Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / Altered States, Horse Gods & the Energy Behind Every Action: A Conversation with Warwick Schiller | Warwick Schiller | LFRF 61

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Altered States, Horse Gods & the Energy Behind Every Action: A Conversation with Warwick Schiller | Warwick Schiller | LFRF 61 · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

0:00
Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
0:01
Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
0:03
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
0:06
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
0:08
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0:34
So now let's jump in.
0:36
Welcome back to Live Free, Ride Free.
0:38
If you can see a bit of a glow coming out of your computer and you're
0:41
having a feeling of, "Oh, I am not worthy," you may need to avert your
0:45
eyes because we have He Who Sitteth upon the right hand of God back here.
0:49
We have the great Warwick Schiller superstar, messiah of the horse world.
0:54
So or is he just indeed a very naughty boy?
0:58
So I guess we need to find out.
1:00
I wanted to chat with Mr.
1:04
Schiller partly 'cause he's my mate and I like chatting with him, but also
1:07
because he and I both share an affinity for altered states of consciousness.
1:14
And I think it's something we don't talk an awful lot about within our
1:19
relationship with horses, but I think that's actually what we're doing
1:24
when we interact with horses, and I think that's what people have always
1:30
done when they interact with horses.
1:32
And so I wanted to ask Mr.
1:35
Schiller's thoughts on this, and he said, "Oh, I, I haven't got much to
1:40
add on that, but maybe we can riff."
1:43
So I'm gonna ask him to riff.
1:45
Hey, Warwick.
1:47
Warwick Schiller: Rupert, how's it going?
1:48
Apparently from that little spiel I've, I've got, now got a Cockney
1:51
accent or maybe a Liverpool- Yeah.
1:53
Rupert Isaacson: Well, you know the, the, the Australian accent is
1:55
apparently from the Cockney accent.
1:58
Warwick Schiller: I heard the Australian accent actually developed from generations
2:03
of people being constantly drunk.
2:06
Every person in the country was basically constantly drunken.
2:09
Rupert Isaacson: What do you think we were doing in London in the 18th century?
2:11
Ah.
2:13
That's where we get mother's ruin from gin, Gin Lane.
2:17
If you ended up on the transport ships, probably alcohol was involved.
2:23
Warwick Schiller: Mm-hmm.
2:23
Rupert Isaacson: And then you arrived there and went, "Shit," and looked at the
2:26
whole thing, and then drank more probably.
2:28
Yeah.
2:29
Tough place.
2:31
But yeah, just as the American accent is supposed to be sort of an offshoot
2:34
of the Irish accent to some degree it seems that the early convict settlers
2:41
were largely out of the slums of East London and left their legacy.
2:50
It's a good legacy.
2:51
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
2:53
Yeah, that whole, that whole accent thing, like the American accent thing's
2:56
really interesting about which accent came from where and how it got there.
3:01
And there's, there is, I was, I saw something a while ago and it was
3:05
talking about how a lot of people- people, judgmental people make
3:13
fun or look down upon some of the word usage of African Americans.
3:21
Rupert Isaacson: Uh-huh.
3:22
Warwick Schiller: Like they, when they say they aks for something
3:25
instead of ask for- Or they be.
3:27
Yeah â¦ yeah.
3:27
And, and if you trace them back far enough- It's
3:30
Rupert Isaacson: old English.
3:30
Yeah
3:30
â¦ Warwick Schiller: they're the, yeah, they're the old English, and they're
3:32
the unadulterated old English.
3:34
Absolutely.
3:35
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
3:36
If you read 18th century novels, you'll find all that language in there.
3:42
And it's specifically like a time, like a snapshot of the 18th century because that,
3:47
of course, is when the slave trade, the Atlantic slave trade, was at its height.
3:52
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
3:52
Rupert Isaacson: About 1740 to 1840, '50, you know.
3:58
And then the Civil War comes along, and that is exactly indeed how people speak.
4:04
And if you look at a lot of the surnames of African Americans, they're often
4:08
very old English surnames because, of course, they were forced to take
4:11
the name of the plantation owner.
4:14
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
4:15
And Australian accents.
4:17
So tell me, how do you pronounce, you know, you've got a tree, and those,
4:21
the arms that stick out of the side of the tree, what are those things called?
4:25
Rupert Isaacson: I believe that's a branch
4:27
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
4:28
So in Australia, in every state other than South Australia, they're a branch.
4:32
A branch.
4:33
Not a branch.
4:34
Okay.
4:35
But in South Australia, they're branch.
4:37
It's branch and dance.
4:40
Because South Australia was the only state that was settled by
4:44
non-convicts, so they were educated people, so they said branch and dance.
4:49
And all the rest of us learnt to say branch and dance up in your nose
4:55
Rupert Isaacson: here.
4:55
Up in your nose.
4:56
Yeah.
4:56
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
4:57
Rupert Isaacson: Which, of course, cockney's up in the nose, too, innit?
5:00
It starts up there, and it ends up down there, with a face
5:05
like a bag of nails, innit?
5:08
And, â¦ yeah, I could, I could, I could, I could see that.
5:11
And South Australia, of course, is where the the, a lot of
5:14
the best land was originally.
5:16
And of course, it's where, I thinkâ¦
5:17
Is that not where they got the wine industry going first?
5:20
Warwick Schiller: That's where the wineâ¦
5:20
Yeah.
5:21
Yeah.
5:21
Barossa Valley in South Australia.
5:23
Yeah.
5:24
Rupert Isaacson: Well, Australia's a good place to start when we're talking about
5:27
altered states of consciousness because, of course it is one of the places with
5:30
the Aboriginals where the altered state of consciousness is still well in use today,
5:35
as I know, because I took my son for healing from the Kuku Yalanji shamans up
5:42
in the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland.
5:44
And that was one place where I saw things which I had to then sayâ¦
5:53
I had to just be comfortable saying, "I don't know what I saw."
5:56
Where my son was being, having smoke from a certain bark wafted over him, and while
6:03
that was going on the healer was taking little piece, like this, along his spine.
6:11
And the
6:15
As he was doing this, he was, he was not wearing a shirt, so he
6:18
couldn't do, have sleight of hand.
6:21
He couldn't have hidden anything, and he was flicking his fingers into,
6:25
like, an old chipped coffee mug.
6:27
And so of course, you know, I've got to see what's in the mug, right?
6:30
So I'm going, "What's in the mug?"
6:32
And I see that it's beginning to fill up with kind of viscous, snotty goo with,
6:39
like, little bits of blood in it, like exactly what you, you cough up with phlegm
6:44
or sneeze out if you had a bad cold.
6:46
And it's just kind of getting fuller.
6:50
And at the end of the session, the guy mooks, he shoves it into the fire,
6:55
and he says, "Come back tomorrow."
6:56
Did the same thing.
6:58
Filled up about half as much.
7:00
Came back the following day.
7:01
Did the same thing.
7:03
Filled up only a tiny little bit, and then he said, "Okay, he's good."
7:07
And of course, I had to say in my crass Western way, "What was that then?"
7:13
And he w- he looked at me and smiled and didn't explain.
7:17
But I did see it and at the end of that three days, my son suddenly developed
7:23
what's called theory of mind, where they-- someone can understand that someone else
7:29
has a different viewpoint to you, which comes very late, if at all, with autism.
7:36
And then math- mathematics just started pouring out of him.
7:40
So Australia's a good place to start, but Australia of course is
7:44
not, in terms of altered states of consciousness, at least in its
7:49
indigenous history, a horse culture.
7:54
But there are horse cultures, of course, that have been exploring this
7:57
for millennia, namely Mongolia and the tribes of the Eurasian Steppe.
8:05
But, and of course I've had some experience there, and
8:09
I'm happy to go into that.
8:10
But I want to talk to you, I want to ask your impressions, because we're
8:16
getting into this era of horsemanship where things are getting stranger and
8:22
stranger, and in some ways that's a good thing, and in some ways it's-
8:29
I don't know if it's good or bad, but it's confusing.
8:32
We're in the era where people talk about, say, consent, but you can't
8:40
really ask a horse to send you an email through h- his legal office
8:46
saying that he gives you consent.
8:47
You have to have some other mechanism for deciding whether or not subjectively
8:54
to you that has in fact happened
9:00
Y- we have, you know, people saying, "Well, you shouldn't pat your horse.
9:06
That means that the horse has this reaction to it."
9:09
Well, does it?
9:10
I don't know.
9:10
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
9:12
I'm not a horse, I can't say.
9:13
If somebody gives me a hug and pats me on the back, I find it quite
9:18
reassuring, unless they thump the hell out of me, and then it hurts.
9:22
Like, when I shake somebody's hand, if there's handshakes that make me feel
9:26
reassured, and there's handshakes that crush my hand, and there's handshakes
9:30
that are so limp that I want to run away.
9:33
But is a handshake bad?
9:35
So what we're starting to, I think, what all these things point at,
9:39
though, is a desire to communicate with horses in a way that's much more
9:44
meaningful than, "Do this job for me."
9:49
And at the same time, horses, like humans, like dogs, like most sentient
9:53
beings, enjoy a sense of purpose, and the happiest horses I've ever met have
9:58
always been working horses, provided they were, you know, having been treated well.
10:03
So the altered state of consciousness, I think, is about the only thing
10:07
we've got that acts as some sort of interface between all of these confusing
10:15
questions, which are good questions.
10:17
It's good that we're questioning whether ca- tap- patting a horse is good or bad.
10:21
It's good that we're questioning whether we should even ride them or whatever.
10:26
But at the same time, if we go into too much of an extreme that way,
10:30
we can risk losing entire cultures, and maybe horses, because they've
10:35
been domesticated for thousands of years, want to interact with us.
10:40
They seem to like dogs.
10:43
So where do we go with this?
10:44
And it, it just seems that this is not something we can answer rationally.
10:48
We have to explore, I think, the irrational here.
10:51
And who better than my irrational friend Warwick who- â¦ can ir- irrational
10:57
with the best of them as can I.
10:59
What do you, what do you think, Warwick, when you think about all this?
11:00
You know, I think, I think we're heading in
11:03
Warwick Schiller: a
11:06
better direction with horses.
11:13
And I'm, I'm actually quite, quite big on consent these days.
11:18
But I don't think, I don't think it's the, the thing you do, as
11:23
in should you pat them, not pat them versus rub them, you know?
11:28
Should, you know, a lot of people like they, they think they're
11:30
patting their horse and they're slapping them pretty hard.
11:32
I don't, I don't think that the consent thing's a bad thing, but like you said, it
11:39
can get, you know, it can get to where it goes off on a, an extreme tangent to where
11:49
And people, you know, people are kind of drawn to like extreme
11:51
tangents- Mm â¦ about things.
11:53
But, you know, as far as the altered s- you know, I've, I have experienced altered
12:00
states of consciousness through say breathwork in ceremony, things like that.
12:05
I've not really experienced those states of consciousness through horses, but I
12:11
think there might be kind of levels of it.
12:14
But you have, you know, I had you on my podcast and, well, the first
12:18
time I had you on my podcast was about, tell me all about Rupert
12:21
Isaacson and your amazing life.
12:24
But the second time I had you on, we were talking about hunter-gatherers.
12:26
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
12:28
Warwick Schiller: And you were talking about, you know, shape-shifting
12:34
and that sort of thing, like inhabiting the consciousness of
12:38
another being, animal, whatever.
12:42
But I think
12:46
A smaller version of that is being very empathetic to another sentient being,
12:53
whether it's an animal or a human, in being present enough to be aware of
13:00
their experience at that very moment
13:05
And, you know, when you were talking about like patting a horse, um
13:14
And I, and I think the, the where people say, "Oh, you shouldn't do that," is
13:17
if people are slapping their horse.
13:18
You know, you see a lot of people in competition, they get finished and
13:22
they slap their horse on the neck.
13:23
Think, if you think about where is the person mentally while they're doing it?
13:29
Are they mentally in communion with that horse?
13:32
Are they beaming, looking at the crowd and whacking the horse, and they've
13:35
got no idea what the horse is doing?
13:37
And I feel like if you are moreâ¦
13:41
Or no idea how their horse is receiving what they're doing.
13:44
And if you think about, okay, let's go back to, like, the
13:48
1950s, 1960s in an office, okay?
13:53
And this is gonna make some people shudder, but it was a thing that happened.
13:56
It, it wasn't unusual for the boss to slap the worker girl on the ass
14:03
Okay?
14:03
It was--
14:05
And if you think about it, what was he thinking about or what
14:14
was he very aware of at the time?
14:16
I guarantee you, if he was looking at her face and her facial expression
14:21
and taking in those micro expressions while he did it, he'd realize that,
14:27
"Oh, she doesn't like that at all."
14:28
Even if she was smiling and laughing, but there'd be, there'd be some tells in her,
14:32
around her eyes and whatever like, "That was, that was very creepy, but I've gotta
14:37
smile because he's the boss," or whatever.
14:41
Rupert Isaacson: But is that a good analogy?
14:42
Because-
14:43
Warwick Schiller: I don't know if it's a good analogy or not
14:44
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: people are completely different there.
14:46
I mean, no one who's patting their horse is coming from the place emotionally or-
14:51
Warwick Schiller: No, no, but the- â¦ dronely
14:53
Rupert Isaacson: that, that, that, that, that 50s boss was coming from
14:55
â¦ Warwick Schiller: the analogy that I'm drawing on is, are you aware of how
15:02
what you are doing at that very moment is received by that sentient being?
15:08
And I guarantee you, the 50s boss wasn't.
15:10
Rupert Isaacson: No.
15:10
And he- and- â¦ in a funny way, that w- that, what he was doing
15:13
there was an expression of power.
15:16
It was an exercise- Yes â¦ in power.
15:17
Right.
15:18
And it was an exercise in effectively saying you have no choice.
15:22
But I don't think that that's where the euphoria of somebody who is
15:28
patting their horse in that moment-
15:29
Warwick Schiller: Oh, no, no
15:30
in a way is even- That's, that's not the part of the
15:31
analogy that I'm trying to make.
15:32
The part of the analogy I'm trying to make is most, I would say most times
15:38
when people, you know, at the end of a competition or whatever, they reach
15:40
down, they really slap their horse hard on the neck, I guarantee you, at that
15:44
very moment, they are not shape-shifting.
15:47
They are not inhabiting the consciousness of their horse.
15:51
They are not very aware of how that's received.
15:53
Usually they, they're thinking about the crowd, the prize money,
15:57
the whatever, you know, the trainer at the back gate, whatever.
16:00
But they're not-- I don't feel like they'd be exactly in the moment with their horse.
16:05
And, you know, how I went off on this new tangent I'm off on about
16:11
10 years ago with horses came from being exactly in the moment with a
16:21
horse and reading the tiniest little things and responding to that.
16:27
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah I could see it being many things.
16:32
I can actually, w- you know, we can only ever talk about our own experience, right?
