In this episode, recorded in-person at Psychedelic Science 2023, Kyle interviews Senator for the Mexican Green Party, Alejandra Lagunes.
Lagunes is the first Senator in Mexico to promote the use of psychedelics, and has been organizing open parliaments to foster collaboration between researchers, scientists, politicians, and Indigenous people, culminating in a groundbreaking decriminalization initiative to decriminalize psilocybin and psilocin from list 1 to list 3 (meaning they could be prescribed), create a new chapter for entheogens (and move mushrooms there), build an economically beneficial framework for Indigenous people, protect ancestor knowledge by law, and make big bioconservation moves with changes to environmental laws.
She discusses her personal journey with depression, anxiety, and a life-saving ayahuasca journey; how Covid uncovered a crisis in meaning and an openness to talk about mental health; the need for accessibility and safety in psychedelics against challenges in politics and policy implementation; our mental health crisis and the need for innovation, education, and overcoming stigma; the influence of US drug control policies on international regulations; the power of storytelling; and why we need to go back to our origins.
Notable Quotes
“The world means to go back to the beginning, to the point of beginning. And I like to think that this psychedelic revolution or renaissance is actually going back to the beginning, to the essence. And that space: you have to talk about environment, you have to talk about the planet, you have to talk about ancestors and their relationship with the planet and with the community. …The revolution is going back to that space, outside and inside. It’s like going back to the origin.”
“The medicine is as important as the places they grow in. The medicine is in the ecosystem. You have heard about the mycelium. You can grow a mushroom in your house. That’s great. But the mycelium in those places: it’s for them, the medicine. The rain, the thunder, and the earth, the soil where the mushrooms are grown: it’s the medicine. So we have to protect those areas.”
“You know what I think all the countries should do? The World Health Organization (the WHO) has these lists of substances, and as countries, we can ask our governments to ask for a revision of those lists. So we have to start. Like, there are many ways we have to work the decriminalization. I mean, the psychedelics shouldn’t be in that list, and they are in an international list. So my question is why governments aren’t moving that list?”
In this episode, Joe interviews Stéphane Lasme, a former professional basketball player from Gabon who is now a partner at SteddeCapital, a private markets investment platform investing long-term capital into U.S.- and Africa-based opportunities across sports ownership, infrastructure, technology and plant medicine.
Lasme speaks of his childhood, growing up in Gabon with more traditional Catholic values while journeying deep into the jungle to visit his Grandmother every summer. It was there that he embraced the cultural aspect of Gabon and community, and first learned of iboga, which he had a profound experience with at age 12, and would later revisit in his basketball days. He discusses the drive and passion that led him to become the first person from Gabon to play in the NBA, and the subsequent pressure, stress, cultural differences, and “ok, what now?” moments that came at the end. He talks about Gabonese traditions; how iboga improved his stress relief and mental focus; how embracing yoga and Buddhist methods of self-discovery improved his life; scientific reductionism vs. the magic of mystery and trying to define an experience; and more.
While Gabon allows for the export of iboga, Lasme’s goal is to build a lab and treatment center in Gabon and share the power of Gabonese culture with people – so they can experience the medicine in its own country, with its traditional rituals and music. He has begun the fundraising process, and through his investment and facilitation work, is working to get African athletes to invest back into Africa and make Gabon a major destination for iboga.
Notable Quotes
“Deep inside, I wanted to be the first basketball player from Gabon to get drafted in the NBA. I never advertised this as a kid. I never advertised it to anyone. Even while I was at UMass, I never talked about it. But I know there is a relation between me going through that culture, that traditional experience, and me deciding to be that person. That’s why I say ‘me deciding who I want to be’; I think there is a big connection. And I can’t tell you or explain to you where the connection started, what triggered me thinking that way, but I just know it’s connected.”
“We have to believe in ourselves. Our stuff here, whatever we have in Gabon, is actually the shit. It’s actually the stuff that’s going to help everyone. Everyone is going to run towards us to look for solutions, so we should be prepared. We should be working on a better environment for people to come and just witness what kind of a great thing that we have going on in Gabon. This is the motivation I have today: really building this company, building this network, this ecosystem, this network of people in the states and in Gabon around this plant. That’s the main thing that motivates me.”
In this episode, Kyle interviews The Susan Hill Ward Endowed Professor of Psychedelics and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, and renowned researcher of nearly 20 years: Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D.
Recorded in-person at MAPS’ Psychedelic Science after running an 8-hour workshop on psychedelic therapy for addiction treatment, Johnson was still happy to sit down with PT to explore a wide range of topics: the under-researched concept of integration; how to best take advantage of optimal neuroplastic windows; why psycholytic therapy used to be more common; how our current protocols and research models are largely arbitrary; and his hopes for new, experimental, and flexible models of psychedelic therapy.
He also discusses his ongoing smoking cessation studies; the Oregon model (are we doing therapy or not?); misrepresentation in psychedelic therapy and knowing your lane; and the role of music in psychedelics: why shouldn’t people pick the music they know will give them goosebumps?
Notable Quotes
“How in the world could there be these beneficial effects that we can see in someone’s behavior (their substance use, their depression) 6 months, a year later from one, two, or three medication experiences that were time-limited? …People are changing the way they’re operating. And the more you start to do that, and that starts to become the new normal, so it’s not just ending at the psychedelic session or even in the explicit integration sessions where you talk about your psychedelic therapy or your psychedelic session; but then, if you put into practice – like actually changing the way you’re operating in the world and that becomes the new normal – I think that’s what’s happening to explain why we’re seeing these beneficial effects six months, a year later. It’s just kind of the causal nature of the therapeutic mechanisms unfolding over time in a kind of a living, organic way, because people are interfacing with reality in a different way, that can, if they’re doing it right, it can have a feed-forward effect, like, ‘Oh, this actually works. I feel better. I’m doing better in life when I do things more this way than the way I used to do them.’”
“The nice thing that’s probably going to happen once we get out of this phase, at least with, like, psilocybin and MDMA where it’s only in clinical approved research now, if they’re approved by the FDA for straight up treatment, FDA is not going to control what music you use or how you integrate and all these other things. And so there’s going to be this wave of naturalistic experimentation which is going to be really cool. And then hopefully people are safe, but hopefully there’s an integration of the communication of the art of the practice of medicine and psychology. It’s like just through that communication – like what tends to work, what tends not to work, people sharing ideas – I’m looking forward to that.”
Neurology physician Dr. Burton Tabaac’s interest in psychedelics began almost by accident. He happened upon the topic through a 2019 presentation during his fellowship training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine – and may not have pursued a dedicated interest in the field if he hadn’t attended.
“… In four years of medical school and four years of residency training, psychedelics were not mentioned – not even once as part of a comprehensive allopathic education,” Tabaac told Psychedelics Today.
The Hopkins lecture inspired the physician down a non-typical path for those in his profession: research on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in treating mental health diseases. Today, he explores psychedelics beyond their traditional association with mental health. Entities inclusive of Parkinson’s disease, dementia, stroke, and traumatic brain injury are of particular intrigue with potential for psychedelics to promote healing, Tabaac shares.
Exploring Psychedelics’ Versatility
In his recently appointed role for the Mckenna Academy of Natural Philosophy, founded by Dennis McKenna, Dr. Tabaac serves as an advisor for educational pursuits and evidence-based methodology. Through this collaboration, he is dedicated to investigating the possible role of psychedelics beyond their use in the mental health realm, and is passionate about exploring whether these substances could help with functional neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.
“There are specific indications that I feel warrant additional study and funding to assess and discover,” he says. “There has already been a lot of research and literature published dedicated to psychedelics for treating depression, anxiety, addiction and PTSD; I’m very eager to partner in pushing the frontier further to investigate what else psychedelics may have the potential to address.”
In the current landscape of psychedelic research, this alliance highlights the evolving role of physicians stepping beyond traditional methods to investigate alternative solutions. The demand for more research signifies a promising future for psychedelic research, with the potential of extending the possibilities of these substances in treating various conditions.
Obstacles to Holistic Approaches
In the healthcare world, it isn’t uncommon to find that many doctors tend to favor Western medicine while overlooking holistic approaches. Doctors don’t typically embrace integrative routes, because the current medical system is guided primarily by evidence-based research, Tabaac says. Treatments typically require strong evidence of their efficacy before they are widely adopted, which doesn’t bode well for most federally scheduled psychedelics in relative nascent stages of research.
“I also think that having psychedelics as a restricted Schedule I class of drugs prohibits a lot of providers from even being able to offer these therapeutics off-label,” he says. “When you look at where the medical/legal field is heading, there’s a lot of promise with the Phase 3 trial that MAPS has presented demonstrating the potential for MDMA to treat PTSD.”
PTSD patients in the MAPS study received three doses of MDMA, supplemented with psychotherapy. The trial results yielded 50 per cent of participants no longer meeting the criteria for PTSD. One year later, without any additional MDMA doses, the number of patients no longer meeting the criteria increased to 70 per cent, “showing that there is some underlying effect on the brain that is sustainable,” Tabaac said.
The MAPS study highlights the transformative impact that psychedelics – combined with psychotherapy – can have on mental health disorders like PTSD, Tabaac says. As more research emerges, it is expected that the medical community will gradually embrace these alternative treatments and integrate them into mainstream healthcare, ultimately empowering physicians to treat patients with greater efficacy and enriching the field of allopathic medicine.
The Power of Virtual Community for Doctors
Back in December 2021, Tabaac stumbled across the Psychedelics Anonymous(PA)platform, a web3 community that shared his enthusiasm for the potential of NFTs to bridge communities of like minded individuals. PA offers a secure environment where members can connect without revealing their identities, utilizing avatars to engage in discussions about psychedelics, and exchange personal or professional experiences.
Membership in Psychedelics Anonymous brought with it additional perks, Tabaac said, offering access to educational opportunities such as a plant medicine course at Cornell and participation in the recent Psychedelic Science 2023 conference in Denver. The project has also established a podcast, The Zero Hour, where Tabaac interviews the top minds in the psychedelic space. The most valuable aspect, Tabaac says, was the connections made with fellow colleagues. He connected with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and researchers who were curious about psychedelic medicine and established this virtual space where they could openly discuss without stigma, judgment, or fear of retribution.
“I attribute a lot of my own development and personal growth and passion for the space to the Psychedelics Anonymous project, because prior to getting involved in that community, there was trepidation over being judged by friends and by society at large, as a lot of the negative press and stigma still remains, dating back to Nixon’s War on Drugs,” he says. Psychedelics Anonymous also catalyzed Tabaac’s passion in the field to present a TEDx talk discussing Mental Health Meets Psychedelics. In this talk listeners are challenged to question their preconceived notions and judgements as it pertains to the group of restricted therapeutics in the psychedelic class. Tabaac asks if this class of drugs can serve as a paradigm shift in the way mindfulness therapy and mental health is approached.
Balancing Passion and Clinical Practice
Dr. Tabaac recognizes the difference between his passion for advancing psychedelic medicine and his commitment to ethics. “I infrequently discuss psychedelics with my patient population, exceptions including clinical trial offerings if inclusion criteria is met. Doctors and health practitioners are constrained by the limits of their medical licensure, and must remain patient until FDA approval is achieved,” Tabaac says. “I think it’s still premature and out of my scope to offer psychedelics to my patients. My mission and my role is better served in pushing clinical research forward, commiting patient enrollment in trials, and inviting speakers who are experts in the psychedelic space to present on my podcast I incorporate teachings on psychedelics to the medical students that rotate with me as it is the only space where they have exposure to learning about these modalities. The enthusiasm and interest among the next generation of physicians is encouraging.”
The demand for alternative mental health solutions continues to increase. Organizations like the Psychedelic Medicine Association, dedicated to providing ketamine treatments and with whom Tabaac is affiliated, are addressing the needs of individuals seeking non-traditional routes. While certain prescriptions may fall beyond the scope of some physicians, adopting a holistic approach becomes crucial. With physicians like Tabaac considering various facets of a person’s well-being, such as sleep, lifestyle, nutrition, social support, mindfulness practices and physical health, individuals can benefit from more comprehensive and personalized mental health care. This avenue goes beyond medications, recognizing the broader needs of patients. It underscores the importance of tending to various dimensions of a person’s life to foster holistic well-being and empowers individuals to explore diverse modalities for emotional harmony. Tabaac emphasizes the moniker of focusing “mental health as part of whole health.”
The Future of Psychedelic Medicine
For physicians like Tabaac, exploring the uncharted waters of psychedelic medicine opens up new possibilities for patient treatment and professional development. It provides access to innovative therapies, nurtures professional growth, and enables them to explore new frontiers beyond the constraints of conventional methods. By breaking stigma, advancing the field, and advocating for holistic modalities, physicians have the opportunity to play a pivotal role in enhancing the field of mental health and allopathy, offering new hope and potential healing pathways to patients. A new era in Western medicine, where evidence-based methodologies, holistic approaches, and comprehensive care intersect, holds the potential for a transformative landscape on the healthcare horizon.
She shares her journey of how she became involved in the psychedelic space through her mother, and her personal experience as a patient in a clinical trial on psilocybin for the treatment of anorexia – a much more common and deadly affliction than most people realize. She discusses her involvement with the various psychedelic gatherings surrounding Davos and the World Economic Forum, as well as the work she’s doing with Tabula Rasa and some of their clients seeking to expand insurance coverage to psychedelic-assisted therapy.
She discusses the Synthesis Institute’s recent struggles that shook up the psychedelic space, what they’re doing to save the company, how Retreat Guru has helped them, and the implications for the wider psychedelic movement. And she talks about much more: the legality and vetting process for training in Oregon and Colorado; truffles in the Netherlands vs. classic psilocybin; the idea of alcohol as poison and ‘Cali sober,’ and how can we all be more collaborative and not sling mud at each other?
Notable Quotes
“The limitations are really when you’ve been in therapy, you’ve seen a nutritionist for five, ten years; you have all the tools there, you know what you’re supposed to do (this can be applied to things like depression or anxiety or any other mental issue), but those neural pathways that have been connecting and forming with those negative thought patterns for decades: for people, they’re not going to undo themselves. It takes more motivation than I have ever had to break my cycles, and I really felt stuck. I don’t think I was going to ever get better than I was at the time without something like psychedelics.”
“It could set the temperature for a lot of other psychedelic organizations and movements to say, ‘This isn’t working and let me show you why. If this goes up in flames, then what else is possible?’ And the space is already greatly under-funded and financiers look at this and they’re like, ‘I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. This is too early, or this is too risky, or X, Y, and Z.’ So that was really the scary part of the first few weeks of what this meant for the movement at large: if we can’t pull it off, then who can?”
“This whole thing has been like a great big psychedelic trip: use our learning towards being a facilitator, towards facilitating ourselves through this chaos. There has to be chaos within to give birth to a dancing star, I think is what Nietzsche said. We’ll be that dancing star.”
Become a neuroscience-informed participant in the psychedelic space.
Clinicians and therapists have an increasing interest in psychedelic therapies. However, many don’t know the scientific evidence on how they work at the level of the brain. The information in this special course can help inform your therapeutic approaches and how you can better guide your clients to conceptualize their experiences.
What you’ll learn:
An introduction to brain structure and function
Background on how the brain is altered in mood disorders and how psychedelics may help counter these changes for therapeutic benefit
In-depth explanations of psychedelic neuropharmacology, neuroimaging, and leading theories of psychedelic brain effects
Therapeutic mechanisms of psychedelics at the cellular, circuit, and global brain level
The science of set and setting
An exploration of how psychedelics can enhance human potential
What makes this course special?
The lectures and accompanying live study groups will provide a comprehensive and accessible overview of the neural mechanisms underlying the psychedelic experience and its therapeutic action.
The curriculum is designed with relevance for clinical best practices in mind and includes in-depth discussions of the latest evidence on ‘set and setting’ factors that contribute to the nature of psychedelic experiences, the holistic effects of psychedelics on the brain, nervous system, and body, and how psychedelics differ from standard pharmacological treatments.
What you’ll receive when you enroll in this course:
10+ hours of course material
12 hours of face-to-face time with the instructors via Zoom (eight 1.5-hour calls)
Access to chat live with expert guest presenters
Connect with others to build an online community
Lifetime access to the course material
Finishing the course as a neuroscientifically informed participant in the psychedelic space
Course Curriculum Outline:
UNIT 1 – Introduction to Neuroscience and Psychedelics
UNIT 2 – The Neuropsychological Paradigm of Psychedelic Therapy
UNIT 3 – Psychedelic Pharmacology I
UNIT 4 – Psychedelic Pharmacology II
UNIT 5 – Cellular and Peripheral Therapeutic Mechanisms
UNIT 6 – Experiential, Circuit, & Large-Scale (Neuroimaging) Therapeutic Mechanisms
This new course offering by Psychedelics Today merges our best-selling Navigating Psychedelics education library with a new curriculum taught by an amazing teaching team composed of Jewish / Israeli experts.
Throughout 9-weeks, our lead instructor David Drapkin, LCSW, will cover traditional subjects such as Set & Setting, Harm Reduction, Space Holding and Integration, as well as specifically curated topics on the cultural, phenomenological, mystical, and spiritual aspects of Jewish psychedelic use.
A different guest instructor will join David each week to give a brief presentation and engage in open Q&A with students.
Classes are in English and last for 90 minutes. Students are also welcome to stay in the Zoom for another 30 minutes each week to schmooze with other students in either an English or Ivrit breakout group!
Students do not need to be Jewish or Israeli to enroll in this course. The course is open to clinicians and wellness practitioners seeking advanced cultural competence and non-practitioners interested in the intersectionality of psychedelic consciousness/healing with Jewish traditions and contemporary experiential realities.
Navigating Psychedelics Overview:
This course includes our flagship course library from Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Wellness Practitioners – a course specially designed for health and wellness practitioners who want to learn more about psychedelic medicine, wish to integrate psychedelics into their existing practice, and those beginning a new career in the emerging field of psychedelics.
At Psychedelics Today, we have tapped our extensive professional psychedelic network to address the complexities around psychedelic therapy. This course enhances prior knowledge of psychedelics or serves as an introduction to this emerging field of healthcare.
What will I learn?
By enrolling in Navigating Psychedelics, you will be educated on the most up-to-date information on psychedelics, including:
Course Curriculum
Introduction To Psychedelics
In this section, you will learn the etymology of the word “psychedelic” and the different classes of psychoactive substances. You will explore the effects of psychedelics, the difference between tryptamines and phenethylamines, and how psychedelic substances affect the brain.
Preparation, Safety, and Harm Reduction
In this section, you will learn harm reduction tips and techniques for staying safe, such as testing your substances. You will also learn about creating a safe set and setting, festival safety, and much more.
Going Out: The Psychedelic Experience – Exploring Dr. Stanislav Grof’s Theories and Framework
In this section, you will develop a framework and understanding of the psychedelic experience through the work and theories of Stanislav Grof. You will also learn tips and advice for navigating difficult experiences if they should arise in an experience.
Coming Back:Exploring Self-Care & Integration
In this section, you will learn how to ground from the psychedelic experience and learn self-care tips and practices. Understanding how to care for yourself after an experience is an important first step in the integration process. You will explore what the term integration means and how to integrate your experience after you have returned from your journey. You will learn integration tips and practices so that you can move your experience forward in life and learn what it means to “move towards wholeness.”
Assessment and Harm Reduction with Clients
In this section, you will learn the risks and contraindications of psychedelics and psychedelic therapy and how to assess the safety of the client who may be disclosing potential use or attending ceremonies. Students will explore the topic of spiritual emergence and emergency and how to assess this nuanced area. Students will also be asked to reflect upon how their beliefs about psychedelics may or may not affect their work with clients.
Ethics, Laws, and Legal Psychedelic Work
While psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is not currently available or legal in many areas, students will explore the laws and ethics of providing integration services and legal psychedelic therapy such as ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
Exploring Integration Work With Clients and Client Cases
Students will explore various frameworks for providing integrating services and begin to think about their integration theory. For those working with clients, this class will also offer an opportunity to explore challenges in providing integration services.
Master Classes
The master classes are the heart of this course. You will have access to 15+ master classes led by experts in the psychedelic field, covering various topics from integration, harm reduction, understanding spiritual emergence, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, legal considerations, and tips/advice for sitting for holotropic states of consciousness.
He talks about how an early interest in lucid dreaming sent him down a psychedelic path, and how, as his interest in mushrooms has grown, he’s watched the culture shift from a narrative of mycophobia to one of appreciation and interest. With FreshCap Mushrooms and The Mushroom Show, he aims to provide much needed education around this vast and mysterious world of fungi.
He talks about the thriving psilocybin scene in Jamaica, and how, through filming a documentary there, he learned how much communities still don’t know about mushrooms, how much tourism supports the country, and how much of a special vibe Jamaica has for psilocybin retreats.
And he discusses much more: why lion’s mane should help with concussions and TBIs; indications mushrooms could heal, from long Covid to paralysis; concerns over over-medicalization; why Terence McKennas’ ideas weren’t as crazy as many thought; visiting mushroom shops in Canada; the secret language of mushrooms; where psychedelic people can start to learn about functional mushrooms; and why, if he could embody any mushroom, it’d be cordyceps.
Notable Quotes
“We draw these arbitrary lines as human beings between: psychedelic mushrooms are over here, functional mushrooms are over here, and poisonous mushrooms are over here. But the mushrooms don’t do that. It’s just a spectrum where they’re creating all these crazy compounds for all these different reasons and they just happen to interact with our bodies in different ways.”
“It’s not just that they change your consciousness or make you see colors or make you laugh or whatever; they do seem to have this ability to dig out very specific things or show you things in a different way that can have really profound impacts on your life afterwards. And that’s something I think we still haven’t figured out, is like: how the hell did mushrooms do that? How do they know how to find exactly what you might need to be dealing with? Not always, but they have this ability to be like, ‘Hey, here’s something you haven’t thought about in 20 years. This is important. You should look at this.’ I still can’t get over how amazing that is and how that works.”
“I thought, ‘Okay, the reason why people are going down here is just because they forgot to make it illegal and it just provided this weird niche opportunity in the world for people to go and experience mushrooms.’ But it’s way more than that. Jamaica is a very special, magical place. …The fact that they grow there, it’s just a vibe. It’s a whole thing, and I can see why. I can see why people would want to go there for psilocybin therapy or the psilocybin retreat experience, just because number one: it takes you away from your normal kind of day-to-day life, but there is something special about sitting in front of the ocean as the sun is going down in a beautiful location and feeling that profound impact of mushrooms at the same time. It’s a very special place.”
Join us for an evening with Kyle Buller and David Drapkin from Psychedelics Today as they delve into the depths of their own profound Near Death Experiences (NDEs) via a snowboarding accident and electrocution and share how these transformative encounters shaped their psycho-spiritual paths. Discover the intriguing parallels between psychedelic non-ordinary states of consciousness and NDEs, as they unveil the hidden connections that bridge these remarkable realms.
In this captivating event, we’ll explore the enigmatic realm of death, understanding how it can enable us to engage more authentically with life itself. Delve into the wisdom gained from near-death encounters and psychedelic voyages as Kyle and David offer their unique perspectives on how these extraordinary moments can catalyze profound personal growth and spiritual awakening. After the fireside, there will be a thought-provoking Q&A session.
Don’t miss this special occasion to bid David Drapkin farewell before his exciting move to Israel on August 22, making it an evening of celebration and reflection! There will be light snacks and dancing until 10:30!
Join Joe Moore, CEO and co-founder of Psychedelics Today, in discussing breathwork and why it is relevant to the psychedelic space.
This free session starts at 9 am Mountain, 11 AM Eastern.
Joe has been involved in Holotropic Breathwork since 2003 and has facilitated other forms of breathwork for many years since then in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts.
Psychedelics Today proudly presents an immersive, two-day in-person course designed specifically for clinicians: “Navigating Psychedelics: Vital Tools for Risk Reduction and Integration.” Set in colorful Miami on October 7-8, 2023, this course offers you a comprehensive exploration of the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances.
Dive into psychedelic therapy and learn from experienced professionals in the field. Our course will empower you with the knowledge, tools, and firsthand experiences necessary to integrate psychedelic-assisted therapies into your practice safely and effectively.
What the Course Offers:
History of Psychedelics – Journey through time to discover the rich history of psychedelic use across cultures, including its reintroduction to modern culture. Unearth the origins of these substances and gain insights into how past practices can inform the future of psychedelic therapy.
Psychedelic Theory – Grasp the underlying theories that drive psychedelic science. Understand the bio-psycho-social mechanisms behind the psychedelic experience and how these substances can catalyze profound therapeutic transformations.
Psychedelic Practice – Experience the practical aspects of psychedelic therapy in a breathwork experience. Learn to navigate sessions, understand different substances, and handle challenging experiences. Familiarize yourself with established protocols and cutting-edge techniques in the field.
Psychedelic Risk Reduction – Equip yourself with strategies to mitigate the potential risks associated with psychedelic use. Learn to create safe spaces and manage difficult experiences to help support clients in ideal healing and personal growth environments.
Psychedelic Integration Techniques and Tools – Delve into the art of psychedelic integration. Master techniques to help your clients make sense of their experiences, weave their insights into their everyday lives, and nurture lasting change.
Breathwork Experience – Embark on a transformative journey through breathwork, which can mirror the psychedelic state. Experience firsthand how this non-pharmacological tool can supplement your therapeutic toolbox.
Interactive Q&A Sessions – Engage in dynamic discussions with our experienced team. Get your questions answered, clarify your doubts, and contribute to the learning experience of all participants.
What You’ll Get
Two days of live group-based learning and connection. Priceless.
Membership to our online community platform, including a private group with everyone else in your class.
Join us in sunny Miami this October to deepen your understanding, hone your skills, and become a part of the exciting frontier of psychedelic therapy. Reserve your spot today for ‘Navigating Psychedelics: Vital Tools for Risk Reduction and Integration’ and help shape the future of mental health care!
Note: Seats are limited to maintain an intimate learning environment, so don’t delay. Embark on this transformative journey with us!
Psychedelics Today proudly presents an immersive, two-day in-person course designed specifically for clinicians: “Navigating Psychedelics: Vital Tools for Risk Reduction and Integration.” Set in Denver, Colorado, on November 10 and 11, this course offers a comprehensive exploration of the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances.
Dive into psychedelic therapy and learn from experienced professionals in the field. Our course will empower you with the knowledge, tools, and firsthand experiences necessary to integrate psychedelic-assisted therapies into your practice safely and effectively.
What the Course Offers:
History of Psychedelics – Journey through time to discover the rich history of psychedelic use across cultures, including its reintroduction to modern culture. Unearth the origins of these substances and gain insights into how past practices can inform the future of psychedelic therapy.
Psychedelic Theory – Grasp the underlying theories that drive psychedelic science. Understand the bio-psycho-social mechanisms behind the psychedelic experience and how these substances can catalyze profound therapeutic transformations.
Psychedelic Practice – Experience the practical aspects of psychedelic therapy in a breathwork experience. Learn to navigate sessions, understand different substances, and handle challenging experiences. Familiarize yourself with established protocols and cutting-edge techniques in the field.
Psychedelic Risk Reduction – Equip yourself with strategies to mitigate the potential risks associated with psychedelic use. Learn to create safe spaces and manage difficult experiences to help support clients in ideal environments for healing and personal growth.
Psychedelic Integration Techniques and Tools – Delve into the art of psychedelic integration. Master techniques to help your clients make sense of their experiences, weave their insights into their everyday lives, and nurture lasting change.
Breathwork Experience – Embark on a transformative journey through breathwork, which can mirror the psychedelic state. Experience firsthand how this non-pharmacological tool can supplement your therapeutic toolbox.
Interactive Q&A Sessions – Engage in dynamic discussions with our experienced team. Get your questions answered, clarify your doubts, and contribute to the learning experience of all participants.
What You’ll Get
Two days of live group-based learning and connection. Priceless.
Membership to our online community platform, including a private group with everyone else in your class
Join us in sunny Colorado this November to deepen your understanding, hone your skills, and become a part of the exciting frontier of psychedelic therapy. Reserve your spot today for ‘Navigating Psychedelics: Vital Tools for Risk Reduction and Integration‘ and help shape the future of mental health care!
Note: Seats are limited to maintain an intimate learning environment, so don’t delay. Embark on this transformative journey with us!
In this episode, recorded on the eve of MAPS’ Psychedelic Science 2023, Kyle interviews MAPS’ Founder and President, Rick Doblin, Ph.D.
He begins with an overview of the fast-approaching (and largest ever) psychedelics conference, emphasizing its significant growth, many features, and bipartisan opening ceremony, then discusses MAPS’ soon-to-be-released confirmatory Phase III data on MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, which should set the stage for legal MDMA and the increasing need for trained psychedelic therapists.
As the FDA is requiring studies on adolescents, he discusses this sensitive issue and questions why it’s so controversial, since teenage years are often closer to both trauma and a more malleable brain, Indigenous traditions certainly didn’t have age limits, and honest drug education – something that is absolutely necessary to fight the backlash against this quickly growing field – teaches us that it’s not the substance; it’s our relationship to it. Could not having these rites of passage be hurting us?
He also discusses the natural vs. synthetic conflict; breathwork; whether or not cannabis is truly damaging to young minds; Federal rescheduling vs. state rescheduling; why it’s controversial to give therapists MDMA in training; Gul Dolen’s work with reopening critical periods; psychedelics in couples therapy; and much more.
Notable Quotes
“We have been just astonished at the fact that we now have 11,500 people registered for this conference, and we, in our wildest dreams, thought maybe we’d get up to 10,000. But even that was just like a wild dream. The largest psychedelic conference that’s ever happened was our Psychedelic Science in 2017. …Now we’re almost four times as big. It’s a whole different cultural moment, and what I didn’t fully anticipate is how this conference would be like a magnet for the entire community.”
“I think the proper training of psychedelic therapists is different than the proper training of psychiatrists to administer any kind of pharmacological drugs, because for psychiatry; when they give SSRIs or they give other kinds of medications or they give electroconvulsive therapy or whatever: those are meant to be the treatments. In our case, the treatment is really the human relationship – the therapy – and then the psychedelics make the therapy more effective. And so it makes the most sense for people that are interested in doing psychedelic therapy, for them to have the experience of the psychedelics themselves. As we start to scale, there’s a lot of experienced trauma therapists, but they might not be experienced psychonauts, and it’s hard to describe what a drug does.”
