In today’s Solidarity Fridays Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk about current topics in the news including MindMed, psilocybin synthesis, treating climate grief with psychedelics, psychedelic decriminalization and more.

Show Notes

MindMed

• Psychedelic Pharmaceutical Company MindMed Develops LSD Neutralizer Technology To Shorten and Stop LSD Trips
• MindMed is a psychedelic Pharmaceutical company that is exploring LSD and patenting anything they find during the research
• Joe comments and says that organizations like Zendo are able to do optimal work and we don’t necessarily need a Pharma company to help in recreational/festival settings
  • But in a clinical setting, this is more necessary
• “Are these big companies coming into the space as allies are not?” – Joe
  • Joe says he thinks they are part of the ecosystem, for better or worse
• Joe says, imagine if drugs were legal, they would be so much safer
  • Kyle questions what legalization would look like not in a capitalistic market

Scientists Turn Yeast into Psychedelic Psilocybin Factories

• There is a lot of reason why people choose not to play in commodified markets
• “How do we know what is true? How do we know what is helpful for us?” – Joe
  • Joe says lets not have a quick easy answer
• “It’s infeasible and way too expensive to extract psilocybin from magic mushrooms and the best chemical synthesis methods require expensive and difficult-to-source starting substrates” – a quote from the article

Can Psychedelics Treat Climate Grief?

• 20 years is when it’s going to be really bad for climate change
• It’s been more prominent, people getting therapy for trauma of what’s happening in nature
• The question of a conference that Joe and Kyle attended was, “Can extraordinary experiences help save us from planetary, ecological collapse?”
  • We are able to make people feel more connected to ecological systems with psychedelics
• We have to be able to feel the grief, but we have to be able to act
• Are we stewards of the earth, or do we want to work pointless jobs and be a part of consumerism?

D.C. Would Vote To Decriminalize Psychedelics, Poll Shows

• If COVID wasn’t a thing currently, it looks like decrim would happen in the belly of the beast, in D.C.
  • Despite the public health crisis, its looks like citizens want to reassess entheogenic use
• “When there is hardship, creativity seems to spike” – Joe
  • Joe says to check out the microdose VR by Android Jones

About Kyle

Kyle’s interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle’s life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, “Stanislav Grof’s Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences,” and the other one which he co-created, “The History of Psychedelics.”

Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops.

About Joe

Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado.

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