16:36
So back in the days, about 500 years ago when I used to compete, I can remember
16:42
finishing rounds, particularly jumping rounds, particularly jumping rounds that
16:47
were cross-country rounds, particularly jumping rounds that were cross-country
16:50
rounds that were over really big fences that if you messed up, you could die.
16:56
So you were constantly dealing with that elevated f- excitement fear that that
17:07
Spot between fear and ecstasy.
17:12
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, the veil's a little thin- the veil's a little
17:14
thinner right there, isn't it?
17:14
Yeah, and that's what ecstasy means.
17:14
E- ex out of
17:14
Rupert Isaacson: stasis,
17:19
out of the stat- out of the n- out of the normal state, out of the state.
17:25
I can remember finishing those rounds, and whether or not I'd hit, you know, done it
17:32
in, in the ribbons, whether or not I was gonna get place, I would have a euphoria
17:39
where I can be pretty sure that I probably patted my horse's neck pretty hard.
17:45
But I would've been going, "Oh, good.
17:46
Thank you so much.
17:47
Ah."
17:48
It would be like that.
17:49
And, and horses read emotion.
17:51
So I had a horse that would also eat those fences, like I could feel as he
17:59
was going, and he would, y- that thing where their ears go forward like that,
18:03
and then there's this surge where they kind of like wanna attack the fence,
18:08
that there's a kind of, there are certain horses that love it, you know.
18:11
And if they don't love it, you probably shouldn't do that kind
18:13
of thing on them because you c- will probably wreck quite badly.
18:17
You don't want a horse to go reluctantly into something like that.
18:20
They either love it or they don't love it.
18:22
If they don't love it, don't do it.
18:23
But if they do love it, and there's a fairly large subset of horses that do.
18:28
Okay, so when we were finishing a round like that, where I was
18:32
coming from certainly had nothing to do with the crowd, also I wasn't
18:36
competing at that level and didn't have anything to do with whether I
18:40
was, quote-unquote, "winning" or not.
18:42
I was â¦ It was this mixture of gratitude, relief, Ex- ex- ecstatic joy.
18:51
Mad joy.
18:52
Which I s- felt the horse shared because I spent many hours with him doing that kind
18:57
of thing, 'cause I used to foxhunt a lot.
18:59
And when you- Right â¦ foxhunt, that's just not just, like, a
19:00
round, that's the entire day.
19:03
And you're going up fences, particularly in that area of England that I grew
19:08
out- up in, which are ridiculously big, and you can't see the other
19:12
side of them, and you have to just kind of hope for it the best and go.
19:16
And again, there are horses that dig it and horses that don't dig it.
19:20
Horses that don't dig it, you don't do it on.
19:22
So I would argue, just as devil's advocate, that both of
19:26
those things are probably right.
19:27
There are probably people who slap the horse's neck very, very hard as a
19:32
sort of, sort of, ah, expression of, "I have done well," looking at the
19:39
crowd, and there are people who might do it in the way that I just described.
19:44
And I think the horse would read the emotion either way, because horses
19:47
are entirely emotional beings.
19:50
I would argue that going around one of those cross-country courses or a
19:54
day's hunting like that does put you in an altered state of consciousness.
19:56
You, you can't do it if you're not.
19:58
You know, you go back later in what we call cold blood, and you look at the
20:01
fences that you did the day before, and you go, "I would never do that now.
20:06
Y- I can only do that in this weird heightened state."
20:10
And I wouldn't ask the horse just to, like, come out of the trailer and do it.
20:13
You know, there's a whole kind of easing in, and the horse goes into this- Right
20:15
â¦ altered state of consciousness as well, where they start to hunt, and they are
20:19
listening for the hounds, and they are
20:21
When the hounds find, the horse is like, "Yes," and they, th- the horse
20:24
starts to know what the different horns, horn blasts that the huntsman know.
20:28
You know, just like po- good polo horses know how to play the game and like it.
20:31
Even if the person riding them is a bit rough, the horse will still
20:34
play the game because they like it.
20:35
So are those not altered states of consciousness?
20:38
And is, so is there not also a whole range of emotion from negative to positive,
20:47
you know, within, within that sphere?
20:50
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
20:51
I mean, I was just commenting on the, you know, you, you brought up the, the you
20:55
know, the way the horse world is going and people looking at things differently.
20:58
Yeah.
20:58
And then you brought up the analogy of the slapping thing.
21:00
So we had a, a, we had someone staying here with us a couple of years
21:05
ago, a British lady, lovely lady.
21:08
And she has like the, like all her BHS credentials, whatever all that
21:13
stuff is, but she was a horse slapper.
21:17
Like, she would- Sorry.
21:18
She would-
21:20
Rupert Isaacson: Would you like to rephrase that, Mister?
21:22
Warwick Schiller: No, she was a horse slapper.
21:24
She would, she would be by one of my horses and she would go, "Good boy."
21:33
W- And she has that sort of energy and that sort of intention.
21:36
Mm.
21:36
But if you watch their eyes pop open and their head shoot up and their,
21:40
their top line get tense in that very moment, and then they're like
21:45
And then the horse, she said the horse was kind of like, "What
21:47
the frigging hell was that?"
21:48
That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
21:51
Mm-hmm.
21:51
And, and I think horses, yes, horses do read emotion, but this lady, she's lovely.
21:57
She has this lovely soft energy.
21:59
She's a Reiki master.
22:00
She's woo as all hell, get out.
22:01
She's great.
22:03
But she was a horse slapper and I, and she couldn't not do it.
22:08
Mm.
22:09
It was part of her culture.
22:11
Mm.
22:11
I would say â¦ Like, she'd do it and I'd go, "You just slapped that horse again."
22:14
I, I said, "You just slapped that horse again."
22:16
And she goes, "Oh, did I?"
22:18
Like, she didn't even know she was doing it.
22:21
But when she was doing it, she was not looking at the facial
22:26
expression or the muscle tension or the posture of the horse- Mm
22:31
and realizing that he didn't dig it.
22:34
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
22:35
Warwick Schiller: You know?
22:35
Like, I could, you could see if you were looking at the right place, if you were
22:39
looking for the right things, you would see that horse go from like, "Hey, this
22:44
is all g- Oh shit, what did she just do?
22:45
What did I do wrong?"
22:46
Mm.
22:47
And then she's gone and then they'd, you'd get they'd go,
22:49
"Oh, I don't know what that was."
22:50
So I mean, you were the one that brought up the horse slapping.
22:52
I wasn't gonna go on- Yeah, yeah.
22:53
No, but- â¦ on the horse slapping stuff.
22:54
But what I'm talking about is at that very moment, this horse
23:00
slapping lady she was not-
23:05
sharing the same perspective of what was going on in the world as the horse was.
23:12
And I think, you know, this alter- y- you know, like I said, I've talked
23:14
to you on my podcast about you know, shape-shifting and, and, you know, I
23:19
think you did say that at some point in time shape-shifting is just empathy.
23:24
Rupert Isaacson: It is.
23:25
Warwick Schiller: And empathy is putting yourself in the shoes or the,
23:29
the emotionality, the physicality, the, the, the, the experience of the other.
23:38
And I feel like for me, you know, I, like I said, I've, I've
23:41
experienced some altered states of consciousness in ceremony and with
23:45
breathwork and stuff like that.
23:47
I haven't experienced those kinds of altered states of
23:50
consciousness with horses, but I feel like I have experienced a
23:57
A level of presence to where you are just really present with the other and
24:04
very observant, very observant of what's going on with them, and I think that's
24:08
kind of the, at least for me, maybe the altered states of consciousness.
24:13
And the other thing when I, you know, when I'm doing clinics, a lot of times
24:16
people have said, you know, 'cause I start at 8:00 in the morning, I'll
24:19
go till-- I don't stop for lunch, and I'll go till 5:00 or 6:00 at night, and
24:24
people will say, "You must have an iron constitution to be out there all day," and
24:28
you know, you, all, all you do is drink water and you don't-- It's just amazing.
24:32
I'm like, the time flies.
24:34
I'm like, when I am in an arena with working with horses, explaining what I'm
24:42
doing into the microphone to a crowd of people, there is no 10 seconds ahead of
24:47
time and there is no 10 seconds before.
24:50
Now, if I'm out there just working with horses on my own, because I
24:54
kind of know what I'm doing, I can be thinking about something else
24:58
and still working with the horse.
25:00
I could be procra- you know, I could be in my head about some other
25:03
problem and my wife's mad at me or whatever it is, you know, and I can
25:06
still be working with the horse.
25:07
But when I am in an arena with a crowd of people and a microphone stuck in
25:12
my mouth- Mm â¦ and I'm explaining in real time what I'm doing and why
25:17
I'm responding to the horse in front of me, that for me is when time, I
25:23
don't know if it slows down, speeds up or whatever, but there is no time.
25:25
Like I don't, you know, my-- If my wife's not at a clinic and she doesn't come to
25:30
many of them, she makes sure she emails everybody ahead of time and says, "Okay.
25:34
Group one, you come in at 8:30," blah, blah, blah.
25:37
"Group two, you come in at 10:30.
25:40
Don't wait.
25:40
Just come in," 'cause I'll be out there with the same group all day long.
25:44
I, I mean I, time- Yeah â¦ there is no time.
25:47
So for me, that's probably the Altered state of consciousness for me-
25:54
Rupert Isaacson: That is an altered state of consciousness.
25:57
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
25:57
Rupert Isaacson: S- so when people â¦ I think everyone who works with horses
26:03
in any way, or is with horses, or spends any time with horses, everyone
26:07
f- experiences this loss of time.
26:10
I think this is something which we notice as children even that you do not notice
26:15
time when you're with a horse, especially when you're riding them too, because you
26:22
are brought into the present moment, you know, 100%, and you don't have to try.
26:28
You are just placed there, bump.
26:30
Horses, it's like horses carry us into the present moment.
26:33
But as you say, you can be standing next to them, doing
26:37
things with them and explaining that, and the same thing happens.
26:40
I, I know ex- I, I feel exactly the same.
26:42
Same thing happens to me.
26:43
It's a running joke in my workshops that, you know, Rupert just doesn't
26:47
no- notice time, and he won't break for lunch, so you better break for
26:51
lunch and just t- say, "We're having lunch now," because I, I will forget.
26:55
I just, you know.
26:56
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
26:57
Rupert Isaacson: And that is an altered state of consciousness.
26:58
And, and then back to the, the horse slapping thing, the reason
27:00
I brought it up is because I think it, it, it's about alignment and
27:06
shared experience, which is empathy.
27:08
So say, for example, I finished that jumping round as a younger rider, or
27:12
that day's hunting and I'm just in that state of euphoria, and the horse is too.
27:16
We're in it together.
27:17
We've gone through it together.
27:18
Then that big embrace and the energetic pat and all of that is a little bit
27:25
like when footballers score a goal and they all jump on each other.
27:29
If, if someo- you know, if they were just hanging out in the street and
27:33
they did that, it wouldn't go well.
27:35
Somebody would fall over and hit their head.
27:37
No one would be ready for it.
27:39
No one is expecting it.
27:40
No one.
27:40
But it's kind of a ritual and a ceremony of expression, of joy
27:44
that by mutual consent everybody engages in in that moment.
27:49
It â¦ And I think the same things happen with humans and horses.
27:52
So yeah, if you, if, if the horse is just like hanging out and you just
27:56
walk up to him and pat him in that way, he's like, "Jesus Christ, what that?"
28:00
You know, "What's going on?"
28:01
But if you've gone through this shared experience where you're both on this
28:04
euphoric high and you're both in this state of high arousal and excitement
28:09
together, and you've become that centaur together, which you had to in order
28:16
to do that thing- Yeah â¦ which again is an altered state of consciousness,
28:19
then I think those sorts of spontaneous acts of joy and affection are taken
28:26
for what they are, but perhaps might not be in another context- Right
28:31
where that shared experience hasn't happened.
28:32
And that is, you know, again, I think altered states of consciousness
28:35
are all about that because ritual and ceremony and shared experience,
28:39
right, are all part of that, no?
28:42
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, if we wind this back to, you know, you were
28:45
talking initially about, you know, the horse world is different now.
28:49
We're looking at thing, you know, everybody's looking at
28:51
things differently sort of more empathetic, those sorts of things.
28:55
And then you mentioned the horse slapping thing, and I think you
28:57
mentioned it in, probably in the context of on social media-
29:02
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
29:03
â¦ Warwick Schiller: people say, "This person did theâ¦"
29:04
You know?
29:05
Yeah.
29:05
And I, and I f- and I feel like-
29:10
I, I, I f- I feel like no one has ever lived somebody else's
29:18
life.
29:19
You know, so think about like, I don't know where you live now, but
29:23
like in this country, in the USA, there's this huge political divide.
29:27
Mm.
29:27
And those on the left are telling those on the right that they're bad
29:30
and evil and whatever, and those on the right are telling those on the left,
29:32
"You're all idiots," and whatever.
29:34
And I don't think anybody is convincing the other side to change
29:38
their mind about anything, because I don't think you can- And if
29:41
Rupert Isaacson: anything, they're just entrenching them further into their
29:42
Warwick Schiller: narrative.
29:42
Y- yes.
29:43
Yeah.
29:43
But, but no one on the one side of it is, has an opinion that's different to
29:49
every experience they've ever had in life, and no one on the left side is having an
29:52
opinion that's different to every exper- I mean, the opinion you have is based
29:56
on the experiences you've had in life, and no one's lived anybody else's life.
30:01
And, you know, in the horse world on social media
30:07
It seems to be the, the thing to do is to make your point by
30:12
putting up pictures of somebody else doing what you think is wrong.
30:17
And, you know, it's, it's interesting, like here a little while ago, the-- I--
30:23
there's a lady, I think she's fromâ¦
30:25
lives in America, I think she's from Europe somewhere, who's a
30:28
very big like biomechanical lady.
30:32
Everybody probablyâ¦
30:32
If I mentioned her name, everybody'd probably know who I was talking about.
30:36
And I saw somewhere on social media how she had said that
30:42
Backing a horse up, like getting a horse to back up, is ruining horses' bodies
30:46
and, and I'm like, "That's interesting."
30:49
And a, a, a horseman had her on his podcast, and they
30:53
actually got into it about it.
30:56
And I listened to the podcast just 'cause I'm like, "Well, I respect this
30:59
woman's knowledge of biomechanics."
31:02
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
31:02
Warwick Schiller: And so I wanna know what she thinks is better.
31:05
Maybe I'm, maybe I'm doing it wrong.
31:07
I mean, I feel like it helps my horses' bodies, not detracts from them, like
31:12
she says it's ruining them, you know?
31:14
So then I listen to it.
31:15
Well, she has spent most of her time in the English world, okay?
31:19
And she has spent m- every horse, basically every horse she's ever
31:22
seen asked to back up is just pulled on, and squeezed their
31:26
belly and just forced to back up.