“When you think about these rites of passage, that when you’re an adolescent or early in college, those are the ripe times for people to sort of explore: who are they? Where do they fit into the larger world? I think in many Indigenous cultures, that’s the time of initiation for a lot of people, so I think we have hurt ourselves tremendously. Now, you hear this always about marijuana: ‘kids [have] developing brains and they shouldn’t ever try marijuana.’ And I think the thing is that overuse is a problem. Daily use before you go to school: all that is a problem. It makes it difficult to learn, things like that. But we tend to make sweeping statements like ‘never use.’”
Peace signs reigned in the 70s. Yin yangs were the symbol of the 90s. And today? Mushrooms have become the token of our generation.
Mushrooms. Are. Everywhere. You’ll find them on and in everything, from home decor to health foods, festival campgrounds, and your morning beverage. Our ancestors used mushrooms for thousands of years, so why did fungi fever hit so suddenly in the 2020s?
Trend or Truthsayer?
Civilization is at a turning point. Climate activists fear the worst, mental health issues are at an all-time high, and the political landscape seems more tumultuous than ever. With fear and uncertainty all around us, our collective whole-body and societal health is suffering, and people are desperate for solutions.
It’s no secret that the Western healthcare model wasn’t designed to cure the root of illnesses, but instead, to address their symptoms. While pharmaceuticals can be lifesaving, they’re not a sustainable treatment for long-term use for many illnesses, with side effects that sometimes cause more harm than the initial diagnosis. Patients may be better served by combining the cutting-edge science of Western practices alongside the ancient wisdom of Eastern modalities. Enter the mushroom.
Therapists, practitioners, and doctors have begun to take a holistic approach to caregiving by incorporating plant medicines into their protocols. Innovators and entrepreneurs are taking action too, developing mushroom-based products to enhance the body’s natural ability to protect itself from toxins, stressors, and ultimately, to heal itself. Canada-based Mind Mend carries a full line of capsules, gummies, and fruiting bodies they say were designed to address the current health crisis.
“People are turning to psilocybin in their search for alternatives to traditional mental health treatments,” Mind Mend founder Matt Smith told Psychedelics Today. “They’re disheartened by the side effects and potential dependence associated with pharmaceuticals, and we provide access to the healing benefits of mushrooms – a natural, plant-based solution.”
“We encounter a prevalent myth: that psilocybin mushrooms are solely recreational or even harmful. We’re here to challenge that. We see psilocybin as a valuable tool for mental health, capable of therapeutic wonders when used responsibly,” Smith continued. “It’s not solely a substance for supporting creativity and freedom, but a potential lifeline for those struggling with mental health issues.”
*While psilocybin has shown promise for improving mental health or performance, it’s strongly advised that those curious about utilizing them, magical or otherwise, do personal research and seek resources that are vetted by community and/or industry professionals.
Form & Fungtion
There are over 50,000 (!) species of mushrooms, and many have various benefits including boosting immunity, increasing energy levels, aiding in digestion, improving sleep, and enhancing cognitive performance. Functional mushrooms, or adaptogenic mushrooms, are non-psychedelic fungi that contain biologically active compounds that have been used for thousands of years due to their superfood characteristics.
The most popular include reishi, chaga, lion’s mane, cordyceps, tremella, and turkey tail, and even non-mushroom lovers can reap their rewards. Functional mushroom company Fungies offers three delicious, vegan gummy blends which include lion’s mane for brain health, cordyceps for energy and performance, and reishi for immunity and stress. And this conscious company also gives back with every purchase.
Rob Kaufman, Fungies co-founder explains, “After the birth of my son I realized how important proper nutrition was for both expecting mothers and children. That’s why we’re proud to partner with Vitamin Angels to help provide women and children with the nutritional support they need to build the foundation for a healthy life. For every bottle of Fungies sold, we make a 1-for-1 donation to provide a pregnant woman or child with life-changing nutritional support around the world and here at home. We’re helping to build a healthier world, one gummy at a time.”
In addition to the tangible health benefits of functional mushrooms, psilocybin-bearing mushrooms have more abstract, yet deeply impactful advantages. Psilocybin can heighten our sensory perceptions and awareness of self. Research is also showing promise in treating end-of-life depression, suicidal ideation, addiction, traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and more. Psilocybin can conjure feelings of wholeness and connectedness within those partaking, and those perspectives may remain even after the trip fades.
Are you interested in using psilocybin for personal exploration? Join us in Jamaica this fall, with two retreats in an idyllic island location to choose from. Learn more and secure your space today! https://psychedelicstoday.com/events/
Similar to cannabis, different strains and types of mushrooms offer various benefits and they can be consumed in many forms. Take Brain Flow honey for example, by Haj Botanics. Their proprietary microdosing honey formula combines the innate antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of raw honey with their specially cultivated Shakti psilocybin mushroom blend, designed to help unlock creative potential, enhance mental clarity, and offer relief from anxiety and ADHD symptoms. Their Brain Buzz line is an adaptogenic, non-psychedelic blend formulated to bolster energy, enhance skin and heart health, and improve cognitive function. All of their lines are available both as infused honey and vegan capsules, ensuring accessibility for diverse dietary preferences.
Mushrooms have served as agents of transformation and healing in the lives of Haj Botanics’ founders, Hayley and Taj. Hayley is a courageous sex trafficking survivor whose journey to recovery led her to mushrooms. Their ability to provide not just temporary relief, but enduring, deep-seated healing, brought about profound change in her life and opened her eyes to their power and effectiveness. Taj, who once struggled with ADHD and the complexities of racial identity, found solace and understanding through his work with mushrooms. His personal experiences of enhanced focus, calm, and emotional resilience through microdosing illuminated a path towards holistic mental wellness that was not previously clear to him.
Honey and gummies are just the tip of the shroom-berg. Coffee replacements, beverage elixirs, tinctures, teas, and chocolates are inundating our IG feeds and DMs. But in addition to mushroom-infused consumables, mushroom experiences are gaining popularity, too. With the rise in demand for psychedelic therapists and coaches, it’s essential that clinicians be practically trained with professional guides to safely provide sessions to those in need. Psychedelics Today is working alongside Kiyumi Retreats to offer legal opportunities in the Netherlands for practitioners to work with psilocybin in a group setting. We’re not only holding a container for personal healing, but our Vital students are able to work with the medicine and be a facilitator for their colleagues. So regardless of psychedelic comfort level, mushrooms in all their beautiful forms are becoming more accessible by the minute.
Mycelium Breakdown
Not only are mushrooms valuable in enhancing the human experience in mind, body, and spirit, but they have superpower-like abilities in remediating environmental distress. Unlike plants that get their energy from the sun, mushrooms thrive by decomposing organic matter like plants, animals, and other substances potentially toxic to humans. Organizations like Corenewal are actively conducting mycoremediation projects on sites damaged by oil spills, chemical leaching, and wildfires; they are researching how fungi can clean contaminated waterways and soils polluted with heavy metals – mushrooms are not a phase, but our future!
Maybe the best part about them is that they are able to be grown anywhere and even in the comfort of our homes. From home-grow companies like Wonderbags, you can purchase a kit today and learn how to cultivate your favorite strains.
Zach Dorsett, Wonderbags founder says, “Mushrooms are a model for our society. In the mycelium, individual cells connect with each other, work together, and share resources for the benefit of all of the cells. They recycle waste into resources for growth and elevate one another to higher purposes. Mushrooms can greatly impact physical health, provide food security and sustainability to local economies. Many mushrooms are not only nutritious, but in some cases, give us access to superfoods that can only be found in them. Lions mane, for instance, is the only known source for Hericenones and Erinacines which have been shown to have powerful neurogenic and neuro-regenerative properties. I have a lot of gratitude for the community of Indigenous people that paved the way for us to heal with mushrooms.”
Join us from Sept. 6. – 11 in the tranquil Dutch countryside for a unique psilocybin retreat. Shared and private rooms available, and a few spaces remain. Secure your spot and learn more today. https://psychedelicstoday.com/events/
Shroom Bloom or Gloom?
While we support the exploration of psilocybin (and other mushrooms) for their healing potential, it’s worth acknowledging that there is no quick fix for mental illness or centuries of humanity’s planetary impact. Doing deep work is essential to discovering the source of our dis-ease in order to heal ourselves, our society, and the environment.
So while the explosion of the mushroom market is promising, remain cautious about companies claiming to cure this and solve that. Education is paramount, understanding topics like personal dosing, legality, set and setting, and mental health history, can make or break an experience. There is still much work to be done to heal our culture, but a future with more mushrooms may be a brighter one for humanity. If we can learn anything from them, it’s that symbiosis is key – we are all interconnected and the health of one is the health of all.
In this episode, Joe interviews Sarko Gergerian, MS, MHC, CARC: a police peer support, community outreach, and health-fitness officer; founding member of the Community and Law Enforcement Assisted Recovery Program (C.L.E.A.R.); and psychotherapist trained in ketamine- and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.
Any regular listener of the show should be familiar with how passionately Joe is against the drug war and the resulting policing of what many of us feel should be legal, so this in-person conversation with a police officer who seems to mostly be on our side is pretty refreshing to hear.
Gergerian discusses his entry into the force in his 30s, and what it was like to bring in a healthy “why is this illegal?” viewpoint on drug use and personal agency vs. the slow moving attitudes he saw in much of law enforcement. He talks about how working nightclub security taught him about safe spaces; the problems with officers not proactively moving on actionable information and building relationships with communities; and the very philosophy behind law enforcement: what do they hope to accomplish, do they want to make real change, and do they believe in the laws they’re enforcing?
And they discuss so much more: the need for diversity, cultural competency, and broadness in perspective; the criminalization of self-directed behavior; the effect critical incidents have on officers; drug war paranoia, legitimate concerns over hotlines and sensitive data, and psychedelic culture’s relationships with police; creating a culture of harm reduction within law enforcement, and what it might look like for police officers to receive psychedelic therapy.
Notable Quotes
“I think we, as a country, are more powerful by being diverse, and that includes diverse ways of thinking and that includes diverse ways of coming at challenges. And the more diverse our police departments are – I believe this with all my heart – the stronger we are for it. The stronger policing is for it. And I’m talking all types of diversity. …If we can diversify not only ways of thinking in police, but have a diversity of education and background in policing, then we’ll see some magic happen. Then we’ll see some creativity in how we respond to these very human problems that we all experience.”
“Keeping people alive has to be primary. If you don’t have a person that’s alive, you don’t have the possibility of recovery. So we’re tasked with watching out for one another, making sure people are alive, and whatever relationship they have with intoxicating substances: that’s their personal story, and they’re going to get to their healing journey and their recovery from any out-of-balance relationship in due time – their time.”
“I’ve been trained in [ketamine] and I was able to access it, so I’ve experienced it [at] very low dose (intermuscular). Magical. Magical. And the after effect for a couple of weeks, the reprieve, the relaxed feeling: it was beautiful. It was beautiful. And why shouldn’t our officers who are getting dark be able to access that before they’re pegged with depression? …Why shouldn’t they be able to access that before they put the barrel of the gun in their mouth, by themselves in their police cruiser? Why? Because you need a diagnostic label to access self-care? It makes absolutely no sense to me.”
In this episode, Joe interviews one of the world’s leading experts on human performance: New York Times bestselling author and Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective, Steven Kotler.
Kotler’s work explores the neurobiology of peak human performance, flow states, and aging, and the concept of getting our biology to work for us rather than against us in our later years, by using the parts of our brains that expand in our 50s, combined with neuroplasticity, learning by play, and the biggest factor: working toward a very difficult – but not impossible – task. His 30-year exploration of the neurobiology behind people accomplishing ‘impossible’ feats led him to test his theories by teaching himself to park ski at 53 with resounding success, then using his protocol with people up to 70 years old the next season. The story is told in his newest book about challenging tired concepts of aging, Gnar Country.
He discusses the power of flow states and how much flow actually amplifies productivity, motivation, wisdom, empathy, and more; why dynamic motion is a key activity for greater longevity and why skiing and similar action sports are some of the best examples; why dynamic activity in novel environments is even better; why changing one’s mindset may be the biggest factor toward change; why corporations are looking at flow training and where these concepts could go in the future; and of course, how this all relates to psychedelics.
Notable Quotes
“If you study flow science, it turns out that flow is really great at helping us go from zero up to Superman. It’s also really great at helping us go from seriously subpar, ‘I’m completely broken and sick’ back to normal. And it turns out this combination is phenomenal in the second half of our lives. And flow sits at the heart of peak performance aging.”
“The only way I can go [from] A to B with this is to take everything I know about flow science and peak performance and see if I can use it to accomplish this so-called impossible task. So that’s what the book is. And yes, I was obviously very successful. I went 0 to 60, as I said, in a single season. It was the fastest I’ve ever actually learned anything.”
“The place you’ve got to begin is mindset. The mind-body connection gets tighter and tighter and tighter over time, and it plays a significant role in aging and peak performance aging. Mindset is the greatest example. …A positive mindset towards aging – ‘I am thrilled with the second half of my life; my best days are ahead of me’ – translates to an additional eight years of healthy longevity. It’s wild. …You could be morbidly obese and have a shitty mindset towards aging. Change your mindset, you’ll live longer. Don’t lose weight. Change your mindset. It’s more important. In fact, changing your mindset is more important than quitting smoking for healthy longevity.”
In this episode, David interviews Dr. Gabrielle Lehigh: Co-Founder and Managing Director of Psychedelic Grad, a web-based community serving as an educational and career hub for up-and-coming psychedelic professionals; and the host of the related podcast, “Curious to Serious,” where she speaks with students and professionals about the path they took to land in the psychedelic field.
Lehigh recently earned her Ph.D. with research on something not many are looking at: the stories behind powerful and transformative psychedelic experiences specifically at music events, based on 38 interviews and over 500 surveys mostly collected at day-long festivals in the southern United States. While the goal was largely data collection in support of the clear potential for therapeutic benefit in using psychedelics in recreational settings (as many of us who have experienced this can attest), she was surprised to learn how many people still blindly trust dealers; how much festival security can affect safety; how the community often makes more of a difference than the music itself; and how many parallels exist between colder clinical models of psychedelic-assisted therapy and the completely open festival experience.
She discusses how she found her way from environmental justice to psychedelics; what people are most looking for on Psychedelic Grad; why she chose to use the word “transformative” in her research; what music she has had her best experiences with; why psychonauts shouldn’t forget about Pink Floyd; and much more.
Notable Quotes
“I went to my advisor at the time and I said, ‘Listen, I want to change the direction that I’ve been going in.’ I’m like, ‘I either want to study the anthropology of space colonization,’ (which is so out there) ‘or I want to study psychedelics.’ And my advisor was like, ‘Neither one of those is anywhere near what you were studying before. What happened?’”
“I can be somewhat frustrated sometimes when, from the clinical setting, there’s this idea that recreational use has no benefit for people, because I’ve seen it from other people’s experiences, [and] there have been experiences that I’ve had in those types of recreational settings that have been incredibly beneficial for me. Even when I started taking psychedelics, even though I was taking them at home; it wasn’t clinical, it wasn’t medical, it wasn’t necessarily therapeutic as defined by ‘therapeutic,’ so it was still considered recreational. So I was just really frustrated in seeing repeated notions that recreational isn’t necessarily beneficial. And so I set out to be like: well, if it’s not beneficial, then maybe we should go check it out and see what’s really going on.”
“When we think about the clinical setting, when we look at the MAPS protocol and everything, music is a part of it. But in the interviews, people talked about the value of live music. There’s something special and something unique about music being created in the moment, and you, as a spectator, are part of the creation of that music, and there’s something really special going on there. …It’s the music, and it’s not just the music as the music, it’s this live production of the music. There’s some type of magic in it.”
In this episode, Kyle interviews the Reverend Dr. Brian Rajcok, Lead Pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Avon, Connecticut, who recently completed his Ph.D. in pastoral counseling.
Rajcok dives into the intersection of spirituality, religion, mysticism, and how psychedelics bring these topics together, discussing a transformative peyote ceremony and the awe-inspiring moments of surrender, connection, and divine presence that left a lasting impact on him and deepened his connection to God. And he talks about his recently completed dissertation that was inspired by it all: “The Lived Experience of Professional Mental Health Clinicians With Spiritually Significant Psychedelic Experiences,” which he created to gauge the relationship between religious spiritual commitment, tolerance, and multicultural counselor competency. He shares stories from the study and reflections on how these experiences have changed the way involved clinicians work.
And he discusses much more in the realm of psychedelics and religion: why he pursued pastoral counseling and how psychedelics come into play; the balance between tradition and reason and spiritual commitment and tolerance; the legal and regulatory considerations of religious psychedelic use; the concept of a faith quadrilateral; the need for psychedelic experiences in counseling training programs; the big question of ‘when is it religion and when is it mental health care?’; and how the future of psychedelic spirituality could be humanity’s biggest evolution.
Notable Quotes
“There were moments in the night where I felt like I was looking at the fire, having a feeling of being in Hell. And then there was this shift of when I said, ‘Okay, if I’m in Hell, accept that.’ And then I accepted that, and then there was this total emotional shift to like, ‘Wow, now I’m in Heaven!’ It was just this beautiful experience of accepting the worst, and then once that work was done, it shifted into this beautiful experience. That was a very profound moment for me.”
“People who are more religiously committed tend to have a reputation for being less tolerant, and people who are the most tolerant tend to have a reputation of being the least committed. But I think that what we see from people who have (whether it’s psychedelic experiences or naturally occurring) mystical experiences, there’s a level of religious spiritual commitment and tolerance at the same time that increases. So that was one thing that I wanted to explore.”
“That was another really profound one: people who experienced different spirit guides; experiences of the divine; encounters with deceased relatives was another one; there was someone who was not a Christian who had an experience with Jesus. So there’s a lot of these profound encounters. …And they’re so healing that it’s obvious that there’s something good going on here. It’s not just your imagination running wild, there’s a real [connection] to the spirit realm or to whatever other dimensions of reality, and it’s such a mystery, but it’s clear that there’s something real going on.”
Psilocybin-containing mushrooms grow wild on every continent except Antarctica. Over 200 species of fungi contain psilocybin, so our planet is unlikely to be in short supply anytime soon.
Nevertheless, we sometimes find ourselves in situations where we don’t have enough mushroom medicine. This could be because our access is limited, or because we’re dancing around legal limits on dosing.
Thankfully, there are some simple hacks we can use to get the most potency out of the medicine we have available.
The Role of Psilocin in Trips
Psilocybin is a pro-drug – a pharmacologically inactive substance when ingested. Upon consumption, it is metabolized into the compound psilocin – the active component responsible for your trip.
Stomach acid is essential for metabolizing the mushrooms into psilocin. It can take an hour or longer after eating the mushrooms for the trip to begin, as it takes time for the hydrochloric acid of the stomach to sufficiently break down the mushrooms and metabolize the psilocybin.
Unfortunately, many people nowadays have low levels of stomach acid. These include our seniors (hydrochloric acid production decreases with age), people on conventional reflux medications (which decrease stomach acid production), individuals with hypothyroidism (who have slower metabolisms), those with Helicobacter pylori infection (it damages the stomach lining and reduces acid production), and people with some other medical conditions.
Many hacks for speeding up the trip onset and making the mushrooms come on stronger are rooted in increasing hydrochloric acid levels and imitating the acidic environment of the stomach.
Light Eating for Quick Tripping
Eating a big meal before taking mushrooms slows the body’s metabolism of psilocybin to psilocin. That’s because the mushrooms you eat after a large meal go to the end of the line for processing. After the stomach is done churning out hydrochloric acid to bust up that double bacon cheeseburger, it’ll see what it can do for that last course of mushrooms.
Having less food in the stomach helps the digestive system get to the task of breaking down the psilocybin in the mushrooms, getting the trip started faster. It can also reduce the risk of nausea and vomiting.
Note: if you tend to get hypoglycemic (low blood sugar), then eating a little something to stabilize your blood sugar levels before, during, and after the trip is a good idea.
The Hidden Cost of Acid Inhibitors
Omeprazole, a medication that reduces stomach reflux, is one of the most commonly prescribed medications in the developed world nowadays. Sold as “the little purple pill” under the brand name Prilosec in the States, omeprazole temporarily alleviates the symptoms of acid reflux by inhibiting the stomach’s secretion of hydrochloric acid. Omeprazole and calcium carbonate tablets like TUMS should not be used for longer than two weeks at a time, but most people use them for months, and even years, not realizing the harm they’re doing to their health.
We need hydrochloric acid to properly digest our food and pull the nutrients out of what we eat. Without enough hydrochloric acid, we’re more likely to develop low bone density and dementia later in life. We’re also more likely to experience bloating, gas, and other digestive ailments because we can’t properly digest our food. To learn more about the risks of conventional reflux treatments and healthier alternatives, check out my article on TUMS and Prilosec.
Note: Even if you want to stay on your acid-suppressing medications, you might want to skip them on the days you trip.
Acidic Shortcut to Psilocybin Conversion, aka. the Lemon Tek
Lemon juice, lime juice, and vinegar mimic the acidic environment of the stomach, thus beginning the conversion of psilocybin into psilocin outside of the body before you ingest mushrooms. To prepare a lemon tek, simply chop up the mushrooms or grind them in a coffee grinder and let them soak in an acidic juice for about 15 minutes, then drink up.
This preparation is a great option for folks on antacid medications, the elderly, and those who tend to feel nauseous from mushrooms. It’s also a handy remedy for people who know that it takes a long time and a lot of mushrooms for them to start tripping.
Don’t leave the mixture to soak beyond 20 minutes, however, as more time can cause the psilocin to degrade. It’s crucial to note that lemon tekking is not permitted in Oregon’s psilocybin service centers, but luckily there are things you can do to increase your stomach acid levels at home before you head to the service center.
Naturally Increase Stomach Acid Levels
A variety of natural remedies can help increase the stomach’s production of hydrochloric acid. Here are some tried and true remedies, all of which you can do at home.
Drink lemon juice: Squeeze the juice of half of a fresh lemon into a small amount of water and drink it, ideally on an empty stomach, at least 15 minutes before taking psilocybin.
Apple cider vinegar: Drink one-fourth to one-half a teaspoon of raw apple cider vinegar diluted in a little water, ideally on an empty stomach, at least 15 minutes before taking psilocybin.
Kale: Chew on a little piece of raw (uncooked) kale, chard, or dandelion greens at least 15 minutes before taking psilocybin.
Herbal bitters: Herbal bitters can commonly be found in the health food store. My personal favorites include gentian, wormwood, and skullcap. As the name implies, bitter formulas taste bitter! They can be purchased in liquid or capsule format. While both work, I find that the liquid works better than the capsules. Bitter flavors on the tongue trigger the stomach to reflexively make more hydrochloric acid. Note that liquid bitters products are usually extracted in alcohol, so if you’re sensitive to alcohol, go for a glycerin preparation or capsules.
Betaine HCl: Betaine is the closest thing we have in pill form to what the stomach produces. This supplement is best used under the guidance of a naturopathic physician (ND) or herbalist. The gist to using HCl is this: start with one capsule at mealtime. At every meal, increase the dose by one more capsule (with breakfast take, one capsule; with lunch, take two; with dinner, take three). When you hit the dose that causes heat or burning in the throat or upper chest, stop. Reduce the dose by one capsule at mealtimes, and by two capsules on the day you take the mushrooms. For example, if you find that five capsules at mealtime cause burning and nausea, then take four capsules at all meals to help you digest your food. Then, on the day you trip, take three capsules on an empty stomach around the time of your mushroom dose.
On Antidepressants
Individuals on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) also sometimes need higher doses of psilocybin before they reach optimal effects. It’s worth noting that some professionals urge caution around combining antidepressants with psilocybin, but many of my patients have healed on mushrooms while on an SSRI without any adverse effects.
More research is clearly warranted on this topic.
The Role of Cannabis
Cannabis is an interesting (and controversial) adjuvant to psilocybin treatment, and one that doesn’t increase stomach acid levels.
Typically the way that cannabis is used in this context is to eat the mushrooms first, and then wait. If after an hour not much has happened, you can use cannabis to help you “launch.”
During my work in Jamaica, I saw many times that just a couple of puffs of marijuana helped people fully “take off” into their trip. The downside to using cannabis is that it can cause dry eyes, dry mouth, and dopiness – especially in people who don’t regularly use it. If you know that you need more than five grams of mushrooms to achieve your desired effect, then you may hit a glass ceiling at an Oregon service center. While the facilitator isn’t supposed to allow clients to take a hit of weed after they consume the mushrooms, what individuals do prior to entering the center is a matter of personal discretion.
Utilizing Breathwork to Amplify Psilocybin
Working with a practitioner who is trained in techniques like Holotropic, Reichian, or other types of breathwork can also help catalyze a psychedelic experience. Mushrooms pair nicely with “getting high on your own supply,” as the saying goes. Seriously: don’t underestimate the power of breath work. Even without a single milligram of psilocybin, breathwork alone is enough to send people into powerful, transformative trips.
Preparatory Sessions
The deeper you’re able to go in healing before taking psilocybin, the more you’re likely to get from the trip. In my own practice, I’ve found that the patients who do a couple of counseling appointments prior to tripping are the ones who have the most healing psychedelic experiences. There are many paths to “thinning the veil,” as I call it. People who are guarded – or have an iron curtain around their subconscious – need more medicine to help them “break through” their defenses. Patients who have a “thinner veil,” however, often just need a little bit of medicine to start the work.
On a recent retreat, we had a guest who wasn’t at dinner on the first night. When I went to check on her I found her in her room, sobbing. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” she moaned, “but I’ve just felt so sad ever since I unpacked my suitcase!”
The way I understood it, this guest’s healing had already begun. Just by arriving at the retreat site, the part of her subconscious that was holding things together had softened, allowing the dam of tears to break. Her veil, in other words, was thin. This guest took very little psilocybin in the days that followed, yet she went deep in her work. If you don’t have a counselor to work with, then you can experiment with journaling, talking to friends, doing guided meditations, writing letters, or engaging in other practices to start letting repressed thoughts and feelings arise. I highly recommend the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which offers deceptively simple prompts for journaling and reflection. These practices will likely help you get more mileage from your psychedelic trip. Or, as one of my friends often says, “the medicine is just part of the medicine.”
The Less-is-More Approach to Psychedelics
While we often glorify heroic doses, it’s important to remember that plenty of learning, growth, and healing can happen with small amounts of psilocybin, too. Personally, the most life-changing trip I ever had was on just one gram. On my last retreat, one woman cleaned childhood trauma out of her cells on just 2.5 grams, and in research settings, people report some of their most spiritually significant experiences on the equivalent of 3.5 grams of mushrooms. More isn’t always better, and, in fact, dosing medicine too high can increase the risk of throwing too much at the nervous system, which can be destabilizing and can cause more harm than good.
So, if you find yourself with less psilocybin than you initially thought you needed, try some of the hacks above. But even if you don’t, you’ll probably learn something.
In this episode, David interviews Dr. Rosalind Watts: famed clinical psychologist, former clinical lead on Imperial College London’s first Psilocybin for Depression trial, and Founder of ACER Integration.
She discusses the awakening she had after having a child; her work at Imperial College and realizing the importance of staying in touch with patients; the challenges of balancing her work with being a mother; her ACER integration model and the interconnectedness of trees in a forest; how the Watts Connectedness Scale works (and David fills it out); and how much the outside-the-hype surrounding pieces matter – the therapy, the therapeutic relationship, the lessons learned, and the work done to integrate it all.
And she talks about another moment of awakening, at last year’s Psych Summit conference, where capitalism’s obsession with profit-over-care frameworks and “magic bullet” and “brain reset” narratives was on full display, which fully enforced what she hopes for in the future: a world where we embrace non-clinical, ceremonial, and nature-based practices; with healing centers (psychedelic and non); supportive communities; infrastructure around conflict resolution and restorative justice; and a shift towards collectivism and collaboration – and how that all starts by finding our psychedelic elders.
Notable Quotes
“I’m a tourist. I’m listening, I’m learning, but I know that I don’t have deep roots and that there are people that do. So it ties into that thing about finding the elders: as we find our elders for conflict resolution and for therapy and for healing and for psychedelic healing, I also hope we find the elders who are deeply rooted in Indigenous traditions, from Indigenous traditions all over the world, and that they can teach us and teach me, if they will, those stories and those ways, and that then, my daughter: if she can learn through her life, she can grow up with it in a way that I didn’t – so she can have deep roots in that tradition.”
“When we’re on the riverbank and we’ve had our cup of tea and we’ve warmed by the fire, we can look upstream and think: all the people that are coming down the river, what might they need? And then we can kind of run and chuck them the blankets or a chocolate biscuit or the things that they might need, or just shout to them and say, ‘Hey, you’re doing great. It’s crazy out there, there’s a riverbank soon. You can come and sit and join us.’ So it’s like, it’s also about thinking of what’s next for us, but also thinking of all the people that are coming and how we can support each other on the rapids as well.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Oliver Carlin, Founder of Curative Mushrooms, a grow kit solution company designed to produce mushrooms of one’s choosing within 30 days with little effort and no growing experience.
Carlin tells his personal story of 20 years in the Navy to a 7g psilocybin journey and the work of perfecting these grow bags; how a grow bag works; how easy it can be to grow your own mushrooms; the advantages of growing your own mushrooms vs. buying them; the legalities of grow kits and how he has been able to do this; steps growers can take to reduce their legal risks; the variety of people benefitting from mushrooms (especially in the veteran community); and how growing your own mushrooms seems to make the experience more curated and special.
Curative Mushrooms recently hired someone to create new strains for them every month, they do bimonthly live Q&As for people interested in growing, and they ship a bonus mycology book with each kit that shows how to study spores. They offer growing kits for Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail, and Shiitake mushrooms, but his most popular option is the “All-in-One Happy Mushrooms for Sad People” kit.
Notable Quotes
“I do believe there’s always going to be a market for growers, because it’s just fun. And you can create your own strains of mushrooms if you really get into it. I mean, you can even name strains after yourself. And plus, isn’t it cool to grow your own, because now you have super fresh mushrooms, you know exactly what it is, how fresh, it’s going to be the most potent because you just grew it, and I’ll be honest, when you grow your own, it feels like the mushrooms were, like, grown specifically for you. I don’t know, there’s something special about them.”
“I didn’t take mushrooms because I was specifically doing it to overcome depression or anything like that. The reason I took mushrooms was: it was like answering questions about the world that I’ve always wanted to know. I’ve always had a problem with everything I’ve been told, and this was my opportunity to finally get some type of an answer for things that I didn’t understand. And that was my reason. And it completely changed my life.”
In this episode, David interviews Dr. Roberta Murphy: training medical psychotherapist and member of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research.
This is a rare impromptu podcast, recorded about a half hour after David heard Murphy speaking on a panel at UK’s Breaking Convention conference. He asked her if she wanted to be on the podcast sometime, and before they knew it, they were recording. Fastest turnaround ever?
