In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Tim Laurence about the Hoffman process. What is it, what are the benefits and even what famous people have used it.
Find more about Tim and Hoffman process at http://www.hoffmaninstitute.co.uk
Transcript
Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.
Hi guys, in this episode of ayahuasca podcast.com. We speak with Team Lawrence. We talk about Hoffman process and we try to understand what it is and how it works. We talk about Tim’s personal ayahuasca experience and personal growth. We talk about what are the similarities between Hoffman process and Ayahuasca experience.
We talk about several famous people that have experienced Hoffman process and so much more. I’m sure you will enjoy this episode. Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com. As always, with you the host, and believe today we’re joined by Tim Lawrence. Tim Lawrence is our guest here at Laro Retreat.
As you can see in the background, is a medicine house that we’re currently building. Tim is at our retreat for the second time. When were you here last
Tim Laurence: time, exactly A year ago. Almost to the day I think it was. Yeah. One, one day off. And it was my, it’ll be my anniversary
Sam Believ: exactly. Year goal. And it’s actually a very great practice coming doing ayahuasca once a year.
As I say, one up a day keeps the doctor away. I would say one Ayahuasca retreat a year keeps the psychiatrist away, tim is not just a guest here. He is a fascinating human being. He’s a writer, public speaker, a teacher, and a facilitator. Tim wrote a book called Hoffman Process that has been translated into seven languages.
Tim has been practicing Hoffman process for last 30 years, and he’s the last person to be trained by Hoffman himself. Correctly.
Tim Laurence: That’s true. Yeah. A few years ago back in the end of the eighties and the early nineties. So I’ve been doing it for about 30 years now.
Sam Believ: Tim, welcome to the podcast. So tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tim Laurence: Like many people who come here or who come to any kind of personal development, I was very interested in knowing more than what is normally provided. And some people get this when they’re 55. Some people are 25. I got it about the age of 15, I think. And at the time it was very easy to get into drugs.
And I think I. Took too much, too young. So that didn’t help me except gave me a sort of a sense that there must be something a lot more out there than was being taught in my general education. So I went to India, was there a year, did a lot of vipasana, but again, around the age of 22, too young to just be sitting, standing still.
But I noticed that everything I was interested in at the time. It was a blend of Eastern West and seemed to be emanating out of California, so I managed to make my way over there and spent the next 15 years in California learning everything I could, all kinds of different methods. And the Hoffman Method is a wonderful synthesis of programs.
So it doesn’t obviously use plant medicine, unfortunately, it isn’t totally legal in many countries. It uses a variety. Maybe, we can get into that later. You asked about me. I have two wonderful boys. They’re now both grown up 26 and 28. Still very much in good terms with my ex-wife who runs Hoffman in the uk.
I just love to travel. I always have loved to travel. I love to love languages. I love to be open and explore.
Sam Believ: You mentioned your ex-wife, is it true that she is a bond girl?
Tim Laurence: Yeah. I dunno how much she’d like me to say that she was a professionally trained writer, Royal Academy of Draft art actress, but she happened to be caught kissing in a scene.
As it was meant to be P President in the 1995 movie Golden Eye.
Sam Believ: That’s an interesting trivia. And only two kinds of people can date a bond girl, a bond himself or a bond villain, so I’m assuming, or a wannabe. Yeah. Yeah. Tim, obviously it’s your second time here. You’ve already, this time, you’ve done couple ceremonies already.
First of all how was your Ayahuasca experience so far? And tell us a little bit about your experiences, maybe highlights of that. And then maybe we can talk a little bit about parallels in between. The Hoffman process and let’s say what happens here at the Ayahuasca retreat.
Tim Laurence: Yeah, sure. ’cause they have the same format.
Remove yourself from the world, stop your daily routine and just listen. My experience a year ago was be I really wanted to come because I’d had one night on Ayahuasca in England and nobody I think got very much from it and we didn’t really integrate it or anything afterwards. So when I heard about this and I heard your podcast talking about it you sounded very articulate about it.
I researched it. Couldn’t find anything negative on your reviews. Bit suspect that, but it’s all seems to be true. And I had a really good time here. We had four ceremonies, two night and two daytime. And we also had the word circles whereby we got to integrate it. And as we went around in a group of 20 or so we were able, I think to hear just how different.
The medicine is for each different person, what it is they’re reflecting through their own past. If they have trauma, if they don’t have trauma, if they’re just having perhaps a wonderful opening, a connect to themselves, others, their universe, call it what you will of their experience. And I relax more and more into it.