31:28
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
31:30
Warwick Schiller: You know, she's never seen anybody sit on a horse and
31:32
just pick up the softest feel on the reins and just wait for that horse to
31:36
kind of start to adjust their body.
31:38
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
31:39
Warwick Schiller: And so it's not, it's not the fact that backing up is a problem-
31:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
31:46
â¦ Warwick Schiller: it's the way she has seen horses be asked to back up.
31:49
So in her experience, she's right.
31:51
After I listened to the pod- 'cause I was thinking, "She's wrong," or whatever.
31:55
After listening to the podcast, I know in her experience, she's right.
32:00
The way she's seen it done is, is not helpful to horses' bodies.
32:05
But it's not the act of backing up that's the problem- No â¦ it's
32:08
how they're being asked to.
32:09
But if you've only ever seen people back horses up that way, then your
32:14
perspective is backing up's bad for them.
32:17
Mm-hmm.
32:17
And so, you know what I mean?
32:17
So what I'm trying to say here is- Yeah
32:19
nobody's lived everybody else's-
32:20
Rupert Isaacson: I do, I do feel that one can also be curious and
32:24
say, "Well, other people seem to back horses up in ways that aren'tâ¦"
32:28
I mean, look at if you have to rope a cow, if you, if a horse backs up from
32:34
the gate or ba- even without a rider, without any human, backs away from the
32:39
feed or the water trough to make way for another horse or the myriad ways
32:44
in which a horse might go backwards.
32:45
But as you say, is it being done with force and tension, or is it being
32:51
done in a certain kind of a flow?
32:54
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
32:55
Is the, is theâ¦
32:55
Like you look at a horse back up from, say, a water trough to let another one in.
32:59
When he has the idea, "I wanna back up," the first thing he's gonna do,
33:02
he's gonna shift his weight backwards.
33:04
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
33:05
Warwick Schiller: Okay?
33:05
He's going to get ready to back up.
33:08
And this particular body worker lady, I don't think she's ever seen a horse asked
33:11
to back up That was wanting to back up.
33:15
So they didn't organize their body.
33:17
So all the, you know, it'd be like having a horse lower his head through relaxation
33:22
or pull it down with draw reins.
33:23
Okay, their head's in the same place, but the, the body, those two bodies are
33:27
doing two completely different things.
33:30
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
33:31
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
33:31
And so anyway, the point I was trying to make was I think, you know, 'cause
33:34
you were kind of alluding before to, you know, the probably social media, you know,
33:40
that, does, does that make sense there?
33:42
I mean, I, I, I- Yeah,
33:43
Rupert Isaacson: 100%.
33:43
Warwick Schiller: But it- I completely understand where people, why people,
33:47
Or, or think about it, the way I like to look at it is think about
33:50
levels of consciousness or levels of awareness or whatever, and that's,
33:55
you know, there's a million of them.
33:57
But if, like I spent, I spent what I felt like was 50 years at the same level.
34:03
Like, I only could view the world through one lens.
34:06
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
34:06
Warwick Schiller: And then when I was about 50, I had, oh, now I've got this
34:10
perspective change, and now I can, I have a different view of the world.
34:14
But when I look at somebody who has the view of the world I used
34:17
to have, I completely understand the fact that they're right.
34:21
In their mind, they're right.
34:23
They only know that.
34:25
And the, the thing that kind of, I don't really let it annoy me, but the thing
34:29
I say a lot is people who especially in social media, who feel like they're
34:34
kind of enlightened or whatever, putting shit on people who aren't on
34:37
the same level they're at, they're forgetting that they were at that level
34:42
at some point in time in their life.
34:43
And when they were there, they were doing the best they could
34:46
with, with the knowledge they had.
34:48
So it, that, that kind of-
34:50
Rupert Isaacson: Back to empathy.
34:51
Yeah Yeah.
34:52
All that whole-
34:52
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:54
I just, yeah.
34:55
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
34:56
I mean, of course, social media does not thrive on empathy.
34:59
There was a time when people used to say sex sells, and now
35:03
we know that anger outsells sex.
35:06
Warwick Schiller: Oh, hell yeah.
35:06
Rupert Isaacson: And fear outs- Angry sex
35:07
Warwick Schiller: is
35:07
Rupert Isaacson: even
35:07
Warwick Schiller: better, though.
35:10
Rupert Isaacson: Then you mix the two, you know?
35:11
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
35:12
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35:14
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37:01
Back, so, okay.
37:03
So altered states of consciousness can be good and bad.
37:06
I would argue that when people are on social media, there's an altered state
37:10
of consciousness that happens there.
37:12
There is a, there is-
37:17
I think a truth, which is that where you put large amounts of
37:20
attention and frequency, and this is the point of ceremony, right?
37:25
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
37:26
Rupert Isaacson: And ritual, then you can elevate or you can depress frequency.
37:36
And so let's say you wanted to do something joyful and healing, you
37:41
would have a ceremony that elevates through song, through dance, through
37:46
movement, through â¦ You could have the intercession of psychotropics, but not
37:51
everywhere in the world do they grow.
37:53
But certainly you're going to probably use song, rhythm, things like this,
37:57
and they will help you enter that altered state of consciousness.
38:00
And you can do it on the, and, and when you're on the back of a horse,
38:02
if y- if things are going well, you're also getting lots of oxytocin.
38:05
You know, when you're on social media, you can enter another state of
38:08
consciousness, which d- depresses the frequency, and it's another ritual.
38:15
There's a whole ritual to getting online.
38:17
There's a whole ritual to getting onto the site that you're going onto,
38:20
and then gradually letting the anger build, and then joining in with other
38:24
people, and whoa, black magic happens.
38:31
I feel that in the ancient s- I, I work a lot with old masters
38:35
stuff, as you know too, the dead dudes, as I like to call them.
38:38
The
38:38
Warwick Schiller: dead dudes.
38:39
The dead dudes.
38:42
Rupert Isaacson: Most of the dead dudes, up until the 19th century,
38:47
talk very happily about the spiritual dimension of working with horses.
38:52
After the 19th century and materialism comes in, and Cartesian thought really
38:58
kind of lands with the Industrial Revolution, it leaves the discourse.
39:04
So let's start with the the oldest text we know is Kikkuli.
39:08
That's 1350 BC.
39:10
He's in, s- serving the Hittite kings, but it- we've only got fragments from
39:14
him, and his fragments are largely you know, to do with training.
39:17
But we do know that they were making offerings to a horse god
39:24
within those stables regularly.
39:25
Then we know that, that's â¦ We, we jump forward to Xenophon,
39:29
and he's in Greece a lot later.
39:31
He's in 400 BC, and he's talking about how you must make the
39:35
correct offerings and libations
39:39
around your horses, around the stables, paying attention to what deities are
39:46
present, not just with the horse, but with the atmosphere of the training ground.
39:54
Then this is taken further by the Romans.
39:57
So where I'm sitting in Germany right now, I'm sitting on a
40:00
place called the Limes, which is
40:02
That's where we get the word limit.
40:04
And the Limes was like Hadrian's Wall, but way bigger.
40:08
It was an earthwork with a palisade on it that went from the mouth of the
40:11
Rhine in what's now the Netherlands, all the way down through Germany,
40:15
passing within a couple of kilometers of where I'm sitting, to the Danube to
40:19
sort of close off that Tran- transâ¦
40:23
The Rhine-Danube gap, which they always worried that barbarians would come
40:26
pouring through, and in the end they did
40:28
Warwick Schiller: Who was on what side of
40:30
that
40:30
Rupert Isaacson: war?
40:30
Okay, so, if, if Iâ¦
40:31
If you look that way, it's the barbarians, and if you look that way
40:37
from where I'm sitting, it's the Romans.
40:38
Yeah.
40:38
I'm currently sitting in the Roman Empire, but I'd only need to go
40:41
half an hour's walk that way and I'd hit a reconstructed Roman tower.
40:45
Okay.
40:46
Along that limus w- have been found depressions in the ground by some of
40:52
the R- Roman military camps thatâ¦
40:55
Where it's very clear that we know that cavalry were stationed.
41:01
And that cavalry was largely in this area, what's called Sarmatian
41:07
or Alan, where we get the w- name Alan from incidentally which were
41:12
Iranian-speaking riders out of the steppe.
41:17
However, once they were incorporated into the Roman army, they very quickly
41:23
began to take on the worship of a goddess who is the only goddess that
41:29
was ever taken in as a militaryâ¦
41:32
Co-opted as a military goddess from another culture by the Romans.
41:36
So the Romans often co-opted other gods and goddesses from
41:39
places that they conquered.
41:40
They're like, "Ooh, we like that one.
41:41
We'll have that.
41:41
We'll have Isis," you know.
41:43
"We'll haveâ¦"
41:44
You know, they, they took Epona, and Epona was the Celtic, m- largely French
41:50
Celtic, Gaul- Gallic Celtic goddess of the horse and of plenty and the harvest.
41:56
Sometimes she's depicted as a horse, sometimes she's depicted
41:59
as a woman on a horse, sometimes she's depicted as a cornucopia.
42:03
And the Irish Macha and the Welsh Rhiannon are basically equivalents of, of Epona.
42:08
It's really interesting.
42:09
The Roman military decided to co-opt her as a military goddess.
42:16
So we found inscriptions over on this military camp on the limus,
42:19
you know, where, where we are.
42:21
From the Roman stables makingâ¦
42:24
There's anâ¦
42:24
From an altar to Epona.
42:28
They're making offerings to her, and we found these all the way
42:31
from Hadrian's Wall all the way down to anywhere the Romans were.
42:35
These, these, these inscriptions to Epona, these altars to
42:38
Epona in these military camps.
42:39
And not just to Epona, but to the geniuses, the spirits, the guiding
42:46
spirits, the, the genies, if you like, of the training ground.
42:52
And if you think about this idea of where attention goes and frequency can
42:58
sort of coalesce into matter, thinkâ¦
43:00
And that's sort of what magic is really.
43:02
Mm.
43:03
Which is what the quantum states are, and that's what ritual does, and that's
43:06
why it can be used for good or ill.
43:10
That's of course what these people were doing.
43:12
They, they would say, "Okay, we want to have success in the training ground.
43:16
We don't want our horse to go lame.
43:17
We don't want to fall off and break our leg.
43:20
We want, you know, things to go well and we want our horses to be healthy,
43:24
so we're gonna pray to Epona and we're gonna pray to the genies and
43:27
the spirits of the training ground."
43:28
And you've got Xenophon before them talking about this.
43:30
And then over on the steppe you've got, you know, the Alans who are putting
43:33
swords in the ground and worshiping them and worshiping horses as well.
43:36
And then in Mongolia even today where the horse comes from, you know, you,
43:42
when you go to a shaman, you'reâ¦
43:44
It, it's a h- a horseman from a horse tribe with a horse skin drum helping
43:52
you ride your wind horse, your luck, your mojo, your soul to the spirit
43:59
world to seek out answers to dilemmas.
44:03
That's gone from our culture.
44:06
So now we, if we're lucky, we'll enter aâ¦
44:09
Well, we have no choice.
44:11
We are lucky that we will enter the altered state of consciousness that you
44:14
described when you were talking about when you're working in a workshop,
44:18
or that I described when riding that cross-country course, or even
44:22
if we're just out on a trail ride.
44:24
And we've also described a slightly more negative-
44:28
altered state of consciousness, which might be that social media stuff.
44:33
But we're not approaching it consciously.
44:36
And I wanted to talk about approaching it consciously.
44:42
What if we were to?
44:44
What if we were to go back to that?
44:46
What if we were to go back to having altars at our stables?
44:49
What if we were to go back to pouring libations?
44:51
What if we were going to go back to praying to the genie of the, of
44:56
the training ground, of the arena
44:59
How would that inform what we do?
45:01
And is that the logical next expression?
45:03
Is that the logical next step to this type of conversation of trying to
45:07
take this more empathetic approach?
45:15
Warwick Schiller: You know, the reason I had you on back on my
45:17
podcast a second time talking about hunter-gatherers was really talking about,
45:24
if you think about it, what's the next step forward for, for mankind?
45:28
And it's not forward, it's backwards.
45:29
It's going back to these-- You know, we didn't evolve to
45:35
live like we currently live.
45:39
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
45:39
Warwick Schiller: And all the, you know, mental health crisis and blah, blah, blah,
45:42
blah, blah, blah, all has to do with a
45:49
Disconnection from nature, disconnection from the natural world,
45:53
a disconnection from ourselves really.
45:55
A diff- a disconnection from the
46:00
The senses, I mean, you've experienced it with the, like the, with the
46:05
Bushmen and stuff, you know, like the senses that humans used to have, still
46:12
basically have, but we don't know how to access them sort of things.
46:14
And I think it, it would be the, you know, it would be the same thing with the horses
46:21
Rupert Isaacson: It's gone from our discourse with horses.
46:26
We are beginning to get back to it.
46:29
I mean, it's not that spiritual people don't get involved with horses,
46:31
obviously, and you've got people like Linda Kohanov, you know, who've been
46:35
looking at this, you know, and I think making a good contribution there.
46:42
But for example, when we go to
46:47
It could be a, a sport horse thing, it could be a natural horsemanship thing,
46:50
it could be various types of horse thing.
46:56
We're not seeing this really talked about.
47:01
I think everyone would feel a bit embarrassed and a bit silly.
47:04
But yet the Romans did, and the Mongols did, and then y- if you,
47:14
if you read, say, Pluvinel, you know, 17th century dressage dude
47:24
Even actually Isenberg, you know, gettingâ¦
47:26
That's contemporary 18th century with La GueriniÃ¨re and
47:30
dressage as we kind of know it.
47:31
They're saying, they begin their d- their, all things come from God, and
47:37
from God, you know, blah, blah, blah.
47:38
And, and that, and they begin that way, and then we roll into
47:42
talking about something like a bit or what you might do with your leg
47:51
So I think we're all aware that these altered states of consciousness are
47:55
actually experienced all the time.
47:58
It's just that we've lost the vocabulary for it within this
48:02
thing that we adore, that we love, that is our culture, that we live.
48:06
You know, you and I both like to spend as much time with ponies as we can
48:12
And we're aware of the spiritual element, but we're not deliberate about it.
48:17
Would it be different if we were?
48:19
What do you think?
48:24
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, I think so.
48:24
You know,
48:27
ca- y- this made me think of a couple of different podcast guests I've had.
48:30
I know one of them at least that you've met.
48:31
Oh, Emily, for
48:32
Rupert Isaacson: example.
48:33
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, yeah.
48:33
You'veâ¦
48:33
Well, well that's, no, that's a totally another level, Emily.
48:35
Yeah.
48:35
No, I was talking about you've met Kansas Carradine, haven't you?
48:38
Rupert Isaacson: I have, yeah.
48:39
I know her well.
48:39
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
48:40
She's fantastic.
48:40
And so we've-- I w- I did a thing called the Gaucho Derby a couple of years
48:44
ago in Argentina with, with Kansas.