She discusses her past research and what she’s doing at Imperial College; her work on a psilocybin for depression trial; her hopes for psychedelics treating people with Parkinson’s; and her recent co-written paper on the ARC Framework (Access, Reciprocity and Conduct), where she will be focusing strongly on the Conduct aspect through her work at Imperial.
And she talks about her other paper exploring the impact of one of the more important aspects of therapy: the therapeutic alliance on the psychedelic experience. How does the treatment dynamic between the therapist and the client impact the outcome (and course) of the therapy, and what determines whether it’s neutral, negative, positive, or very positive?
Notable Quotes
“It makes sense in a way that you might need to kind of work through those mistrust feelings before you get into a deeper layer, and then in the next session they were able to (I think because they felt a bit safer with us) let go and have a bit more of a typical psychedelic experience where they visualized things and saw things. …I think that that can often then be mistaken as resistance or like nothing’s happening. But there’s always something happening, it’s just sometimes it’s a little bit more nuanced or a little bit harder to pick up and work with. But there’s always something happening. You just might have to zoom in a bit to see it.”
“There’s a difference between a challenging experience that occurs, is processed, and worked through vs. a challenging experience where people kind of never really work with it, it doesn’t get processed, and they get quite stuck in it. …I do think that if you have a good container of a therapeutic relationship, it can help you to work through and process, and I think if you don’t have that, it’s more likely that you’ll end up with something a bit stuck, because I think in order to process, you often need to go in and go deep. And if you don’t feel safe to do that, you’re just going to kind of float on the edge, in a way, and never quite get through.”
In this episode, Alexa interviews Rachel Clark: Education Manager for DanceSafe, a public health nonprofit specializing in serving people who use drugs and their communities.
As we move into the prime festival season, more people are going to be doing drugs, and the importance of harm reduction and drug testing becomes even more central to the experience. She discusses the complications of drug testing and how it’s more of an act of ruling substances out rather than determining purity; the fentanyl problem and its surrounding myths; how to identify and treat an overdose (and what not to do); Philadelphia’s struggles with Xylazine highlighting the problem with regional cross contamination; and DanceSafe’s “We Love Consent” and “Healing is Power” campaigns, which aim to open up the dialogue of true harm reduction and safe spaces outside of the substance alone.
Check out DanceSafe.org for more info, and use this link when you’re ready to make a purchase!
Notable Quotes
“You’re looking for red flags and not green lights. You’re not looking for confirmation that something is in your substance, you’re looking for a red flag about whether something is obviously or potentially not what you expected.” “The three major symptoms of opioid overdose are very, very slow, shallow, and or stopped breathing, reduced or absent consciousness, and pinpoint/constricted pupils. And I want everyone to understand that the cause of opioid overdose is when your respiration, your breathing slows to the point that your tissues are not being oxygenated and perfused and your heart stops. That is the sequence. …If people understood that this is about a lack of oxygen because your breathing is too slow, I think that the public understanding of fentanyl overdose and opioid overdose would change a lot, because that, in and of itself, gives you a lot of information when you’re looking at someone and evaluating if an opioid could be involved.”
“Always communicate the limitations of what you know. Assume that you are missing information, because you are. And when you are reporting on something that you witnessed, share only what you saw and what you did, including timelines. This is a major, major note for anybody, especially people who work in EMS, because there have been a lot of very well-intentioned folks who have ended up spreading misinformation like wildfire by saying things as certainties instead of sharing observations.”
Planning on hitting a festival this summer? You’re not alone. With COVID restrictions and cancellations now a thing of the past, many music lovers are heading back into the wild and hitting summer concerts and festivals all around the world with renewed energy, making up for lost time with their psychedelic communities and their favorite artists.
But with the freedom and joy that comes along with dancing, hugging, and partying with thousands of strangers until the sun comes up, also comes the potential for mishaps, and at worst, serious harm to you and your friends.
Gathered from our team at Psychedelics Today – who have decades of festival experience between them – here are some tips to help you stay safe and get the most out of your party time during this psychedelic summer.
Pre-Purchase Your Substances and Test Them
In 2023, there is no excuse for having to resort to taking whatever substances you can get your hands on at a festival. While it’s possible (and likely!) you’ll be offered psychedelics at festivals, never take anything from someone you don’t know. Should you choose to take psychedelics (or any other substances), acquire them ahead of time from sources you trust and test them before consuming any. Groups like DanceSafe, Qtests, Bunk Police, and Test Kit Plus offer a wide variety of regent testing kits to give you a better understanding of what is (and isn’t) in your substances, including fentanyl. And if you’re in Canada, you can send a sample of your substance to getyourdrugstested.com for a free analysis. You can also browse their results catalog to get a sense of what’s going around in your area, and what the lab results reveal. Many festivals partner with harm reduction groups to provide substance testing on-site, so if you can’t test ahead of time, check to see if your festival offers on-site testing – and use it.
Plan Your Transportation Ahead
Figuring out how you’re getting to – and perhaps, more importantly – from the festival grounds ahead of time is crucial. This may include public transportation, shuttle services, or carpooling, so determine which option suits your needs and budget. Assign a designated driver, don’t get in a vehicle with someone who might be intoxicated, don’t drive if you’ve been consuming, and avoid walking or biking on poorly lit roads or paths. And when in doubt, call your parents – even if you’re 35, chances are they’ll be happy to give you a safe ride home (and they might even make you breakfast).
Get Familiar With the Festival Grounds
Upon arriving at the festival, get a map of the grounds and familiarize yourself with its layout. Locate important areas such as the first aid tent, water stations, restrooms, camping area, and stages. Knowing where these facilities are will save you time and effort when you need them most. Pay attention to emergency exit points as well, ensuring you have a plan in case of an emergency.
Pack Smart: Essentials for a Comfortable Experience
Preparing a well-thought-out festival survival kit will make your experience much more enjoyable. Some essential items to consider packing include:
Energy bars or nutrient-dense snacks: these will provide quick bursts of energy to keep you going during long sets.
Toiletries: pack travel-sized toiletries to keep your body clean. Wet wipes, hand sanitizer, mouthwash, and tissues are particularly useful in festival environments where you can get real grimy, real fast.
Changes of clothes and socks: staying fresh and dry is crucial in preventing discomfort, blisters, and skin irritation.
SPF protection: apply sunscreen liberally to protect your skin from harmful UV rays.
Pain relievers: bring some over-the-counter pain relievers like Advil or Tylenol in case of headaches or injuries.
Upset stomach relief: bring TUMS or Pepto in case of heartburn or indigestion.
Phone charger or battery pack: keep your phone charged at all times to stay connected with friends and have access to emergency services if needed.
Sunglasses: shield your eyes from the sun and prevent eye strain caused by bright lights or lasers during performances.
Set Your Intention
Just like you might with a ceremony, or guided psychedelic journey, ask yourself what you’re hoping to achieve before you dose. Is it a greater connection with your friends and community? Is it a deeper exploration of your inner mind and heart? Is it appreciation for the musicians, artists, or to experience the music more intensely? Or is it simply celebration, unwinding, and feeling good? Whatever it is, big or small, it’s ok! Just try to define it, and go into your experience knowing what you hope to achieve. It also helps to tell your friends what your plan is for the evening or weekend (both the substances you plan to consume and your goals). Added transparency can help you with your psychedelic integration, but can also help mitigate any potential harms, if your friends are watching your back and know your consumption plans.
Stay with Your Friends: Safety in Numbers
Attending a festival with good friends is not only more fun, but helps keep you safe. Try to make sure you always have a sightline to your friends in the crowd, but develop a plan to find each other in case you get separated (which can happen easily). Pre-designate a central meeting point to wait for your friends if you get separated, just in case there’s no cell service or one of your devices dies. If you’re attending alone, consider joining or creating a meet-up group to connect with other people, so you’ll have at least a few festival friends. Whatever you do, don’t leave the event with strangers – even if they seem nice, or you’re hoping to hook up – you really don’t know who you’re going home with. Grab that number, and hit up the person in a few days instead.
Hydrate: The Key to Beat the Heat
Summer festivals often take place under the scorching sun, and staying hydrated is paramount to keep the good times flowing. Dehydration can occur a lot more easily than you might think, and can lead to fatigue, dizziness, and even heatstroke – a potentially life-threatening condition. Make it a priority to drink plenty of water throughout the day. Carry a refillable water bottle and take advantage of water stations if available at the festival grounds, and consider bringing electrolyte-rich drinks, or drink powders to replenish essential minerals lost through sweat. Pro tip: Bring an extra bottle cap with you. Refillable water stations aren’t always available and venues usually sell water bottles without caps. Being able to seal your water can make all the difference in the world.
Take Breaks From the Dance Floor
When you’re really feeling the vibe, it’s tempting to dance non-stop. However, it’s crucial to give your body regular breaks. Even though you might feel like you have the stamina to go all day or night, dancing for hours on end can exhaust you physically and mentally – and you might not realize it until it’s too late. Take short breaks between sets in shaded areas to rest and recharge. Find a spot where you can sit down and relax while enjoying the music from a distance. Taking regular breaks will pay off – it ensures that you can last throughout the festival without feeling completely drained by the end of the first day.
Pace Your Consumption
And speaking of completely wrecking yourself the first day – you don’t want to be that guy. You the one we mean – the guy who’s rolling around naked in the mud a couple of hours after the gates open. Not only is it not a great look, but if you go too hard, too fast, you could spend the rest of the weekend feeling like shit in your tent and miss out on all the great acts you wanted to see. Finally getting to that big event you’ve been waiting for feels incredible, and the urge to go completely off the rails is real (we’ve all been there!) but the best festivals are a marathon – never a sprint.
Remember to Eat
Amidst all the sets and activities, it can be easy to forget about eating, especially when substances are involved that suppress appetite. And sometimes, eating is inconvenient – vendors might run out of food before the event ends, or pricing for simple snacks or bottled water can cost a lot. However, proper nutrition is essential for maintaining your energy levels. Try to pack a variety of portable snacks like granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, or energy bars. Incorporate water-rich foods into your diet, like watermelon, oranges, or berries to help you stay hydrated while providing essential vitamins and minerals. And if you eat from the food carts, look for options that offer a balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and vegetables to keep your energy levels stable.
Are you looking for more insight into your trips? Check out this self-paced course, Navigating Psychedelics, your complete guide to understanding and integrating the psychedelic experience.
Remember: This Too Shall Pass
Sometimes, the combination of psychedelics and an intense festival environment can be extremely overwhelming. Should you find yourself in an uncomfortable headspace, surround yourself with people you trust, breathe through the emotions, and just remember – it won’t last forever. If a friend is going through a tough time, sit with them, let them know you’re there for them, and remain calm, and hold space. However, there is a difference between a challenging psychedelic experience, and a serious medical issue, so ALWAYS keep a watchful eye out for signs of drug toxicity in yourself and others (nausea, difficulty breathing, chest pain, dizziness, etc.) and seek out medical attention if necessary. When in doubt, a trip to the medical tent is never a bad idea.
Stretch It Out
Dancing and standing for long periods of time can strain your muscles and lead to discomfort. Take breaks to stretch and release tension. Stretching exercises can improve circulation, prevent muscle cramps, and help you stay flexible. Consider incorporating gentle yoga poses or basic stretching routines into your festival experience to keep you limber and feeling good on the dance floor.
Find Quiet Places: Retreat From the Chaos
Finding moments of tranquility from all the festival stimuli can be crucial for recharging and regaining focus. Seek out quiet places within the festival grounds:
Chill-out areas: many festivals have designated chill-out zones where you can relax and escape the noise. These areas may feature comfortable seating, hammocks, or shaded spaces. Take advantage of these spaces to unwind, socialize with other festival-goers, or simply enjoy a moment of solitude.
Natural surroundings: if the festival grounds allow, explore nearby natural areas. Find a serene spot under a tree, by a lake, or on a hilltop to enjoy some peace and connect with nature. Nature has a calming effect on the mind and can provide a much-needed break from the intensity of the festival atmosphere.
Silent disco or acoustic sets: some festivals offer silent discos or acoustic sets, where you can enjoy music with headphones or experience stripped-down performances. These intimate settings provide a break from the overwhelming sound levels of main stages while still allowing you to enjoy live music.
And for the Love of God – Sleep
Unpopular opinion: acting on the phrase ‘I can sleep when I’m dead’ is, while kind of true, a really great way to ruin your festival experience. Adequate sleep is crucial for recharging your body and mind, so try to establish a sleep routine if you’re on a multi-day trip. Find a quiet and comfortable place to rest, whether it’s in your tent or a designated camping area. Invest in earplugs, an eye mask, some CBD (visit our friends at HempLucid for 10% off all products with code PSYCHEDELICS10) or noise-canceling headphones to create a peaceful sleeping environment, and get some shuteye – even just for a few hours.
What are some of your top tips for staying safe and having a great time at festivals? Join in the conversation on our socials, and tell us how you make the most out of your trips.
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Alexa reminisce about last week’s Psychedelic Science 2023, dubbed as the largest psychedelic conference in history.
They discuss Joe’s twoPsychedelic Morning Shows with Anne Philippi; Court Wing, Bob Wold, and the work of Clusterbusters and the new Psychedelics and Pain Association; Tracey Tee and her “Millions of Moms” gathering; Aaron Rodgers and athletes’ growing interest in psychedelics; the legality of mushroom growing kits; and the fun and overwhelming atmosphere of such a massive event. And as Alexa had her first breathwork session, they dig more into breathwork, serving as somewhat of a follow-up to our breathwork episode a few weeks ago.
They also talk about a short film they came across called “Open Up,” which looks at the party lifestyle of always seeking a new high, the potential of ketamine abuse, and what can happen when people don’t talk about their problems.
When you realize that you’re not who you thought you were, the spiritual leader Ram Dass used to say, the path to enlightenment begins. This is also the beginning of the journey for LGBTQIA+ people.
In either case, self-realization can be prompted by psychedelics. But that transition is a scary one: whether it’s your ego or the gender and sexual orientation you were assigned at birth, it requires the death of the person you’ve known. Ultimately, you break through into a place of beauty, truth, and love. But there’s usually a period of kicking and screaming first, trying to hold on as the known slips through your fingers.
For queer and gender-diverse people, it often isn’t safe to express or connect with who we are, so we learn to suppress this knowledge even from ourselves. Denying one’s authenticity causes trauma that can manifest as depression, anxiety, and PTSD. But LGBTQIA+ researchers, therapists, users, and underground practitioners are finding that psychedelic therapy has immense potential to help their communities heal from internalized queer- and transphobia.
Lxo, a London-based artist and research curator experimented with various medicines in art school when their queer, trans*, and non-binary identities began to surface, deposited by a repressive, religious upbringing and persisting through more than five years of talk therapy.
“Then I did one [dose] of s-ketamine, and something burst forward from the past, like a memory bubble” they say. “I was able to forgive and heal… the version of me that was really crying out for help.”
There Is No “Post-Trauma”
For queer and gender-diverse people, there is no “post-trauma,” says Dr. Jae Sevelius, a clinical psychologist and Professor of Medical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. Rather, it’s ongoing, and “It’s not just about experiencing violence, it’s about experiencing violence because of who you are.”
Discovering who you really are should be a joyful revelation, but is still often met with violent opposition. Most suicide attempts occur within the first five years of realizing one’s sexual identity, irrespective of age; for many, this is during youth. More than half of U.S. trans and non-binary people age 13 – 24 considered killing themselves in 2020, while queer teens attempt suicide at a rate more than twice that of their straight peers.
Most mainstream therapies, however, treat trauma as an isolated incident. “[In the West,] we don’t have great approaches to offer people,” Sevelius says. “We have medicines that can treat the symptoms… but talk therapies for trauma… can be really challenging, [with] very high dropout and [low] success rates.”
What’s more, these frameworks aren’t built to support the queer experience. On the contrary, they’re often the very sources of the trauma they aim to treat. Homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) until 1973; being transgender, until 2012. These links persist today, with gender-diverse people being required to undergo psychiatric evaluation before receiving supportive healthcare—assuming this is even an option.
I’ve experienced this firsthand: celebrating diagnoses that pathologize your identity because it means you can actually get the care you need, reinforcing cognitive dissonance and negative self-beliefs. It breeds mistrust among queer and especially gender-diverse people, especially those with intersecting underrepresented identities, such as BIPOC and sex workers, who face additional systemic barriers and are most impacted by the drug war.
Patients often have to educate their therapists and doctors in culturally relevant care, emotional labor that can be life-threatening. Even worse, queer and gender-diverse communities have been subjected to so-called conversion therapy, inhumane “treatments” that try to turn people cisgendered and straight, still legal in many places. Methods of administration have included electroconvulsive therapy — and psychedelics.
In 1950s and ’60s France, gay teens who had been institutionalized for the double “offense” of being gay and out were forced to take megadoses of LSD — up to 1200MG, three times the recommended maximum — then left alone in a room to be observed. Even Ram Dass — before his awakening, when he was still called Richard Alpert, a clinical psychologist, professor, and founding member of the Harvard Psilocybin Project — joined the likes of Timothy Leary and Stanislav Grof in similar experiments.
Playboy Interview: Timothy Leary – a candid conversation with the controversial ex-Harvard professor, prime partisan and prophet of LSD (September 1966 Issue)
In 1968, a Playboy interviewer questioned Leary about reports of LSD bringing forth “latent homosexual impulses,” to which Leary called the drug a “cure” for such “sexual perversions.” This approach scared some people into living straight lives, but most reported “relapse.” Ram Dass himself came out in the 1990s, but rarely spoke publicly about this fundamental aspect of self, struggling his whole life with internalized shame.
Rethinking Clinical Frameworks
The fact that substances known as truth agents could be used as tools of oppression speaks to the influence of set and setting – and, perhaps even more, of institutions like medicine, psychotherapy, and the university system, where outcomes must align with conclusions that satisfy funding sources.
Today, the barriers to both gender-affirming treatment and psychedelic healing remain immense. Part of the problem is that LGBTQIA+ people are underrepresented on both sides of psychedelic therapy and research, as well as the sciences more broadly, and largely feel unwelcome in all these arenas.
“We need to recognize that there are specific needs between different people within the community, and those needs arise from systemic failures,” says Alfredo Carpineti, a queer astrophysicist and founder of UK charity Pride in STEM.
Research both reflects and creates the world, as psychologist and Yale researcher Terence Ching and others have observed. Psychedelic clinical trials and research studies don’t even gather data on sexual orientation and gender identity, so there is no way to know how psychedelic therapy impacts LGBTQIA+ communities, yet the message this sends to them is clear.
Existing studies and trials are not designed to capture or accommodate queer experiences, typically using cis-het, male-female therapist dyads that are meant to mimic hetero-normative parenting frameworks. Additionally, therapists are not trained to handle complex gender and sexuality issues that may come up during sessions.
Misgendering or failing to affirm someone’s identity can be particularly wounding, Sevelius warns. Those designing studies need to ask who is training and recruiting the therapists, and where they’re recruiting participants. A study on MDMA therapy for gender-diverse populations that they contributed to found current protocols lacking, calling for explicitly gender-affirming treatment and safer, more inclusive settings.
“I get requests all the time from trans and gender-diverse people asking me how they can be included in clinical trials. And I have to say, I don’t feel comfortable referring people,” Sevelius says. “Psychedelics create a very vulnerable psychological state. When you don’t know whether the therapists are really competent to be working with our communities, it’s very likely someone will get re-traumatized.”
Psychedelic research also needs to more rigorously capture demographic data about sexual and gender identity, but most organizations don’t have the resources, Ching says. Still, it’s crucial to recruit and train more LGBTQIA+ researchers and therapists to support straight ones in building queer-inclusive clinical spaces.
“There are many ways to improve access,” Ching says. “Rethink your eligibility criteria [and] do more than put up fliers. Go to queer organizations, talk to people, … do a town hall. Tell them what PTSD is and actually get savvy with the fact that sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia can lead to it.”
You’re Not Who You Thought You Were
Saoirse* spent five years in the military police, presenting masculine as a means of survival. Struggling with “decades of suppression and depression as well as PTSD from growing up in cis-het society and from the military,” she had already done a decade’s worth of talk therapy through the VA, cognitive processing therapy (CPT; a cognitive behavioral therapy for PTSD), and couples counseling. Then she participated in an ayahuasca ceremony.
“Having a safe space to explore my beingness… within a [sacred container and] Peruvian Amazonian lineage… was the key for me in discovering my true essence,” she says. “The masculine persona… dropped away. The other women gathered around me in a group hug, and I felt my true self seen, held, and celebrated for the first time.”
Talk-based approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are standard treatment for afflictions like addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but these focus on managing present symptoms rather than targeting the trauma at its roots.
During his own MDMA therapy session, Ching was visited by otherworldly animal entities that helped him reconcile his queer and Asian-American identities, which he describes as “a profound experience of unshackling myself from the confines of internalized homophobia.”
Dee Adams, a research program manager at Johns Hopkins University who studies the impact of psychedelic therapy on gender-diverse people, says, “Psychedelics unlock[ed] those pieces of me that I… didn’t have the courage in mundane reality to approach or be aware of. I don’t know of any [other] medicines that can… be directly attributed to that initial ‘aha’ moment.”
Psilocybin and LSD have huge potential in triggering these insights, Sevelius says, as they’re known to break stuck patterns. MDMA is effective for identity-based trauma because it increases self-compassion and empathy, they add, and can improve gender resiliency when combined with affirming care. Along with a New York-based clinical partner, they’re also developing the first ketamine-assisted group therapy study created by and for trans and gender-diverse people.
Yet the relief goes beyond clinical symptoms. In her ayahuasca journeys, Saoirse connected with not only her own femininity but the feminine archetype, transmitted through the spirit of her mother, who was dying of a brain tumor.
“Spirit gifted me with an experience of the female pain body… and all the feminine has held for the masculine throughout the ages,” she says, including “the damage the masculine has done to itself… in committing violence. I was shown the breadth of our journey as souls through lifetimes and the beautiful and terrible dance of the human story.”
She also experienced reconciling with her mother’s spirit from her painful first coming-out, something antidepressants and talk therapy could never provide. “Healing does not occur in the mind,” Saoirse says. “Especially [when] healing core wounds with identity and gender identity, [it] takes place in the heart, … in belonging, and sacred witnessing of our stories, held in the eyes of love.”
Three Key Words: I See You
We all need to be seen and loved exactly as we are; it’s a fundamental human need, second only to physical survival and safety. Constantly being disaffirmed by others can cause what Sevelius terms “identity threat,” manifesting in mental health issues, isolation, and substance overuse.
The cure is increasing affirmation while reducing reliance on external validation; psychedelic therapy, they explain, can do both. Affirmation comes from therapists and the sense of connection to larger, mystical forces; the medicines help people validate their own being.
But deconstructing and reconstructing your self-concept is a monumental task; often an entire life’s work. With any psychedelic journey, but especially for LGBTQIA+ users, support before, during, and after the session is essential. Shortcomings of the current clinical framework — not to mention the dubious legal status of most medicines — means many may be better-served by shamanic, Indigenous, and underground providers, something queer researchers confirm.
“Even as a scientist, I don’t necessarily always advocate that the clinical trial is better,” Ching says. “There are some ways of knowing, like gray literature [research published outside formal academic channels] or having your own personal experience, that might be more beneficial than reading it in a scientific journal.”
For Adams, the approaches go hand in hand. Psychotherapy and prescription medication might be additional tools people use for ongoing support after psychedelics bring them the initial realization.
Peer-support networks can be incredibly helpful, providing that essential component for healing: affirmation. Groups such as the Queer Psychedelic Society and Transadelic connect LGBTQIA+ people who use psychedelics through messaging platforms and integration circles. Many trans and gender-diverse people, in particular, find connecting with like-minded others crucial.
“There was a time when our culture was celebrating queerness, but [you had to be] a specific type of queer. I think people are still having and perpetuating that trauma,” says Transadelic member Casey*. “I don’t seek out queer spaces. But I’m really grateful for this one.”
For Saoirse, “hav[ing] my transition journey of self-discovery held… within a conscious spiritual community… has made all the difference for my self-acceptance, self-love, self-confidence, and my quality of life.”
A Queer Medicine
The links between psychedelics, queer culture, and esotericism trace back to spiritual traditions and early LGBTQIA+ rights movements. In the 1960s and ’70s, groups such as the Cockettes and Radical Faeries challenged social norms and blurred counter-cultural boundaries, sprinkled with consciousness-expanding practices.
In fact, the Pride flag was conceived of during an acid trip in the era when the 60’s hippie culture began yielding to ’70s club culture, and queer people found community and catharsis on the dance floor using MDMA and LSD. The myriad colors reflecting off the mirrored disco ball inspired the flag’s late creator, Gilbert Baker, as a symbol that could replace the former logo, the upside-down pink triangle reclaimed from the Nazis.
Psychedelics have inherent queerness: interwoven into Indigenous societies with fluid conceptions of gender and sexuality; inverting expectations and challenging norms; releasing rigid patterns and making new connections, from found family to community care and long-neglected parts of yourself. One species of fungi has more than 23,000 distinct sexual identities; as mycologist Merlin Sheldrake observes, it helps scientists think beyond the binary, mirroring queer theory and reflecting the world in its crystalline multiplicity.
In the psychedelic state, “the dissolution of ego boundaries becomes the dissolution of binary categories,” Lxo observes, and integration “begins to connect and unify them, bringing all the various different energies, even seemingly binary ones like masculine and feminine, into a kind of relation.”
It’s crucial for the clinical establishment to understand that queer and transness isn’t something that needs to be cured — and tying treatment to disorders and diagnoses echoes of the pathologized past. Sevelius says the focus should be healing past wounds while building coping strategies for facing continual trauma. Meanwhile, Ching wants to see psychedelic therapy “targeted to identity-affirmation processes… fostering the wellbeing and actualization of queer folks.
“Psychedelics have the power to shift the way we see and experience the world, including ourselves, remembering who we were before a traumatized culture had its way with us. As Ching says, “I know I was born this way, but it took MDMA to show it to me, to accept the emotional truth, … and live my life according[ly].”
Editor’s note: Some names have been changed to protect the identity of the source.*
In this episode, David interviews Professor Celia Morgan, Ph.D., who holds the Chair of Psychopharmacology and co-leads the Transdisciplinary Psychedelics Group at The University of Exeter.
This was recorded on the dawn of UK’s Breaking Convention conference, where Morgan was speaking about the therapeutic potential of ketamine as well as the danger of people developing a dependence on it. She touches on that topic, but largely discusses her current Phase III Trial for ketamine-assisted therapy for the treatment of severe alcohol use disorder (also called the KARE model (Ketamine for reduction of Alcohol Relapse)), a collaboration with Awakn Life Sciences.
She discusses her other research: studies on mindfulness intervention before and after ketamine, epigenetic changes after ayahuasca use, the antidepressant qualities of ayahuasca, and CBD for cannabis dependence. And she talks about the necessary balance for making treatments amazing but affordable; how connecting with nature during integration is key; how the drug is just a tool, yet we focus on it too much; and how we need studies on how different therapies work with different substances.
Notable Quotes
“People always focus on the drugs, but it’s more about the people, and as you say, their relationship – what you’re getting from that experience. The drugs themselves are just tools. You can hit someone over the head with a spade, but you can dig an amazing garden. I see the drugs as the spade, basically, but obviously a really unusual spade.”
“Taking a step back from your thoughts and not being over-engaged with everything you’re doing; the ketamine really helps to facilitate that, because they can see how that works. Mindfulness can be really tricky. Mindfulness practice is hard work. So I see this as a big step that makes it work better in that first bit, especially when people are struggling. …Ketamine, to my mind, gives this kind of boost and insight that can help engage them with the therapy going forward.”
In the second episode of our special, two-part series, the Psychedelic Morning Show, Joe Moore and Anne Philippi are live once again bright and early from Psychedelic Science 2023 in Denver. Listen to this podcast as they interview four guests working on the front lines of psychedelic research, law, and the treatment of chronic pain.
Guests for this episode include:
Tommaso Barba – PhD candidate at Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London
Allison Hoots – Attorney at Hoots Law Practice and advocate; President of Sacred Plant Alliance
Psychedelics Today is reporting live this week from the industry event of the year, Psychedelic Science 2023 in Denver. Listen in to this podcast as our co-founder, Joe Moore, and New Health Club founder Anne Philippi hit the conference floor bright and early in the first episode of a special two-part series, the Psychedelic Morning Show.
In this limited series, Joe and Anne chat in real-time with guests working in all corners of the psychedelic ecosystem, from advocacy, law and finance, to research and therapy.
Guests for this episode include:
Dr. Julie Holland – Psychiatrist, psychedelic researcher, author and medical advisor for MAPS
Daniel Goldberg – Co-Founder and Principal at Bridge Investments & Palo Santo
Hadas Alterman – Director of Government Affairs | American Psychedelic Practitioners Association
Melissa Lavasani – Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Psychedelic Medicine Coalition, Founder and President of Psychedelic Medicine PAC
There are a great many tales to be told about the countercultural years of the 1960s, but the story of tripping Rabbis whose psychedelic exploration contributed to a great Jewish Renewal isn’t found in many history books.
While the world was shaken by the Vietnam War and the ongoing Cold War, the counterculture represented a rise of a new consciousness expressed in forms of music, art, drugs, and civil disobedience. In a collective rise against the ‘American dream’ utopia built by their parents, the young generation sought to find alternatives to materialist and conservative values. For them, the counterculture was a strike of anti-establishment, in an egalitarian spirit emphasizing the value of human relationships and the individual’s quest for meaning in life.
Drugs like LSD, cannabis, and mescaline became increasingly common with renowned academics, authors and poets of the era. But they weren’t the only cultural leaders exploring the power of mind-altering substances; while the world watched Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass), Aldous Huxley, and Allen Ginsberg encourage the new generation to turn on, tune in, and drop out, a few radical rabbis were quietly exploring the use of psychedelics to get closer to God, and revive age-old mystical traditions.
I was inspired to investigate the connection between liberal Jewish movements and psychedelics after encountering the article ‘Psychedelics and Kabbalah,’published in the Jewish youth magazine Response (1968) by Itzik Lodzer. Lodzer was revealed to be a pseudonym for Arthur Green, the now well-established Jewish scholar, rabbi, and influential figure in the establishment of liberal Jewish practices (for the remainder of this article, Lodzer will be referred to as Arthur Green). One of Green’s contributions was Havurat Shalom, an experimental community embracing Jewish libertarianism and alternative religious values. Through Havurat Shalom, Green met another unconventional rabbi: Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, now also commonly referred to as ‘Reb Zalman,’ founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. Schachter-Shalomi became the leading figure for the Jewish liberation theology, and his influence for the entire Jewish community is monumental.
