is considered to be the grandmother. So tobacco and Ayahuasca pair very well with each other. You have the masculine and feminine component which brings a sort of balance to the plant medicine world.

Garett: 07:49

So when it comes to tobacco one of the main spiritual qualities associated with it is the fact that it is considered to be extremely programmable. And so what does that mean? Well that means and this is how you use tobacco. See I usually use tobacco in a pipe and what I do is I speak or I pray my intention into the tobacco and then the smoke becomes the carrier or vehicle for that intention. And, you know, some of the things that tobacco is good for is removing negative energies.

Garett: 08:28

It's also very grounding and centering and can help you focus your energy. It's also a great connector being the grandfather or the king. It has this ability to connect you to other plant spirits as well as being a great connector into the spirit world in general. And because of all this, tobacco is kind of considered a Swiss army knife. Right?

Garett: 08:54

It has the ability to do a lot of different things. And this is one of the main reasons why tobacco is respected by nearly every indigenous culture on the planet. So that's some of the spiritual aspects. Let's talk about the some of the scientific aspects of it because science is now proving that nicotine at least the nicotine the component in tobacco has a lot of medicinal benefit to it. And I always love when science and spirituality come together.

Garett: 09:31

I see spirituality and science as kind of the masculine and feminine dynamic. We need both and when they come together things actually work out better but right now in the world we are living in science and spirituality seem to be at odds. They seem to be fighting each other. So when it comes to some of the scientifically accepted facts, nicotine the primary alkaloid in tobacco has been proven to be a cognitive enhancer helping you turn on your brain, helping you focus and concentrate. It's also shown to improve reaction times and it's been shown to be a cognitive protector helping protect the brain from diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Garett: 10:18

Tobacco or nicotine has also been shown to help suppress appetite and even increase your metabolism. It also has mild pain numbing effects and it has been shown to have anti inflammatory effects as well. It's also been shown to help improve mood by increasing your dopamine and serotonin levels. So it's extremely interesting that we are learning that nicotine is very powerful and has a lot of positive benefits. In fact, in a lot of the biohacking communities, this is becoming known and people are using nicotine patches, nicotine gums, and and even nicotine pouches, which I'm gonna get into a little bit more because I I'm not sure how I feel about those things yet.

Garett: 11:08

But so that's the kind of the scientific accepted facts. But let's get into my favorite topic, some of the more fringe or controversial topics. Now these topics do have some merit to them. They're not just completely crazy conspiracy theories. So one of the new things that is coming out about nicotine that is extremely fascinating, especially given the last several years, is that it has the ability to combat nanotechnology.

Garett: 11:37

And this is extremely fascinating given what we've gone through over the last several years. See, there was a particular thing that I can't even really talk about because YouTube likes to censor videos that talk about this, but there was a thing that you were forced to get several years ago and that thing has been proven to make people sick and even has nanotechnology associated with it. See where a lot of these theories are coming from is that people are finding significant relief even healing themselves from that thing all because of nicotine. And, you know, if you wanna get crazy with this, well, this makes sense on a spiritual level because, like I said, tobacco is known for helping remove negative energies and even parasitic energies and energies that would harm you. Well, what do you think nanotechnology is?

Garett: 12:46

At least the way it's being used today in pharmaceuticals. Nanotechnology seems to not I don't know right? I don't know what it is but it doesn't seem to be good. I'd rather take my chances with nature than some nanobots going through my body and trying to heal me. But who knows maybe I'll change my tune in the future.

Garett: 13:08

Another claim about nicotine is that it has an ability to repair DNA and stimulate your DNA to repair itself and the claims come that nicotine helps trigger adaptive stress responses that improve cellular repair function. Now again these are just claims science can't prove these things and we know that just because science can't prove something doesn't mean that that something actually exists. So anyway this is all to say that tobacco is one of the most amazing and powerful plant medicines in the entire world. And there is a reason why every indigenous culture on the planet has a relationship with tobacco. And I should say it's not just every indigenous culture, it's every culture.

Garett: 14:03

Right? There's a fascinating book that I read titled tobacco, a cultural history of how an exotic plant seduced civilization. And this book essentially documents our relationship throughout history. And according to this book, it's been there. It's always been there since our recorded history.

Garett: 14:24

We've never been separate from tobacco and I think there's a reason for that. Now, like I said, tobacco is fascinating and in my opinion is a powerful plant medicine, but that is not to say that it is necessarily healthy or that you should just start smoking. See tobacco, like all substances, should always be used with intention and purpose. Like all things, should be considered a tool and any tool is not necessarily good or bad. Right?

Garett: 14:58

And we know this. A hammer can help you build a house. It can help you build things, but it can also be used as a weapon. You can also hit somebody in the face with a hammer. The hammer is not good or bad it's how you use it.

Garett: 15:13

The same goes with tobacco or any plant substance for that matter. But the point of this is to help you change your mind around tobacco. Oftentimes when I'm in ceremony or someone sees me smoking, they get very turned off by that. And I get it because a lot of us have trauma around cigarettes. And many people, they grew up and their parents smoked, sometimes smoking in the car, and this brings back a lot of trauma associated with cigarette smoke.

Garett: 15:48

But I find that when people understand what tobacco can be used for and and the benefits and the spiritual qualities of it, that they have an easier time accepting it in ceremonial use. And what and they have a better time accepting why I use it in ceremony, and sometimes I will blow Mapacho smoke on them. And so I just said the word Mopacho, so I'd go off on a quick tangent. So, typically, I smoke Mopacho, which is a jungle tobacco. It's a it's still tobacco it's just a different variety.

Garett: 16:24

Mopacho is known as Nicotina Rustica and most of the tobacco people smoke here in The US is nicotine tobacco. But anyway when it comes to tobacco I want to emphasize that there is a big difference between tobacco and Mapacho and cigarettes and even nicotine pouches. See the cigarettes and the nicotine pouches are not the same. They are not on the same level as the pure plant. And in fact, even though there are a lot of people enjoying the nicotine patches and gums, Everybody's on their own journey.

Garett: 17:02

I personally based on the path that I've chosen and my experience in the plant medicine world, I'm always a little skeptical of anything that is made in a factory. The reason that is is because these pouches, these gums, and these patches have isolated the nicotine. So they are just a nicotine delivery system. And now I know I just went over there are a lot of benefits to nicotine, but what I think is being missed is that you are losing the holistic approach of tobacco. See tobacco is a living entity.

Garett: 17:43

It exists on the physical, the mental, and the spiritual realm and it's a whole ecosystem unto itself. And yeah, it contains nicotine but it also contains a whole bunch of other substances that we know nothing about as at least as far as science goes and when you extract just one component while removing all the rest what is lost is the spirit of the plant And when that spirit is lost, when that entire ecosystem is lost, we lose a lot of benefit. Anyway, that's all I got. See you on the other side.