48:47
So it's a, you know, it's a 500-kilometer adventure survival horse race onâ¦
48:52
I mean, sorry, it's adventure survival navigational race that
48:54
happens to be on horseback.
48:55
It's not really a horse race.
48:56
But- Mm-hmm â¦ before we even went to Argentina, Kansas said she was connecting
49:02
with the horses she was gonna ride.
49:05
And- Probably the, I think it was the first year of my podcast, I had
49:10
a guy named Tristan Tucker on there.
49:12
So Tristan lives in Holland, I think.
49:15
But he was telling me when he go- he, you know, I, I was asking him
49:19
about, like, when do you start to connect with your horses?
49:22
What, you know, like when you first sit him.
49:23
He goes, "Oh, I do that before I leave the house."
49:26
You know, so there's, there's, there's people that do that.
49:29
And I-- There's a, a lady here in America, oh, I think she's from
49:34
Canada actually, that has a podcast.
49:36
Her name's Noelle Floyd.
49:37
You ever seen Noelle Floyd's podcast?
49:39
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, we're actually trying to connect with each other to-
49:41
Warwick Schiller: Mm
49:41
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: get a podcast together.
49:43
Warwick Schiller: She calls it Dear Horse World.
49:44
You know- Mm â¦ my podcast is not a horse podcast, it's about
49:47
interesting people, but she talks to horse people about horse stuff.
49:51
But so many of the people on there that are at a high level of some
49:57
sort of discipline or whatever, they have this spiritual element.
50:00
They don't talk about it to everybody else, but she knows
50:02
how to ask the right questions.
50:04
Mm-hmm.
50:05
And it kind of comes out of them.
50:07
And I, as a kid, you know, my, I, I came from the rodeo world when I was a kid.
50:13
And my father was a, was a, a very good bull rider, and I thought I wanted to be
50:17
a bull rider when I was a kid, whatever.
50:18
But there's a guy named Gary Leffew.
50:21
So Gary Leffew is he was a world champion bull rider back in the day.
50:27
If anybody's ever seen the movie Eight Seconds, he was the one that taught Luke
50:30
Perry, the actor, to ride a bull for that.
50:32
He was the advisor for that.
50:33
But this guy, okay, so he's in that world, and you think whatever, you know.
50:38
But Gary Leffew is all about that sort of thing, and what he used to
50:44
do was he would spiritually connect with the bull he was gonna ride.
50:47
So in, in like the rodeo world, say in a, a, say a bull ride, the
50:54
bull's performance is half the score.
50:57
So if your bull bucks really hard, he gets a high score, and then you, if you
51:01
ride him well, you get a high score, and the score kind of adds up together.
51:04
And he could win on bulls that no one else would win on.
51:08
Like, they'd just come out, and they'd just kind of buck off
51:11
down the arena sort of thing.
51:13
And he would sit and meditate with this bull before he ever rode it
51:18
about what he wanted the bull to do.
51:21
And he's-- He tells a story about he drew this bull one time, and most
51:24
people would, what they call, turn it out, meaning I'm not gonna get on him.
51:28
I'm not gonna win anything.
51:29
And so they said, "You gonna turn him in?"
51:31
He goes, "No, no, he's gonna jump out there, and he's gonna crack
51:33
it back to the left and spin to the left, and he's gonna jump out,
51:35
and he's gonna spin to the right."
51:36
I'm like, "Not that bull."
51:37
Anyway, he gets on the bull, and the bull does exactly what he mapped it to do.
51:44
And- So there, there is that in all sorts of places.
51:50
But I like, I- you said something here about 10 minutes ago where you said, "I
51:53
don't think it's talked about that much."
51:56
But I feel like people like, say Noelle Floyd on her podcast talking
52:01
about those horse people, she asks, she asks the questions that
52:04
kind of lead in that direction.
52:07
Whereas most people, if they had one of those riders on a
52:09
podcast, be like, "So, you know, if your horse is jumping, you know
52:16
3.6
52:17
and you get a 3.9,
52:18
you have a problem.
52:18
What, which leg do you putâ¦
52:19
You know, those sorts of questions where she tends to ask.
52:22
And it's been-- I haven't listened to them all, but she puts a lot of little clips
52:26
on social media and stuff, and I'm always fascinated by some of the answers of these
52:31
world-class jumping people and whatever.
52:35
They say things like, "Whoa."
52:37
They're down the rabbit hole.
52:38
They just don't talk about it.
52:39
Like, it's not something that they, you know, there's not gonna be an article
52:43
in a jumping magazine about that.
52:45
But there's-- they're operating on-- they're using a part
52:49
of that for their success.
52:51
I'm not saying everybody, but there's, I think there's quite a few of them who are.
52:55
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-mm.
52:56
Mm-mm.
52:56
Right.
52:57
I take your point.
52:57
So basically, you know, what you're saying is there's a lot more of
52:59
it around than we might think.
53:01
And, you know, listening to your words there about the bull riding,
53:06
I mean, that is shape-shifting.
53:08
It-- he could, you know, let's say he was going down to the Kalahari
53:12
and then underwent some training, he could take it even further.
53:15
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
53:15
Rupert Isaacson: But what he's definitely doing is becoming the bull.
53:19
And his life depends upon it
53:26
And if he was to have that conversation in certain cowboy bars, you know,
53:34
it wouldn't be taken so well.
53:38
But yet it's working and he's doing it, and he's obviously willing
53:40
to talk about it in some places.
53:43
I wonder if, you know, given that the old dead dudes, the Xenophons, the,
53:48
the Pluvinels, were effectively the authorities of their day it would
53:56
be interesting to see what hap- would happen if one started to bring
53:59
this discourse into things like the Pony Club and into things like 4H.
54:05
Because you could, you could, you could put it through any
54:07
spiritual lens you wanted to.
54:09
You know, like Pluvinel sees it through a Christian lens.
54:12
Xenophon sees it through the pantheon of the Hellenic gods, which is a throwback
54:18
to Sumeria, which some people would say is a throwback to the Anunnaki
54:23
and, and, and Atlantis and things.
54:26
If they- Now
54:27
Warwick Schiller: you're getting somewhere â¦ if they wanted to go there The Anunnaki.
54:28
Okay.
54:29
Yeah.
54:29
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
54:30
Anunnaki.
54:31
And then you've got the Mongols out there, and probably the Sintashta
54:35
people, who were the ones that we inherit all of our Western horsemanship
54:38
from, Russia and western Ukraine in the early Bronze Age, probably worshiping
54:43
some form of Tengri, which is the sky god, and their horse gods, and horse
54:49
sacrifice and so on, and people are buried with their horses and all of that.
54:53
So it seems that we've actually spent longer in our equestrian history
55:00
paying deliberate attention to this, and actually only a relatively recent
55:06
bit not paying attention to this.
55:10
And yet, as you say, there are still people out there who are,
55:13
and it seems that the people who are, it's working for them
55:19
I was doing a, a gig in Montana couple of years ago, and
55:24
showing some in handheld- It's,
55:26
Warwick Schiller: it's not Mont- it's not Montana.
55:29
Rupert Isaacson: It could be Montana.
55:30
And now that I live in Spain, it could be
55:39
It's a different pronunciation again.
55:41
It'll come to me in a moment
55:42
Warwick Schiller: But when you say Montana, it's, it's in the nose, like-
55:45
Rupert Isaacson: It is in the nose
55:45
â¦ Warwick Schiller: branch, not dance
55:47
Rupert Isaacson: I've, I've been, I've been too long in the USA, my friend
55:49
Warwick Schiller: Yeah
55:50
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, I can â¦ If I have to, I can kind of
55:53
fall in, so, you know, parenthet-
55:55
Warwick Schiller: Do you ever have to do that- Parentheses
55:56
the drive-through in Texas so that they can understand you?
55:58
Rupert Isaacson: All the time.
55:59
I would h- I would go to the feed store and I'd say, "Can I have, like,
56:02
that and that and that and that?"
56:04
And they'd look at me blankly.
56:06
And then I'd say, "You mind if I could have some of that and some that?"
56:11
And they, they'd say, "Well, why didn't you say so?"
56:12
And I said, "Well, I did, but, you know â¦ Okay, I'm glad,
56:16
I'm glad you understand me now."
56:18
Or I'd stand there and sort of go, "Money, those ones," you know?
56:21
Warwick Schiller: Have y- I-
56:22
Rupert Isaacson: As if
56:22
Warwick Schiller: I
56:23
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: Zulu, yeah
56:23
Warwick Schiller: I, I was trying to make something one day.
56:27
I don't know if it was something to do with, like, something to tie up a, a,
56:32
like a slow feeder bag or something other.
56:34
But I went to the hardware store, and I wanted to get some starter cord.
56:37
So, you know, stiff, thin, stiff rope.
56:41
And so I go in this hardware store, and this old fella
56:42
says, "Can I help you, sonny?"
56:44
And I said, "Sure."
56:45
I said "Where's your rope?"
56:46
And he goes, "Oh, it's over here."
56:47
And there's a big wall of rope, all these reels of types of rope.
56:50
And he said, "So what kind of rope you looking for, sonny?"
56:52
I said starter cord."
56:54
He goes, "Oh, we don't have that."
56:55
I'm like, "Okay, fair enough."
56:57
'Cause I'm thinking I don't need exactly starter cord, I just need
57:00
some sort of a thin, stiff rope.
57:01
So I'm looking around at the rope and he's watching me.
57:05
And he says, "Tell me once again, what are you looking for?"
57:07
And I said, "Starter cord."
57:08
He goes, "Starter cord?
57:09
No, we don't have any of that."
57:11
I'm like, "Okay."
57:12
I'm still looking, and finally he goes, "One last time, sonny,
57:15
what are you looking for?"
57:16
And I said, "Starter cord.
57:16
You know, like, to start a water pump or a, a lawnmower."
57:19
He goes, "Oh, you mean starter cord.
57:22
It's right over here."
57:24
Rupert Isaacson: That's right.
57:25
It's like when you try to order water-
57:28
Warwick Schiller: Oh, yeah
57:29
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: you know, in a restaurant.
57:30
I've, I've end- Yes â¦ I've ended up being given walnut salad before when I-
57:34
Warwick Schiller: Really?
57:34
When you asked for water?
57:35
Rupert Isaacson: Water, yeah.
57:36
Mm-hmm.
57:37
I got walnut salad.
57:37
Warwick Schiller: Okay.
57:38
That's awesome
57:38
Rupert Isaacson: rather than water.
57:39
Water, water.
57:40
Warwick Schiller: Okay, so you're in Montana, sorry.
57:41
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
57:42
So I'm in Montana- Go,
57:42
Warwick Schiller: Chris
57:43
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: drinking water in Montana.
57:45
And we're doing a little thing with some in hand work, and someone says, "Have
57:52
you asked that horse for permission?"
57:55
And because it seems to me that you just sort of took the horse
57:58
and started doing the thing.
58:01
And
58:04
I thought about it, and then I said, "Did I?
58:09
Did I just take the horse and do the thing?"
58:13
Or actually was something else going on, and then I sort of went back in my mind.
58:16
I was like, "Well, actually I was standing with that horse waiting for my turn to
58:19
go for, oh, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes while the other person who we were
58:25
doing it with, you know, did her thing."
58:27
So I was chatting away with this horse, and cuddling away with this horse, and
58:31
scratching away with this horse, and just hanging out, and sometimes hanging
58:36
out in companionable silence, and sometimes communicating with each other.
58:39
So of course, by the time we did go in there, we were kind of good to go.
58:44
But I
58:44
So I said, "I, I can absolutely see why you might think that that's what
58:47
happened, but what you couldn't see was the 15 minutes lead up to that."
58:53
And honestly, and then I started thinking, you know, what actually does go on in
58:57
my mind before I get up and do any kind of presentation of any kind, 'cause
59:03
it's not always with horses, right?
59:04
Could be about autism or whatever.
59:09
And I realized I'm praying all the time, right?
59:11
So, and, and who am I praying to?
59:14
Well, I'm actually praying to this kind of combo of inherited Christian
59:22
iconography, and I'm also praying to, if it's with horses, I am actually
59:28
praying to, through my ancestral lines.
59:32
So I'm praying to Germanic horse gods.
59:36
I'll, I'll include Odin in there and others, and I h- will include
59:41
a bit of Epona, and I actually realize I do do that, actually.
59:45
And then I'm actu- then I'm reaching out also to the sort of gnostic,
59:50
Gnostic principle of the monad, you know, of Go- the God within, that we're
59:54
all God, and the horse is God, and we're all God, and we're all love and
59:57
But I'm just not talking about them.
59:59
I'm justâ¦
1:00:00
And I was like, "Well, maybe I should."
1:00:02
So I said, "Well, you know, it's a good question that you brought
1:00:06
up there because we tend to keep these things internal, don't we?
1:00:09
But if I actually was to take youâ¦"
1:00:11
So I said, "Let, let me just take you through all the, all the entities
1:00:14
that I, or the sort of spiritual dimensions that I prayed with and
1:00:18
it, but it'll take three minutes.
1:00:20
Are you all right with that?"
1:00:22
That was that.
1:00:22
And so I said, "Well, you know, it goes through all of these things
1:00:24
'cause those are my ancestral lines.
1:00:26
But if my ancestral lines were from mon- Central Asia or Native America, they
1:00:32
might be different, but pro- but probably approximations of the same thing."
1:00:36
And it, it, that, that's what s- started to get me thinking about the, the, and
1:00:43
that's sort of why I also brought up the thing of consent-based horsemanship
1:00:46
because that's where she was coming from, and it actually led immediately
1:00:50
in my mind to the spiritual dimension of horsemanship, which then led in my mind
1:00:55
to the altered states of horsemanship, which I think we all experience but
1:00:59
just don't talk deliberately about much.
1:01:02
And I thought I'd I want to have a conversation with that, and I can't think
1:01:05
of anyone who is probably better to have a conversation with that about than you
1:01:11
Do you involve much prayer?
1:01:14
Warwick Schiller: Well, let me back up to your prayer.
1:01:17
'Cause when you were saying that, I'm like, "Oh, I do that too."
1:01:20
So you said, "Oh, I realized I was, I was actually praying to, like, my
1:01:25
Judeo-Christian, you know, roots, but then they're this and that."
1:01:32
Are you, were you even conscious that you were doing it?
1:01:39
And were you consciously
1:01:46
Connecting with those entities or that's just such a part of your, you know,
1:01:54
your experience and upbringing that you were just connecting to the divine and
1:01:58
those are the names you give the divine?
1:02:03
Rupert Isaacson: All of the above.
1:02:06
Because I think what happens is we end up â¦ We're always just
1:02:10
connecting with the divine, right?
1:02:12
So the horse, if, if, ifâ¦
1:02:16
I remember being very, very young in school and in chapel looking up at a
1:02:22
little inscription on the wall that said, "God is love and love is God."
1:02:25
And I was probably nine, and I remember looking at that and went, "That's true."