Both Green and Schachter-Shalomi referred to psychedelics as tools to shed light onto forgotten mystical traditions. The Jewish Renewal movement was an epiphany of that realization, and strove to reinvigorate stagnant traditions by reinventing modern Judaism through Kabbalistic, Hasidic, and musical practices. The lives of these two rabbis, their encounters with psychedelic drugs, and the paths these experiences led them on, are remarkable examples of how psychedelic drugs were an integral part of reinventing Jewish theology.
From their stories we can conjecture that psychedelics were a factor in influencing certain powerful, liberal Jewish ideologies, as well as helping their users to experience Jewish mystical theology in a new light.
The Psychedelic Experience and the Kabbalah
Kabbalah is Hebrew for ‘receiving’. It encompasses a set of teachings generally distinguished from the ‘traditional’ Jewish doctrine. The term came into use in 13th century Spain, where a group of Jewish esoterics and mystics began to separate themselves from the regular Jewish practitioners. To this day, hundreds of modern Kabbalah centers have opened up all around the United States and Europe and many well-known celebrities with (and without) Jewish heritage have picked up the practice of this mystical tradition.
In the 1968 Jewish Review Response, Green draws a parallel between his psychedelic experience and the teachings of the Kabbalah. For him, the foundation of the Kabbalist teachings became vividly real during his encounter with LSD. This is also the likely reason why he chose to write about a topic which, even during the period when LSD was legal, was considered contentious for the traditional Jewish community. Green analyzed parts of the psychedelic experience corresponding to Kabbalist teachings. Many of the elements recognized today as classic psychedelic trip experiences, represented vivid manifestations of Green’s own belief system.
“That which I thought was all terribly real just a few seconds ago now seems to be a part of a great dramatic role-playing situation, a cosmic comedy which this ‘me’ has to play out for the benefit of the audience,” he said.
In Kabbalah the only ‘true’ unchanging reality is the Ein Sof, ‘the Upper Reality,’ our ways of perceiving that reality are under constant change. For Green, psychedelics opened the illusionary nature of unchanging reality and of his own self. He wrote: “Seen from beyond, however, world and ego are but aspects of the same illusion. From God’s point of view, only God can be real.”
The Paradox of Change
The second aspect Green brought forth is the paradox of the fundamental change of everything about God, the simultaneous fundamental constancy of God, and the circular coexistence of impermanence and permanence: “All is becoming moving. I blink my eyes and seem to reopen them to an entirely new universe. One terribly different from that which existed a moment ago […] If there is a ‘God’ we have discovered through psychedelics, He is the One within the many; the changeless constant in a world of change.”
God’s Gender – Maybe Not Male After All?
Having strongly experienced a feminine presence during his trip, Green questioned the prevailing Judeo-Christian assumptions of God as male, underlying that ‘the father of the heavens’ only makes sense in a context where there is also ‘the mother.’ He argued that Judaism today has become trapped by the stationary image of God as a father figure. Subsequently, the Jewish Renewal movement has been especially focused on the revival of the female Goddess. For Green, the two sides of God were as attainable for ‘contemporary trippers,’ as they had been for the mystics of the past.
Discovering God’s Fluid Essence
Typically, descriptions of divinity in Kabbalistic writings are inconsistent and fully metaphorical. Green observed the parallel of the flow of beautiful images during his trip and the fluid Kabbalist descriptions of the nature of divinity, but warned against any static statements defining God. He argued that only symbolic and metaphorical descriptions could come close to the truth. Although the process in which the voyager creates a metaphor to describe the flow of images and information can be enjoyable, he warned against taking one’s own imagery too seriously:
“Indeed, this is one of the great ‘pastime’ of people under the influence of psychedelics: the construction of elaborate and often beautiful systems of imagery which momentarily seem to contain all the meaning of life or the secrets of all the universe, only to push beyond them moments later, leaving their remains as desolate as the ruins of a child’s castle in the sand. No metaphor is permanent, one can always ascend another rung and look down on the silliness of what appeared to be a revelation just minutes before.”
Exploring God’s Authentic Nature
What Green referred to as the “deepest, simplest and most radical insight of the psychedelic consciousness” concerns the authentic nature of God. He wrote: “This insight has been so terribly frightening to the Jewish consciousness, so bizarre in terms of the biblical background of all Jewish faith, that even the mystics who knew it well, generally fled from fully spelling it out.”All reality is at one with the Divine, and therefore every human, Jewish or not, is a part of God’s divine nature, he posited. According to Green, the very sanity of the Western civilization lies in the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality, to separate between God and humans. Now that this fantasy had been shattered for the young Green, the rest of his life was bound to change. “If God and man are truly one … what has all the game been for?” he questioned.
Green’s testimony of his first psychedelic voyage is a remarkable historical account of how psychedelics can operate on the consciousness of a deeply religious individual. Green’s understanding of Kabbalah provided a strong framework through which the experience could fluidly mature, and although he voiced his concerns of autonomous explorations of God through psychopharmacology, he also believed both the psychedelic and mystical consciousness can be compatible.
In his 2016 biography, Hasidism for Tomorrow, he still states that taking LSD was an important step for his understanding of Hasidic and Kabbalistic philosophies. Such states would be achievable without the substances, he says, but acknowledges taking drugs and spontaneous mystical experiences as parallel processes.
The question arises: will the revolutionary qualities of the Jewish Renewal movement prove lasting, or will Judaism shake off Liberal influences and continue its static path? Just as the Jewish Renewal movement is often seen as a minor influence on a small current, the counterculture movement is often viewed as a failed attempt of revolution, as utopia slowly sinking into disappointment. Both Green and Schachter-Shalomi held their experiences with psychedelics as major influential points in their lives. As the research on psychedelic drugs and neurotheology continues to advance, perhaps the liberation theologies of a number of religions can be understood in a completely novel way.
According to Shalom Goldman, a professor of religion and Middle Eastern studies, the impact of the Jewish Renewal movement has left a permanent mark on contemporary Jewish life.
“Schachter-Shalomi’s Jewish Renewal still remains small in comparison to the larger Jewish denominations, but its influence is wide,” he said. “And many of those influenced would be quite surprised to read that in a way, it started with LSD.”
Editor’s note: this article is an adapted version of the essay, Tripping Rabbis: The Impact of Psychedelic Consciousness in the Revival of Jewish Mystical Tradition during the 1960s Counterculture Movement, by Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen, originally published in Psychedelic Press Volume XXI (2017).
In this episode, David interviews Frederick Barrett, Ph.D.: cognitive neuroscientist, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and now, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research.
With today’s news, Barrett officially takes over for the legendary Roland Griffiths, who has been in the role since the Center’s launch in 2019, and who will continue on as a member of the leadership team while dealing with the Stage 4 cancer diagnosis he has been remarkably candid about in recent interviews.
Dr. Barrett has been conducting research at Johns Hopkins for a decade, authoring or co-authoring some of the first studies on psilocybin’s enduring effects, and receiving the first federally funded human psychedelic research grant from the NIH since the 70s. He discusses the work and importance of Roland Griffiths; the history of the Center and current research he’s most excited about; the mystery of consciousness; and the power and sacredness of music: how we all use music to regulate our emotions, and how he wants to explore the brain mechanisms behind that connection.
Notable Quotes
“I came here in 2013, kind of starry-eyed and still a little green behind the ears, and I thought music is a great tool to study the mind, but psychedelic drugs must be such a more powerful tool to study the mind and the brain, and essentially that’s what’s driven me since. I see psychedelics, music, brain imaging, cognitive testing, qualitative interviews, questionnaires: all these things are all different types of tools in the kitchen of trying to study the mind. And that’s what motivates me; is really just trying to use whatever tools we have access to to understand this complex experience that we have as humans.”
“Roland has been one of the most influential and important mentors of my life, and he has mentored each of the faculty within the Psychedelic Research Center. …But his impact on the psychedelic world, I think, can’t be understated. He’s just a remarkable man. He is so precise and careful and piercing with his thinking, but yet so clear in being able to articulate complex ideas and really the most interesting and important nuggets of a finding. …I think that’s one of the reasons that he’s been a leading figure in psychedelic research, and I think those are some of the reasons that he was able to pull this off to begin with.”
“If you think of all of the variables that you can try to push around to manipulate set and setting, it’s not just a couple dials; it’s like a church organ. It’s like a concert organ, and I think that music is one of the biggest keys that we can press on, so I’m going to start pressing on it.”
Discover the transformative power of applying intentional approaches to psychedelic integration in this FREE webinar.
This event brings together David Drapkin and Ido Cohen in a discussion about the journey of self-discovery. They offer practical techniques to integrate your psychedelic experiences into everyday life and share some approaches to cultivate a more purposeful existence. By seeing integration as a way of life and a never-ending path of meaning-making we evolve authentically and holistically from the heart.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about the Navigating Psychedelics course in which David and Ido both teach (classes start July 12th) and to simply celebrate the depths of intentional living that psychedelics can open up.
About David:
David Drapkin is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and Psychotherapist, from Birmingham, England, now living in New Jersey. He is a seasoned mental health and addiction practitioner with over 15 yrs in front-line clinical, supervisory, and managerial positions.
David’s encounters with non-ordinary states of consciousness go way back and incorporate the spiritual, transformational, and healing realms of experience. From psilocybin journeys following clinical protocols to solo fasting meditation retreats in India, Israel and New Zealand. David is most interested in how psychedelics connect with mystical and esoteric states to engender epistemological rebirth. David has a small private psychotherapy practice, and is the Director of Education & Training at Psychedelics Today.
About Ido:
Dr. Ido Cohen, Psy.D – serves individuals, couples and groups in San Francisco. He received his Psy.D from the California Institute of integral studies and trained at the Jung Institute In San Francisco. He works with a diverse range of challenges childhood trauma, inner critic, relational issues, lack of fulfillment, psychospiritual growth as well as psychedelic integration and preparation sessions with individuals and groups. His doctoral study researched the integration process of Ayahuasca ceremonies, while applying Jungian psychology to better understand how to support individuals in their process of change and transformation. He is the founder of “The Integration Circle” and facilitates workshops on the different dimensions of integration and the intersection of mental health, spiritual health and the entheogenic experience. Ido believes that the intersection of our psychological, emotional, somatic and spiritual dimensions can develop our relationships with our inner and outer worlds and create the changes we want to see in our life. Ido is passionate in supporting individuals to create long term, sustainable change leading to vibrant, authentic, expressive and love filled lives.
In this edition of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle dedicate the entire episode to one of their biggest passions: breathwork and the power of breath in reaching non-ordinary states of consciousness.
What many listeners may not know is that Psychedelics Today was created because of the lack of attention being paid to breathwork, transpersonal psychology, and the work of Stanislav Grof, so this episode serves as a deep dive into all the facets of our fascinating ability to reach psychedelic states simply by breathing in specific ways.
They discuss the history of breathwork; the various methods (box breathing, alternate nostril breathing, rebirthing breathwork, the Wim Hof method, Holotropic and Transpersonal breathwork, etc.); early and most powerful experiences; why Joe recommends becoming familiar with breathwork before a first psychedelic experience; how a breathwork practice can help enhance psychedelic experiences; and one of the most amazing things about breathwork: that it can give people a sense of agency they may never have felt before – that they can produce these experiences and insights with nothing but their own bodies.
If you’ve been curious about breathwork, this episode is a great starting point to learn more. And if you’re in the Northeast and are ready to attend a breathwork retreat and experience four Transpersonal breathwork sessions (two as a breather, two as a sitter), there are spots available in our upcoming Vital retreat on July 28 in Pennsylvania. Click here for more details.
June 20 in Denver: “Better Together: Stacking Mushrooms and Plants” – A communal conversation around mushrooms, a fungi feast and unique culinary experience, and afterparty featuring music from BOSA. Click here to buy tickets.
In this episode, Kyle interviews Liana Gillooly: Strategic Initiatives Officer at MAPS, Board Chair & Founder of the non-profit, North Star, and Advisor to Chacruna’s Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative.
While she talks about updates in MAPS’ world and how to manage and scale a rapidly growing industry while trying to change a system from the inside, she mostly talks about what she, the rest of MAPS, and a lot of the psychedelic space in general are most excited about right now: Psychedelic Science 2023, the largest psychedelic conference in history, beginning next week in Denver.
She discusses the growth of the conference; why they chose Denver as a location; and how programming has changed over the years to embrace the multiplicity of identities inside the psychedelic space, including much more business content, a culture stage that focuses on how psychedelics interact with the mainstream, various programs put on by community partners, pre- and post- workshops covering an array of topics, and an area they’re calling Deep Space, which was designed to help attendees get out of their heads and more into their bodies.
If you were thinking of attending, this episode should serve as a great inspiration to finally buy a ticket. When you do, be sure to use code PT15 to get 15% off your purchase, and when you’re there, visit us at booth 834 Wednesday through Friday. Joe is hosting a Psychedelic Morning Show with Anne Philippi on Thursday and Friday, and we’re partnering with Lounge CashoM, an all-inclusive environment designed to be a decompression space from that big conference energy. Email hello@cashom.org for more info, click here for tickets (use password MotherEarth to access tickets, and code PT20 for 20% off), click here for our guide on events we’re most excited about, and click here for a full guide of afterparties and events.
Notable Quotes
“I was 22 in 2010 when I attended the MAPS conference, and it completely changed the trajectory of my life and opened me into understanding that it was possible to have a career working in psychedelics (which was such a foreign concept back then). So when I think about what I’m most excited about, it’s the people. It’s bringing together our global community, and it’s what can come from the magic of an event; of being in connection with one another, of all the little collisions that happen and all the ways that we discover how we can support each other and work together to make this field the best that it can be.”
“All these really big topics of our time that people are interested in and chatting about: if you just flip over the rock, there you will find people who have been directly inspired by and impacted by psychedelics.”
“There’s no escaping the reality that we’re all connected. So rather than trying to dip out and create private utopias, I’m more interested in understanding how to engage with what is, and invite it into the more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible.”
The global psychedelic community is taking over Denver, Colorado from June 19-24 for Psychedelic Science 2023, presented by MAPS. Psychedelics Today is an official media partner, and we’ll be on the ground with 10 team members through the duration of the entire event at Booth 834, so be sure to stop by. We’re looking forward to participating in various talks, activations, and events throughout the week. And most importantly, we can’t wait to connect with our community.
Here’s where to find us in the flesh.
Monday, June 19:
5:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.: Calling all ketamine clinicians and practitioners! Join Psychedelics Today, SoundSelf and Being True To You at Lounge CashoM to kick off the conference. This event is specifically curated for ketamine clinicians and practitioners eager to connect with other like-minds, and to learn about new tools, cutting-edge research, and resources to help support their practice.
Cost: Free Registration required: Registration is now closed.
Tuesday, June 20
4 p.m. – 6 p.m.: Join Samantha Sweetwater, Holos and Psychedelics Today at Lounge CashoM for WHOLENESS: Building Capacity for a Real Psychedelic Renaissance. An evocative book reading, panel and networking space.
Cost: Free Registration required: Registration is now closed.
6:30 p.m. – midnight: You’re invited to an intimate and educational functional mushroom culinary experience with Mount Mushmore and Fungtion, followed by a vibey after party with music by BOSA at Lounge CashoM! Tickets are on sale now, and capacity is limited.
Cost: $30 – $150 Registration required: Registration is now closed.
Wednesday, June 21
7 a.m. – 7 p.m.: Find Psychedelics Today on the expo floor at Booth 834.
Cost: Free with Conference Pass Registration not required.
4 p.m. – 6 p.m.: Vital Student Meet Up at Lounge CashoM supported by LyfeChng.
Cost: Free Registration not required: Invite only
7 p.m. – 11 p.m.: Join us as we celebrate the Summer Solstice with Sarah Solstice, a world-class performer who has shared the stage with Britney Spears! Get bathed in sound at Deepening Into Heaven: MAPS Afterparty, presented by Within Center.
Cost: $111 Registration Required: Registration is now closed.
Thursday, June 22
7 a.m. – 7 p.m.: Find Psychedelics Today on the expo floor at Booth 834.
Cost: Free with Conference Pass Registration not required.
8 a.m. – 9 a.m.:Your Psychedelic Morning Show. Brought to you by Psychedelics Today Co-Founder Joe Moore and The New Health Club Founder Anne Philippi on the Marketplace Stage. Join us for surprise guests, unexpected questions, and wake-up calls!
Cost: Free with Conference Pass Registration not required.
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.: Pain and Psychedelics Association (PPA) Meetup. Join Joe Moore and Court Wing for a presentation in the PS2023Press Room.
Cost: Free with Conference Pass Registration not required.
6:30 p.m. – 10 p.m.: Explore ceremonial filmmaking with Entheogenic Roots – Indigenous Origins of Psychedelic Culture for a trailer screening and Q&A with Producer Youchanan Russel, with musical performances and more at Lounge CashoM.
Cost: Donation-based Registration required: Registration is now closed.
Friday, June 23
6:30 a.m. – 8 a.m.: Calling all early birds! Join us for theMindful Miles 5k run with Heroic Hearts Project, in an event benefiting veterans and their families to overcome military trauma.
Cost: $50 Registration required: Registration is now closed.
7 a.m. – 7 p.m.: Find Psychedelics Today on the expo floor at Booth 834.
Cost: Free with Conference Pass Registration not required.
8 a.m. – 9 a.m.:Your Psychedelic Morning Show. Brought to you by Psychedelics Today Co-Founder Joe Moore and The New Health Club Founder Anne Philippi on the Marketplace Stage. Join us for surprise guests, unexpected questions, and wake-up calls!
Cost: Free with Conference Pass Registration not required.
In this episode, David interviews Alex Belser, Ph.D.: clinical scientist; author; licensed psychologist; Co-Investigator for a psilocybin and OCD study at Yale University; and co-creator of the EMBARK approach, a new model of psychedelic-assisted therapy that focuses on six clinical domains that typically arise during psychedelic experiences.
He is also one of the editors of Queering Psychedelics: From Oppression to Liberation in Psychedelic Medicine, the new anthology from Chacruna featuring 38 essays from queer authors and allies looking at the heteronormative aspects of psychedelic culture and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, self-acceptance, psychedelics and pleasure, and ways the queer community can become allies with other groups. As they serendipitously recorded this episode on June 1, it only made sense to celebrate Pride Month by releasing it now, as well as launching a giveaway, where you can win one of five copies of Queering Psychedelics.
Belser talks about the concurrent emergence of the psychedelic and queer communities; the need to research the effects of transphobia and homophobia in psychedelic work (as well as the internalized phobias often realized during an experience); why it’s more important than ever to talk about the psychedelic space’s dark past with conversion therapy; why the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire needs to be updated; the idea of queer people being boundary walkers; recreating the Good Friday Experiment, the immense importance of long-form interviews and other forms of qualitative research, the power of love and community, and the question: how does anyone not want to change after a powerful psychedelic experience?
Notable Quotes
“When we talk about MK-Ultra and we talk about the abuses of boundary transgressions and sexual transgressions, we also need to be talking about how psychedelics have been used to harm people through conversion therapy and how they have repeatedly been used in this way. If we don’t look to our past and what’s happening currently, then I don’t think we’re ever going to have a truly integral reckoning with how we carry these medicines in ethical ways.”
“I spoke with an Orthodox Priest who said, ‘Before, I used to give sermons to my congregation and I would talk about God’s justice: the justice of the lord.’ And now, after taking psychedelics (he had a really powerful experience), he says, ‘All I want to talk about is God’s love.’”
“[The EMBARK model is] open architecture. It’s multidimensional, but it allows for the therapist to bring in their existing skill sets, and it allows for a patient-centered approach to what might actually emerge or arise, because I don’t think there’s one path for psychedelic healing. What we see are multiple trajectories, and we needed to build a comprehensive theoretical framework for psychotherapy that allows for different expressions of that for different people.”
“I don’t think psychedelics are a panacea or cure-all, but I think that they help us experiment with different ways of being together, and it doesn’t have to be one way. That’s what I’ve learned; it really does not have to be one way, and it does not have to be the old way.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle are once again able to take advantage of Kyle’s temporary Colorado residency and record together in Joe’s office.
While last week focused on the numerous challenges facing a rapidly growing industry of psychedelic therapists, facilitators, and guides, the topic of therapy itself is put under the microscope this week, as they dissect a New York Times article titled, “Does Therapy Really Work? Let’s Unpack That.” They discuss whether or not therapy is right for everyone, the efficacy of different types of therapy, the role of the therapeutic alliance in treatment outcomes, and how (if it’s even possible) to measure all of these factors.
They also discuss:
-a study showing that ketamine was more effective than ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) for patients with treatment-resistant depression;
-the potential benefits of the LSD analog, Br-LSD, in treating people with major depressive disorders, cluster headaches, and more;
-Ireland’s Health Service Executive launching the Safer Nightlife program, which will partner with music festivals this summer to establish on-site drug testing;
-the U.S. slowly beginning to legalize fentanyl test strips, which, for some reason, are illegal in many parts of the country;
and much more!
See you next week, and if you’re in the NYC area, make sure to check out “Tales of Transformation,” an in-person event Thursday, June 8 at the Athenæum, moderated by David, and featuring Ifetayo Harvey, Juliana Mulligan, and Raad Seraj.
In this episode, Joe interviews the Co-Founders of Enosis Therapeutics: researcher and scientist, Agnieszka Sekula; and psychiatrist, clinical advisor to the Australian Psychedelic Society, and leading Australian advocate for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, Dr. Prash P.
Enosis Therapeutics is a medtech startup that began with the question: how can we use VR – with or without psychedelics – to improve mental health outcomes? They feel that the biggest problem with powerful psychedelic experiences is that, once you’re back in reality, it’s oddly difficult to remember the insights and new ideas that were so clear during the experience, and even harder to make connections that lead to concrete change. They believe that the immersive nature of VR and the novelty of unique VR environments creates a sense of presence that can’t be recreated otherwise – a liminal, in-between state that’s just different enough to allow the patient to feel like they’re back in that non-ordinary state, and therefore more able to anchor their experience and begin to find connections and more clearly understand newfound insights.
This all happens by the user essentially creating nonlinear, abstract, multi-sensory VR paintings while describing what they remembered; allowing them to revisit these worlds later, bring in therapists (or anyone else) to work inside these environments, and hear their own voice describing what happened, thereby creating a mental map that can be worked with in completely unique ways.
They talk about the conflict between new technologies and traditionalists; the problems with moving away from psychoanalysis and not treating psychotherapy as a process; how VR could improve the efficacy of therapy (and improve therapists’ lives); how it could replace models of repeated dosage; how VR could generate analytics to actually quantify success in mental health treatment; and how (whether psychedelics are used or not) culture needs to bring the psychedelic way of thinking to mental health.
Notable Quotes
“Imagine that you build out that network, that you make it physically visible and tangible, and you can actually have someone that comes into that space and visits that network. So you can share your mental model with anyone that you want: it can be a therapist, it can be a guide, it can be a shaman, it can be a well-being specialist, it can be your partner, it can be your parent, it can be your child. It can be anyone that you wish had a better understanding of you, but they don’t. It’s hard to understand ourselves, [much less] understand each other based on those linear narratives. But if we actually see how people connect things [and] how they see those links, I feel like we have a much better chance to actually connect to each other and have a better understanding of consciousness.” -Agnieszka
“So much of the focus in psychedelic therapy has been on the dosing session, whereas a lot of us would like to think that it really should be on the psychotherapy, and the psychedelic is purely that stimulus that ignites the insights which you then take through psychotherapy. If that stimulus can be the stimulus which ignites a process of psychotherapy, and therefore the power of psychotherapy to produce change, and in that way, brings psychotherapy further to the forefront of mental health treatment (in a way, it’s completely disappeared and been replaced by biological methods), then I think we have won – just by that.” -Prash
“We can induce a similar psycho-emotional state with the use of VR during the integration sessions to help patients remember, at their psychological and at an emotional level, what the experience has been like. …A lot of studies (especially earlier studies) would report that within the first two weeks after the psychedelic experience [is] the most potent time for integration because patients are still in that emotional state that was evoked with psychedelics. So maintaining that for longer by repeat application of VR might give us more access to those emotions, and might enable patients to process things a little bit more deeply.” -Agnieszka
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Kyle and David meet up to talk news, but end up mostly having a discussion about the numerous challenges facing the rapidly growing industry of psychedelic therapists, guides, and facilitators.
That discussion comes from the article, “Psychedelic workers of the world, unite!”, which breaks down the shortcomings and risks of an industry many are flocking to without realizing what they’ll likely have to deal with: unprecedented legal and financial risks, burnout, misalignment with management, transference and countertransference, and what happens when one finds themselves in the middle of a genuine emergency? While these issues could be found in any industry, a big reason why they seem so prevalent and dangerous in the psychedelic world is our lack of elders and passed-down experience – and the faster this all grows, the more we need that guidance.
And for news, they talk about Ohio State making history as the first U.S. University to receive a license to grow psilocybin mushrooms; a new study showing that LSD enhanced learning, exploratory thinking, and sensitivity to feedback; and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funding $1.5 million to research the efficacy of psychedelics for substance use disorder – which spurs a conversation about research, funding, and the idea that maybe we’re spending too much time and money on neuroscience.
In this episode, Joe interviews Priyanka Wali, MD: board-certified practicing physician in Internal Medicine, MAPS-trained psychedelic facilitator, comedian, and co-host (with Sean Hayes of “Will & Grace” fame) of the HypochondriActor podcast, where they discuss interesting medical issues in a funny (and hopefully uplifting) way.
She talks about recognizing and protecting the humanity of healthcare professionals, and how medical school is creating a cycle of hurt people trying to help other hurt people. She believes we need to become more holistic, especially in embracing Indigenous ways of thinking, as their frameworks may be the only way to explain phenomena with which Western science can’t yet come to terms.
They talk a lot about ancient psychedelic use: the use of a soma described in the Rigveda; Egyptian culture and mushrooms observed in statues; Plato; the work of Brian Muraresku and Graham Hancock; and Vedic chants, Kashmiri Bhajans, and how singing (especially in a group) can be especially healing to the nervous system. And as Wali experienced first-hand the Kashmiri Pandit genocide of 1990, she discusses how much colonialism has changed cultures, and how much our cycles of oppression relate to our collective inability to experience pain and fear.
They discuss the psychological impact of living through major catastrophes; the special and hard-to-describe feeling of returning to your home (especially in a world changed by colonization and constant conflict); the sad case of Ignaz Semmelweis and hand washing; ghosts of Japan’s 2011 tsunami, the concept of ‘future primitive,’ and more.
Notable Quotes
“We’re only thinking about it from a certain perspective. And this is where you think about principles of colonization come in: looking at things only from one perspective. If you start to bring in Indigenous systems [and] Indigenous ways of looking at data, then suddenly, we do actually have ways to account for these other phenomenon that can’t be objectively tabulated.”
“In traditional Kashmiri culture, it was routine to gather together and sing together. We humans: we’re supposed to gather around the fire and dance and chant. There’s actually something very healing for our bodies. And let’s not forget how our nervous systems regulate with each other, so being physically together as a group, as a collective, singing, using our bodies: it’s actually very healing for the nervous system. We need more of that.”
“I think the next shift in consciousness is recognizing that we experience fear as part of the human experience, but we can choose not to give into it. We can be with it, we can allow it to be there, we can even honor it, but we don’t have to act on it. And we can, instead, choose the path of peace or love, or not even choose those paths, but just choose not to do anything with the fear; choose not to oppress someone, judge someone, lash it out, [or] numb it. …Unless we, in the present day, begin to start being with our fear, we will continue to perpetuate these cycles of oppression.”
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In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle are both on the road, so David and Alexa take the helm.
They cover news stories about:
-a man in Colorado facing a Class 3 drug felony for giving people psilocybin mushrooms in exchange for monetary donations – pointing out the bold (or stupid?) stances some are taking to highlight the absurdity of legislation that allows possession and donation as long as no money changes hands;
-a study showing what many of us have felt ourselves: that the day after psilocybin-assisted therapy, depressed patients had a stronger brain response to music and saw improvements in the ability to find pleasure in previously empty activities;
-a trip report from a psychedelically-naive 50-year old, showing the power and beauty of MDMA-assisted therapy;
-the New Hampshire state Senate continuing to be behind the times and voting down House Bill 639, which would have created a legal recreational cannabis framework for the state;
-a video where people on the street in Oregon were asked how much they thought psilocybin therapy would cost, showing a drastic misalignment between public perception and reality;
and a local TV news feature touring Rose City Laboratories, the first licensed psilocybin testing lab in Oregon.
And in conversation, they talk about some of the lesser-discussed (and often dismissed) tools like CBD, THC patches, and very low-dose edibles; the problem with drug dealers and harm reduction; the power of music in guiding a psychedelic experience (and in living a pleasurable life); and the importance of dosing and listening to your body to know what’s right for you.
In this episode, Joe interviews Nick Kadysh: Founder and CEO of PharmAla Biotech and member of the board of directors for The Canadian Psychedelic Businesses Association.
PharmAla Biotech is a Toronto-based Life Sciences company with two focuses: contracting with manufacturers to provide researchers with GMP MDMA (created under Good Manufacturing Practice regulations), and creating and researching novel analogs of MDMA. And just today, they announced that Health Canada has authorized them (and their distribution partner, Shaman Pharma) to supply their LaNeo™ MDMA for the treatment of a patient under Canada’s Special Access Program – the first time this has happened in Canada.
He discusses the creation of PharmAla and why their model changed from primarily researching analogs to manufacturing; why they’re operating out of Canada and using manufacturers instead of running the lab themselves; the excitement around Australia’s recent about-face on MDMA and psilocybin-assisted therapy; the bureaucracy of U.S. drug policy and how much a broken supply chain affects the whole industry; bad IP and companies filing rapid fire patents; why creating new analogs of MDMA is so important; and why the psychedelic space needs to bring culture along with us.
He also talks about Spravato, cannabis and risks of cancer, THC nasal sprays, and research he’s most excited about: that MDMA seems to alleviate dyskinesia caused from Parkinson’s disease, and that MDMA could improve social anxiety in people with autism. He’s aiming to run a clinical trial and believes they have developed a safe MDMA analog that the autistic community will respond to very well.
Notable Quotes
“I don’t want to give the impression that we think that MDMA is unsafe. In the case of PTSD-assisted psychotherapy the way that it’s being presented by MAPS, I think it’s remarkably safe. But, you know, better is still possible.”