And I remember the fourth time I was just in a state of blissful connection of oneness throughout. And that stayed with me for a long time. I would stay, say it stayed. The whole year and the memory of this being a, not just a safe place, but a happy place made me really want to come back and, yeah, like a car or something.
Get a bit of maintenance.
Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s I personally drink ayahuasca once a month, but it’s only one ceremony. So for, obviously not everyone has the luxury of living at the Ayahuasca retreat. In that case, when people ask me how long should my retreat be or should I help, how often should I come? I say, if you have a big issue you wanna resolve, come and do a couple longer retreats, and then when you feel better just once a year, it seems to be a very safe amount.
It’s funny you mentioned the reviews because, one girl recently said she was very suspicious as well. So many five star views. I think we’re treading around 350 right now. She basically, after doing her retreat and obviously enjoying it a lot, she said she put us four star view and in the comment said I would put 10 if possible, but she added four star.
So it’s so bringing it down. Yeah.
Tim Laurence: 5.0 to 4.98 or something.
Sam Believ: Yeah, something like that would be nice. It’s a good problem to have, you you’ve been working with this Hoffman Method for 30 years. The only thing I know about it is what I learned in preparation for this interview with information you provided.
Can you tell listeners, but more about that method and what drew you to it?
Tim Laurence: Our byline is when you are serious about change. So it’s a seven day intensive retreat where people really. Go when they’re fed up or being fed up when they’ve had some issues that come up again and again.
And usually they hear about it through word of mouth because on that level of intensity, you wanna know somebody who’s gone through it in order to be able to trust the various methods. I was attracted to it, partly because friends of mine did it, and though I was in a sort of a set of people.
Immigrated either from Europe or moved from the New York area to the west coast. We really interested in what was gonna. Make things change. We were dissatisfied. We wanted to know, was it Indian guru? Was it a psychedelic substance? Was it a therapy thing? And this method seemed to combine lots of things together.
Without going into the methodology, I can say that it, it looks at the physical, it looks at the emotional, it looks at the intellectual, rational. And it looks at the spiritual in straight psychology, I was a little frustrated because a lot of it was about what was wrong with us. There was no sort of out there.
Everything is fine just as it is. In some of the methods, there was too much intellect, the analysis. Some of the things I’d done were pure emotions, which is great, you can get out your anger or you can cry. You can shout and scream, but I just needed something. More to bring it all into place.
And I think particularly with Hoffman, it talks about forgiveness and I think you can get that as well a lot with the plant medicine. I hear a lot of people talking about getting understanding of forgiveness from the person who, had issues with them as a child many years ago. So we’re looking at all of that.
I was attracted to it because I myself was suffering. There’s a lot of addiction and pain in my, wanting to get away from pain in my family, my only brother committed suicide after drugs. So the many reasons why I got to do it. And yeah, we work with people who. Really wanna work who you know are dedicated to doing something about it.
Sam Believ: It’s very interesting because everything you said describing Hoffman Method if you would remove Hoffman, say Ayahuasca is very precise.
Tim Laurence: It’s very similar, isn’t it? It’s
Sam Believ: Word of mouth. That’s how we get all our people. You’d rather get a referral because it is an intensive process and you want to feel trust in somebody who’ve done it before and everything.
A complex medicine that goes to spirit body. The only thing missing is purging.
Tim Laurence: Yep. Yeah, that’s true. In fact, in a very early version ’cause I actually had also did quite a bit of research about Bob Hoffman and his life and how he got the process going in the sixties and seventies. ’cause it started actually in 67.
They’d have people when they were after working through the mother and father. Drink, I think salty water and provide them with a bucket to throw up in that isn’t done anymore. And it is unfortunate in terms of, I ask that, and another parallel is lots of people have objections to doing deep work.
Lots of people have objections to going away from home and having less contact with the world. One of the things yeah, I ask people can have an objection to it, purging when I, had negative associations with purging. But I like the Spanish word for it, isn’t it? It’s to alleviate.
Alleviate. And everybody, and certainly myself felt afterwards, this is just not a normal being sick because you’ve eaten something bad. This is a wonderful cleansing. The plant medicine helps you and getting goosebumps when I say that, and sound like the true converted. The purging is very much a part of it, isn’t it?
Sam Believ: Yeah. For those of you who are listening, and you haven’t done Ayahuasca before and you’re. Wondering about that part of the process. Sometimes you feel like negativity from your body and the memory. It all comes together into your stomach and it’s churning and you feel like emotional becomes physical and then you purge it and it has the.