1:02:31
And then later on I had an experience where I was actually in an altered
1:02:34
state of consciousness, but not through anything in a ceremony.
1:02:38
I just got really hallucin- I got really feverish.
1:02:40
I had a very big fever, and I was on Table Mountain in Cape Town, fortunately
1:02:44
for me, with a cousin who's a medical student, who got me off the mountain.
1:02:48
And I had-- I remembered that, "God is love, love is God," and
1:02:54
thought, "Yeah, that's true.
1:02:54
Why is that true?"
1:02:55
Well, if, if God is everything, then matter must be God.
1:03:00
And if God is love, then matter must be love, which means
1:03:03
that the rocks that I'mâ¦
1:03:04
the minerals that create the rocks and the oxygen that I'm breathing, and then
1:03:09
when we get down to the car, the metal that the car door is made of, which is
1:03:13
also minerals that come from the earth, and then the fuel that's in the car, which
1:03:19
is the fossil forests of what, whatâ¦
1:03:22
You know, this must all be love.
1:03:24
So the gasoline in the car is love, and the, the paint on the, the chemicals
1:03:29
that make that paint which cover is love.
1:03:33
So but when we sometimes want to filter to a particular
1:03:41
context of, let's say, the horse
1:03:48
Then we might use a metaphor that is horse-based.
1:03:54
We might use a horse deity, or we might use an aspect of horse.
1:04:01
So if you were the Romans, you might talk about the geniuses of
1:04:03
the training ground or whatever.
1:04:06
But you're still really talking about the same thing, aren't you?
1:04:10
So it is all love
1:04:12
And we're engaged in this
1:04:17
endeavor with horses that we do only for love.
1:04:21
The only reason we do it is for love
1:04:25
Warwick Schiller: So think about what is love.
1:04:29
And, and, and, and for me, the
1:04:36
the times during altered states of consciousness,
1:04:41
like from, like I said, from ceremony or breathwork or whatever, is when
1:04:44
you feel completely connected to the whole universe and you feel like you're
1:04:50
one, it's also a feeling of love.
1:04:54
So I think love is just not blocking out your connectedness to
1:05:03
Anything else.
1:05:04
Like, the, theâ¦
1:05:05
I, I think the, the more you can
1:05:09
let everything in and have no filtersâ¦
1:05:15
I don't mean-
1:05:16
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:05:16
Warwick Schiller: I don't, I don't mean Rupert at the pub after he's had
1:05:19
a few pints, that kind of no filters.
1:05:22
That's never happened.
1:05:22
That's never happened.
1:05:23
No, it's never happened.
1:05:25
No, like y- wh- when you can actually let-
1:05:29
reality.
1:05:30
And you know, I was reading a book a while ago, and it was-- there was
1:05:32
a line in there that hit me, and it said something about we all have these
1:05:35
filters that we only let so much reality in, because if we let the whole of
1:05:42
reality in, we'd probably go crazy.
1:05:44
But when you can have theâ¦
1:05:49
I don't know if it's the trust, but to let
1:05:54
Everything in.
1:05:57
That'sâ¦
1:05:57
The, the, the feeling you get when you, you feel connected
1:06:00
to everything like that, 'cause you've let everything in, is love.
1:06:03
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:06:05
And love is union, right?
1:06:07
So, you know- Mm â¦ we're, we're going for that feeling of the centaur.
1:06:11
We're going for that feeling of I don't know where the horse
1:06:14
ends and I begin, and vice versa.
1:06:19
Ex stasis
1:06:23
that sense of being out of time that you described in your experience with horses.
1:06:32
I think when, when reality comes into that degree and we have ecstasy,
1:06:36
'cause ecstasy doesn't have to always be euphoric, it can be quiet as well
1:06:42
and its flow
1:06:46
We s- we, we don't notice it.
1:06:48
We're just in it because then we're part of the whole again.
1:06:53
Does the, does the drop, does the wave know that it's part of the
1:06:56
ocean or does it think it's a wave?
1:07:00
There might be moments where the consciousness coalesces the matter l-
1:07:07
like this so much that there could be a moment where the wave is conscious of
1:07:12
being a wave, and then there, that could go back to the whole, and is that us?
1:07:21
Is that, you know â¦ So when we, when we're with horses, are we fortunate
1:07:26
enough to, in our modern context, still be lucking into that thing where we,
1:07:32
we forget that we are the wave or the human or the pimple on the nose and
1:07:37
that we are the ocean, we are the whole?
1:07:39
But when you are in a union, when you are the ocean and the
1:07:42
whole, you cease to notice.
1:07:45
That's irrelevant.
1:07:45
You've gone back to source
1:07:51
You're no longer â¦ Your, your, your, your, your sense of self, your ego
1:07:55
has left the building because it no longer has any, any job to do there.
1:08:01
Doesn't need to defend you.
1:08:03
Doesn't need, because you're â¦ You know, and I think, I think people like us get
1:08:08
to experience that every day, but it's not
1:08:14
necessarily at this point yet part of our methodologies of teaching much,
1:08:19
but we are having the conversations.
1:08:22
We-
1:08:23
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, I think, you know, I think as a
1:08:29
As an educator, as a teacher, you can, you can only kinda teach if
1:08:37
you wanna be effective, if you wanna make change, I feel like you
1:08:40
can only teach to the level of the
1:08:46
to the level of the, the people you are teaching.
1:08:50
You know, there's, there's no use a, there's no use a college physics
1:08:54
professor going to a kindergarten and standing up there and talking about
1:08:57
all the same stuff he would talk to, to graduate students to kindergartners.
1:09:02
It's, it's not even gonna land.
1:09:04
So you've gotta, you know, you've go- I think
1:09:08
You can, and, and what I, what I really like to do, so if you think about
1:09:14
what I, quote unquote, "do," you know, I have an online training program.
1:09:20
I do clinics around the world.
1:09:22
I present horse expos in different places around the world.
1:09:27
I have a podcast that you've been on a number of times.
1:09:29
We have the podcast summit that you've been to se- of several of them.
1:09:33
And I think everything I'm doing in the doing of those things, the
1:09:40
underlying thing that I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get someone, if not
1:09:45
everybody, to have a perspective change-
1:09:49
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:09:50
Warwick Schiller: about something you know, I wanna basically, I wanna
1:09:55
bust someone's long-held truth.
1:09:58
And I feel like if you can bust someone's long-held truth about anything,
1:10:03
and a lot of times, say with, with clinics and things like that, the, the
1:10:07
long-held truth I'm busting is, "Oh, my horse does this because he is-- he
1:10:13
doesn't like this," or he whatever.
1:10:15
And when you can bust someone's long-held truth, and especially
1:10:19
if it's their first one.
1:10:20
You know what I mean?
1:10:22
If it's their first one, I'm-- I can wipe my hands off and
1:10:26
walk away and like, "I'm done."
1:10:28
Because I guarantee you, once you bust someone's long-held truth, then they
1:10:33
go down the rabbit hole themselves.
1:10:35
You don't need to grab them by the ear and drag them down the rabbit hole.
1:10:37
You just have to kind of, um
1:10:41
You, you just have to kind of show them that at least one of their
1:10:46
long-held truths is not true.
1:10:50
And I feel like
1:10:55
That, you know, that's the beginning of stuff.
1:10:57
So, you know, so, you know, in, in teaching the people, I'm always
1:11:01
kind of talking about some of the stuff we're talking about here, but
1:11:05
that's not what I'm teaching, but I am kind of dropping it in there.
1:11:08
And I don't profess to be very far away you know, very far down whatever rabbit
1:11:14
hole it is, but a lot of times I might be a little further down the path than
1:11:18
the people that I'm teaching and I'm trying to drop a hint to them to, to
1:11:23
start to maybe look at things, you know,
1:11:28
a little differently.
1:11:28
We had a chat about this one night actually, you and I at a bar.
1:11:32
But yeah, so I, I feel like when you, you, you, you kind almost have
1:11:37
to know what your audience is, who your audience is to see how, how
1:11:41
far you can go with some of that.
1:11:43
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:11:43
No, for sure.
1:11:44
I mean, I remember when when I published The Horse Boy I wasn't asking
1:11:49
people to believe or disbelieve that Rowan going out to the horse and the
1:11:57
reindeer shamans of Mongolia healed him
1:12:04
But what I could do is say, "I had this experience And this is what I
1:12:11
saw, and this is where my child was, and this is where he was afterwards.
1:12:21
And that was also why it was important for me to catch it on camera with a
1:12:29
documentary because I thought, well, you know, if I say I went to this place
1:12:32
that you'll never go and I met all these people you'll never meet, you know.
1:12:36
As the journalist in me is like, "Yeah," and the autism parent in me was like,
1:12:39
"Yeah, I don't know how helpful that is."
1:12:41
But the point of that book wasn't to say you should go to Mongolia or you
1:12:46
should believe in shamans or anything.
1:12:49
It was just to say these experiences exist.
1:12:52
And if you allow for the fact that that's a reality for goodly chunks
1:12:56
of the planet then at the very least it widens your options, doesn't it?
1:13:02
Maybe that's why I wanted to have this conversation, actually.
1:13:06
I, I feel that, you know, so oftenâ¦
1:13:10
You talked about trying to bust people's long-held truths and what you- I think
1:13:12
you- another way to put that might be letting people know that there are
1:13:16
other options out there, that they don't have to be stuck in a place- Yeah.
1:13:21
Do you know who- â¦ that's making them feel unhappy, right?
1:13:23
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:13:23
Do you know who Ram Dass is?
1:13:25
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:13:26
Warwick Schiller: So I s- saw, it must have been on Instagram.
1:13:29
It was a, one of his readings.
1:13:31
He, he said, he said, "When you become enlightened or when you, you
1:13:38
know, when you're on the first step of being enlightened, the thing
1:13:41
that you cannot do is run down the street yelling it to everybody."
1:13:47
He said, "But what you can do is you can let them know there's a place
1:13:50
that they can come up for air."
1:13:52
He said, "You can't stop people from suffering.
1:13:56
You can't fix their suffering for them, but you can make them aware that there's
1:14:01
a place that they can come up for air."
1:14:04
And
1:14:07
I feel like that's, that's the thing there.
1:14:10
When, when you are on a certain path and you might be a little further along the
1:14:15
path than some others, what you cannot do is try to tell everybody else, "This
1:14:20
is the path and you should be on it, and you're wrong if you're not," whatever.
1:14:23
But you can drop a hint and say, "Hey, if, you know, if you're s- you
1:14:28
know, if you're sick of the pain," or what- whatever it is or s- whatever,
1:14:32
whatever the thing may be, whatever the-
1:14:33
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:14:34
Warwick Schiller: thing may be, kind of introduce them to the fact that th- there
1:14:39
c- there are, there are other options.
1:14:44
Rupert Isaacson: And there is sanctuary.
1:14:46
Warwick Schiller: Yes.
1:14:48
Rupert Isaacson: W- I think many of us who got involved with horses young and
1:14:52
then got competitive and then had dreams realize at a certain point that the very
1:14:58
thing that- We had dreamed that would set us free, sent us into a cage, but
1:15:04
the horse didn't send us into a cage.
1:15:06
We just rode him in there and built the cage around ourselves
1:15:09
Warwick Schiller: Right.
1:15:09
Exactly, yes.
1:15:10
Rupert Isaacson: That
1:15:10
Warwick Schiller: was our ego that took us into the cage.
1:15:12
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed, indeed.
1:15:13
But you can't, you can't not have an ego.
1:15:15
Warwick Schiller: No.
1:15:15
Rupert Isaacson: You know, pe- people always say, "Oh,
1:15:17
you gotta transcend your ego."
1:15:18
It's like, well, eh, it's in there.
1:15:20
It's a little bit like trying to transcend your fingernails.
1:15:21
I mean, they're there.
1:15:23
So it's what, what's it for?
1:15:27
What do we, what do we do with it?
1:15:30
What purpose is it serving?
1:15:32
And-
1:15:36
Then people like you think, "Well, hold on.
1:15:41
I am-- If I'm in a cage, what's the opposite of a cage?
1:15:44
That's where I'd like to be, right?"
1:15:47
So if the opposite of a cage is no cage, i.e.
1:15:49
freedom, what could represent that better than the horse?
1:15:55
In, in all human analogies to horses and metaphors, it's always around freedom
1:16:02
and movement and dynamism and dreams.
1:16:05
All, all of our metaphors around horses are like that.
1:16:10
We don't, I think, have many derogatory ones except for maybe a nag.
1:16:18
But even nagging in terms of someone's nagging me, that doesn't
1:16:21
come from the, the, a nag of a horse.
1:16:24
And a nag of a horse doesn't necessarily mean a bad or a
1:16:28
broken-down horse in the old-
1:16:30
Warwick Schiller: You know, I don't think- â¦ English â¦ I don't think Americans
1:16:32
use the term nag in relation to horses.
1:16:35
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's, it's more English old English.
1:16:38
Like-
1:16:39
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:16:39
And I, I remember as a kid where
1:16:40
Rupert Isaacson: they get- â¦ like a Ross in German.
1:16:40
Yeah
1:16:41
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, like when I was a kid, like, "Oh, I gotta go feed the nags."
1:16:43
Yeah.
1:16:43
Rupert Isaacson: You
1:16:44
Warwick Schiller: know, they're just the nags.
1:16:45
But it's not a derogatory term at all.
1:16:47
But yeah, it's not something thatâ¦
1:16:49
I had to think about it while you were talking, but it's
1:16:50
not something that the US uses
1:16:55
Rupert Isaacson: So, you, you created that podcast, and you
1:16:58
created that summit, and that was one of the first experiences I had.
1:17:03
That's why I wanted you to talk about this today.
1:17:05
That's one of the first experiences I'd had where the kinds of conversations
1:17:08
that we're having now would be met in sort of open forum from people, from
1:17:16
anything from show jumpers and dressage people, to Western people, to natural
1:17:21
horsemanship people, to totally woo-woo people, to horse behavior people,
1:17:26
to, da-da-da, to neuroscientists.
1:17:30
But everybody could agree that we're here because they make us feel good,
1:17:36
and we all experienced a loss of that feeling good, and then looked for a way.
1:17:44
And I would say that you've made a real contribution, actually, Warwick.
1:17:48
One of the most, probably the most meaningful contribution that I know of
1:17:53
in this quarter of the 21st century.
1:17:58
I don't know anyone else who's brought that conversation forward and made
1:18:04
it universally safe for people from pretty much all the conventional
1:18:12
walks of the horse world to begin to start to have this conversation.
1:18:17
And you talked about Ram Dass saying, "Come up for air."
1:18:20
I think everybody's response at those summits was a sigh of relief
1:18:28
That it was okay to talk the word
1:18:32
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, it was really interesting.
1:18:34
There were several
1:18:41
Let's say big time woo-woo horse people that I thought-- that were famous
1:18:48
that I thought, you know, when we invited them, they're not gonna come
1:18:52
because, you know, they're, they're way bigger than us sort of thing.