“If you told me that you have a brand new drug that was developed in a lab that nobody has ever seen or tried or tested before, and let’s call it drug A. And then you have drug B, which is derived from a mushroom, that people have been consuming regularly for the past 5,000 years and no one’s died. And you’re asking me which one is safer? It’s the mushroom, man. It’s not even a question.”
“We owe it to ourselves in this industry to take the population along for the ride. This is why I think safety is so important, because if you’re working on safety, people like that. People trust that. That’s what happened last time: there was the counterculture and the culture, and the culture won, and we’re still paying for it today. So let’s bring the culture along.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and temporary-Colorado-resident Kyle once again record in-person, discussing how psychedelics could change business, the drug war and safe supply, and more.
They cover:
-a Rolling Stone profile on David Bronner, who makes the case for multi-stakeholder capitalism; where businesses are accountable to their workers, customers, the environment, and surrounding Indigenous communities instead of just investors – an idea more people would likely align with after a psychedelic experience;
-The first psilocybin service center in Oregon (EPIC Healing Eugene) finally receiving their license via the Oregon Health Authority;
-A man who saw his color blindness improve for four months after a 5g mushroom experience;
-The opening of ‘The Drugs Store’ in Vancouver, British Columbia: a mobile store selling drugs illegally as a response to the opioid epidemic and constant influx of untested and laced drugs – the “inevitable result of the government doing nothing” towards offering a safe supply;
-and a survey from the CDC showing that cannabis use among teenagers has declined since legal dispensaries began opening, disproving one of the most common prohibitionist arguments that legalization would only increase use.
And of course, these topics bring on a lot of conversation: how businesses need to be more reflective on how they’re operating; concern over if too much regulation is nerfing the world; the human cost of the drug war and the ever-escalating amount of ODs and drug poisoning cases; HPPD and the need for research around psychedelics and vision/perception; why we will always need both clinical access and the recreational underground, and more.
In this episode, Joe interviews Erica Rex: award-winning journalist, past guest and writer, and participant in one of the first ever clinical trials using psilocybin to treat cancer-related depression; and Mona Sobhani, Ph.D.: cognitive neuroscientist and the author of Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist’s Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe.
As Rex discovered the power of psychedelics through a clinical trial, she discusses a huge problem she discovered: that researchers are not preparing participants enough for the ontological shock they may go through in trying to match unexplainable happenings to a rigid framework (or match the normal to a framework that has suddenly shifted) – that while patients have support at the clinic, it all disappears when they return to normal life. She believes that all too often, researchers are doing only what is necessary to be able to continue to receive funding, push drugs through the FDA, and prescribe a pill.
And as psychedelics changed Sobhani from very constrained scientific thinking to being very open to new ideas about consciousness and spirituality, she learned that many scientists had similar stories, and that coming out of the psychedelic closet is sometimes the best thing to do to normalize these ways of healing.
They discuss the challenges of newcomers trying to explain their experience without having the necessary language; how we still don’t truly understand mental illness; how the DSM just clusters symptoms to fit ‘disorders’ into a box; how society has started pathologizing anything we find unpleasant (which of course, is a part of being human); Gary Fisher’s research on using LSD and psilocybin for schizophrenic children, why science needs to combine consciousness research and psychedelics research, and more.
Notable Quotes
“I think most people (neuroscientists, a lot of psychologists): we don’t like labels. We don’t like the DSM (especially neuroscientists). It doesn’t make any sense; all you’re doing is clustering symptoms and calling it a disorder. It’s useful, but it’s not explanatory. …Everyone’s so focused on ‘What are the brain mechanisms?’ but we do need to pull out and [ask]: ‘What are the societal mechanisms? How is our society not supporting [us]? Why do we see such an increase in some of these disorders? It’s a really big question.” -Mona
“There was a big move to get grief made into a pathology that was defined in the DSM so it could be treated with a pill. Grief. This was during COVID. So now grief is a pathology and you can be diagnosed with ‘grieving disorder’ and treated for it. …Anything that does not serve the machine is now considered a disease and disorder and has to be fixed, which is unfortunate because it takes us away from every piece of authentic experience that we could ever possibly have. And that is dehumanizing, profoundly.” -Erica
“Our whole society’s not built around humanity, even though we talk a lot about humanity. But there’s no humane principles in business or in society. Nothing is built around what the human needs, and that’s why, even in psychiatry, you see [that] grief or these normal human needs are pathologized. …We’re just cutting off parts of ourselves and not catering to being a human because we hate being human so much, apparently. We hate the things that are inconvenient about it, that it’s like we just have to cut it off and block it off and go forward. But you can’t do that; then you have all these coping mechanisms that emerge and then all these disorders, because you’re not functioning in an environment that supports you being what you are.” -Mona
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle record in-person again, discussing psychedelics and parenthood, sports, music, and more.
They cover:
-an Elle (!) article about how mushrooms are becoming the new ‘Cali sober,’ with more and more people starting to microdose – including parents;
-ESPN’s documentary, “Peace of Mind,” highlighting the rise of psychedelic use among athletes, including retired NHL player, Riley Cote;
-An article discussing how interest in psychedelics has skyrocketed in Oregon since the passing of Measure 109, and how over-regulation and the glacial speed of the government is only driving the growth of the black market;
-An essay attempting to define what it is that leads people to describe music as psychedelic (with several recommendations from Joe);
-DMT aficionados using AI to create and catalog depictions of the entities they’ve seen;
and more!
And they have larger discussions about the drug war, how famous athletes are opening people’s minds to psychedelics, how strict regulation in psychedelic legislation can create more harm, how we need to collaborate more in the psychedelic space, the concept of a DMT ‘hyper-slap,’ and the problem of psychedelic exceptionalism and thinking your drug is good while others are bad.
In this episode, David interviews two of the founding members of Fireside Project: activist, healing justice practitioner, musician, and Chief Ambassador, Hanifa Nayo Washington; and lawyer, aspiring researcher, and Executive Director, Joshua White, Esq.
Fireside Project was created after White volunteered for a help line for years and realized a few things: that follow-up calls made a big difference; that the state of mental health in the U.S. was a disaster (he was talking to some of the same people for years); and that while psychedelics were becoming popular, they would likely only be accessible to the wealthy. Alongside Washington, they realized the most effective thing they could do would be creating a free help line where people could call for peer support during a psychedelic experience, and receive support in integrating that experience afterward. They’ve focused on finding volunteers who may be marginalized or who have been persecuted from the war on drugs, but most importantly, have real experience and true compassion (rather than letters after their name proving their credentials). They are on track to receive 10,000 calls over their first two years.
They discuss Fireside’s Burning Man origin story; the serendipity they’ve seen in the organization’s beginnings and so many calls; where the name came from; how they prepare volunteers; what true equity looks like; and how, while it’s a common challenge for therapists and facilitators to hold back and not try to fix a problem, that may be even more important here.
Fireside Project takes calls every day from 11am – 11pm PST, and while there is an app you can download, they recommend saving their number in your phone for when you need it (62-FIRESIDE). And to destroy the notion of being afraid to ask for help, they encourage everyone to share their stories on social media: the times that you’ve used Fireside Project or the times you had a challenging experience and wish you had known about them. Many newcomers have no idea this support exists, and it could truly be life-changing for them.
Notable Quotes
“What’s revolutionary about what we’re doing in this idea of democratizing care is that these are volunteers, and they come as peers. They come to the experiences having had their own experiences, and desiring to hold space for others as they navigate their experiences and navigate their processing afterwards. …They’re not doing therapy. They’re not diagnosing. They’re really with the person (the caller, the texter) as somebody who gets it.” -Hanifa
“I think some of the most powerful moments on the line come when we say absolutely nothing at all, when we just allow the silence to become almost palpable, to really feel that ember. I think silence has led to so many of the most beautiful moments that I’ve been lucky enough to see on the line.” -Josh
“By being able to create a safe and non-judgmental space for people by phone, then yes, that absolutely can reduce the risks of their psychedelic experiences. And I think there’s kind of a yin and yang here, which is that when a person is in a space of non-judgment, and when they do feel deeply seen and heard and listened to, then that not only reduces the risks, but it also allows someone to really turn towards their psychedelic experience and to unwrap the gift that’s before them.” -Josh
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In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, David speaks with Kyle, who recorded at Joe’s place while he was away atTrailblazers in NYC.
They talk about David’s trip to the UK last week forBreaking Convention, then discuss a recent Vice article about looking outside the binary and confined thinking of Western medicine and embracing the underground – that there are cheaper and more accessible peer support models and affinity groups for everyone, but in going underground, we need to be careful that more accessible models aren’t dangerous or re-traumatizing. While businesses are competing to make headway in the psychedelic space, nobody is controlling all of it, which leads to both possibility and risk.
They cover SB23-290, the bill Senate President Steve Fenberg created to establish a regulatory framework for psilocybin access and administration in Colorado in lieu of the advisory board that should have been put in place as part of Prop 122. They break down the positives and negatives of this framework, and ask: how much do these committees who are passing legislation really know about psilocybin?
And they briefly discuss an article on what MDMA therapy may look like when MAPS hopefully gets approval via the FDA early next year, Rick Doblin’s speech at Breaking Convention, and his concept of society eventually having “net zero trauma.”
Psychedelics are a fascinating class of compounds that have potent effects on our consciousness. After a multi-decade hiatus, scientific research on psychedelics has now resumed with full force. One field that has rapidly developed in recent years is psychedelic neuroscience, which applies the cutting-edge frameworks and tools of modern neuroscience to understand how psychedelics affect the brain and nervous system to elicit their profound effects. The latest findings from this breakthrough field have increasingly spilled into popular culture and are often profiled in the media – it’s now commonplace to hear terms like ‘default mode network’ and ‘neuroplasticity’ casually thrown around when discussing psychedelics and their effects.
However, much of the research is quite technical, and typical media treatments are often either highly simplistic and watered-down, or plainly inaccurate and sensationalistic. Most people just don’t have the necessary background to properly understand and communicate findings beyond repeatable buzzwords and trickle-down narratives.
It’s easy to wonder: what’s the practical relevance of psychedelic neuroscience for psychotherapy or for individuals navigating their own psychedelic experiences?
Don’t Worry – It’s Only Temporary
Understanding the science of psychedelics can be really helpful for therapists and clinicians preparing their clients for psychedelic experiences, and helping clients conceptualize and understand their experiences afterward. Psychedelic experiences can sometimes be quite overwhelming and hard to make sense of. It can be challenging to experience the profound alterations of consciousness they can elicit, which span from complex dream-like images and vivid memory recall, to ego-dissolving mystical-type effects, to perceptual distortions and synesthesia.
By reminding and reassuring clients that the intense effects they are experiencing are directly related to temporary changes in brain activity, clients may be less concerned that they are “gone without return” or that there is something inherently “wrong” or “bad” about their experience. It can also provide a useful model or framework to ground and interpret what emerges during their journey. They can rest assured that no matter how radical and reality-shattering their psychedelic experience is, it’s being underpinned by temporary changes in how brain regions are communicating and interacting over time.
Predicting the Unpredictable
Research has found that an individual’s psychological traits and brain characteristics can help predict the nature of their psychedelic experience, as well as the likelihood that they might experience long-lasting therapeutic benefits. The principles of ‘set and setting’ are deeply ingrained in psychedelic therapies, and signify the integral role that context plays in determining therapeutic outcomes. ‘Set’ concerns one’s mental and emotional state immediately before the psychedelic experience, encompassing such facets as personality and mood. Meanwhile, ‘setting’ pertains to the physical, social, and cultural milieu in which the psychedelic is taken. Given that traits and moods have been shown to correspond with differences in brain function, it is likely that brain structure and function may prove effective in predicting subjective effects and treatment response. This ‘precision medicine’ approach – using brain markers to forecast how individuals will respond to a given drug – has been applied to antidepressants and ADHD medications, providing a precedent for such a strategy in the realm of psychedelic therapy.
Their findings also appear to suggest that priming subjects to reduce theta power before taking a serotonergic psychedelic may help increase the depth of their mystical experience. For example, an individual could reduce theta with neurofeedback training, in which feedback from an EEG headset would allow them to modulate their brain activity to achieve a desired brain and psychological state. Although further research is required before any definitive conclusions can be drawn, emerging research like this suggests that capturing information about brain states – beyond what can be subjectively reported – may prove to be a valuable tool in predicting an individual’s psychological readiness for a psychedelic experience.
The Nuances of Psychedelically Boosted Neuroplasticity
The proliferation of interest in serotonergic psychedelics, MDMA, and ketamine is in no small part due to their remarkable ability to act as ‘psychoplastogens’ – compounds that enhance neuroplasticity in the brain. Neuroplasticity refers to the ways in which neurons in the brain change their connections with each other or create new ones, which is critical for the brain’s ability to learn, adapt to new experiences, and recover from injury. Psychedelics’ ability to enhance neuroplasticity has frequently been highlighted as central in eliciting therapeutic effects across a range of mood disorders and stress-related conditions such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD, which makes sense because impaired neuroplasticity has been reported for all of these disorders.
Research in rodents has suggested that, generally, for most psychedelics, the period between six and 72 hours post-psychedelic experience is when neuroplasticity is at its highest.
However, changes may last for much longer. For instance, LSD has been shown to promote the expression of neuroplasticity-related genes in rodents even one month after treatment had ceased. More and more research is being conducted on these effects, but there is clear practical relevance for clinicians, therapists, and everyday people. Understanding the nuances of psychedelically boosted neuroplasticity – including how long the effects last and where in the brain they occur for a given substance – is critical for designing optimal integration practices.
An in-depth understanding of psychedelic neuroscience can serve as a valuable tool for therapists and individuals seeking to navigate the intricate and potentially transformative realm of psychedelics. Familiarity with scientific research can empower practitioners to tailor their approach to preparation, the acute experience itself, and integration, thus optimizing therapeutic outcomes.
What’s more, the field of psychedelic neuroscience is profoundly intriguing and sometimes referred to as the “quantum mechanics” of neuroscience – neuroscientists are exploring the frontiers of consciousness with a cutting-edge discipline, and unearthing fascinating gems along the way. For example, did you know that psychedelics can enhance the firing rate of excitatory neurons in rodents’ prefrontal cortex by an astounding 481% over baseline, significantly altering communication throughout brain networks? Did you know that research is uncovering that the brain effects of psychedelics might also be tightly linked to our immune system and microbiome, with relevance to mental health? Or that both MDMA and LSD increase oxytocin levels, which plays a role in social bonding?
These and other fascinating discoveries will be covered in our upcoming eight-week course, “Psychedelic Neuroscience Demystified: How Psychedelics Alter Consciousness and Produce Therapeutic Effects.” This course was designed to be accessible to clinicians, therapists, and curious everyday people, making students well-versed in this emerging field, giving them the ability to understand new findings, put them into practice, and be informed participants in ongoing discussions.
In this episode, Joe interviews Deborah Parrish Snyder: ecologist, Director and VP of the Institute of Ecotechnics, and Co-owner and CEO of Synergetic Press, which has published over 40 books on ethnobotany, psychedelics, biospherics, and social and ecological justice.
Straddling the line between ecology, psychedelics, and psyche, she discusses the many projects of the Institute: Biosphere 2, the large-scale closed ecological system she helped design in 1986; London’s “October Gallery,” a man-made city biome project that could be a model for other cities; their “Eden in Iraq” wastewater project; and the Heraclitus, an 82-foot ship which has sailed 270k miles around the earth, studying different cultures, mapping coral reefs, and more, and will soon be setting sail again after being rebuilt for the last decade.
She talks about where we’re at as a society in regards to the environment: how we’re in a period of consequences and it’s easy to feel hopeless, but much of the youth are “solutionists” who don’t want to hear apologies, and instead, want to do something about it. She believes that while schools don’t teach ecology, it’s never too late to learn, and non-ordinary states of consciousness could help people remember our connection to nature, care about our planet, and find the others who feel the same way. Consider pairing your self-exploration with improving the world around you: what can you do to turn your perfect, overly fertilized lawn into a regenerative landscape instead?
Notable Quotes
“We are nature. It’s not like we are part of nature, we are actually nature. This is an Indigenous concept that Western culture has abandoned (or never had to begin with, I’m not sure). Whenever our industrial, technological revolution gave us ways that we could start to live without nature as our main support system, that’s when we started to lose the plot, because there wasn’t closed loop thinking, there wasn’t [understanding of] what would be the long term effects of these things. So we’re starting to see that now. I don’t think humanity went into this intentionally, but at the same time, as we start to recognize the science, we should not be in denial; we should be activated to right the course of the ship.”
“I think that economics continues to drive that complex, but the more people that are awake and connected, the better. And as the war on drugs begins to become rational, and decriminalization of these tools becomes more accessible, we can start to build a society, I think, that is a bit more connected with nature and a bit more connected to each other, because these things don’t just give you an ‘Aha!’ connection with nature, they also give them connection with yourself and they can give you connection with others. …So keep your eyes open. If you’re not happy in your community, look for the others. Find the others; they’re out there.”
“The Western mindset of ‘we are going to conquer nature’: hopefully that worldview is starting to crack. It’s better that we become more like gardeners of the Earth, instead of plundering and pillaging.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle once again record in person, diving into novel compounds, changing opinions, Bicycle Day, and more.
They start by dissecting a very recent controversy around The Church of Psilomethoxin and whether the sacrament they label as psilomethoxin – supposedly created by adding 5-MeO-DMT to the substrate of cultivated Psilocybe mushrooms – actually contains any psilomethoxin in it. Usona Institute published a paper last week reporting on their analysis of a sample they allegedly collected from the Church, which only showed what we’d see in a sample of a typical psilocybin-containing mushroom. While the Church has issues with Usona’s data collection, analytical methods, and motives, they also reiterate a main component of the church: that their “claims to the existence of Psilomethoxin, at this time, are solely based on faith,” and bolstered by their “own direct experiences with the Sacrament.” It’s a very interesting story that touches on faith, consent, personal safety, and the harms of the drug war, which Joe covered extensively in a Twitter Space last night with Andrew Gallimore and the writer of a very critical article, Mario de la Fuente.
They also discuss:
-a Time magazine article about the mystery of Long COVID, and how many believe the anti-inflammatory and neuroplastic benefits of psychedelics could be the answer;
-how Bicycle Day may soon become more popular than 4/20, likely due to society’s warmer reception to the life-changing effects of psychedelics (as opposed to their propagandized and unmoving beliefs about cannabis);
-how some analysts believe that seven in 10 ketamine companies will likely face financial challenges as the industry grows too quickly;
and why Snoop Dogg apparently microwaves blunts before smoking them (and does that actually do anything?).
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is hosting its fourth Psychedelic Science conference this summer: Monday to Friday, June 19 to 23, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.
With over 10,000 expected guests, never before has the global psychedelic community gathered at this scale.
Evolution of the Psychedelic Science Conference
Since 1990, MAPS has organized gatherings to support psychedelic research. These events have strengthened the global psychedelic community, occasioning new research collaborations, business partnerships, and lifelong friendships.
MAPS Founder Rick Doblin, Ph.D., and Alise Agar Wittine, Coordinator at the Omega Foundation San Francisco, initiated the first single-day gathering, “Regulation or Prohibition: Psychedelics in the 1990s,” at the start of that decade. Psychedelic luminaries Ram Dass, Terence McKenna, Ralph Metzner, Timothy Leary, Laura Huxley, and Native American Church President Emerson Jackson all spoke at the initial event.
Over the next 27 years, MAPS organized the 1993 Psychedelic Summit, the 2006 MAPS 20th anniversary celebration at Burning Man, the first Psychedelic Science conference in 2010, followed by Psychedelic Science 2013. Finally, Psychedelic Science 2017 took the conference to new heights, hosting over 3,000 attendees and hundreds of talks, vendors and exhibitors, film screenings, entertainment acts, and community forums.
As an event both responsive to and generative of the rising interest in psychedelics, MAPS’ Psychedelic Science conference has proved to be in a fractal relationship with the field itself – growing and changing as the field grows and changes.
And there has been growth indeed in the five years since PS17. Regulated adult use of psychedelics is no longer just a policy goal: it is underway in Oregon and Colorado. Mainstream audiences are tuning in, and many have been seeking out ketamine clinics to treat mental health conditions. Even once-unbudgeable federal attitudes could be softening.
Psychedelic Science 2023 aims to cover it all.
Psychedelic Science 2023
To provide orientation in the deluge of exciting talks, the conference’s 300-plus speakers have been sorted into multiple tracks: therapy, clinical trials, studies, science, business, veterans, policy, society, and plant medicines. Attendees can pick their own adventure.
The Business track will take a close look at the state of the industry. Executives and entrepreneurs will have a chance to tap into the thriving network of industry wisdom while considering the big question: how can we steward a culture of cooperation and reciprocity in this new field, and even “psychedelicize” our idea of business itself?
The Clinical Trials, Science, and Studies tracks will provide that nourishing chicken soup of psychedelic conferences: updates from the latest clinical research and neuroscience findings, and considerations for future studies and study design.
The Plant Medicine and Society tracks offer an opportunity to explore and celebrate ancient ceremonial traditions and underground communities. How can we match the healing potential of plant allies with ethics, reciprocity, and harm reduction practices?
The Policy track will explore the front edges of drug policy reform, including updates from federal-level reform efforts, and the challenges and opportunities of implementing psychedelic legislation in Colorado and Oregon.
Finally, attendees invested in the intersection of psychedelic treatments with veteran populations, as well as first responders and athletes, will have a chance to hear from Super Bowl champion quarterback Aaron Rodgers and combat veteran Jesse Gould, among others, on the Veteran track.
Community Building
Through over half a century of prohibition, the psychedelic community has kept its fire lit through small and often clandestine meetings and underground networks. But things are changing. With psychedelic conferences happening year-round across North America and Europe, it’s easier than ever to connect.
Psychedelic Science 2023 aims to create something more special still. With thousands expected to descend on Denver in June, the event will bring together folks of all stripes from across the world. A gathering of this scale represents a chance to step out of our digital environments and truly experience the strength and diversity of the growing field. It is a chance to participate in the community it offers, and to have a say in its unfolding culture and values.
To this end, the conference will offer a number of networking spaces, including a dedicated community partner stage for the many local psychedelic societies, non-profit educational and advocacy groups, harm reduction services, and indie media efforts supporting the conference. These are the groups setting a high bar for the field’s values and creativity.
And these are the groups running the conference nightlife, because friends aren’t made by sitting next to strangers in auditoriums! From Psychedelic Drag Bingo, to a 5k run with veterans, to grad student mixers, to cacao ceremonies, to end-of-week dance parties, PS23 will have endless opportunities to connect.
Many come for the talks and panels, but those who know, know. This is where the magic happens.
The Start of A New Era
The legacy members of the psychedelic community have seen this field reach a public recognition that many did not anticipate in their lifetime. Among those who made this possible, few may be as significant as Stanislav Grof, MD, and Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Both will be present at the conference.
Stanislav Grof is best known for his work with LSD extending back to the 1950s, as well as his development of holotropic breathwork. It is hard to overestimate his influence on psychedelic research and integration practices. He will give the conference’s opening address.
Roland Griffiths’ research on psilocybin and consciousness at Johns Hopkins University is often cited as igniting the current renaissance of psychedelic research. Recently, he has reflected publicly about his cancer diagnosis. He will be guiding some of the Science track sessions, and will be present for a three-course dinner in his honor.
For these two luminaries, PS23 may mark their last major public appearances. Indeed, with so many other prominent psychedelic figures present – including Dennis McKenna, Ph.D., Amanda Feilding, Paul Stamets, Rick Doblin, James Fadiman, and William Richards, Ph.D. – the event may be the last time this particular generation of psychedelic elders find themselves under one roof.
This is a chance for attendees to mark the end of an era, and to celebrate the start of a new one.
Register Today
Registration for Psychedelic Science 2023 is still open. Visit the website for a detailed event agenda, speaker lineup, and to register. Use code PT15 for 15% off tickets on checkout.
This post is part of a 2023 media sponsorship between Psychedelic Science 2023 and Psychedelics Today.
In this episode, on the eve of Bicycle Day, Victoria and Kyle interview two long-standing icons of visionary psychedelic art: Alex and Allyson Grey.
They talk about the LSD trip that saved Alex’s life, connected him to Allyson, inspired his art, and even made him change his name; his decades-in-the-making “Sacred Mirrors” project of 21 7-foot tall pieces depicting the complex layers of human existence; the interconnectedness of life; the history of psychedelic art; how imagination and non-ordinary states help us connect with the divine; and the value of art in conveying the mystical experience.
Alex and Allyson are the Co-Founders of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, an interspiritual church/retreat center in upstate New York that, after years of work, is debuting Entheon: an art sanctuary and psychedelic reliquary featuring much of their art and work from favorite artists, a shrine to Tool (who Alex has worked with for most of their career), and a collection of relics from psychedelic legends that includes Albert Hofmann’s glasses, art signed by Stan Grof and the Shulgins, and even Timothy Leary’s ashes. Entheon opens on June 3, on the anniversary of the first acid trip the Greys took together, which gave them a framework for understanding life and an inspiration for art they still follow to this day.
And in honor of Bicycle Day, Alex talks about two pieces dedicated to Albert Hofmann, and continues his Bicycle Day tradition of reading a statement Hofmann made a year before he passed about psychedelics being the “absolute highest importance to consciousness change.” In celebration of Albert Hofmann and the gift he gave us, and with inspiration from the incredibly complex and beautiful art Alex and Allyson create, have a happy, safe, and creative Bicycle Day!
“St. Albert and the LSD Revelation Revolution” by Alex Grey
Notable Quotes
“I hadn’t had any insight that would prove to me any kind of spiritual reality was really there, even though I was making art. And I think from my perspective now: hey, if you’re being creative, you’re evidence. The creative spirit is what birthed the universe, and you’re an expression here and now of it. You’re evolving on that wavefront of reality that is binding time together and our beings together.” -Alex “We could see the vast vista of fountains and drains of everyone, and every being and thing in the universe was interconnected and made of light, and in that, I think we felt connected rather than disconnected. We felt like we were individual and independent, but also interconnected with all beings and things. [It] makes you feel like there’s some importance to yourself, that you really are necessary in the web of the eternal.” -Allyson “You’re making love with the divine in the mystical experience, in the divine imagination. That’s where the small self meets the larger self and becomes no self. So I think that the mystical experience is the cornerstone of the sacred traditions, and the artistic sacred traditions as well.” -Alex
“It took me right outside of my miserable psychodrama self and immediately, I got a psychic swirlie to show me the way. So that was a confirmation, and all my prayers basically were answered in that, and I got to meet the love of my life, really, because of it. So we’re very thankful, and it’s one of the reasons why we’ve always loved celebrating Bicycle Day.” -Alex
She discusses her path to psychedelics, how she ended up running the Initiative 81 campaign (the Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act of 2020), and how she came to realize that decriminalization efforts can’t be the only option we go for – that, like it or not, we live in a system where politics and money are major factors behind any systematic change, and if we want to make any headway, we have to play the game. The Psychedelic Medicine PAC (Political Action Committee) was created to open up federal funding for psychedelic research, as nearly all research today (of which there still isn’t enough) is being funded by private companies. They will use donations to support politicians who are on our side and can advance psychedelic progress, who will push for federal funding to get the new and necessary data people who aren’t bought in yet need to see.
They talk about speaking with people from the other side of the aisle at a recent education campaign in DC; how federal funding is neutral money; what she learned from DC’s deprioritization of cannabis policing; how personal stories and one-on-one human connection can change minds better than traditional confrontational activism; and the need to get ahead of the inevitable wave of big pharma propaganda they’ll bring when they officially step up to the table. She believes the path to helping the most people is advancing science and data through federal funding, and that begins with education and getting more politicians on our side. If you agree, follow them for details about their upcoming event in May, visit their table at Psychedelic Science this June (use PT15 for 15% off tickets), and donate to the PAC or the coalition.
Also, as a bonus, this episode begins with a mini version of Psychedelics Weekly. Joe and Kyle didn’t have enough time to record a full episode, but still wanted to check in and review a few notable stories and highlight our recent Vital graduation ceremony. See you next week!
Notable Quotes
“I dipped my toes with the microdosing [and] I found immediate effects of that. I engaged with my children for the first time in many years, and with my son for, really, the first time since he was born. So that was a really mind-blowing experience of taking something for only a few days and feeling my humanity come back again.”
“I think when you take the media out of it and you isolate them in a place they feel very safe (in their office) and there’s no cameras around and they don’t feel the need to get their talking points across, and you have a human-to-human conversation with them about this issue, the result is that much better because you isolate all of these external influences that they’re constantly under and you say, ‘Listen, I am talking to you as a human being. This was my experience. This is what I did to heal myself.’ …Watching them have their epiphany about this is so fun.”
“When these campaigns win with very small margins (like 1%, 3%, 5%), that means half of the state voted against it, and that means half the state wasn’t being spoken to in these campaigns in the right way. …The U.S. is extremely diverse, and not just racially, but within perspectives that exist in this country, and we cannot just be speaking to one side of this issue. We have to really engage with the public in a meaningful way, and that is speaking to the half of the country that doesn’t understand this.”
“We forget that the traditional pharmaceutical industry has yet to step in on this issue. I think that they’re very closely watching what’s going to happen with psychedelics, but they have yet to stick their lobbyists on the hill. And that is the day that I am not looking forward to, because they have one of the most powerful lobbies in the country and they have budgets for this kind of work in the billions of dollars, really. So how is the psychedelic industry going to compete with that? How you counter that is: you educate members of congress, you educate those influential people before the pharmaceutical industry gets there so they can’t fill their heads with misinformation.”
In this episode, Joe lets Court Wing take lead in interviewing two of the leaders behind Clusterbusters: Founder and Executive Director, Bob Wold; and President, Eileen Brewer.
A long-time friend of the show, Court Wing has become our resident expert on chronic pain, writing articles about how psilocybin relieved his chronic pain, and hosting Timothy Furnish, MD & Joel Castellanos, MD in their episode about phantom limb pain. Now he speaks with Clusterbusters, a non-profit dedicated to educating people about the horrors of cluster headaches, funding ongoing research into new treatments, and normalizing the miracle that psilocybin has been to so many sufferers in alleviating their headaches.
Wold and Brewer discuss their past struggles (Wold is a cluster sufferer and Brewer has migraine disease) and discovering the amazing intervention of psychedelics; the battles they’ve gone through in spreading this knowledge; how using psychedelics is also helping people work through PTSD; the barriers that legal psilocybin is creating; the concept of schools having a drug education program; the research looking at cluster headaches and other headache diseases; their creation of the Pain And Psychedelics Association, and more. While cluster headache sufferers have a lot to be frustrated about; as psilocybin becomes more mainstream and more and more research is funded, they now have a lot of hope.