Bodily evacuation leaves your body. You are left with feeling of lightness. And this is why they call it, to alleviate in the Colombian ayahuasca tradition. So sometimes when you, after working with Ayahuasca for a while and going back to work with, let’s say other plant medicines like mushrooms and in which a lot of times you don’t purge, some people report to me that they have missed the purge because there is definitely something about that.
Transmutation from emotional to physical and then the purge. Tim I’m curious about you said you, you were the last to be trained by Bob Hoffman.
Tim Laurence: Yeah. So he was the man who founded. How did you meet him? That’s a question. He was my teacher on the Hoffman process, and that was coincidence.
Though, it was put on every month in in the East Bay in ca, in Northern California. He, for the last few years had been working in Europe and in Australia establishing it, but it was December he’d come back. So it was my. Teacher and he was very intuitive and he encouraged me to apply for the training.
And then it just so happened again the next summer. He was, he’d, he was done with his traveling and he trained me. A lot of it was apprenticeship, you were onsite learning from the master. And then when I had qualified, we went and. Taught in Canada a few times. So I got to know him and his method pretty well, and he was very intuitive.
I think one of the brilliant things about that was that it wasn’t a theory, it wasn’t a psychological theory, although it’s based on certain things like, look at your the dynamics in your family system. He was a fascinating man who didn’t know how to handle much technology, but he just had a wonderful spirit and he would always be.
He’d always be tuning in.
Sam Believ: Sounds a bit like a shaman, he is maybe he had some kind of connection to the spirit. He quite enjoyed being called an
Tim Laurence: urban shaman. He wasn’t a sort of out there in the jungle or the desert. A shaman, but certainly people. And remember, he was, this was in the.
Berkeley and San Francisco. There are a lot of people way out there, like CLA in Aho, who you know is known for doing many different things. He’s now passed on, but a Chilean psychiatrist who talked a lot about using psych psychedelics. So he was definitely face of that. One of his great friends was Leo Zeff, who was later exposed as the, I think, what was it called, the chieftain.
He was able to. To turn on thousands of therapists onto LSD in Berkeley would just sit with them. So there was a bit of that. Beyond the mind. Very much beyond the mind.
Sam Believ: Definitely. I think that’s that’s the area where the healing
Tim Laurence: happens. One, there was one researcher, but I must look it up.
If I can find it. Find it again. Who said that? Psychedelics. And this is like Hoffman too, allow. Parts of the mind to talk together that don’t usually communicate. And it, and he also used the expression that they flatten the landscape of the mind. And I see that as very bumpy parts in our, what Michael Pollen, who I think is wonderfully explained things in the book, how to change your mind.
He explains that so much of our time is spent in our default modal network. And in Hoffman in meditation, in plant medicine, you manage to get out of that. Something grabs you and gets you beyond your normal anxiety or depression or fear. And so whatever we can do to help, it’s reduction of the ego, isn’t it?
It’s like the ego is very necessary for getting on in the world, but. It so gets in our way.
Sam Believ: Yeah. As I like to explain to patients that come to the retreat is that ego is necessary and it protects you from the outside and your ego is what brought you here. But as this ego gets constructed and it gets traumatized by, life events, it ends up being this kind of ugly construction.
And sometimes you need to dismantle it to reconstruct it, but slightly nicer every time. Yeah. And this is where psychedelics come helpful. The Yeah. But ego is very difficult to work with. As I like to use this analogy of a cat trying to put a cat in the bath. It’ll come up with lots excuses.
So that’s why I guess lots of people are so avert to deep work. Also, I think ego
Tim Laurence: in a spirit tradition is often ignored or pushed down or, thought of as bad, but it, that just comes back and bites him in the ass, and look at all the stuff that goes on in spiritual communities or the Catholic church.
You can’t get rid of ego. But I think both of our types of work allow us to. Go softly with self love and Oh yeah, I’ve got this pattern of behavior we use, we use the word pattern a lot or I’ve got this thing going on with me. Somebody in the group was saying, people consider me an asshole.
But she was saying that with humor and self love about being able to gently pro that. And I see, myself. Doing this work as a chance not to be in my ego of I am a facilitator, I’m the person leading the group. Because when you go up with the wonderful medicine, your ego has to get way in the background.
Sam Believ: I must tell you, Tim your ego is pretty much in check because it took me a year to learn about who you are and your achievements and some people would. Say, my name is Tim, I’m the founder. I’m this and that. And you’ve been very humble about who you are and what you do and including, I said Tim, I’m gonna introduce you as a writer.