1:18:57
And then when they did come, they were kind ofâ¦
1:19:00
I thought when I first met them, they were a little bit standoffish.
1:19:03
And by about day two of the summit, they let down and I can't
1:19:09
remember if I intuited this or one of them actually said it to me.
1:19:15
But the, the, the outcome of it was they showed up thinking this is a bunch
1:19:19
of horse people, and horse people are very judgmental and, you know, they're
1:19:25
gonna be looking down on me, whatever, so I'm not gonna let them all in.
1:19:27
And by the second day they're like, "Oh, I can be fully me."
1:19:31
One of them said, "I let my-- I got to let my freak flag fly."
1:19:36
Where I can, I can just be completely me and honest about who I am and how I feel
1:19:42
about things, and I will be accepted.
1:19:46
There was a nu- there was a number of the, like the woo-woo ones, and then
1:19:49
there was some, you know, I think Mark Rashid actually, he came to the first one.
1:19:55
You were at the first one, weren't you?
1:19:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:19:57
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:19:57
And Mark said, after that, he said, "I didn't realize how
1:20:05
lonely I'd been out there."
1:20:06
He says-- 'cause in the-- Mark doesn't really fit into a category
1:20:10
anywhere in the horse world.
1:20:11
He's certainly not, you know, on the extreme woo-woo end of the thing.
1:20:15
But he, you know, he said afterwards, he goes, "I didn't realize how lonely
1:20:19
I was out there because I realized this is a place where I can just--
1:20:23
I can talk about anything I wanna talk about in any way I wanna talk
1:20:26
about it, and it will be accepted."
1:20:27
And he says, "That's not the case out there in the horse world."
1:20:31
Rupert Isaacson: As you may know, if you've been following my work,
1:20:33
we are also horsey folk here.
1:20:36
And we have been training horses for many, many years in the manner of
1:20:40
the old classical dressage masters.
1:20:44
This is something which is often very confusing for people.
1:20:47
We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
1:20:52
If you'd like to learn to train your horse in the manner of the old masters and
1:20:57
really have fun and joy for you and your equine, go to our website, heliosharmony.
1:21:03
com Sign up as a premium member.
1:21:05
and begin to take the Helios Harmony course, which will take you from zero
1:21:10
to the Piaf, where the horse is dancing on the spot in hand on the ground.
1:21:16
And then from there, you can develop out to anywhere you want to.
1:21:20
Heliosharmony.
1:21:22
com to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
1:21:26
Mm.
1:21:27
And I was-- as you were saying that, the judgmentalism in the horse world,
1:21:30
I was thinking about, okay, we talked about old dead dudes who talked
1:21:35
about spirituality, but we also know that not all spirituality is good.
1:21:42
Spirituality can reflect light or dark.
1:21:44
So of course the Xenophon, you know, well, he's also a slave owner.
1:21:52
He's also an ex-mercenary, even though he's also Socrates' student and one
1:21:59
of the founders of Stoic philosophy.
1:22:02
You've got, you know, the Romans there giving offerings to the, to Epona and
1:22:08
the geniuses of the training ground, but what are they doing with their horses?
1:22:13
Going and doing punitive raiding.
1:22:18
Not very nice.
1:22:19
You got the Mongols, they're doing their thing with the wind horse and so on,
1:22:28
and Tengri, the sky god, and they're killing everybody from- The Pacific to
1:22:32
the Mediterranean every two generations.
1:22:35
And one could go on.
1:22:37
You know, Native America's got a bloody history tribe to tribe and
1:22:42
Anyway, so people haven't always used it for good, and even within
1:22:47
Horse Boy, we're using a system
1:22:51
that creates col- soft collection in a horse that has a byproduct,
1:22:57
not just of balance and safety, but of oxytocin in a child's body.
1:23:01
Feels good.
1:23:02
Feels good to ride a horse in soft connection.
1:23:03
It's 'cause of the oxytocin, which then happens to be hormone of communication
1:23:08
and nervous, you know, system regulation.
1:23:13
So quite early in that thing, I realized, oh, we're taking a system that was
1:23:17
actually to some degree designed to harm your fellow man, and we found a u-
1:23:22
way to use it to heal your fellow man.
1:23:25
And I realized, I see you could take any of these things and you could
1:23:27
decide to use it for good or ill.
1:23:29
You could, you could
1:23:32
including the spiritual side of horses and the altered state, you could enter
1:23:35
battle madness and berserk, go, go berserk on your horse, take henbane, which
1:23:43
is the, the herb they took to go into the berserker rage, and that even, you
1:23:51
know, came down to the medieval knights.
1:23:52
They would take henbane because it also makes you not feel blows, and they
1:23:57
would call it the fury of the nobility.
1:24:00
But it
1:24:00
Warwick Schiller: was actually- What is that, what is that
1:24:02
Rupert Isaacson: herb?
1:24:02
Henbane.
1:24:03
Henbane is a- The- â¦ a herb that grows here in Eurasia, and you can use it for
1:24:09
this altered state of consciousness.
1:24:10
It looks very-
1:24:11
Warwick Schiller: Does-
1:24:12
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: likely that that was what they used for battle madness.
1:24:16
Warwick Schiller: Does it have any modern medical use?
1:24:20
Like is it related to any, like a analgesic thing or?
1:24:25
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it is.
1:24:26
Let me just pull it up here on Mr.
1:24:28
Google.
1:24:29
Hold on.
1:24:31
Henbane
1:24:33
uses of
1:24:41
Let me spell it properly.
1:24:42
That would help, wouldn't it?
1:24:44
Henbane.
1:24:48
My fat fingers uses allâ¦
1:24:51
Here we go
1:24:58
Henbane.
1:24:59
Hyos- Hyoscyamus niger, niger is a toxic plant historically used
1:25:04
in traditional medicine and ritual practices for pain relief- Mm â¦ muscle
1:25:10
spasms, and as a sedative because it contains potent and dangerous tropane
1:25:17
alkaloids like Scopolamine and-
1:25:22
Warwick Schiller: Oh, okay â¦ hyos- It's got scopolamine in it.
1:25:24
Okay.
1:25:25
Hyoscine.
1:25:25
Yeah, okay.
1:25:26
Rupert Isaacson: Unguided internal use is extremely dangerous and
1:25:31
discouraged by modern medicine.
1:25:34
But it's a built-in anesthetic, and it also opens up the lungs
1:25:38
and it has been involved in ritual and magic for an awful long time.
1:25:44
And it's also thought to be part of the flying ointments that people felt,
1:25:48
you know, that people who thought they were going to witches' covens and- Mm
1:25:52
rubbed henbane ointment on themselves thought that they were flying.
1:25:54
But it's certainly beenâ¦
1:25:56
All the archeology from the Viking battle sites and many of the medieval
1:25:59
battle sites show henbane being used, and also cultivated and in the
1:26:06
satchels of the barber surgeons that attended those military groupings.
1:26:12
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
1:26:13
Rupert Isaacson: Now I would imagine that you could use it in a way that
1:26:15
makes you go, "Rah," into battle and kill everybody, and I could imagine
1:26:20
that you could use it then afterwards in a different dosage to heal the wounds
1:26:25
that you, you know, incurred- Yeah,
1:26:29
Warwick Schiller: well imagine-
1:26:30
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: doing that thing.
1:26:31
Warwick Schiller: I imagine it could probably l- like if you wereâ¦
1:26:34
Think about this.
1:26:35
If you were injured and you took it, you're in a, a certain emotional state,
1:26:42
and if you're in the, "Rah, I'm about to go kill people," emotional state and
1:26:46
you take it while you're in that state-
1:26:49
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:26:49
â¦ Warwick Schiller: it probably lands differently, and that's the
1:26:53
kind of point I want to get to.
1:26:55
We've been talking, Indigo, about using things for good or evil or
1:26:58
whatever, or doing stuff for good or bad or whatever, and for a
1:27:02
while now I've been really on about
1:27:07
the intention behind an action has a different energetic signature.
1:27:13
And if you really wanna get into- 100% â¦ altered states of- Frequency
1:27:16
and vibration â¦ whatever, frequency.
1:27:17
That'sâ¦
1:27:18
And, and, and I heard the best example of this a while ago I've ever heard,
1:27:23
and I, and I'll, I'll kind of give you the spiel I've been doing at, like,
1:27:27
at clinics and horse expos and stuff.
1:27:29
So did you ever read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert?
1:27:32
Yeah.
1:27:33
So she wrote a, released a book maybe earlier this year or last year
1:27:36
called All the Way to the River.
1:27:39
Have you ever heard of it?
1:27:40
Rupert Isaacson: I read about her doing a new book, but that's as far
1:27:42
Warwick Schiller: as I know.
1:27:43
Okay.
1:27:43
So Elizabeth Gilbert was married to a man.
1:27:47
She has kind of frizzy hair Anyway, she has a hard time having a hairdresser
1:27:51
get her hair just right, and she heard about a friend of hers in New
1:27:54
York said, "Hey, there's this gal.
1:27:56
She's really good with hair like yours.
1:27:57
She works out of her apartment."
1:27:58
So she goes-- This is in the book.
1:28:00
This is-- It's autobiographical.
1:28:02
And she goes and sees this lady, and this lady is an ex-heroin addict who's been
1:28:06
in jail, has had both her legs broken in like a, you know, a drug deal gone wrong.
1:28:11
She's covered in tattoos.
1:28:12
She's streetwise.
1:28:14
And she starts doing Liz's hair, then they become really good friends, and
1:28:18
eventually they become lovers, and Elizabeth Gilbert divorces her husband,
1:28:22
and now she's with this lady named Raya.
1:28:25
And the book is about Raya end up getting I think it was pancreatic
1:28:29
cancer and dying, but that's their, their journey together.
1:28:32
But there is a, a piece in the book where they go to a funeral, and I've been doing
1:28:36
this at, at horse expos, telling this story where I say that the-- there's a,
1:28:42
there's a different energy to the same action done with a different intention.
1:28:47
I said, "I'm gonna give you a great example right now."
1:28:49
So Elizabeth Gilbert and Raya go to this funeral of an old
1:28:54
friend of Elizabeth Gilbert's.
1:28:56
Old lady.
1:28:56
She's a grandma, okay?
1:28:58
She's passed away.
1:28:59
Raya doesn't know her.
1:29:00
They go to the funeral, and while they're at the funeral, Raya notices
1:29:04
that the grandson of the lady that died, she goes, "I can tell
1:29:08
that guy's an active heroin user.
1:29:10
Liz, your purse is not safe in this room.
1:29:12
Don't sit it anywhere.
1:29:13
Actually, take it out and p- lock it in the trunk of your car.
1:29:16
Don't put it on the front seat.
1:29:17
Lock it in the trunk of your car.
1:29:19
And if anybody else here at the funeral, you know, go around and tell them it's a
1:29:23
good idea if they-- Don't tell them why.
1:29:25
Just say it's a good idea if you lock your purse in the trunk of your car."
1:29:30
And so Liz does that.
1:29:32
Anyway, that night or the next day or something or other, Liz says to Raya,
1:29:36
"Thank you so much for thinking of me and those other people at the funeral."
1:29:40
So think about the energetic signature behind her saying,
1:29:45
"Your purse is not safe.
1:29:46
Go lock it in the car."
1:29:48
How does that sit in your body?
1:29:49
You feel like, "Oh, that was nice," doesn't it?
1:29:52
Does that lands in your body like that?
1:29:53
That's the energy of it.
1:29:54
It's like, "Oh, that was very nice of her to do that."
1:29:56
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:29:57
Warwick Schiller: So Liz says to her, "Thanks so much for thinking
1:29:59
of me and the other people."
1:30:00
And Raya said, "Oh, I wasn't thinking of you or the other people.
1:30:06
I was thinking about him, because he's an active heroin user, and
1:30:10
there's only two ways to go.
1:30:11
You're either gonna die or you're gonna get in recovery.
1:30:14
And if he comes, gets in recovery, at some point in time, if he's in a
1:30:18
12-step program, he's gonna have to get to step six, I think it is, where
1:30:23
you have to go and locate and reach out to everybody you have ever wronged-
1:30:31
Tell them the circumstances of how you wronged them and what
1:30:34
you did, and apologize for it."
1:30:36
And she said, "The last thing I would want him to have to do is to reach out
1:30:40
a bunch of people and say, 'I stole your purse at my grandmother's funeral.'"
1:30:47
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:30:49
Warwick Schiller: How does that land in your body?
1:30:53
That's different, isn't it?
1:30:54
Like, that's like-
1:30:55
Rupert Isaacson: It
1:30:55
Warwick Schiller: is â¦ ooh, she's not think- Not to mention-
1:30:56
Rupert Isaacson: She's- â¦ helping him avoid arrest potentially.
1:30:58
Yeah.
1:30:59
Yeah.
1:30:59
Warwick Schiller: That too.
1:31:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:31:00
Warwick Schiller: But think about, you know, when we first heard the
1:31:04
story, you think, "Oh, she's thinking about someone's possessions."
1:31:08
Mm.
1:31:08
That's nice.
1:31:09
And then when you hear the real reason she did the same action, but
1:31:14
the real reason she did it, she's trying to save someone's soul.
1:31:18
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:31:19
Warwick Schiller: And so that exactly the same action has a completely
1:31:23
different energetic signature- Mm-hmm
1:31:26
because of the intention behind the action.
1:31:30
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
1:31:30
Warwick Schiller: Liz thought she did it because she didn't want me to stealâ¦
1:31:33
I didn't wanna lose my purse and some money that I can easily replace
1:31:39
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I mean that, that's kind of where we started, isn't it?
1:31:41
With, with patting your horse.
1:31:42
I mean, you could, you could â¦ W- Yes
1:31:43
what's the intention?
1:31:44
What's the emotion-
1:31:45
Warwick Schiller: Yeah,
1:31:46
Rupert Isaacson: yes â¦ behind it?
1:31:46
And is it a shared emotion- Yeah â¦ and all of the things.
1:31:49
Yeah.
1:31:49
Yeah, no, absolutely.
1:31:51
Context and and love.
1:31:53
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:31:54
And there's levels of love.
1:31:55
Like- Mm â¦ one is like, "Oh, yes, that's nice of her to- Mm â¦ save
1:31:58
my purse and my driver's license and my credit card, my- Which was
1:32:01
Rupert Isaacson: indeed a truth- Yes
1:32:02
but it was a byproduct.
1:32:03
Yes.
1:32:04
Warwick Schiller: But then if you think about the real reason she
1:32:07
did it, it's like holy cow, that's-
1:32:10
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:32:11
â¦ Warwick Schiller: that's a different action.
1:32:13
Same action, but it has a different intention, so it lands â¦ I feel
1:32:18
like it lands differently when you tell the story, but I feel like
1:32:21
energetically with the universe- Mm
1:32:24
with your, like, karma, that-
1:32:29
That ranks up there, like, you know
1:32:33
Rupert Isaacson: It does.