Notable Quotes
“A couple of people started growing their own mushrooms and self-treating themselves just to try it to see if it might actually help, and the results were incredible. It was better than anything that any of them had tried in the past. It wasn’t really an abortive (it wasn’t treating one headache) and it wasn’t really a preventive, where you would take it and you would prevent some of your cluster attacks. It was something that was actually doing both of those things, and people were getting long-lasting results by one or two doses of magic mushrooms.” -Bob
“It makes sense that that would happen within a disease community, it happens outside of disease communities too. Some people just use psychedelics occasionally just to get that perspective back and to work within themselves (and without themselves) to sort it all out, [and] get themselves back together. And I think there’s a real division there between people who do that and people who don’t.” -Eileen
“The two or three years before my first dose of psilocybin, my medical bills were like $20,000 a year trying to treat my clusters. That included hospital stays and specialists and travel. …The first time I grew my own mushrooms, it cost me a hundred dollars to grow a year’s supply and I didn’t have to go to Walgreens to pick up my medicine. So my medical treatment for the following year for my cluster headaches was $100 versus $20,000 and I was able to take as much as I needed when I needed it. And at this point, that’s what most people with headache disorders are doing; they’re growing their own because the system is going to take years and years to be built into something that’s actually accessible to everybody – and affordable.” -Bob
“People are dying while we’re waiting for these policies to happen, and I’m really struggling with the fact that we are setting up more barriers. I know that all the intentions are good, but we are hurting people.” -Eileen
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Kyle is back in Colorado and in-person with Joe, and they discuss what stood out to them in the news this week:
-A New York Times interview with Roland Griffths, where he talks about his cancer diagnosis and how meditation and psychedelics have helped him prepare for the inevitable end;
-An article on the rising popularity of psychedelics among mothers, and the benefits and risks of moms rejecting alcohol culture in favor of something new (and largely illegal);
-The NBA removing cannabis from its list of banned substances and allowing players to invest in cannabis companies, which follows years of other sports slowly accepting that cannabis is a part of our culture and there’s no need to play the part of “big brother” anymore;
and an article looking at legalization from the perspectives of people who were against recent measures like Prop 122, and how some towns in Colorado and Oregon are looking for ways to prevent the creation of psilocybin service centers from being built in their backyards.
They also go further into the Psychedelic Medicine Coalition’s recently created Political Action Committee and the work they’re doing to educate lawmakers; Harvard Law School hosting webinars comparing psychedelic legislation and the role of psychedelics in Indigenous groups in Europe, Australia, and North America; Arizona’s HB-2486, which would give $30 million in grants to universities and non-profit organizations to conduct psilocybin research; and Rick Doblin’s recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
They also discuss the many events we’ll be at in the coming months, and the excitement and often overwhelming aspects of psychedelic conferences, which are outlined in this week’s blog from Dennis Walker. If you’re attending any, come say hi! And for discounts: use code PSYCTODAY for 30% off tickets to DiscoveryCon, use PSYCHTODAYBC10 for 10% off tickets to Breaking Convention, and use code PT15 for 15% off tickets for MAPS’ Psychedelic Science 2023.
Have you attended a psychedelic industry conference over the past few years? Gone are the days of few-and-far-between events, and the lone, massive annual psychedelic happening that one simply must attend if they want to keep up on new research and development. It’s 2023, and the psychedelic conference circuit has become a bonafide industry in and of itself.
With dozens of new psychedelic-focused events springing up ’round the globe in recent years – from Oakland to Reykjavik to Tel Aviv – one can tap into this global network of entrepreneurs, activists, and psychonauts, and really choose their own adventure for the first time in psychedelic history. Interested in learning about the commercializing of psychedelics? Perhaps applying insights to your own life or business ventures? Or how about simply keeping up on what’s happening at the vanguard of the psychedelic industry that’s rapidly evolving (for better or worse)? Chances are, there’s a psychedelic conference for that.
My Psychedelic Conference History
I first became aware of the mainstream psychedelic industry conference circuit when I attended the Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics conference in New York City in 2022. For those unaware, Horizons is the longest-running psychedelic conference in the world (15 years and counting!), and for a long time, was unmatched in its size and scope.
The day before Horizons’ official programming started, I was invited to a pre-party hosted by journalists Josh Hardman and Shayla Love at Shayla’s apartment in New York City. I counted my lucky stars for my extroverted personality, as I found myself awkwardly wedging into established circles and cliques of prolific psychedelic journalists, academics, and entrepreneurs who all seemed to know each other already. Curious about how they all became friends, I asked how everyone seemed to know each other so well. Without skipping a beat, three people simultaneously answered: “Conferences!”
The psychedelic conference circuit has become the place to connect with, learn alongside, and build a meaningful sense of global psychedelic community that is arguably impossible to establish or replicate quite as intimately in a digital environment.
Admittedly, when I launched the Mycopreneur Podcast in January 2021, I had never heard of any of these conferences. Despite being a deeply committed psychonaut and media producer since 2006, I was unaware of the existence of psychedelic conferences until I was invited to Meet Delic in November 2021.
Since then, I’ve been invited to a number of major conferences as press, moderator, and a panelist, and am set to present at and report on considerably more major international conferences throughout the rest of 2023.
I’ve been to eight major psychedelic industry conferences to date, and another dozen or so well-attended underground conferences and festivals across three countries over the last two years. Here are my top tips for maximizing ROI at psychedelic conferences.
1. Clearly define your goals ahead of time
My first psychedelic conference experience felt like a piñata swinging contest, whereby I blindly maneuvered around in search of my bearings and an actionable game plan. The whole time, I felt like I was a step behind everyone and was unsure of the optimal protocol and conference flow. Luckily, Liana Gillooly of MAPS took me under her wing to help me navigate the numerous conference-adjacent events happening in that week, and to help me infiltrate an exclusive afterparty for the Palo Santo fund where I loaded up on prosciutto and camembert cheese while masquerading as the heir to a Connecticut hedge fund fortune.
I left Horizons feeling like I had one foot in the door of the ‘psychedelic industry in-crowd’ (which, yes, is a thing) and recognized the value of investing in attending conferences at all.
When the opportunity surfaced to join the press corps at Wonderland in Miami one month later, I jumped on every connection I had in the area to make it happen. This time, I was ready.
I clearly defined my goal for the event: meet as many people as possible, and get contact info for the ones that resonated with me. I take a shotgun approach to networking, which is more of a benign tactical strategy than a hostage situation, but I whittle down the ‘call to action’ group for following up after the conference with people that I really see myself building and collaborating with.
I managed to connect with at least 100 people at Wonderland in face-to-face conversations and afterparties, and I followed up with a few dozen of them after the event. Some of these meetings and connections have prospered into ongoing friendships and business relationships that have returned great value to my life and platform.
What are your goals? Expanding your network? Finding sales leads? Or simply to make more sense of psychedelics and learn? Write them down. Look at your goal statement periodically throughout the event – does the way that you’re tackling the conference, the presentations and panels you’re taking in, and the people you’re spending time with align with your goals? If not, adjust. Rinse, and repeat.
Dive deep into our brand new live 8-week course that explores the seemingly elusive intersection of psychedelics and neuroscience, led by Melanie Pincus Ph.D. and Manesh Girn. Classes begin May 17. Sign up before April 12 for $100 off.
2. Get real about your budget and resources
Conferences can be extremely expensive. If you can’t afford to make the trip and you don’t have an employer backing you, they’re 100% hackable – if you’re resourceful.
I’ve rented Airbnbs one hour away from a conference and commuted on public transport because it was all I could justify affording. Sleep on people’s couches and air mattresses if you have to. I’ve eaten bread and hummus from the grocery store on many occasions, skipped meals, and even better, loaded up on deli meat and cheese from platters at afterparties. Like anything, you get out of these events what you put into them – so eschew any sense of expectation or entitlement, and focus on defining why you’re there in the first place and executing on your game plan while leaving some room open for spontaneity and the magic of psychedelic community.
Prior to Wonderland, I reached out to Miami psychedelic community stalwart Ray Oracca of Moksha Arts Collective, who had extended an open invite to me to do stand-up comedy at their art gallery earlier in the year. Once I made a deal to stay at the Moksha studio for a week in exchange for a stand up performance, I used credit card points to book the cheapest, most inconvenient flight I could find to Miami. I think I had seven layovers en route, and three of them were in Las Vegas. I didn’t even have a ticket when I showed up, banking on finagling my way in by insisting that I was related to Bob Parsons. The day before the conference kicked off, an unexpected VIP pass showed up with my name on it thanks to Ray and the Moksha community. This type of magic happens more than you can plan for on the conference circuit, and plenty of people arrive at a conference without a ticket and capitalize on the networking and afterparties that surround the event. Almost every event has room for volunteers, media, and programming support, so offer yourself up.
Do you have the finances to afford attending the event? If not, will your employer support your trip? If all else fails, ask yourself: “who do I know, and what can I offer that could help fund my event experience?”
3. Find the others
This is probably the most important angle of the conference circuit. At SXSW in Austin earlier this year (which was jam-packed with psychedelic programming), I was so overwhelmed and baffled by the first half of day one that I considered going back to my friend’s house and spending the day with his dog instead. It took everything in me to come to terms with the madhouse frenetic environment of the convention center and downtown Austin; I spent two hours sitting cross-legged on the floor trying to ground myself by chanting the mantra “psychedelic renaissance” over and over until it became a meaningless verbal Rorschach test.
This all changed when I connected with my friend Peter Vitale, who is an excellent steward of community and psychedelic lawyer (which is actually a more sober and jurisprudential vocation than Hunter S. Thompson’s attorney in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas would have you believe – though there are certainly some overlapping elements).
Peter got me dialed in to the wider and more connected community of psychedelic industry folks who were at SXSW, as opposed to the more scatterbrained approach I was taking wherein I just kept attaching myself to the fringes of Paul Stamets’ entourage. Connecting with a critical mass of aligned people is key to a successful conference experience. Finding likeminded people enables you to move with the ebb and flow of the group, and to break off into satellite groups with one or two people at a time for side quests as you see fit.
This is a big one for many people hoping to build and scale their networks and businesses. I learned this one the hard way in my early days navigating the music and entertainment industry, when I shot my shot far too often without any sense of connection or community framework to the people I was pitching myself to. Quentin Tarantino doesn’t care that your new script has a scene where he gets anally probed by proboscis monkeys with AI capabilities when he’s just trying to have a nice dinner out with his family in Tribeca, and the same principle rings true among the psychedelic conference circuit movers and shakers.
I’ve seen the same thing happen time and again as this industry continues to ascend, but this time, I’m the one who receives the unsolicited pitches and million-dollar ideas that sound far better on ketamine than on paper. It’s best to build rapport with people and communities first before trying to sell them on your project – people buy into you as much (if not more) than what you’re working on, so establishing trust and relationships is key. Be patient. As you continue to hone your network, you may find yourself invited into projects and opportunities that serve to strengthen and add value to your own work.
5. Pace your partying
I learned this one the hard way after Wonderland. I actually quit drinking largely because of my experience at the Wonderland afterparties. Open bars and a taste for mezcal are awesome for stags and the Gathering of the Juggalos, but not always great for professional networking. This, of course, depends on your intention that you’ve clearly stated as your reason for being at a conference (see tip #1). Considering my standard goal is to effectively and meaningfully network and add value to other people’s organizations while elevating my own platform (and also to pick up new satire material, because I can’t switch that part of my brain off anymore and industry types are often unintentionally hilarious), blacking out and rambling about boofing Hape on camera for a professional film crew at an exclusive afterparty sponsored by a high-profile company is, arguably, detrimental to the cause. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen a lot, and while some may not hold it against you, it’s probably not the look you’re going for. Don’t be the person from the afterparty everyone talks about the next day.
In parallel, it’s essential to stay hydrated, on point, and ready to pivot at any moment. Opportunities arise on the fly, and you need to be positioned to jump on them. During events, I’ve received many unpredictable invites to meetings or opportunities that require precise timing and preparedness, so I’ve learned that my phone must always have a charged battery, and that I’m ready to jump in an Uber or navigate to a second location at a moment’s notice. You can’t do that when you’re busy staring in disbelief at galactic swirls in your fingerprints all night.
This self-guided class investigates the history, science, and best practices for safe and effective microdosing; hosted by Adam Bramlage, founder of Flow State Micro, Dr. James Fadiman, the “father of modern microdosing,” and a dozen expert guest faculty. Enroll today!
At each subsequent conference I’ve attended, I’ve refined my approach to include eliminating alcohol and substance consumption from afterparties to stay sharp and on the ball. I’m usually a solo macrodose tripper, and conferences give me all the social fulfillment I need without surrendering my consciousness to a trustafarian shaman with a Hape applicator and really good MDMA.
As Salvador Dali said: “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.” Okay, fine. I’ll try some of your mushroom chocolate if you twist my arm.
6. Find the WhatsApp and Signal Groups
There’s virtually always some kind of group chat thread where invitations to the afterparties and unique events that are not officially announced anywhere are posted. If you see someone who works with an established psychedelic company, flag them down and naively inquire about the existence of such a group. Use blackmail if you have to. It’s great to have an overview of the conference atmosphere and what people are doing, and you can take and leave the invitations to panels, parties, and events as you see fit. You don’t have to go to everything, but if you don’t know, you can’t go.
7. Carve out time for 1 x 1 meetings and collaborations
Going to lunch with people, building personal relationships, and dreaming up plans and projects together is what it’s all about for me. The best way to bypass the digital age of impersonal queries and project proposals is to meet people IRL. I’ve sowed the seeds of projects during five-minute conversations with people at conferences that have taken over a year to manifest. If you can steal a few minutes away to eat meatball sundaes with Kyle Buller while the Psychedelics Team shops for rugs at IKEA before Cannadelic Miami, do it.
Get people’s phone numbers and keep in touch with them. Don’t just hit people up when you need something from them or want to sell them on something. If you have a chat about pygmy elephants with someone at a conference, and you click, then text them the next time pygmy elephants come up in your life (this happens surprisingly often in my world). Text or call people on their birthdays, show an interest in what they’re doing, and look to add value to their lives and be a resource rather than trying to extract value from them.
I can’t over-emphasize the importance of showing up wherever you can. Take a leap of faith and put yourself out there.
Hit the Ground Running
Are you looking for an upcoming psychedelic happening to attend or support in 2023? Psychedelics Today wants to see YOU at these great upcoming events:
DiscoveryCon 2023: Taking place on April 18 – 19 in the Bay Area, this gathering of the psychedelic community includes an impressive lineup of speakers including Robin Carhart-Harris, Hamilton Morris, and Bia Labate. DiscoveryCon will be held on Bicycle Day, the anniversary of the first intentional LSD trip taken by Dr. Albert Hofmann (use code PSYCTODAY for 30% off tickets).
Breaking Convention: Europe’s largest psychedelic consciousness conference is happening April 20 – 22 in Exeter, U.K. Breaking Convention offers groundbreaking research and insights across disciplines such as human and social sciences, law, politics, art, history, and philosophy (use code PSYCHTODAYBC10 for 10% off tickets).
Trailblazers NYC: Happening April 24 – 25 in New York City, Trailblazers brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and other leaders in the psychedelic industry.
PsyCon: Scheduled to take place in Portland, OR from May 19 – 20, this event will focus on the emerging psilocybin market in Oregon, featuring speakers including Lamar Odom, Yolanda Clarke, and Del Potter. A second PsyCon event is being held in the fall (from Sept. 29 – 30 in Denver, CO.)
Psychedelic Science 2023: Organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), Psychedelic Science is set to be one of the longest-ever psychedelic conferences. Held from June 19 – 23 in Denver, CO the event features research on psychedelics, therapeutic uses of psychedelics, and the impact of psychedelics on society (use code PT15 for 15% off tickets).
In this episode, David interviews neuroscientist, artist, and educator, Melanie Pincus, Ph.D.; and Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience, lead or co-author on over a dozen scientific publications, and regular contributor to PT, Manesh Girn.
They tell their stories of how they became interested in neuroscience, and stress the importance of staying radically open-minded (or “epistemically naive”) when it comes to how much we can claim we understand about the brain, the mind-body connection, and consciousness itself – that while fMRI and other advances have brought us a long way, there are still a ton of “unknown unknowns,” especially around creativity, decision making, and imagination. They discuss the misconception that we only use 10% of our brains; comparisons between the brain and the universe; society’s misunderstanding of “happy hormones” (dopamine, serotonin, etc.); how chronic stress takes a toll on all parts of the body; how MDMA works with memory processing; and how stacking modalities with the psychedelic experience (like play or activities focused on emotion regulation) can really help with personal goals and growth.
They have taken their understanding and fascination with neuroscience and applied it to a new course in our Psychedelic Education Center: “Psychedelic Neuroscience Demystified: How Psychedelics Alter Consciousness and Produce Therapeutic Effects“: an 8-week live course with 10 hours of prerecorded material and a built-in community. It was designed with practitioners and clinicians in mind, but with the goal of still being as accessible as possible for anyone who is curious about the neuroscience of psychedelics, and how that knowledge can help with preparation, the journey, integration, and working with a heightened window of neuroplasticity.
Class begins on May 17, and if you sign up before April 12, you can get $100 off!
Notable Quotes
“There’s so much good science now, and good neuroscience that can inform how people work with their clients in terms of helping them set up for and make sense of their psychedelic experience and ways to optimize the preparation before going into a psychedelic journey, the actual psychedelic journey in terms of thinking about dosing and type of substance to work with, and then also in the integration period, where there’s this heightened window of neuroplasticity and how one could really work with a client to best take advantage of that window of opportunity to lead to lasting change.” -Melanie
“It’s just this blob, this squishy blob of matter. And you think: for that person, their entire life, experiences, memories, [and] hopes were all happening in this little blob that’s in my hand. And just seeing all the layers of blood vessels and how everything’s connected to each other, it’s just fascinating and it’s downright bizarre that somehow, this thing can give rise to experience and consciousness. It’s like, how the hell is that even possible?” -Manesh
“For people who are interested in stacking modalities, there’s other modalities that are really potent at promoting neuroplasticity. So if you want to synergize with the window of plasticity during the integration period, you could for sure partake in regular exercise, because that’s one of the most well-known plasticity promoters.” -Melanie
“How do we respond adaptively to times of change? How do we adjust ourselves? How do we create homeostasis in a changing environment, and how do we adapt to new circumstances? And this is also a whole brain/nervous system/body affair as well, on how to regulate your entire organism to deal with change and to be resilient and to be adaptable. It’s not just in the brain. It’s not just in the brain at all.” -Manesh
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe calls in from Los Angeles to cover the week’s news with David.
They review:
-Dr. Julie Holland’s recent appearance on the The Cannabis Investing Podcast, where she discussed the concept of cannabis being a psychedelic;
-Vancouver Island University in British Columbia, Canada, planning to establish a Psychedelic Research Centre, with a focus on the historical and ethical context of psychedelic substances, using a “two eyed seeing” approach that combines Western-style science with Indigenous perspectives;
-A group of investors creating a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) to purchase real estate for the purposes of psychedelic therapy, which, if used as the collaborative model we imagine it could be, could solve a lot of problems;
-Diplo completing the Los Angeles Marathon in 3 hours and 35 minutes while under a reported 4-5 drops of LSD, and the dismissive spin mainstream media added to the story;
and a Rolling Stone article focusing on (and somewhat oversimplifying) the conflicts between the medicalization and decriminalization/legalization camps (can we just do both?).
The articles of course lead to much larger discussions: how cannabis has helped David overcome OCD; the need for more transparency and a review system based on abusive behavior in the psychedelic space; the idea of collectivization in therapy models; the need to agree on ethical foundations; and our general misunderstanding of IP and IP law: was all the criticism of Compass Pathways unwarranted?
In this episode, David interviews Sunny Strasburg, LMFT: Clinical Director at TRIPP PsyAssist; psychedelic trainer, consultant, therapist, and writer, specializing in EMDR and Internal Family Systems, and offering ketamine-assisted therapy as well as ketamine therapy retreats (often co-led by Dr. Richard Schwartz).
She talks about her family history with magic, and how the act of calling energy in and out pairs with psychedelic work; how the human experience is made up of contrasts; why we need to embrace the recreational part of psychedelics; how art can be used more in therapy; and how post-experience group integration is the act of creating mythology, recreating the small-community-sitting-by-the-fire archetype – that community we so desperately need. And she discusses ketamine: different ways she uses it; how it pairs perfectly with Internal Family Systems; and how it’s autobiographical medicine, making us an observer and allowing us to separate ourselves from our story.
While passionate about the mystical, magic, and reconnecting to nature, she is also very involved with virtual reality, and she discusses how VR and meditation apps are easing people into non-ordinary states and familiarizing people with breathwork. With the help of pioneering psychedelic DJ, David Starfire, she created PsyAssist, an app with music playlists and voice integration for people to enhance ketamine experiences that don’t otherwise include therapy or integration work. PsyAssist was acquired by VR company, TRIPP, and they’re running a study on people using VR before a psychedelic experience to see if data proves that VR really does reduce the anxiety so many of us feel before taking that big journey. But she reminds us: as we become more connected to technology, VR, and AI, being connected to other human beings will become more and more important.
Notable Quotes
“I call ketamine the open source code of psychedelics because it doesn’t have a very strong signature or agenda in and of itself. Psychedelics like ayahuasca and psilocybin definitely have a presence. DMT has a presence of beings that live in that space, and it seems like you go to this place that’s informed by the beings that run that space. Ketamine is more open-ended. It feels like it takes autobiographical content and feeds it back to you in interesting ways. …It has this interesting signature of pulling us out of the experience and into ‘observer mind,’ and it also has a signature of traveling. That combination is super interesting for therapy.”
“I do not see VR as a replacement for therapists at all. In fact, I think the more we get into technology and AI, the more in-person experiences with another human being are going to become increasingly valuable to us. We have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years to be prosocial animals that connect with other beings like us, and that’s not going away anytime soon. …I actually think that as AI and technology takes a lot of jobs, I think there are certain sectors of human connection that are going to become more important than ever.”
“I love [how] in holotropic breathwork, they have the mandalas with art materials and they encourage you to create a drawing or painting of what you experienced before you speak to anyone as part of that experience. And I really like that, because as soon as you start giving words to ineffable experience, it collapses it down to something that’s simplified beyond what it was. But you can keep it in that open-ended space when you make art …or you make music or dance around what you experienced. It holds that openness and that sublime energy of the ineffable.”
Thank You Life is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization on a mission to revolutionize mental healthcare and help the world heal by eliminating the financial barriers to psychedelic therapy. Click the link to donate!
In this episode, Joe interviews Ph.D. student in the Drug Use and Behavior Lab at the University of Alabama Birmingham, Haley Maria Dourron.
She talks mostly about the paper she co-authored last year with Dr. Peter Hendricks and Camilla Strauss: “Self-Entropic Broadening Theory: Toward a New Understanding of Self and Behavior Change Informed by Psychedelics and Psychosis,” which analyzes the long-standing comparisons between the psychedelic state and psychosis, and points out important distinctions between the two – that science should be looking more at the way one processes information and their level of self-focus rather than similarities in outward behavior. She discusses what she calls entropic processing, which is essentially how one’s brain creates novel ideas, relations, and insights based on very loosened mental schemas: with new information being considered in new ways (with no filter), do the connecting pathways that seem like eureka moments actually make sense?
She discusses the broaden and build theory and the broadening of intentional scope; entropy; chronic LSD use and risk of psychosis; schizophrenia and psychedelics; why science needs to embrace naturalistic research, and more. As of this release date, there are still a few participatory spots left in her current study on the effect of psychedelic experiences on people who have a history of psychosis, so if you had an episode of psychosis at some point and have gone on to use psychedelics, she wants to hear your story.
Notable Quotes
“It’s such a wide open space where there’s still so much room to learn. And to me, it feels as if we’re opening a time capsule of all these different questions that have been kind of covered up, and we now have better technologies to probe what’s really going on.”
“A lot of work was actually done in the 1950s, giving people with schizophrenia LSD, psilocybin, [or] DMT, [and] oftentimes, apparently they had a reduced response. So that just shows how much more room we have to learn what really could be happening with these drugs, what populations necessarily should be excluded, [and] who is actually likely to experience adverse responses.”
“The acute experience might kind of serve as a catalyst for people creating changes, but then it’s ultimately the changes that they make in their daily lives afterwards, and if they’re putting in the work of building those enduring resources, if you will. It might be [easier] to do so in the immediate afterglow of a psychedelic experience, but you’ve still got to try if you want those enduring effects.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle are back at it, talking about news and what’s going on at Psychedelics Today (applications for Vital close this Sunday, March 26, and we’ve just announced a new neuroscience course!).
Following up on last week’s news that Field Trip Health had closed five clinics, they start with more unfortunate news: that Field Trip is laying off a lot of people, Ronan Levy has resigned as the CEO, trading has been suspended, and the company has obtained CCAA Protection (which, through the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, essentially allows a struggling company a chance to restructure its finances to avoid bankruptcy, all through a formal Plan of Arrangement). And in similar news, all Ketamine Wellness Centers (an Arizona company recently acquired by Delic Holdings) would be closing immediately, with employees let go with little warning or explanation. These stories (and Synthesis Institute’s downfall) highlight the sad reality many of us in the psychedelic space forget: that just because a business is heart-centered and psychedelic-minded, it’s still a business, and businesses need to be profitable to survive.
Next, they cover Melissa Lavasani and the Psychedelic Medicine Coalition creating the Psychedelic Medicine PAC (Political Action Committee) to get more government funding behind psychedelic research. Members of PMC went to D.C. last week, presenting a psychedelic briefing to begin the process of educating legislators about the realities of plant medicines and psychedelic-assisted therapy (and Joe was there).
And they discuss more: concerns over Australia’s recent about-face on MDMA and psilocybin being used legally; a recent study where researchers used EEG and fMRI together to record what is happening in the brain while under the influence of DMT (and we should probably have Manesh Girn on again to explain it better than we could); and an interview with Eric Andre at SXSW where, in about 2 minutes, he brilliantly shines a light on drug exceptionalism, the lies of the drug war, and the need for more education on psychedelics – all to a bewildered reporter who didn’t seem prepared to talk to Eric Andre (we are- please come on the podcast!).
In this episode, Joe interviews the Co-Founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats, Neil Markey.
Markey describes Beckley Retreats as comprehensive well-being programs, and talks about the importance of holistic wellness – that, while the retreats are centered around two group psilocybin experiences, the true benefits come from complementary factors: the four weeks of online prep and community building before the retreat, the six days in Jamaica surrounding the experiences, the six weeks of integration work after, and the depth of connections people find in the new community they may not have realized they needed so badly. He breaks down the details of the retreats and what they look for in facilitators, and tells a few success stories that really highlight how trauma, opposing ideas, and an infatuation with material objects and amassing wealth can all get in the way of real relationships and meaning.
Beckley Retreats is currently working on two new projects: an observational study with Heroic Hearts and Imperial College London on using psilocybin for-traumatic brain injury, and a study with Bennet Zelner and the University of Maryland to bring executives through a retreat to see how it affects leadership and decision-making: can they prove that these types of experiences lead to more heart-centered leaders?
We are currently running a giveaway where you can win a one-on-one meditation class with Neil and a custom Beckley Retreats tote, as well as many other prizes. Click here to enter!
Notable Quotes
“The problem, a lot of times with Western medicine, is if you can’t understand the mechanics of it, then we kind of discard it, or if you can’t isolate a single variable, then we discard it. It’s like: well, some things work in tandem. If you actually peel the physics back, it looks like everything’s connected to everything, so we’ve got to think about more comprehensive approaches. I think that you can learn a lot from looking at traditional practices and some of the Indigenous wisdom that’s out there; that there’s a method to how this work has been done for quite some time and we shouldn’t disregard it.”
“If we can help people in a clinic model, let’s do that. But [with a] clinic, again: when you take someone, you give them a mystical experience, and then they go right back home or right back to work and right back into life, are you creating enough space for there to be optimal change? I think we need to keep studying it and asking those questions.”
“[Amanda Feilding] never saw a rule that she didn’t want to break. She’s [this] lifelong badass that has just gone against the grain for her entire career. But it was never about money for her, it was all because she thought she could help people. It’s so inspiring. We need more of those stories; less stories about people that made a billion dollars or whatever and more material things, and [more of] these stories about folks that are just out there trying to help others. It fires me up.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle join up once again to discuss the news and articles they found the most interesting this week.
They start with the business news everyone is talking about: Field Trip Health & Wellness closing 5 of their clinics due to financial struggles (a deficit of $48.7 million since their inception and a net loss of $6.9 million reported for the last quarter), little confidence they’d be able to receive more funding, and the changing landscape of ketamine telehealth now that the Covid Public Health Emergency should finally come to an end in May. They also highlight an article dissecting the collapse of Synthesis Institute and the lessons to be learned, with both stories really showing just how new and unstable psychedelic business still is, and how the allure of first-mover advantage can be a dangerous gamble.
They also discuss four drug reform bills introduced in Vermont: two of which would decriminalize simple possession of all drugs, making a “personal use supply of drugs” a civil offense with a $50 fine; one removing penalties for using or selling psilocybin; and the last decriminalizing certain psychedelic plants and fungi.
And they look at a research study aiming to learn more about people’s lives after they’ve been involved in a clinical trial, Time Magazine’s article about psychedelics and couples therapy, and a study that found that while 64% of survey respondents said at-home ketamine helped their symptoms, 55% (and 58% of Millennials) said they used more than the recommended dose – either by accident or on purpose.
Twitter: @Eddietalksdrugs(Have you participated in a clinical trial involving #psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy? How has life been after the trial? Contact psychedelic.experiences@psych.ox.ac.uk for more information.)
In this episode, David hosts another Vital Psychedelic Conversation, this time with Bennet Zelner, Ph.D.: Vital instructor who teaches economics at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business; and Giles Hayward: Vital student and Co-Founder of Woven Science (a company backing and building psychedelic and wellness tech companies) and El Puente, which focuses on Indigenous biocultural preservation.
Zelner believes that the traditional capitalist system we’ve grown accustomed to is an extractive and predatory one directly in opposition to a natural system we should be striving to emulate – one that circulates resources and exits largely in equilibrium with its different parts. His concept of the Pollination Approach (or regenerative economics) is about developing economic structures that are capable of balance: where communities are built to directly benefit each other and where businesses are structured to share resources and capital to all involved. In a hyper-individualistic system where loneliness and never feeling good enough are key drivers of depression, anxiety, and trauma, how could we not benefit from feeling more connected to each other, our communities, and the businesses that exist within them?