And you said no, I’m not a writer. Yes, you are a writer. ’cause you wrote a book and it’s it’s a pretty.
Apparently Hoffman Method is pretty popular and can you tell us about. The story about Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry?
Tim Laurence: As long as they’ve admitted to doing the process, I can say something. ’cause I knew that Katy Perry, ’cause I’ve been in quite a few processes where people that she’s recommended have done it.
And so she’s a big champion and she would send all, all her friends, some of whom she would pay for to do it as well. What I didn’t know is how public Orlando Bloom was. Was about it. But apparently he has come out and said it and great if a couple can do it. I don’t know so much about their story, but somebody was suggesting that Orlando Bloom did it before, and Katy Perry saw the piece inside of him and said, I’m not used to that, so I better change my own behavior.
I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’d have to see her. In interview for me to be able to say that. But yeah, there are a lot of, I don’t know, again, it’s word of mouth. So a lot of the Hollywood crowd would come and do it in in the US There’s a beautiful site in Petaluma, in Marin County and we get a lot of celebrities, but a lot compared to what it is, it’s just that it’s easier sometimes.
To get a newspaper mention or a magazine article when they can say, oh, the beautiful Sienna Miller did it, or The wonderful Tandy Newton did it, or whatever he says, dropping a few names in there.
Sam Believ: It’s good to have famous people. Actually promote positive things.
Tim Laurence: Yeah. Because, they’ve got their, they’ve got their reputation.
’cause with this and with my work could be seen as pretty wacky, pretty out there. If it affected them positively and they want, as you say, to affect a positive change. Yeah. Good for them.
Sam Believ: Kathy and Orlando, if you’re listening, you are invited to LoRa. Maybe then they can help us spread the world about.
Psychedelic renaissance and that it is medicine, not a drug. They talk about Hoffman Method as a nons psychedelic experience.
Tim Laurence: Yeah, no, it’s funny that because, and the more I found out about psychedelic, so it’s obviously I knew them as a teenager and then I’d left them for a long time, and then I was with the world of Hoffman.
The connections are, we both allow people to go way beyond their normal way of seeing things. They can have a vision. We allow people to go beyond their past and forgive. We allow people to drop from their normal mindset and achieve a sense of calm, and at the same time, they may experience great fear.
On the way to experience some great joy, the same gate over their, that has kept them feeling, has, sorry. It’s the same gateway that keeps ’em in prison in anger or sadness can open to joy. So there’s a lot to unpack if you’re willing to unpack it. Unfortunately, most of the world is happy to keep things very much on the down low sedated with, you know what?
The internet, junk food, tv, Netflix, whatever it is.
Sam Believ: I shared with you my somewhat crazy idea about combining those kinds of experiences like Hoffman Method or other kinds of self-work group setting events with Ayahuasca, for example. I had this idea about maybe. Using some form of microdosing, whether it be Ayahuasca or another PSAB mushrooms or San Pedro, and then doing the work.
If maybe that could be. Helpful to increase the efficiency or speed of opening up or maybe depth you can go to, in your opinion, how does this two lines of self-work can be mutually beneficial? Whether done together or separately? Let’s say doing once a year, doing Ayahuasca and once a year doing Hoffman method.
Tim Laurence: Okay, so how are they compatible? Firstly. Hoffman, in the countries we do it in, unfortunately we can’t even do Microdosing. Did you ever see that program? Nine Perfect Strangers with Nicole Kidman. That’s where she does personal development work and gets ’em to do lots of stuff about their parents, but then she micro doses them with psilocybin smoothies in the morning.
And I joke sometimes at the side of the process. By the way, guys, I’m sorry you won’t be getting any smooths. What we can do or what you can do and what wonderful academy in California is doing is training people to assist. As trained therapists and use psychedelics and in that, or MDMA or ps or psilocybin in that to provide a skillful training to talk with somebody before to accompany them during and to help ’em integrate afterwards the work they need to do, whether it’s relationships, whether it’s, trauma from a war or childhood, or whether it’s just, yeah, needing to unpack the nitty gritty of life.
So I would say it needs to be done skillfully. ’cause as you can’t just do this on your own. It really does need, it really does need guidance.
Sam Believ: Yeah. Ayahuasca work is extremely powerful, but it is chaotic sometimes. And guidance definitely help. We try and do that by helping people set intentions and integrate that experience in the form of.