1:32:33
It does.
1:32:34
And it's interesting that it was the henbane that, that, sparked
1:32:38
that story because y- you know, you could use that for battle madness.
1:32:42
You could use it to heal.
1:32:44
And then also the person in the battle madness, if they have that coursing around
1:32:48
in their body, is also less likely to die they, because they've got an analgesic.
1:32:57
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:32:57
Rupert Isaacson: And at the same time perhaps more likely to die
1:33:00
because they will expose themselves to more danger and more blows.
1:33:05
And interestingly, that the horse would be an unwitting
1:33:13
participant in that process.
1:33:16
It's just the thing that carried you into battle.
1:33:18
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:33:19
But it's, it's, you know, it's a little bit like, like plant medicine in ceremony.
1:33:22
Your intention going in will determine what happens.
1:33:25
It's the same, it's the same medicine.
1:33:27
So I was thinking about that henbane stuff.
1:33:29
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:33:30
Warwick Schiller: If you were getting ready to be in that
1:33:32
berserker-type mentality- Mm
1:33:37
do s- do a certain thing with that.
1:33:39
And if you were, like I said, if you were wounded or whatever,
1:33:42
it would affect you differently.
1:33:43
Have you ever heard of a book called Dying to Be You by a lady named Anita
1:33:47
Rupert Isaacson: Moorjani?
1:33:49
Warwick Schiller: No.
1:33:49
This lady had terminal cancer, and like she was dying, and they, like, they
1:33:53
said, "We can't do anything for you."
1:33:57
And she went into, like, a bit of a coma sort of a thing, and for two days,
1:34:01
and came out in complete remission.
1:34:04
It was all gone.
1:34:05
She basically kind of had a near-death experience while she was gone, and
1:34:10
she wrote a book called Dying to Beâ¦
1:34:11
Dying to Be Me or Dying to Be You, I forget.
1:34:14
But in the end of the book, she was talking aboutâ¦
1:34:17
Or she actually answers questions that people have asked her.
1:34:19
So she's reading the book, but she says, "So I've been asked
1:34:21
about this," and she answers that.
1:34:22
"I've been asked about this."
1:34:24
And they said, "So one of the questions that got asked of her is what,
1:34:27
what food do you eat these days?"
1:34:30
And she goes, "Well, let me tell you a story.
1:34:32
I used to eat very healthily.
1:34:35
I ate I was a vegetarian, I was gluten-free, I was this, I
1:34:38
was that, and I was eating very healthily, and I still got sick."
1:34:43
She said, "Because I was eating out of fear.
1:34:46
I was eating these healthy things because I was afraid of eating other
1:34:50
stuff 'cause it would be bad for me."
1:34:52
And she says, "Now, after having my near-death experience," she goes, "I
1:34:56
kind of eat whatever I want, but I eat it with a different intention."
1:35:01
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:35:02
Warwick Schiller: And so the same material going into your body lands differently- Mm
1:35:06
if you have if you have an aspect of fear to it.
1:35:09
And think about the, the women have it so bad, but you go into any place
1:35:17
that sells magazines, and there'll be a, a cookbook or a woman's magazine or
1:35:21
whatever, and somewhere on the front cover it will say, "Guilt-free recipe."
1:35:25
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:35:26
Warwick Schiller: And it will be a recipe that takes out all the tasty stuff,
1:35:30
because if you eat the other stuff, you should feel guilty for eating it.
1:35:35
But we're gonna make it, you can eat this so you don't have to feel guilty.
1:35:39
Like, that's,
1:35:42
that's mind control.
1:35:44
That's you know.
1:35:46
But anyway, the, the point I'm trying to make here is the same food with a
1:35:49
different intention lands differently.
1:35:51
This same plant, this henbane thing, with a different intention lands
1:35:57
differently, and I really feel like the same action with a different intention
1:36:01
has a different energetic signature.
1:36:03
And when you're dealing with a, an animal like a horse who is so sensitive to
1:36:09
that sort of thing, I mean, you know, it's almost hard to quantify what's
1:36:14
going on between someone and their horse without knowing exactly what
1:36:16
their intention is for their action.
1:36:20
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:36:23
I'm thinking about people I know who still engage in combat on horses.
1:36:28
Actual combat.
1:36:29
I know two
1:36:34
Warwick Schiller: Who's fighting, who's fighting wars on horseback these days?
1:36:37
Rupert Isaacson: The Portuguese bullfight.
1:36:39
Warwick Schiller: Oh, okay.
1:36:40
Yep.
1:36:40
Rupert Isaacson: And so I know a couple of people, I don't know anyone active
1:36:44
in it anymore, but I know a couple of people who are retired, and it's
1:36:48
one of those things where the m- you know, the morality of it is Very clear.
1:36:56
Like, there's no, there's just no doubt that you shouldn't
1:36:58
go and stick things in bulls.
1:37:00
So I think that side of the conversation one can agree on that it's not good.
1:37:09
What's interesting about the horses w- that participate in it is
1:37:14
that they tend to really like it.
1:37:17
But it tends to be a certain genetic line of horses that have that kind
1:37:22
of, "Hoho, hey," sort of personality.
1:37:25
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:37:26
Rupert Isaacson: And evolved in those river valleys of the Guadalquivir
1:37:31
and the Tagus, where over about two million years these horses that we now
1:37:36
know of as Iberian horses, their wild ancestral stock, and even actually into
1:37:43
the historical period, would be living wild or feral with large herds of wild
1:37:49
cattle that are hyper-aggressive, rather like Cape buffalo because they carry a
1:37:55
little bubble of territory around them.
1:37:56
And if you accidentally step over into that territory, which you're
1:38:00
going to, they'll come and attack you.
1:38:02
But if you skip, "Wee," to the outside, you-- they'll leave you alone again.
1:38:08
But you all pack up together like that because of safety in numbers
1:38:12
from predators, because those parts of Southern Europe historically
1:38:16
were h- habitat of Eurasian lion.
1:38:19
And that would have been the main predator, the apex predator there.
1:38:23
So you w- got these horses that for two and a half million years or whatever
1:38:27
evolve next to these wild cattle, and a certain amount of kind of motherfuckery,
1:38:32
you know, comes into that of playing, messing with these bulls a little bit.
1:38:38
And not being at all freaked out by them, and even provoking them a little bit as
1:38:43
part of the play behavior, particularly of the young colts and stallions.
1:38:48
And then that becomes part of the Celto-Iberian tradition where they start
1:38:56
to worship the god Poseidon, who is always represented by the bull, which
1:39:03
is the earthquake, the volcanic activity under the Mediterranean that you're
1:39:07
always trying to appease, 'cause e- every now and then an island blows up and a
1:39:12
big earthquake and a tsunami happens.
1:39:15
And the horse, which is the waves, the tossing waves coming in.
1:39:20
And so bull fighting seems to have evolved partly as a ritual practice and but
1:39:25
what's interesting is that, The horses dig it, that like it, and you can't
1:39:30
do it on a horse that doesn't dig it 'cause you'd just be killed really fast.
1:39:34
But the morality is clear.
1:39:37
It's not nice to go around sticking things into bulls
1:39:42
So in America, in California where you live, in the Central Valley,
1:39:47
there is a population of dairy farmers who come from the Portuguese Azorean
1:39:56
Islands.
1:39:56
A lot of Portuguese, yeah.
1:39:57
And they live up around Modesto and those places.
1:39:58
Yeah.
1:39:58
Stockton
1:40:00
And they, because bullfighting is illegal in the USA, have evolved a bloodless way
1:40:06
of doing it, and they have a subculture where they put a big old pad on the
1:40:11
back of the bull, and they stick that.
1:40:14
So nothing goes into the bull, and the bull just gets annoyed and comes after
1:40:19
them, but the bull is of course not losing any blood, so it's not getting weaker.
1:40:24
So you could argue that it's actually more dangerous, and that therefore the
1:40:28
horsemanship involved is more brilliant.
1:40:31
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
1:40:32
Rupert Isaacson: And you look at that as a sort of evolution of something
1:40:37
that morally you can't condone, but you can look at the horsemanship and
1:40:41
go, "Whoa, that's amazing," and live with that ambiguity, and then see itâ¦
1:40:47
But the horse is sort of an innocent to the human endeavor there, and that
1:40:52
human endeavor is a bit dark And then there's an evolution, guess where?
1:40:58
In California, go figure, where human evolutions often seem to take place.
1:41:03
And there they are doing it bloodlessly.
1:41:07
You know, I, I talk a lot about my fox hunting background,
1:41:10
but I don't fox hunt anymore.
1:41:11
I was told by a Navajo shaman to stop, and that it was somehow connected
1:41:16
to my son's autism, so I stopped.
1:41:18
But I always missed riding to hounds.
1:41:21
So I started riding with bloodhounds where we hunt each other for fun.
1:41:25
And so I could be the quarry, the hounds are after me, and then I
1:41:30
can have fun with helping to make it a bit more difficult for them.
1:41:35
Double back on myself, go through water, and then maybe you'll- Really?
1:41:38
â¦ yeah, you're riding in the field, so I can also make it a bit fun
1:41:41
for, a bit difficult for Warwick.
1:41:43
So I'll make sure that I run or ride over those really big hedges,
1:41:47
you know, just, you know, for fun.
1:41:49
But you can find a way around if you want.
1:41:51
And at the end, the dogs will always get me, but they'll just lick me to death.
1:41:55
And so I started doing that, the bloodless form.
1:41:57
And then we started doing it through Horse Boy, 'cause this is in Germany, my
1:42:03
friend who has the pack of hounds is in Germany, with one of our Horse Boy places
1:42:07
and we thought, "Well, why, why couldn't special needs people experience this?"
1:42:11
Because normally they don't get to experience this kind of mad joy.
1:42:14
Normally the, the experience for them is so controlled, and
1:42:18
it's almost infantilized and particularly when they get older.
1:42:22
And one of the nice things about Horse Boy when they're younger is
1:42:24
I can have the kid in front of me.
1:42:25
We can go cantering out there into the range.
1:42:27
But once the kid is, you know, bigger, it's like, well, ugh.
1:42:31
So what we did was we put the horses through a training process where we
1:42:36
could then make sure that they would be super calm with the hounds around them,
1:42:41
but they would have to cross country.
1:42:43
Some of the kids could jump a little bit.
1:42:45
The ones that couldn't, we would make it interesting for them, the terrain.
1:42:49
So we had my friend Henrik's son Julian, who's got spina bifida
1:42:54
and hydrocephalus, and he actually lives on that farm where we did it.
1:43:00
At the end of that day's hunting where the hounds were all around
1:43:03
them hunting, 'cause we did the l- we did it in spirals so that they
1:43:08
were never far from the action.
1:43:09
So it wasn't like, "Oh, well, isn't it nice they get to sort
1:43:12
of participate, but then we all bugger off and have the real fun."
1:43:15
Warwick Schiller: Right.
1:43:15
Rupert Isaacson: We try, you know, it's more inclusive.
1:43:17
And then he said, "Wow, that I've never been in the forest in my farm.
1:43:23
I've never been in there."
1:43:25
That's the first time I've gone in there, and the horse carried
1:43:28
me in there on these hunting days.
1:43:31
And then we thought, "Well, why does it have to stop with kids with special needs?
1:43:35
What about all those kids who are in the local town who are
1:43:41
just sitting in shit apartments?
1:43:42
And, and, and a lot of them are, are refugee kids from the
1:43:45
Ukraine and Syria and places.
1:43:46
Why don't we invite them?
1:43:48
And they can't ride, but okay, fine, we can have our tractor ride, you know, that
1:43:52
follows and goes with and is part of that.
1:43:54
And this is also an organic farm, and we can talk about how the farm
1:43:57
is managed, and we're also gonna encounter a lot of other wildlife.
1:44:00
And, you know, actually, we should be doing this for all the kids in
1:44:04
the town because otherwise how are they gonna value the countryside
1:44:07
if they don't experience it, right?
1:44:09
So let's make it a countryside day and, and then have a big old
1:44:12
party afterwards and invite them."
1:44:15
So what started with, for me, hassling a fox who had no choice in the matter
1:44:25
became that experience I just described.
1:44:29
And f- what for those Azorean bullfighters began with torturing a bull with brilliant
1:44:36
horsemanship became this bloodless form.
1:44:39
And I think the- these avenues are always open to us.
1:44:44
But you talked about truth.
1:44:46
It â¦ What is it, was it you said a long-held truth,
1:44:47
busting a long-held truth?
1:44:49
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
1:44:49
Yeah.
1:44:50
Rupert Isaacson: You know, when that Navajo shaman came up to me and
1:44:54
said, "You need to stop fox hunting," that was busting a long-held truth.
1:45:00
It doesn't do us any harm to go through these p- processes and, but we can go
1:45:05
through them with our horses, right?
1:45:14
is one of the reasons why
1:45:18
The horse and the altered state of consciousness are so closely aligned
1:45:22
for us because the horse carries us.
1:45:26
When you, you're talking about doing plant medicine, and you and I have,
1:45:28
you know, done a, a ceremony together
1:45:33
We're carried by that plant, aren't we?
1:45:35
And we're carried by that ceremony, and we're carried, we're take-
1:45:41
we- we're taken on a journey Mm.
1:45:42
Mm.
1:45:42
Your podcast is called Journey On.
1:45:45
Warwick Schiller: Mm-hmm.
1:45:45
Yeah.
1:45:51
Rupert Isaacson: Discuss
1:45:55
Thoughts
1:45:58
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, I guess I do agree with you
1:46:01
there, but I don't even think we need to be riding them for them to
1:46:09
Carry us to a place
1:46:10
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm
1:46:14
Warwick Schiller: And the, you know, you started out talking about consent and
1:46:21
I have found that
1:46:25
So consent is for me, consent is not, "Oh, they don't want us to do anything."
1:46:29
Consent is just listening to the little things they're telling us along the way.
1:46:33
I think you end up being able to do everything you wanna be able to do
1:46:37
with them, but I think you can end up in a different place to whereâ¦
1:46:41
You know, I think the consent with horses a lot of times is they're basically
1:46:48
just asking you listening, you know?
1:46:52
'Cause usually it's not a no, it's a not yet.
1:46:56
And usually after a few times- Mm â¦ when they, when they say, when
1:47:00
they say not yet and you go, "Okay," you don't put them away for the day.
1:47:04
You go, "Okay, read that.
1:47:06
How about now?"
1:47:06
"No, not yet."
1:47:07
"How about now?"
1:47:08
And then after a while they go, "Okay, you're listening.
1:47:10
I'll let you in."
1:47:11
And it's almost, you know, it'sâ¦
1:47:14
I don't know if you wanna go there, but it's, it's almost
1:47:16
like the art of seduction.
1:47:19
You know what I mean?
1:47:19
It's a, it's a dance.
1:47:20
It's a, "Hey, we both know what's up."