They talk about different ways the pollination approach could be applied; how psychedelics disrupt these broken systems; how we can make these treatments affordable; and why we should be focusing on the delivery and integration of substances rather than creating new ones. And since Hayward is about to graduate from Vital’s inaugural run, he shares his feelings on the program and how it fell into this concept of regenerative economics.
The application deadline for this year’s Vital has been extended to March 26, but this will be the last extension. So if you’re interested, now is the time to apply!
Applications are open until March 26 for the second edition of Vital, our 12-month training certificate program in psychedelic therapy and integration, beginning in April 2023. Head to Vitalpsychedelictraining.com for more info.
Notable Quotes
“Our connection to each other and to the natural world, I think, is undeniable. To argue that our individual well-being does not depend on the health of the natural systems that we depend on for food, for air, [and] for water is just folly. …I think that deep down, everybody actually knows that we’re connected, and we’ve just been taught to forget that by many cultural forces. I think psychedelics can help us remember this innate wisdom.” -Bennet
“If we go back thousands of years, our pagan ancestors believed in animism. We believed and saw that there was a spirit and an essence in everything. And yet today, through this reductionist mindset (ever since Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am’), we have gone on this odyssey which has fortified this belief that we live in a separate existence, a separate world where there’s no room to see the world around us as being alive [and] full of spirit. …If we’re able to see the world as alive, [and] we’re able to develop an intimate relationship with all things around us, one might think that these feelings of loneliness could dissipate somewhat.” -Giles
“The principles of nature are sacred. Whether we like it or not, we live in a world of natural systems, and if we’re unwilling to behave in a way according to the principles of natural systems, then the natural systems will survive. We’re the ones who will not.” -Bennet
In this episode, Joe interviews Graham Hancock: legendary bestselling author and writer and presenter of the new Netflix docuseries, “Ancient Apocalypse,” where he travels the world looking for evidence of lost civilizations likely much more advanced than historians previously believed.
Hancock talks about his early books and how ayahuasca influenced his writing; the similarities in cave art and the common link of altered states of consciousness; how integral these states likely were toward the creation of early religion (especially Christianity); how much the annihilation of religious traditions has hidden history; why his and Rupert Sheldrake’s Tedx talks were originally taken offline; new understandings of Neanderthals’ intelligence and creativity; the Quetzalcóatl; and the concept of the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: could there have been an advanced civilization 12,800 years ago that we’re just starting to comprehend? Could it have been Atlantis?
He discusses the conflict with mystery and archaeology’s obsession with scientism and materialist reductionism – that we keep trying to force everything into little boxes of approved science and have lost our imaginations and openness to possibility, especially when you realize how often narratives are built based on interpretations of data rather than facts (since the farther back we go, evidence becomes harder to come by). He believes science needs humility, a willingness to listen to Indigenous history, and a much more open mind when it comes to altered states of consciousness: “I’m convinced we’re missing something important from our past, and if we don’t look for it, we won’t find it.
Hancock has just announced that he will be a speaker at UK’s Breaking Convention, April 20 – 22 at the University of Exeter, and some of the PT team will be there too! To save 10% off tickets, use code PSYCHTODAYBC10 at checkout.
Notable Quotes
“I think there’s a huge amount of genuine mystery in the past, and there’s an attempt by archaeologists to explain away that mystery, …to just drain the past of mystery and to leave nothing there except dry facts (supposed facts) as archaeologists claim, but which, when you dig deep enough, you find are actually interpretations of limited data sets. I don’t know why archaeologists just want the past to be so boring. …Of course there’s a need for rigor and discipline, but there’s also a need for imagination and openness of mind when it comes to interpreting our collective past.”
“Those paintings included the same geometric patterns and the same therianthropic entities construed in slightly different ways, but clearly the same kind of encounter is being documented in the cave art from 30 or 40 thousand years ago and is being documented by shamans in the Amazon rainforest today. And what’s the common factor? The common factor is altered states of consciousness.”
“With extended release DMT, volunteers are going into the DMT state for an hour and they’re making remarkably homogeneous reports about entity encounters and about the space in which they encounter those entities. One reasonable supposition has to be: there are many possibilities for this, but when people from all over the world see the same things [and] have the same encounters in the same sort of space, you have to consider the possibility that that space is real in some way that our science doesn’t recognize.”
“Psychedelics and experiences in altered states of consciousness have actually been foundational and fundamental to human culture, and by pretending that they’re not, as we’ve been doing for the last 50 years, we’re making a huge mistake. We have to change that outlook and welcome and embrace what these gifts of the universe have to give us.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, David is joined by Kyle, who is finally home after a lot of traveling, to talk shop and dig into the articles they found the most interesting this week.
They begin with the news that Paul Stamets now has a species of mushroom named after him (Psilocybe stametsii), then take a look at a recent self-report study called “Prevalence and associations of challenging, difficult or distressing experiences using classic psychedelics,” which aimed to collect data on just how many psychedelic users (in this study, anyone who had ever tried a psychedelic) felt that they had had a challenging or difficult experience. They discuss the results and highlight some interesting data: that LSD was the most commonly associated substance, that smoking cannabis was one of the most commonly reported interventions, and of course, the question of whether or not these experiences were beneficial.
They then talk about Synthesis Institute closing its doors, the possible hope Synthesis could have, and the sadness in this – when businesses fail, it’s easy to look at numbers and profit margins and be dismissive, but we forget the people involved; not just at Synthesis, but the hundreds of would-be students.
And lastly, they look at an article about a California-based startup called the Reality Center, which uses a combination of pulsing lights, sounds, and vibrations to create a drug-free but seemingly very psychedelic experience, reminding us yet again that you do not need a substance to achieve non-ordinary states of consciousness.
In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, David interviews Vital instructor, Dr. Devon Christie: Senior Lead of Psychedelic Programs at Numinus, MAPS-certified MDMA therapist, and now four-time guest; and Vital student, Emefa Boamah: coach, facilitator, and trauma-informed intuitive guide specializing in embodiment.
We’ve all heard the trope, “It’s all in your mind,” but it’s also in your heart, soul, community, support system, and body – the focus of this episode. Christie and Boamah dive deep into the various aspects of the relationship between non-ordinary states and our bodies: ways to embody our bodies more; how the body is a fundamental source of truth; the benefit of checking in with one’s body after an experience (to validate or disprove what may have come up); the importance of movement and rest; the different bodies we inhabit (physical, emotional, energetic, mental, and spiritual); and ways to accept (and eventually love) our bodies in a society that’s always working to make us hate them – is self-love the ultimate act of defiance?
They also discuss the post-experience plasticity in everything, and the challenge of preparing an experiencer for something we can’t know; how facilitators and practitioners need to track their own subconscious feelings and reactions; the concept of embodied inquiry; the necessity of remaining curious and humble; and the idea of using integrative practices to find ways to become the person you want to be – the person you may have seen glimpses of in non-ordinary states.
And as this year’s edition comes to an end, Boamah reflects on her experiences with Vital, particularly the communal aspects of the retreat and how healing it was to literally be lifted up by her companions. If you’re curious about whether Vital is right for you, please come to an upcoming Q+A. Applications close March 26!
“Something happens with plant medicines (psychedelics (for me, with mushrooms)) that just takes you out of it and you see the inherent worth of who you are as a human, as a person. And integrating that process after coming out, I think, does a lot to help with self-love – not to say that cannot be attained without psychedelics, but it’s a different quality to it when you’re able to see yourself outside of yourself and see that you’re just valuable as you are.” -Emefa
“Not only are we fighting against us as human beings (like, whatever is happening internally), there’s also the societal expectations of how we ought to be. …There’s all these things where society is bent on making sure that we don’t feel comfortable in our bodies, so for me, from that lens, self-love is an act of reclamation. It’s like a defiant political act to reclaim who we are as people and spend that inherent worth without buying into what we’re being told to do, unapologetically – like, own it: ‘This is who we are and this is where we come from and we get to take space.’” -Emefa
“Those strongly reinforced habits: they restrict what we can attend to. They restrict our perception. So when they’re loosened under a psychedelic, we’ve got all these dimensions of experience that we can suddenly experience. That’s where, I think, not only in preparation, but in how we meet and attend to the emergent experience of people in psychedelic experiences, as practitioners, we need to be fluent ourselves in our own dimensions of experience of our being, so that we can meet and be curious and inquire and help that person to come to know themselves in all of that dimensionality, and then for their meaning to percolate up from that place.” -Devon
“The wisdom of ceremony, community ceremony, dance, music: that brings connection, that brings rhythm. And one nervous system by itself in the face of trauma is very vulnerable, many nervous systems together in the face of trauma: there’s resiliency. …Thankfully, in many ways, psychedelics help us to perceive this, and then in each person, perceive: ‘What’s the truth for me in this?’ and then we can try to live that.” -Devon
In this episode, in celebration of International Women’s Day, Victoria interviews Tracey Tee: co-founder and CEO of Band of Mothers Media, co-producer and co-host of the Band of Mothers podcast, and founder of Moms on Mushrooms, an online educational community for psychedelic-curious moms outside the prying eyes of social media.
With similar histories of womb trauma, self discovery, and body reconnection, Victoria and Tracey discuss the complications of motherhood, substance use and embracing psychedelics in a broken culture, in which engaging with small, approved coping mechanisms is fine – where the “wine mom” archetype and numbing yourself with medications is celebrated, but where we don’t often talk about how challenging motherhood can really be, and the lasting mental, physical, and spiritual impacts of birth, loss, and grief. Tracey’s goal with Moms on Mushrooms is to bring mothers together for personal growth, healing, and most of all, for the safe, supportive container that so many women considering plant medicine need.
She tells her story of creating and performing “The Pump and Dump Show” and the psychedelic journeys that led her to creating M.O.M., and discusses much more: how those large dose journeys reconnected her with her body; how microdosing has helped her feel more vulnerable, honest, and in tune with her daughter; how psychedelics can help parents realize where problematic core beliefs came from; how teaching children the ways of the world forces parents to confront and reaffirm what they truly believe; and the challenges mothers face in even talking about wanting to try psychedelics.
“Had I not had this divine intervention, I think I would have been pretty stubborn, which I can tend to be. I would have not wanted to be vulnerable with my daughter because I think I was raised to say that that wasn’t something that is good or that I should show – I’m a parent: ‘My way is the highway.’ Instead, I’m much softer. I ask for forgiveness, I tell her when I screw up, I admit my mistakes, [and] I ask her what she thinks. I always talk about Old Tracey and New Tracey (Old Tracey and ‘Shroom Tracey’): Old Tracey would have never been like that, and I think that’s a real gift, because in asking forgiveness [and] in admitting my mistakes, I’m changing.”
“What is the most upsetting to me is the fear, like this push/pull of hearing either my story or your story or reading How to Change Your Mind or watching a Netflix thing and saying: ‘My soul is telling me this makes sense, my soul is telling me to give this a shot. I might have a way out of this,’ and then my head is like: ‘You cannot do this. You’re a bad person, this is shameful, you might die (which is ridiculous) and at the very least, your children will be taken away from you.’ And that is why I’m talking to you, because that has to stop. It has to stop.”
“I don’t love rehashing the past. I don’t love carrying victimhood, but I am sad for what I lost. And when I work with the medicine (again, intentionally, safely; all the things that we’ve been talking about), I am shown, piece by piece, [that] I’m calling all those parts back. And it’s not easy, but it’s like I’m rebuilding. I’m like a Lego project right now, and I would never be able to do that without the shrooms.”
Psychedelics, once heavily restricted for research, are now being rigorously tested through clinical trials to explore their potential therapeutic benefits. But how are women represented in the search to uncover the efficacy of psychedelic medicines?
While the inclusion of women in psychedelic clinical trials is clearly important – both to understand the effects of these medicines on all genders as well as to develop effective treatments for conditions that primarily affect women – women have historically been underrepresented in clinical trials.
Why has this become the norm? Is it because women aren’t as available as men to participate in studies? Or perhaps women don’t suffer from the illnesses being studied as often as men?
Spoiler: it’s neither.
The Clinical Trial Process – An Overview
The clinical trial process is, largely, a series of research studies that evaluate the safety and effectiveness of new drugs, treatments, or medical devices on human subjects. To fit into a pharmaceutical model, a.k.a. develop a drug or treatment protocol that clinicians can prescribe and health insurance will cover, psychedelic medicines must follow the same clinical trial process that all new drugs and treatments undergo.
If it seems like there’s a new clinical trial announced each week – from psilocybin for depression to MDMA for PTSD to LSD for cluster headaches – it’s because these trials are crucial (and non-negotiable) for biotech companies seeking to bring their compounds and modalities to market. These trials aim to prove the effectiveness of a particular compound or method of use, and ultimately secure the holy grail of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
Clinical trials are conducted in several phases, each with specific goals:
Phase 1: A small number of healthy volunteers receive the drug or treatment to evaluate its safety and determine the appropriate dosage.
Phase 2: A larger group of volunteers with the condition that the drug or treatment is designed to treat receive the treatment to assess its effectiveness and side effects.
Phase 3: An even larger group of volunteers with the condition receive the treatment in a randomized and controlled study to confirm its effectiveness and monitor side effects.
Phase 4: The drug or treatment is approved and marketed for public use, and ongoing studies continue to monitor its long-term safety and effectiveness.
Throughout the clinical trial process, participants are closely monitored and data is collected to evaluate the drug or treatment’s safety, efficacy, and potential side effects.
The objective was to avoid unforeseen birth defects in babies born to women in clinical trials. The result, however, is that most currently prescribed medications were approved by the FDA before 1993 – which means they’re prescribed to women and men at the same dose and were unlikely to have adequate representation of women in their clinical trials.
Francesca Minale, President of Vici Health Sciences and an expert at working with the FDA to bring new medications through clinical trials to approval, says the lack of gender differentiation in dosing persists despite known differences in disease states by gender.
“There is a lack of incorporation of gender data and generic specific dosing and administration on FDA-approved prescription labels,” said Minale. “This gender bias in the research needs to be addressed, especially as it is well documented that many diseases, such as mental health or heart disease, are recognized to have gender differences.”
Excluding women from early-stage clinical trials led to a vast shortage of data around how today’s drugs affect women – a knowledge gap that scientists are still trying to fill. Even though the NIH now requires women to be included in all clinical research funded by the government agency, there are still many criteria that make it difficult for women to participate in clinical trials.
Women in Psychedelic Clinical Trials
The results of clinical trials play a critical role in informing regulatory decisions about whether to approve new medicines for widespread use. However, in the past, clinical trials often failed to accurately reflect the populations they intended to serve – especially women.
As psychedelic clinical trials seek to determine the safety and efficacy of new psychedelic treatments, it’s imperative we learn from past mistakes. A recent study identified 86 medications approved by the FDA that are more likely to cause complications for women than men.
But yet it’s common practice to prescribe equal doses of medications to men and women – contributing to the overmedication of women and female-biased adverse drug reactions.
In fact, because women were excluded from many pivotal clinical trials, many drugs have been withdrawn from the market or have had their labels changed to include warnings about increased risks for women after they were already approved by the FDA and widely used.
This self-guided class investigates the history, science, and best practices for safe and effective microdosing; hosted by Adam Bramlage, founder of Flow State Micro, Dr. James Fadiman, the “father of modern microdosing,” and a dozen expert guest faculty. Enroll today!
Modern Barriers to Women’s Participation in Clinical Trials
Amy Reichelt, Ph.D.,Director of Neuropharmacology at Cybin explained, “In early-stage clinical trials (i.e., Phase 1) where drugs are tested in healthy volunteers, key inclusion/exclusion criteria can bias genders tested.”
Typical protocol wording includes: “Women of childbearing potential (WOCBP) must be non-lactating and have a negative pregnancy test. Females who are not WOCBP must be either surgically sterile or post-menopausal.” Reichelt said. “This immediately excludes a number of women, particularly when age ranges of trials can have cut-offs of 55-60 years.”
Moreover, it is often written into the trial protocol that a woman of childbearing potential must agree to practice an effective means of birth control/contraception during their participation in the clinical trial, and following the trial for several months. This could impact individuals who are trying to start a family for many months, again discouraging women from participating.
Reichelt pointed out, “Later stage trials (i.e., Phase 2b, Phase 3) can be less restrictive as they are testing in patient populations and initial safety tests are fulfilled in the healthy volunteers in early stage trials, but still there are often requirements for contraceptive use that fall upon the women’s responsibility.”
In addition, body weight restrictions may also prevent women from participating if they are below the protocol threshold i.e., less than 60 kg/132 pounds.
Biological Gender Differences and Why They Matter
The differences between the sexes in circulating levels of sex hormones, such as testosterone and estradiol, can affect pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic parameters – which help determine how the drug is absorbed, distributed and metabolized in the body, and how the drug affects the body, Reichelt explained.
Body composition can impact how a drug is processed and eliminated from the body, too. “Women typically have a lower body weight than men, so when the same dose of a drug results in a higher level of drug circulating by body weight. As women generally have a greater body fat content than men, some drugs can be distributed through the body differently,” said Reichelt.
The impact of sex can differ across life stages, too. After menopause, the reduction of estrogen can alter aspects of brain plasticity. Preclinical studies have shown that at the neuronal level, estrogen can increase the density of dendritic spines.
This brain phenomena may subtly affect mood and cognition during a woman’s estrous cycle, and could affect clinical outcomes. More studies are needed to fully understand these impacts, especially when it comes to psychedelic medicines which are closely tied to brain plasticity and dendritic spines.
“We don’t yet have a clear understanding of how different biological factors, such as hormonal fluctuations, including menstrual cycle and menopause, may impact the psychedelic experience. However, it does seem that psychedelics may have an impact on menstrual function,” she said.
Gukasyan co-authored a recent study published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs on the impact of psychedelics on menstrual function. While the study looked at only three women ranging from 27 to 34 years of age, the results were significant enough to warrant more research.
“Although phenomena related to menstrual and reproductive function have been largely overlooked in the psychedelic literature to date, these effects may have therapeutic utility and warrant further study,” the study concluded.
Where To Go From Here
In the field of psychedelic medicine, where compounds are being extensively studied scientifically for the first time, the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials could have serious consequences for the safety and efficacy of these treatments. Without data on the experiences of women, it is impossible to accurately assess the potential benefits and risks of these new medicines before bringing them to the masses.
By working to increase the representation of women in clinical trials for psychedelics, we can help to ensure that these treatments are developed in a way that is safe, effective, and equitable for all.
Thankfully, many psychedelic clinical trials are moving forward with this ethos. For example, two-thirds of the participants in the MAPS’ Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of MDMA therapy for the treatment of PTSD were women.
Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS, said, “When it comes to PTSD, we talk a lot about the veterans, but it’s mostly women who are sexually abused or have childhood traumas that have PTSD. I think that the media attention on veterans sort of distracts people from the understanding that it’s mostly women that we are treating. Two-thirds of the people in the [MAPS] study are women.”
Other groups conducting clinical trials actively seeking women participants include Psycheceutical Bioscience, which has partnered with clinical research organization (CRO) iNGENū in Australia to conduct its Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials of a topical ketamine cream to treat PTSD.
“iNGENū takes gender balance in clinical trials very seriously and the diversity of participants is one of the key metrics we strive to achieve. We naturally want our clinical trials to recruit participants who closely match the intended population who will benefit from the drug when it is eventually approved,” said iNGENū CEO Dr. Sud Agarwal.
Women-Only Trials
While the inclusion of women in psychedelic clinical trials is critical to the success of this new paradigm in medicine, there’s also a whole realm of largely untapped research on the benefits of psychedelics for health conditions experienced only by women.
Felicity Pharma is a psychedelic biotech company focused on women’s health that’s secured a proprietary psilocybin-based drug for premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a very severe form of premenstrual syndrome that affects up to 10 percent of women globally as well as postpartum depression.
Olivia Mannix, Felicity Pharma co-founder and CEO, said “We are passionate about transforming women’s healthcare. Women have been traditionally excluded from clinical trials because of hormonal fluctuations and general biological makeup. We are making a stand to develop female-focused therapeutics, where women will be the only patients used in trials.”
Join us for a thought-provoking webinar on “Unraveling the Top 3 Psychedelic Neuroscience Myths.” In this hour-long session, Melanie Pincus Ph.D. and Manesh Girn Ph.D.(c) will delve into the science of psychedelic brain effects and challenge some of the most common misconceptions surrounding them.
Did you know that the default mode network is just one of several networks that are important to psychedelic brain effects, and may not be the most critical? Or that psychedelics, ketamine, and MDMA tend to have reputations for specific effects, but they are not as different in the brain as we assume?
We also highlight how the research on neuroplasticity and psychedelics has almost exclusively been done in rodents and not humans, how neuroplasticity and neurogenesis differ, and how increased neuroplasticity doesn’t always necessarily lead to positive changes.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to expand your knowledge and challenge your assumptions on how psychedelics affect the brain. This webinar will give you a taste of some of the topics we will be covering in our upcoming 8-week course ‘Psychedelic Neuroscience Demystified: How Psychedelics Alter Consciousness and Produce Therapeutic Effects.’ Register now to unravel the mysteries of psychedelic neuroscience!
The topic of sexual wellness is often glossed over in general therapeutics and psychedelic therapy spaces. The boundary-dissolving characteristics of the psychedelic experience calls for a more in-depth conversation about how healthcare providers hold our own relationship with sexuality and the body. This webinar presentation is intended to support harm reduction, increase healthcare providers’ somatic self-awareness, and to open up the conversation on the intersection of psychedelics and sexuality.
Somatic skill development is vital to cultivating a safer and more ethical healing space. Join us to learn more about the value of the mind-body connection as an integrative force within psychedelic containers. Whether or not you intend to bring the elements of sexuality into your practice, the prevalence of sexual trauma in our population is undeniable. Consciously cultivating an embodied capacity to meet the truth of Eros in the human experience is essential for being a present and responsive practitioner.
How power dynamics and trauma impact one’s ability to give consent
Outline of an embodiment practice to support re-establishment of authentic boundaries
A presentation of the phenomenon of repressed sexual trauma memories arising in psychedelic healing spaces
Positions and approaches to greet with caution and practices and principles to cultivate generously when holding questions of repressed sexual trauma memories
What to expect:
Demo for experiential awareness
Time for Q&A
NOTE: This webinar is limited to 30 participants. Please reserve your spot by registering!
In this episode, Psychedelics Weekly is back after a brief hiatus (everyone was either traveling or sick last week!), with the OG PT team: Joe and Kyle.
With the exception of some commentary on John Oliver’s recent piece on psychedelics (which was excellent), they skip the psychedelic news this week in favor of Psychedelics Today news, as a lot has been going on!
In the last few weeks:
Joe sustained a traumatic brain injury and a broken arm;
Joe, Kyle, and Victoria attended PT’s first Cannadelic in Miami, where Joe and Kyle moderated or sat on several panels, Kyle and Victoria went and saw Afroman, and we won the Psychedelic Brand of the Year award(!);
Joe experienced a music festival in different ways (completely sober, and somewhat still in a concussion daze) and did some interesting research on psychedelics and post-concussion effects;
Despite Joe and Kyle both getting sick and not being able to attend all of it, the last Vital retreat was an amazing one, capping off a year of incredible content and connection that is only fueling the fire to make this year’s Vital even better;
And, due to issues beyond our control with the planned venue and the City of Los Angeles, we had to cancel Convergence.
Are you ready to take your professional practice to the next level and better serve your community? Join Kyle Buller, VP of Education at Psychedelics Today, for an enlightening hour as he dives into the exciting world of psychedelic education and the current opportunities it presents.
With the psychedelic resurgence in full swing, now is the time to learn about the value of psychedelic education and the impact it can have on both your career & how you serve your community. We are proud to present the Vital Certificate Program: a cutting-edge training program that is designed to give you the skills and knowledge you need to succeed in this exciting field. With a focus on evidence-based practices, ethical considerations, and a holistic model of care, this program is the perfect way to level up your professional practice and make a real difference in your community.
So if you’re ready to learn about the next step and unlock your potential, this webinar is for you. RSVP now to secure your spot and take the first step in a journey on a career in psychedelics! This session will be recorded for all registrants.
In this episode, David interviews Kevin Cannella, LPC: MAPS-trained psychedelic psychotherapist and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Thank You Life, a nonprofit organization working to provide access to psychedelic therapy by eliminating its financial barriers.
Co-Founded by Dr. Dan Engle, Thank You Life is very new and still in the process of officially launching, having just obtained 501(c)(3) status in December and recently gaining its first corporate sponsor in Dr. Bronner’s. The nonprofit came from the realization of just how expensive psychedelic-assisted therapy can be, and Cannella wondering: what if there was a fund practitioners could plug into when a patient couldn’t pay? While access for the patient is obvious, this model benefits the practitioner as well, which is something not often discussed in the psychedelic space – we focus a lot on how much these services will cost the patient, but rarely on the practitioner deserving to be paid fairly for their time and expertise.
Cannella tells his story of immersion into a world of ayahuasca, yoga, and vipassana meditation; volunteering at the Temple of the Way of Light, living in Hawaii, then Brazil, and finally, landing at Naropa University, where his passions were finally validated. He discusses looking for signs and learning to trust intuition, ways to increase accessibility outside of a 501(c)(3) model, how it feels to be paid well for your work, and why he only wants to work with practitioners who offer therapy alongside their chosen substance.
Head to their website to donate to the Thank You Life fund, and follow them on socials for details on upcoming launch/fundraising events in April and May, including a public event at the also-new California Center for Psychedelic Therapy. For larger donations or partnership inquiries, email kevin@thankyoulife.org.
Notable Quotes
“If the client couldn’t pay, the financial burden was falling on the therapist or the clinic, although a lot of what was in my field was just therapists in private practice. Therapists can take some sliding scale people, maybe they even do some pro bono, but they still need to make a living and they can’t just be giving away their hours and their time. So this sort of Utopian thought was like: wouldn’t it be great if there was just a fund that we could all plug into, and then that fund could take the financial burden, and we could just be saying yes to the people that we want to be saying yes to?”
“What it feels like in my body when I would do a session for $70 compared to $150: it’s different. It’s different to get paid well. It’s a different energetic experience to get paid well. And I have so much more to give when I’m getting paid well, because I’m not burdened by feeling undervalued and feeling like I’m in this uphill battle with making a good financial living for myself and my family.”
“I think it can be one big shift in the whole way our culture looks at mental health if it becomes a standard that employers offer psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for trauma healing. I mean, what a shift that that would bring, just on its own. …How different would it be if not only could you share with your boss that you got a ketamine treatment, but that the company was actually paying for it and saying, ‘Yes, go get your healing.’?”
Joe Moore and Kyle Buller are the Founders of Psychedelics Today, the planetary hub for individuals, practitioners, and professionals exploring psychedelics.
They join me to talk about the state of the psychedelics space, which they continue to shape after six years being at the forefront of it.
We talk about their Vital training program for psychedelics for professional training in psychedelic therapy and integration, their upcoming Convergence conference from March 30-April 2, 2023 in Los Angeles, and why all of us should focus on ending the drug war and eradicating the DEA above and beyond our own personal pursuits in the space.
Psychedelics Today launched out of a passion for psychedelic education with a podcast that has to date generated over four million downloads.
In a bid to bring this education to more people, the organisation has launched its 12-month, hybrid ‘Vital’ training course that has been designed for medical professionals, psychotherapists, coaches, nurses and complementary health practitioners.
David Drapkin, Director of Education and Training at Psychedelics Today, explained that in line with its mission to facilitate access to psychedelic education, Psychedelics Today has also launched the Vital Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Fund to ensure accessibility to the course.
It is with heavy hearts that we share some important news with our community: after careful consideration and factors outside Psychedelics Today’s control, we’ve made the challenging decision to cancel Convergence, originally scheduled from March 30 to April 2 in Los Angeles.
This decision comes following troubling operating issues with the venue selected for Convergence. Rather than re-imagining the event at a new venue and potentially depriving our guests of the experience they’d come to expect, we’ve decided the best way to honor our community is to step back until we are able to host a gathering in a space that aligns with our original vision.
All stakeholders, ticket holders, and supporters have been contacted directly with more information via email. If that’s you, kindly check your inbox. Should you have any more questions, please reach out to us via DM or at info@psychedelicstoday.com.
But it’s not all bad news. We’re pleased to announce we’re working with speakers and panelists to host their Convergence talks & panels on the Psychedelics Today media platform and podcast! This content will be free for all to enjoy, so stay tuned for all the details as they’re announced.
We are humbled and grateful for the support of our psychedelic community, and appreciate all those who helped us in our work to bring Convergence to life. We have plans for more events and surprises in store in 2023/2024, so stay tuned – we hope you’ll join us there ✨
David is the Director of Education & Training at Psychedelics Today. David is also a father, husband, and seasoned mental health and addiction practitioner. He has worked on the front line of healthcare for over 15 years. David envisions a future where psychedelics play a central role in redefining true wellness.
We spoke with him about scaling Psychedelics Today, making psychedelic education more accessible, and how to holistically approach psychedelic education.
In this episode, David interviews Victor Alfonso Cabral, LSW: Director of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at Fluence Training and Licensed Social Worker and practicing psychotherapist in Pennsylvania.
Cabral is currently involved with the film, “We are the Medicine,” which aims to explore the reemergence of plant medicines from the perspective of people of color from all backgrounds and walks of life, with the added factor of a strong hip hop influence. Filmmakers Eric Blackerby and Esteban Serrano want the film to normalize the concept of psychedelics and healing for people of color, but also the notion of men being truly authentic with each other and building each other up with love and support – something that challenges society’s expectations on how men (and more specifically, Black and Brown men) should be in relationships with one another. Head to pictureacolorfulworld.com to donate and sign up for the mailing list for more info on future fundraisers and screenings.
He begins the episode by reading a powerful poem he read at Horizons NYC, then tells his story: his childhood and his mother’s sacrifices; how trauma caught up to him in college and led to the low point of his life; his subsequent 120-pound weight loss journey and embracing of therapy, how his first psychedelic experience resulted in an awakening of possibility; how he became a social worker and why he felt instantly aligned with the work; how he ended up working for PA Governor Tom Wolf; and how he came to be interviewed by Sway Calloway (who is also an Executive Producer of the film). His story and all of the organizations and efforts he’s been involved with prove that being authentic, following your heart, and building relationships with the right people can lead to growth and positive change in whatever path you choose in this space.