Written integration journals and also sharing circles. But yeah, if you could get a professional, that would be nice. Two episodes ago, if I’m not mistaken, we have interviewed Simon. Simon. He is a si, he’s a therapist. Who came here to, TO, and he expressed interest in volunteering and doing this kind of work.
So Simon, if you’re listening, we still remember about you. So
Tim Laurence: no, if somebody could come here where it, it’s acceptable, it’s legal and work with people before, during, and after, that would be great. What you do, and I don’t think you’ve given yourself enough credit for it. You model the word circle very well.
You and a couple of your assistants will start off the word circle to enable people as we go around in the group of 20 or so to speak deeply about their experiences. And in so doing that, they might even not have realized it before. And you also encourage us to journal it, anything that could make it more concrete rather than just, a memory of the night before.
Sam Believ: Definitely we’re trying our best and improving gradually. As you can see, this building behind you
Tim Laurence: made huge improvements since last year. Yeah, this huge building here where the ceremonies will be, but also you’ve got the coming up 10 cabins. You’ve got a wonderful pathway down to the river. You’ve got loads of same things and the food top notch.
Sam Believ: Yeah. As as a, from a perspective of somebody who also facilitates the retreats what do you think about the work we do or maybe just generally, what do you think is the future of those plant medicines and how does it make you feel? Is it, is it optimistic or, you
Tim Laurence: know I think even in the last few years we’ve seen a great acceptance of them.
Gal Matte gets mentioned quite a bit and his books sell hugely, has huge turnups for his talks and his coaching. I think he does a whole program and his podcasts and other people too. And I think, is it legal now in Austria or Portugal or, it’s legal in religious sense in Brazil and the us So it becomes more and more normalized.
So my hope is that as it becomes more normalized, it becomes more like a ritual, a rite of passage rather than something weird that we’ve gotta not mention. I like what you said to me once, which is a, rather than hearing, asking somebody, have you ever done ayahuasca? It will turn to, when was the last time you did ayahuasca?
But it needs, it does need a bit of public image work as it were, mark subtle marketing, but the marketing will be, people like you and me talk, telling our friends about it.
Sam Believ: Yeah. And also. This kinda work, creating content and for people to see more people who have done it before see that it is actually safe if it’s done responsibly, and that you can achieve great results.
And another famous person that I’ve heard about, what happened to Justin Bieber and why his why he walked away from his Hoffman process.
Tim Laurence: We can talk about Justin B because he actually mentioned it in an interview with one of the Vogue international editions. It isn’t for everybody, just as this isn’t for everybody.
You have to come when you are very ready. And I imagine that he wasn’t that well prepared for it, or too many people encouraged him because they could perhaps see he was having a really difficult time. And the fact a major star like that, there’s hundreds of people whose income depends upon him. So they wanted perhaps Justin, please clean up your act.
He wasn’t ready. It wasn’t his thing. I think he walked out. On, he said on the fourth day. ’cause it was just weird for him. And he said, I far prefer to go and hang out and hug my my, my wife. We try to vet people as much as we can beforehand. There’s an interview, there’s something like eight hours of written work to do that we’ll ask them not to.
Drink or, have too much of a social life right before we ask ’em to have a couple of days afterwards. But one thing came from the Justin Bieber disappearance. Other magazines then started saying calling us the world’s toughest therapy. Are you? Are you, can you handle the world’s toughest therapy?
It’s not that tough. And actually we don’t even really brand it as therapy. It’s parcel development, series of structured exercises really, you really use the day well that may or may not have a positive effect. Of course, we hope they do
Sam Believ: well. Yeah, I think I asked all the questions that I wanted to ask.
Is there anything else you wanna teach us about Hoffman methods or. Is there any message you want the audience to walk away with?
Tim Laurence: I’d just say people listening to this podcast or even searching the term personal development, ayahuasca Hoffman or whatever, are already interested.
At some point, people need to leave getting information and just trust an inner voice. ’cause that’s an inner voice that will help them in this work. That inner voice comes beyond just. Avery Day, executive function of the mind. So for all the people out there who are interested in personal ment, go with what you want.
When you are ready. When you are ready. The teacher is there.
Sam Believ: Beautiful words. Tim where can people find about you?
Tim Laurence: On the internet, Hoffman institute.co uk is our English one hoffman institute.org for the US or hoffman international.com. For the Hoffman International, it’s about 15 countries.
Sam Believ: Guys, you’ve been listening to Iowa podcast.com as always, with you the host, Sam Leaf.
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Nothing in this episode is medical advice and is for informational purposes only.