1:47:23
Rupert Isaacson: Let's- It- We could, we could, we could perhaps
1:47:25
replace seduction with invitation.
1:47:28
Warwick Schiller: Yeah.
1:47:28
Well, yeah.
1:47:29
Yeah.
1:47:29
It's, it- but it's a, it's a, it's a conversation.
1:47:32
You know?
1:47:32
It's a, it's a, it's a back and forth.
1:47:33
We're both kinda playing the game sort of a thing.
1:47:35
But I do feel like horses, You know, w- so the reason I went back to consent is
1:47:41
because what I've found is that when you are working on the, an- the early parts
1:47:48
of the, the consent stuff with horses.
1:47:52
Now, 'cause I'm not, you know, I don't think this whole consent
1:47:55
thing goes on all day, every day.
1:47:57
After a while, they're pretty good with, you know.
1:47:59
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:47:59
Warwick Schiller: They, they don't say no after a while.
1:48:01
Mm.
1:48:02
But I feel likeâ¦
1:48:02
And so, and most of the consent comes in the beginning, and
1:48:05
especially the unraveling of previous trauma that they've had.
1:48:08
Mm-hmm.
1:48:08
Things like that.
1:48:09
But getting back to the altered states of consciousness, a lot of the little
1:48:14
things that they do that say not yet or yes or whatever are so subtle-
1:48:21
Mm â¦ that you have to be very, very present to be aware of them.
1:48:25
And so when you're aware of those things, it's a b- it'd be like the, the
1:48:29
meditation practice of stare- staring at a, lighting a candle and staring at the
1:48:32
flame, and just looking at that flame.
1:48:36
It's almost like that.
1:48:37
I mean, I feel like that'sâ¦
1:48:38
So you talked about horses carrying us, and I said, "You don't
1:48:42
necessarily have to be on their back."
1:48:43
'Cause a lot of times- Mm â¦ all this consent stuff comes in the very beginning
1:48:47
of the relationship, like when you're starting to do your groundwork and stuff.
1:48:50
Especially, like I said, with horses who've, who have behavioral
1:48:56
issues from previous traumatic experiences with humans.
1:49:01
When you, when you know what to look for and know to look for these tiny little
1:49:06
things, you're very, very, very present.
1:49:08
And I feel like that's where it takes you into altered state.
1:49:11
You know, so you are, you, you're kind of like me when I'm doing a, a clinic.
1:49:15
I'm not thinking 10 seconds ahead.
1:49:17
I'm not thinking 10 seconds behind.
1:49:18
I'm not thinking about what's for lunch.
1:49:20
I'm not thinking about what's happening next Tuesday.
1:49:22
I am right there in that moment.
1:49:28
And I feel like that's, you know, even though we might be
1:49:31
on the ground at the time, but that's where they're carrying us-
1:49:34
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:49:36
Warwick Schiller: to can, you know, at least in my experience with,
1:49:39
with a lot of the stuff I do that, that is one way they can carry us
1:49:43
to altered states of consciousness, which is just that, that presence.
1:49:49
And I do feel like the physicality of a horse, like they're big animals.
1:49:53
Like there is an element of danger if you get it wrong.
1:49:57
That I think narrows your focus to where if you were doing something
1:50:00
that there's no element of danger, you could be thinking about what's
1:50:03
for lunch, and you could be thinking about next Tuesday, whatever.
1:50:06
But when you're really focused on, it's just like you said about the, you
1:50:11
know, going over those big fences or, or a cross-country course or whatever.
1:50:15
You are not thinking about, "Oh, I wonder what's for lunch when I'm finished
1:50:18
the cross-country course," when you're heading towards a jump that if you screw
1:50:22
it up, you're gonna be upside down-
1:50:24
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:50:24
â¦ Warwick Schiller: under a horse sort of a thing.
1:50:25
You know, it, it, like I said, the veil is much thinner.
1:50:29
You are much closer to the, much closer to reality
1:50:38
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:50:40
We, in, all the work we do, as you know, we basically train the
1:50:45
horses to do everything on the ground before we ever ask them to
1:50:48
do anything in the saddle, right?
1:50:49
And then even when they are, quote-unquote, "riding horses," we're
1:50:54
working them on the ground all the time.
1:50:56
I'd say two-thirds of my time is on the ground.
1:51:00
Yeah.
1:51:01
And as you were talking about that, and you're right, the ab- the utter
1:51:06
focus, one of the lovely things about, I think, when you're on the ground
1:51:08
too, is the horse is in your sight.
1:51:11
When you're sitting on a horse, it's not.
1:51:15
You, it's a different experience, and you and the horse are looking at
1:51:18
each other in the eye, and you and the horse are able to communicate.
1:51:24
You can kiss your horse.
1:51:25
It's, it's right there in front.
1:51:26
You know, it, it's, everything is there.
1:51:28
You're together.
1:51:28
You're dancing.
1:51:30
And I was thinking about, again, here in Germany, there's this island
1:51:34
called Ruger where in the Baltic, where the archeologists have found
1:51:39
a horse divination site, cult site from the Iron Age, more or less.
1:51:49
And it's actually quite well documented what they used to do because, again,
1:51:54
Roman traders and people like that would go and visit this island and a bit
1:51:56
like the, you know, the Druids, they, they would write down what they saw.
1:51:59
And it was always a white horse, and they were brought out to, walk over,
1:52:06
when there was a dilemma or question, to walk over a series of spears set
1:52:13
but with a sharp point in the ground and obviously far enough in the
1:52:19
ground the horse could step over them.
1:52:21
And how the horse decided to step over them or not step over
1:52:26
them, but was read as augury for
1:52:32
And this went on for hundreds of years.
1:52:35
It wasn't just a bunch of weirdos getting a silly idea and then everyone
1:52:39
going, "Yeah, well, that's just what those blokes on that island do."
1:52:41
And then, you know, it died a death 'cause it was crap.
1:52:44
You know, it was obviously working for them.
1:52:47
And then it turns out that there are similar sites down in the
1:52:51
Caucasus Ossetia it's now called, and which is just north of Georgia.
1:52:58
And that this was actually quite widespread.
1:53:02
And it turns out that this was also related to those Alans I was talking
1:53:06
about earlier, who also had a sword cult where they would put the s- sword
1:53:11
in the ground and worship it with their horses and worship the horse god, which
1:53:15
may have actually been the origin of the King Arthur legend because there
1:53:19
were groups of Alan Roman auxiliary cavalry who were left in Britain when the
1:53:24
Romans abandoned it, who seemed to have organized a defense against the Saxons.
1:53:29
And Arthur could well have been one of these guys, and the sword in the
1:53:32
stone, you know, blah, blah, blah.
1:53:34
But â¦ And then there's in the anc- in the Vedas in India, there's a â¦ And
1:53:40
this actually went on, the last recorded mostly sort of a Bronze Age to Iron Age
1:53:46
thing, but it was recorded up until the 18th century occasionally where a horse
1:53:51
would, particularly in Rajasthan, which is horse country, they would let a horse out.
1:53:56
The king would let a horse out for a year, and a group of warriors
1:54:00
would have to follow that horse, usually a stallion, and wherever
1:54:05
it went they'd have to protect it.
1:54:06
And if it strayed over into other people's territory, then that was meant that you
1:54:11
were supposed to go and invade there.
1:54:13
If it went and did other things, you were supposed to do other things.
1:54:16
If it died, there were things you had to do.
1:54:20
If you, if it got sick, there were ways you had to make it better.
1:54:24
If it covered mares in that time, it blah, blah, blah.
1:54:28
And then at the end it had to come back and then there was a ritual.
1:54:30
Of course, they would sacrifice the horse at the end.
1:54:33
And a lot of these cultures actually had horse sacrifice,
1:54:38
including the steppe cultures.
1:54:41
And it, these Indian cultures seem to have been offshoots
1:54:44
of the steppe culture as well.
1:54:45
Mm.
1:54:45
Yeah.
1:54:46
But certainly it didn't always involve sacrifice, and certainly
1:54:49
it didn't always involve riding.
1:54:51
And maybe this process of horse observation that we now know is,
1:54:54
works really well for equine-assisted psychotherapy, for example You know,
1:54:59
y- a part of you might think, "Well, you know, I mean, what can it mean?"
1:55:03
You know, you stand there looking at some horses and one takes a shit
1:55:05
and, you know, another one walks over there and looks at something and
1:55:09
then, you know, does it mean anything?
1:55:13
But many, many people find it incredibly helpful and meaningful and people clearly
1:55:23
have for, you know, some millennia
1:55:28
Let's see what you got there
1:55:34
Warwick Schiller: What was your question?
1:55:36
Rupert Isaacson: I want to see what, what you got there.
1:55:37
What's the book you just got?
1:55:38
Warwick Schiller: Emily Kay's daughter's book.
1:55:40
Rupert Isaacson: Ah, okay.
1:55:43
Now we're talking.
1:55:43
All right.
1:55:44
' Warwick Schiller: Cause the, you know, 'cause
1:55:45
Rupert Isaacson: the first- Tell, tell, tell the lads, by the way, the
1:55:47
listeners, they won't necessarily know who Emily Kay's daughter is.
1:55:49
Just give us a littleâ¦
1:55:51
Warwick Schiller: emily Kay's daughter is a lady from Sweden.
1:55:53
She she has a, a sanctuary in Sweden where she has horses, cows, sheep,
1:55:58
goats, pigs, chickens, whatever.
1:56:02
But she runs a, runs a school for what she calls interspeciesâ¦
1:56:08
Oh, sorry.
1:56:09
Non-hierarchical interspecies interbeing.
1:56:12
And you can parse that out and figure it out.
1:56:17
But Emily is sheâ¦
1:56:19
Y- y- you could call her an animal communicator, but
1:56:21
she's much more than that.
1:56:22
She's, she's almost, she's shaman-like to where she can inhabit
1:56:26
the consciousness of animals.
1:56:28
She can actually tell you what the collective consciousness of horses have
1:56:31
to say about the future of humanity.
1:56:33
She's that sort of person.
1:56:35
You know, sh- she had a very traumatic childhood and used to take riding lessons
1:56:40
in Sweden and you know, if the pony's not doing what you want, you whack him
1:56:43
on the bum with a stick sort of a thing.
1:56:45
And I think during one of these whacking on the bum with a stick instances when
1:56:49
she was about 10 or 12 basically her time-space continuum collapsed, and she
1:56:55
inhabited the consciousness of the horse.
1:56:56
So she could see from the horse's perspective what it was seeing, she
1:57:00
could feel physically what the horse was feeling, and she could feel
1:57:04
emotionally what the horse was feeling.
1:57:06
Anyway, she can she can still do that.
1:57:11
But I jumped up and grabbed this book because it's a book of hers
1:57:14
called All the King's Horses.
1:57:15
She spent quite a bit of time in Jordan working with the, the
1:57:20
royal family's horses there.
1:57:22
But when she presented at our podcast summit in Englandâ¦
1:57:29
You were there, weren't you, Rupert?
1:57:30
I was.
1:57:30
Yes.
1:57:30
You, yeah, you, you caused her to have an existential crisis.
1:57:33
But when she presented at our podcast summit in in England, she got up on
1:57:39
stage and she said "So I want to read you something from the Islamic scriptures."
1:57:45
It's a quotation from the Hadith, which is the sayings
1:57:47
of the Proph- Prophet Muhammad.
1:57:50
And she said, "Goodness is tied into the forelock of the horse until the day of
1:57:55
resurrection, and the people who look after them shall playf- shall, should
1:58:00
pray for them with blessings as they shall in turn be divinely assisted."
1:58:09
And she then said, "So, like this podcast, it started out with
1:58:14
horses and ended up with God."
1:58:19
And this is the whole, you know, trying to tie a bow in the thing we're talking
1:58:23
about here as far as you know, horses and altered states of consciousness.
1:58:29
Rupert Isaacson: You absolutely did tie a bow.
1:58:31
And after that summit in the UK I went and did a, a retreat with Emily and in
1:58:41
Sweden at this sacred place that sheâ¦
1:58:46
And she can not only communicate with horses and other animals and
1:58:55
humans, but also with rocks, stones
1:59:00
And water.
1:59:01
And I got to see it firsthand.
1:59:04
And I camped in that forest-
1:59:06
Warwick Schiller: Mm
1:59:07
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: with her on that mountain, and something came out of
1:59:10
the cliff and talked to me- Mm â¦ very briefly on one of the nights I was
1:59:16
there, without the intercession of any sort of altered state of consciousness
1:59:20
that was deliberately sought.
1:59:24
I love that you ended actually there with her, and we're, we're, we're at that
1:59:29
two-hour mark, and I think this probably is that â¦ I don't think it could be
1:59:34
said truer than what you just read.
1:59:36
In fact, it's so much so, I know that if â¦ I have â¦ This often happens
1:59:40
to me when I'm listening to podcasts is that, you know, I might be driving
1:59:42
or something, and then it's like, "Oh, what was that thing they just said?"
1:59:46
And then I have to, like, stop the YouTube and, and go back to it.
1:59:49
So what I'd like to do, would like you to do, is please will you read that again?
1:59:54
Warwick Schiller: Yeah, I'll get it.
1:59:54
I'll do it without messing up this time.
1:59:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
1:59:59
Warwick Schiller: So it's from the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.
2:00:02
"Goodness is tied into the forelock of the horse until the day of resurrection,
2:00:09
and the people who look after them should pla- pray for them with blessings as
2:00:14
they shall in turn be divinely assisted."
2:00:22
Rupert Isaacson: I think we should leave it there.
2:00:25
Warwick Schiller: Probably a good idea.
2:00:26
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
2:00:29
Thanks for this.
2:00:31
Warwick Schiller: No worries.
2:00:31
It's great chatting with you again.
2:00:33
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:00:33
Yeah, it was.
2:00:34
It really was.
2:00:37
Let's do it again.
2:00:40
Warwick Schiller: We shall.
2:00:40
All
2:00:41
Rupert Isaacson: right.
2:00:43
All right.
2:00:44
Well, much love to you, my friend.
2:00:46
Warwick Schiller: You too.
2:00:47
And yeah, say hi to the family and the kids.
2:00:49
Rupert Isaacson: I will, I will.
2:00:50
Say hi to everyone at your end.
2:00:51
Warwick Schiller: Mm.
2:00:52
And Rowan when you talk to him too.
2:00:53
I've been following him on his adventure.
2:00:54
Rupert Isaacson: He's in Leipzig right now, backpacking by himself.
2:00:59
Warwick Schiller: That's
2:00:59
Rupert Isaacson: so cool.
2:00:59
Interrailing by himself.
2:01:02
Youth hosting.
2:01:03
It's amazing.
2:01:03
Warwick Schiller: That's awesome.
2:01:04
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:01:06
All right.
2:01:08
Warwick Schiller: Okay.
2:01:09
Rupert Isaacson: One love.
2:01:09
Warwick Schiller: Thank you, sir.
2:01:10
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
2:01:12
Till the next one
2:01:13
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