Notable Quotes
“Social work felt like I finally had language to describe the way in which I’d been living and being most of my life, and it felt validating to have this whole profession dedicated to the way in which I felt I was showing up in the world already.” “After that experience, I felt like there [were] possibilities for me to be whatever I wanted to be, and that I wasn’t everything that had been prescribed to me through intergenerational trauma or systemic oppression or a capitalist society. And I was able to peel those things back one by one and see: okay, what’s under this? And what’s under this? And then when I got to the core of that, the message to me was: love is what matters. So that really made me feel like I do have everything that I need. I have my wife, I have my daughter, I have a family, I have good friends, I have my health. And I have ability to manifest, to do, to plan, to live. I’d been doing a lot up until that point to get my life on track, but that opened up the doors in a way that I didn’t think was possible for me, where I felt a kind of freedom that I’ve never felt before in my life.”
“When we talk about collective healing and about empowering our communities and about joy and freedom and liberation, I think it’s important for us, as men of color – for me and for the people that I love and the people around me – to be liberated, to just love each other and to be together, and to be able to be their authentic selves together without all of these other masks that we’re taught to wear. So I hope that if there’s anything that comes out of the film, [it’s] a message of what we can co-create when we can be our authentic selves with each other and hold each other up and love each other.”
The draft of New Mexico’s first-ever psychedelic therapy bill isn’t publicly available yet, but support from open-minded residents in ski towns like Taos just might encourage legislators to vote yes on it, according to Joe Moore, Breckenridge, Colorado-based co-founder of Psychedelics Today.
Psychedelics Today offers the kind of psychedelics education and training that New Mexico legislators will likely ask about when they’re asked to consider the bill to create a psilocybin mushroom therapy program during the upcoming 60-day legislative session. The bill is being drafted with the help of the New Mexico Psychedelic Science Society, which told the Taos News that the proposed legislation so far has the sponsorship of District 25 state Rep. Christine Trujillo, chair of the Legislative Health and Human Services Committee. Legislation may be pre-filed beginning Jan. 3.
“There’s that culture built into ski towns and people who have been stewards of these experiences and substances for many years,” said Moore. “Grateful Dead and Phish, the kind of underground current — these were the most frequent users in that quiet period after the 60s really quieted down. Ski towns played a part in that. They were kind of a hub in the same way cities like San Francisco were.”
Psychedelics education and media leader, Psychedelics Today, is pleased to announce the re-launch of its Vital Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Fund, created to provide financial support to students enrolling in the 12-month intensive practitioner training program, Vital.
The fund, originally launched in January 2022, received support from the psychedelic community and corporate donors, which resulted in scholarships for 68 students in the first cohort of Psychedelics Today’s training program. Donor funding combined with Psychedelics Today’s own contribution resulted in $211,000 in scholarships awarded.
“We believe that fair access to psychedelics begins with fair access to essential education and training,” said Joe Moore, Psychedelics Today CEO. “As a result of this program, these underrepresented students received life-changing support to build their own expertly trained psychedelic careers, which would likely not have been possible otherwise.”
Psychedelics Today is launching its brand new, half-hour show on ALTRD.TV called “ Psychedelics Tonight ” on Monday, September 26th at 6 p.m PDT, where co-founders and co-hosts Joe Moore and Kyle Buller dive deep into the history, regulations, culture, Indigenous and modern uses and future applications for psychedelic compounds, pairing hard journalism with whimsical psychedelia.
New episodes will drop every Monday through October and will be available to stream for free on all major platforms (Apple, Android, Roku, Plex) through the ALTRD.TV app or online (no subscription required).
Psychedelics will soon be treating a mental health patient near you.
The quality and breadth of clinical data that has already emerged, coupled with ever-increasing regulatory and political acceptance – along with enormous need in the mental health space – mean that it is now only a matter of time before these compounds start to be authorized in multiple markets and conditions.
Read more from Psychedelics Today Director of Education, David Drapkin, in this article by The Pharma Letter.
In this episode, Joe interviews Greg Lake, Esq.: Co-Founder of the Church of Psilomethoxin, author, and trial and appellate attorney specializing in working with entheogen-based religious practitioners in establishing their right to consume their sacraments under existing religious freedom laws.
Psilomethoxin (4-Hydroxy-5-methoxydimethyltryptamine or 4-Hydroxy-5-MeO-DMT) was first synthesized in 2021 by mixing 5-MeO-DMT with psilocybin substrate, and after initial tests and months of user reports, it was deemed safe to use.* Lake co-founded the Church of Psilomethoxin in 2022 with the goal of shifting the paradigm of religion to primary direct experiences and individual beliefs rather than a dogma everyone must follow, with a big focus on community and discussing the ultimate questions of life together – with Psilomethoxin as the sacrament of choice. While he prefers member-to-member referrals, there is an application on the site, and he hopes to grow the church through linking people up regionally, (eventually) training people to facilitate, and partnering with a data collection company to gather real-world data on both Psilomethoxin and on why people are seeking out psychedelic churches in the first place.
He discusses several cases that brought us here and inspired his work; why he believes Psilomethoxin won’t be a target of the Federal Analogue Act; the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the need for states to establish similar state legislation; the importance of new churches establishing evidence in the public record; how much courts take sincerity into consideration; and the concept that, while we’re quick to think of the law as the enemy, courts often don’t want to go after churches – religion is a sacred and intimate thing, so who is the victim if a court brings a church to court that hasn’t harmed anyone?
*Update, April 17, 2023:Results from analytical testing released on April 12, 2023, reveal that there is no evidence to suggest the compound psilomethoxin is present in the samples of sacrament material the Church of Psilomethoxin is offering to their members online. The report, prepared by Samuel Williamson and Alexander Sherwood of the Usona Institute, states, “Psilocybin, baeocystin, and psilocin, were, however, unambiguously identified in the sample, suggesting that the claims regarding the biosynthesis of psilomethoxin may be misguided. The implications of these findings should be critically considered within the context of public health and safety.”
We are following this story at Psychedelics Today and are working to update our community with commentary from the researchers. Stay tuned to our social media channels for more on this topic.
Notable Quotes
“I think eventually the courts will come around to realize that where medical and scientific and religious and spiritual begin or end within this space is not crystal clear, because as we’re all aware, in the research, people, even in clinical settings, are having mystical, religious experiences. And then they see that that really, at many times, translates to positive outcomes. If people, even in a medical setting, can have a religious experience, well then where does ‘This is a religious exercise, this is not’ come into play?”
“One of our core beliefs is that in the peak entheogenic experience like 5-MeO, where you experience unitive cosmic consciousness, that’s basically our moral code – that once you experience unity with all, that tells you pretty much everything that you’ll ever need to know about how you should be treating other people, how you should be treating other beings, and how you should be treating the environment.”
“One thing I’ve learned (and I learned real quick working with these churches) is that, especially post-Covid, the community, for a lot of people, is just as, if not more healing and spiritual than the actual ceremonies.”
In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Kyle interviews Carla Kieffer: psychedelic educator, Certified Psychedelic Facilitator, Community Liaison at Maya Health, and Founder of Kairos Integration, a company offering psychedelic training, preparation, facilitation, integration, and microdosing support.
This episode was recorded in-person, in between the first and second psilocybin retreats at Atman Retreat in Jamaica, where Kyle, Johanna, and a large group of Vital students just worked with Carla last month. Many participants that attend retreats are new to psychedelics, and often don’t know each other, so it was powerful to have a group of classmates follow the breathwork model of having sitters and journeyers take turns (which is the same model she uses for her Psychedelic Guide Training and Certificate Program), and demonstrates how much one can learn when taking the role of the sitter and how the journey becomes the teacher. They talk about how big the therapy part of psychedelic-assisted therapy is, in how rare it is to have someone attending to your every need for hours on end, and wonder: How can we take that aspect of holding space for each other and apply it to everyday life?
She discusses the importance of data collection and how her Internal Family Systems training has helped her balance her love for the mystical with her more science and data-based mind; the importance in facilitators meeting some sort of baseline harm reduction and safety training (and the need to establish an agreed-upon set of standards); the need for increased accessibility; how important it is to further educate about and normalize conversations about psychedelics; and how integration isn’t just a box you check off as part of the experience, but a continuous process and part of our lives, where checking in on ourselves should be a regular practice.
Notable Quotes
“If we could hold space for each other to have our own experiences, I think there might be a lot of learning on both sides.”
“The medicine is one part, but it’s also that experience of being held in a container – being heard, being witnessed. I think we also have to acknowledge that about this type of work. Even if it is individual therapy, if it’s psilocybin or MDMA-assisted [therapy]: when do you have somebody just there for you for six hours, giving so much attention to every little need? Does that have a healing quality to it?” -Kyle
“How can you do that in your life: show up for people in support and name what you need and really feel held by each other? I have visions of communities and spaces as we move forward with psychedelics and psychedelic awareness, where people can actually actively listen and avoid the need to interject, and any competitive talking goes away. …I think that, in turn, will reverb into the rest of the world.”
“In the end, you are the medicine. Whether you’re working with psilocybin or LSD or breathwork, these are just ways to access your true self, your higher self (whatever resonates for you), and really, as you move through life, as you have these journeys, whatever they may be, just continuing to integrate that into your life, integrate that into your higher self.”
Andrew Tatarsky’s Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy (IHRP) provides a framework for effective therapy with people along the entire spectrum of risky and addictive behavior including the use of psychedelics in recreational, ceremonial and therapeutic contexts. The harm reduction shift starts where people are, supports people in creating their optimal relationships to substances and emphasizes empowerment and collaboration between the provider and consumer. IHRP brings a harm reduction orientation to psychotherapy, substance use treatment and psychedelic-assisted therapy.
IHRP techniques are uniquely tailored to each person. A central focus on the therapeutic alliance and relationship creates a context in which to clarify the meanings and functions of problematic behavior, enhance self-regulation and support maximizing benefit and minimizing risk. IHRP addresses related personal, relational and lifestyle issues concurrently with problematic behavior.
This introduction to IHRP will cover the clinical rationale, theoretical foundation, basic definitions of harm reduction and an overview of IHRP and it’s Seven Therapeutic Tasks. Special attention will be given to the relationship between trauma, dissociation and problems with self regulation and addiction.
The class will combine lecture, discussion and clinical illustrations. Particpants are encouraged to bring their most challenging case vignettes for discussion.
You will learn:
-The challenging realities of people who struggle with problematic drug use
-The limitations of traditional abstinence-only treatment
-The role society plays in the shaping of how we understand substance use and how treatment has developed
-The multiple meanings process model of addiction underlying IHRP
-The core harm reduction principles
-An overview of IHRP’s Seven Therapeutic Tasks
-Application to psychedelic preparation and integration
In this episode, Joe interviews Dr. Devon Christie: Senior Lead of Psychedelic Programs at Numinus, educator at CIIS and Vital, and MAPS-certified MDMA therapist; and Dr. Pamela Kryskow, MD: founding board member of the Psychedelic Association of Canada and Medical Lead of the nonprofit, Roots To Thrive.
Christie and Kryskow recently co-authored one of the first papers looking at MDMA for chronic pain, “MDMA-assisted therapy is associated with a reduction in chronic pain among people with post-traumatic stress disorder,” which came about after they received access to MAPS’ Phase 2 data from a lead-in PTSD study and noticed significant improvements in pain measurements – something the study was not looking for at all. They’re looking into where chronic pain fits within the frameworks of Western medicine and psychedelic-assisted therapy, and discuss the many reasons why MDMA should be tremendously helpful for chronic pain and other conditions that fall under the large umbrella of central sensitivity syndromes and nociplastic pain. They are currently working on a new study following the MAPS protocol that will research MDMA-assisted psychotherapy specifically for people with fibromyalgia, which some believe might be physicalized PTSD. If you’d like to contribute a tax-deductible donation, visit giving.viu.ca, select “other” from the dropdown, and type in “MDMA for Fibromyalgia.”
They talk about how research trials focus too much on the molecule while ignoring what the patient is saying; how a large percentage of physicians and patients don’t at all like the psychometrics used in measuring data; how physicians regularly use expectancy bias but research trials don’t (and how that affects results); why everyone needs to place higher importance on the biopsychosocial model; the idea of being more humble with science and using “theoretical” more often; the problems with microdosing trials; and the issues with evidence: If there isn’t sufficient evidence, why isn’t there? And what exactly would be sufficient?
Notable Quotes
“It’s kind of an irony because it’s really a single molecule pharmaceutical model to go: ‘Is it working?’ whereas every day, every clinician out there is using expectancy and placebo effect to their patients’ benefit. So, I would like us to have that conversation in a much more intelligent way, saying it’s going to be there, it’s not a bad thing, and in fact, if you don’t have that, you’re probably a bad clinician. So, let’s harness it, and then say, ‘and is the treatment [going] above and beyond that?’” -Pam
“Where’s the scientific curiosity? That’s what we need to be. When our patient says: ‘This is helping me,’ we should never be saying, ‘No, that’s not possible because there’s no evidence.’ We should be leaning in and being curious: ‘Tell me more.’” -Pam “Homogenizing through trying to do the randomized control trials, you end up sort of sterilizing to isolate one specific variable in trying to make your study population as similar as possible. And in the real world, that’s just not the case. In the real world, people are on 10 different medications. So what’s really even the applicability when we sterilize and homogenize so much [for] what we believe is giving us the best evidence?” -Devon
“If we really look and open our eyes, in many, many circumstances, the pathology is not individual whatsoever. The pathology is in our culture and in our society and how disconnected we are and the intergenerational trauma that’s passed along, and then parents without support and no hope of not passing that along because our society isn’t providing the optimal environment on a societal level for us to be thriving. So I think a cure on an individual level needs to be couched within thinking about a cure on a collective level.” -Devon
“The reason I got involved even in the research is because so many of my patients were coming to me and saying, ‘I am microdosing. It is helping.’ So it goes back to: Do you believe people? And I personally believe my patients when they say that. …When I have people coming in and saying ‘I’m out of bed now. I used to lay in bed for 18 hours a day and now I’m out, I bought a dog, I’m exercising’; if it’s a placebo or expectancy, awesome. I’m going to celebrate that.” -Pam
With the growing number of clinical studies showing positive results for depression, anxiety and PTSD, many people are looking forward to sitting with psilocybin for its healing benefits. The question comes up a lot, would it be more beneficial to try psilocybin on a retreat or in a clinical setting.
Join Neil Markey and Dr. Andrea Pennington of Beckley Retreats as they weigh the pros and cons of each.
About Neil Markey As co-founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats, Neil is passionate about sharing the science-backed benefits of psychedelics in conjunction with the contemplative practices that support holistic wellbeing. At Beckley Retreats, he’s dedicated to building a business that operates with the utmost integrity, both internally and across the many communities it will touch.
A Captain in the US Army Special Operations 2nd Ranger Battalion, Neil was deployed once to Iraq, and twice to Afghanistan. After, as an MBA/MIA masters student at Columbia University, he suffered from depression and PTSD. This led him to alternative wellbeing practices and marked the start of a profound healing journey with mindfulness and psychedelics. Prior to Beckley Retreats, Neil worked as the Chief Growth Officer for a $450M private equity portfolio company where he was responsible for all strategy and growth planning. Before that he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co, where he also co-led the internal mindfulness program. Neil credits meditation and plant therapy with saving his life.
About Dr. Andrea Pennington Dr. Andrea is an American integrative physician, Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Facilitator, acupuncturist and creator of The Cornerstone Process for Conscious Evolution and The Attunement Meditation. She has written or contributed to 18 books, and is the bestselling author of The Top 10 Traits of Highly Resilient People,The Real Self Love Handbook, and The Orgasm Prescription for Women. She is also an international speaker with over 4 million views of her TED talks, hosts the Conscious Evolution Podcast, and has a vast career in global media and documentary filmmaking. With over two decades of medical practice specialized in trauma recovery, addiction medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, Dr. Andrea has provided medical services, workshops and retreats to help thousands of people build resilience, reclaim vitality after burnout, recover from Adverse Childhood Experiences and nurture real self love in order to thrive in all areas of life.
Dr. Andrea brings her background and experience to the role of Senior Advisor, Program Facilitation for Beckley Retreats.
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Kyle is joined by another new voice from the PT team: one of the main instructors and facilitators from our Vital program, Diego Pinzon.
Originally from Colombia, Diego has been living in Australia since 2008 and has been involved in the Australian psychedelic scene, playing roles in the charity sector, research with Psychae Institute, and is one of the researchers in the St. Vincent’s Melbourne trial, Australia’s first trial using psilocybin for end-of-life depression and anxiety. Diego gives his insight into the recent TGA re-scheduling of psilocybin and MDMA for treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, respectively.
They cover the details, unknowns, and concerns: Is there enough time to train enough people? Do they have the infrastructure for this? What are the substances actually going to be? What percentage of people who apply will be granted access? What will it cost? And while psychiatrists will be able to prescribe, how much will the program really focus on therapy?
And they discuss Vancouver’s Filament Health creating the world’s first ayahuasca pill, which is close to FDA authorization to begin a Phase 1 trial. Of course this news begs some questions as well, mainly: with psychedelic use being such an active experience, how much does something like this change our relationship to ayahuasca? And with a consistent, more predictable experience, does that kill the magic?
In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Johanna takes the helm for the first time, hosting a conversation with Jungian analyst-in-training, writer, researcher, 5Rhythms® teacher, and Vital student: Mackenzie Amara; and clinical psychologist, long time PT collaborator, and Vital instructor: Dr. Ido Cohen.
As this episode features three huge fans of Jung (Johanna wrote her Master’s dissertation on The Red Book and teaches a course through PT), they focus less on education and the future of psychedelic therapy, and instead get pretty deep; shining a light on an integral part of psychedelia (and life) we often avoid: the shadow. What is the shadow and what is true shadow work? What did Jung give us, and why is Jungian psychology so relevant for integrating psychedelic experiences?
They discuss the notion of the unconscious as a place you can develop a relationship with and access by very different means; the idea of the healer as the container; the problematic binary of good vs. evil; the flawed concept of ego death; the differences between authentic and neurotic suffering and personal and collective consciousness; the archetype of the wounded healer and why facilitators should both be wounded and in the process of healing; and how wonderful it is that society is beginning to embrace the weird and what makes us unique.
There are no shortcuts in life and there is no “cure” for the parts of the human condition we aren’t comfortable with, but in the capitalist, efficiency-above-all-else West, we aren’t raised to sit with the unpleasant, and instead learn to seek a quick fix, which has created an environment where we’ve lost the ability to feel in the ways that we need to. Can you be with someone else’s pain if you’re running from your own? Can you have real compassion if you’ve never suffered? Can you be complete without knowing your shadow?
Notable Quotes
“Yes, we’re all suffering and suffering is scary and shadow is scary and it can overwhelm us and it takes time. And there is this thing where we can build a relationship with it. It’s all about the relationship.” -Ido
“Nature is a perfect representation of how the unconscious is. It’s unfinished. It’s in process. It’s not perfect. It’s human consciousness, and [it’s] our egoic, persona-driven striving that have us believe that we can be perfect, AKA not human, AKA have no shadow. So the shadow is this part of the unconscious; it’s the frills, it’s the weirdness, it’s the awkward pauses, it’s the burps and the disgusting stuff and the repulsion, and also the quirks, the idiosyncrasies. In Swiss German, they talk about a square that’s missing a corner – it’s the missing corner. You need to have a piece missing so that life can live there.” -Mackenzie
“There is no ego death. You can have ego disidentification, you can release the center of your consciousness from your ego, but you will never kill your ego, and you shouldn’t want to kill your ego. If you’re going to kill your ego, who’s going to be home to integrate? Where are you going to take all these beautiful experiences? Who’s going to synthesize them and alchemize them for you? …That is a way in which we’re banishing the feminine, which is process, which is yes, being in my body and suffering, because there is also so much beauty in suffering, because if you can’t be in your body to suffer, you’re not going to be in your body and experience love. They work together.” -Ido
“Psychedelics are the opportunity to get outside of oneself far enough that then I can come back and say: ‘Do I consciously want to choose to continue to be the way that I’ve seen that I am, or do I want to use my power, my influence over myself to make different choices?’” -Mackenzie
In this episode, Joe interviews artist and photographer, Rupert Alexander Scriven.
Under his brand, Vintage Disco Biscuit, Scriven recently released The Art of Ecstasy: a coffee table book that pairs high definition images of ecstasy tablets he collected over the course of 25 years with interviews and compositions written by himself and a host of other notable names from the 90’s British club scene, documenting the culture and rise of MDMA, while also promoting harm reduction and the work of UK drug charity, The Loop. The book has received some notable high praise, with Dr. Ben Sessa calling it “absolutely fucking awesome.”
Scriven discusses why he started collecting ecstasy tablets and how the book came to be, as well as details behind the photography and writings, which he likes to think of as conversations at an afterparty. And he talks about his days in the club scene and how it was like his church; how MDMA changed culture; UK drug policy; talks with his parents about drugs; differences in the club experience when people are on different substances; and whether or not dancing on MDMA can be the therapy people need. And he asks a question many of us wonder regularly: Why are we, as a culture, so far behind with drug testing?
Notable Quotes
“It really did change the culture and society as a whole, because at the time, there was ‘Thatcherism’ ([from] Margaret Thatcher, our Prime Minister), and there was a lot of disdain, there was a lot of discomfort. And this was just an outlet for everybody to enjoy themselves, whoever they were. So you could be a street cleaner, you could be an MP, you could be anybody. Everybody came together on a Saturday or Friday night and you just partied.”
“Each of these pills, even though they’re only eight millimeters across, that stamp; it didn’t signify just quality, it signified somebody’s memory of meeting a friend, a loved one, an experience, a time. You can go on any forum and people will go, ‘Oh, can you remember the dove?’ …You can ask them, and they’ll be able to recap a full story or an experience they had just from that one on element.” “A few years ago before the lockdown, [there were] only three festivals that didn’t have The Loop or some form of drug awareness testing charity at them in the UK, and those were the three festivals that there were fatalities. Now that just speaks volumes. It really does.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, David is joined by Kathryn L. Tucker, JD: Director of Advocacy at the National Psychedelics Association and a founding member of the Psychedelic Bar Association with over 35 years in advocacy in protecting the rights of dying patients.
Tucker is currently working with Dr. Sunil Agarwal of the Advanced Integrative Medical Science (AIMS) Institute in a battle against the DEA: Agarwal works with end-of-life cancer patients and approached the DEA to see how they’d accommodate state and federal Right to Try laws to grant his patients access to psilocybin, which the DEA denied. This led to the federal case, AIMS vs. the DEA (AIMS I), then AIMS II (which petitions their denial of Right to Try access), and now, AIMS III, which appeals their denial of the petition to reschedule psilocybin.
As with all things government-related, the story shows how little these people actually care about any of us, but Tucker gracefully walks us through the whole convoluted mess; explaining each step, what should happen next, where the DEA blatantly disregarded rules, what you can do to help, and ultimately, the importance of this case in how situations like these could be handled in the future (from both sides). She discusses the problems with state legalization under federal jurisdiction; what we can learn from what we saw with safe injection sites being canceled in Philadelphia; Cory Booker and Rand Paul’s Breakthrough Therapy Act; the idea of having state-legal programs actually run by the government to create a federal safe harbor; and more.
And in the news, they cover recently submitted legalization bills, Australia legalizing the medical use of psilocybin and MDMA (for specific conditions by approved practitioners), and the concern over what will happen with ketamine telehealth when the Covid-19 Emergency is finally put to an end in May.
Notable Quotes
“As you may have seen just last week in Australia, MDMA and psilocybin were rescheduled. And you might have noticed in the press release a reference to the fact that the Australian agency took in a considerable amount of medical and scientific data when it was considering that rescheduling. That’s proper. That’s necessary. That did not happen here. So what happened in Australia exemplifies and throws into sharp light that the DEA failed as a matter of process here.”
“The problem with state legalization as mentioned earlier is that it can do no more than offer state safe harbor. It cannot alter federal law. …Under the Oregon statute, all psilocybin must be consumed at a psilocybin service center, which must be licensed by the state, and it must be purchased and consumed at that center in the presence of a licensed facilitator. That is what is legal under Oregon state law. However, the operation of those psilocybin service centers is still a federal crime. And I think there has been a hope and possibly even an expectation that the federal government is going to look the other way. We have no indication that that is going to happen.”
“Within the Controlled Substances Act, there’s a provision that if the action is taken by a government official, then there is a federal safe harbor. So one of the ways that one might be looking at creatively revising these state legalizations is to have the program be run by the government. Now could you make an argument that when, for example, the Oregon Health Authority issues licenses to Oregon service centers, that that means it’s a government-run facility? Maybe. I mean, I think that’s an argument worth fully vetting, because it could bring you within federal safe harbor.”
In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, we do something a little different: instead of interviewing a teacher and student to hear their different perspectives, Kyle (Vital’s main creator/developer) has a conversation with Johanna Hilla (our Coordinator of Education and Training), with the two basically interviewing each other.
Johanna is originally from Finland but now lives in the UK, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Exeter. She has worked with us before, but became a full-time part of PT right around the time we launched Vital, so we thought it’d be interesting to hear a talk between two of the main figureheads behind this year’s cohort as it comes to an end.
They discuss the beginnings of Vital and how the pandemic actually helped; how it’s been for Johanna to experience powerful group work for the first time; and what it’s been like to see virtual connections turn into real friendships as groups came together at retreats (this was recorded at Altman Retreat in Jamaica). And they analyze Vital and look to the future: What worked? What didn’t? What were the biggest takeaways from this year? How can we add more somatic work (and maybe even have a retreat centered around getting into flow state and hiking or snowboarding)? How can we incorporate state-specific models as more states legalize? And most importantly: Can we become a new gold standard in the training/education world? We hope so!
“The whole curriculum, the way in which it’s structured with the five elements, the way in which it emphasizes experiential learning and process-oriented thinking and incorporates all of these transpersonal elements but also has a really sufficient amount of clinical backing: I just thought that it was really brilliantly structured (which I think you did most of that work) and I thought that this is exactly what we need right now.” -Johanna
“The emotional density and the charge that happens in a room when people are either doing some kind of plant medicine ceremoniously or doing breathwork: I think it’s always really something tangible, and it’s a great privilege to witness people going into these deep psychological processes. But obviously, it also takes something from you. You really have to be very present, there for many hours, and you go through the experience with the people as a witness. Even though you don’t know what they’re going through, you’re still going through it with them in a way.” -Johanna
“I think breathwork really honors the idea that we all come from a certain baseline and that people have different levels of intensity that they’d like, and different comfort zones. And I think that’s also fine. Not everybody is going to go for the five grams in silent darkness, and I don’t think everybody has to either. If there’s people who are feeling a bit more anxious about going into new experiences, I think breathwork is a really great gateway into the psychedelic world. And then maybe some people will really fall in love with the method and actually want to continue with it. I think it offers something for everyone.” -Johanna
In this episode, Joe interviews Jessica “Jaz” Cadoch: anthropologist, Co-Director of the Global Psychedelic Society, and Prop 122 steering committee member; and Sovereign Oshumare: Founder of XRYSALIS, an online community and retreat for queer, transgender, and intersex people of color, and Founder of Shelterwood Collective, a 900-acre eco-village and retreat center led by LGBTQ Black and Indigenous people.
Together, they are Co-Founders of ALKEMI, a consulting firm for psychedelic ethics and accountability, created due to the amount of businesses coming into this space who likely have very little understanding of the values that were established while they weren’t paying attention. They’re asking businesses questions many don’t consider: Is there a true need for them? Do they know their community and does the community want them there? Are their internal operations hierarchal or decentralized? Do employees feel heard and seen? And most importantly, have they taken any of the lessons from psychedelics and applied them towards the way they handle business and treat each other?
As Cadoch was a member of the steering committee for Colorado’s Natural Medicine Act (AKA Prop 122), she discusses what it was like from the inside: the problems (complaints about who was involved, if the voices from the community were a true representation, language in the bill); how the conflict showed how easily money and power could embody people; the problems with fighting over perfection while people are being sentenced to prison; and, where everyone is now: together in the aftermath, trying to figure out how to work together, unite missions, and build bridges between seemingly disparate parties.
They also discuss the problems with binary thinking, the concept of a business recalibrating its relationship to profit and ROI, what true access means, why it’s ok to go slow and not rush through the uncomfortable, and more.
Notable Quotes
“How are you really taking the lessons that the medicines are teaching us and applying them to the way you’re building your company? …Are you doing psychedelic business or are you doing business psychedelically?” -Jaz
“Each time that I’m broken, I’m rebuilt stronger. And that, to me, is such a journey. And committing to that journey is what I hope we as ALKEMI bestow upon people; giving them the endurance and stamina to be broken and be rebuilt, because we all need that. This system needs that. This world needs that. And we live in a system where we’re rewarded for not doing it.” -Sovereign
“At the end of the day, we are all we got. And the more we know who we are, the more we find alignment, the more we find each other, the more we mend our differences, the stronger we’ll be.” -Sovereign
“When we talk about access, it’s not only like financial access, but it’s also cultural access – to make it make sense for people who don’t speak this language, make it make sense for people who have survivor’s guilt from growing up in the hood in D.C., make it make sense for Hispanic rural communities, make it make sense for my Grandmother that needs a doctor in a white coat to tell her that this is safe. That’s what access means. It’s all of that.” -Jaz
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, the rest of the team is out or at Cannadelic, so a new voice steps up to the plate: Julian Bost, who works with the Vital team and handles the majority of our email, records his first podcast with Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience, friend of the show, and speaker at Convergence: Manesh Girn.
You may remember the team covering some articles at the end of December and early January that were quite confusing and immediately met with a response of: “yea, we should have someone on to explain this to us.” This is that episode, with Manesh breaking down three very scientific articles into much simpler terms (at least we hope).
And a paper he co-wrote with Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris and many others, “Canalization and plasticity in psychopathology,” which aims to reframe neuroplasticity, disorders, and psychedelic interventions, and leads to a discussion on how adaptive thought patterns develop, the ability to relearn as “Temperature or Entropy Mediated Plasticity (TEMP),” Daniel Kahneman’s idea of fast and slow thinking, early trauma intervention, and the concept of viewing mental illness as a process rather than an identity.
As confusing (at least to the layperson) research seems to pop up daily, we may have Manesh on from time to time to help us understand some of these studies. How did he do? Did he clear up any of these articles for you? And should Julian be on the podcast more?
In this episode, David once again interviews a teacher and student from Vital, speaking with Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork® practitioner, author, and developer of InnerEthics®: Kylea Taylor: M.S., LMFT; and therapist and Lead Consultant of psychological therapists at NEU: Shabina Hale.
This Vital Psychedelic Conversation is largely centered around ethics: how practitioners and facilitators define ethics; how InnerEthics® is involved; power dynamics; accountability; how the energy in a session is transferable and can bring up shadow elements for both parties; the need to be honest about one’s own scope of competence; the need for facilitators to have more experience both as a sitter and experiencer; and the very simple but most vital aspect of facilitation: considering how any decision made will affect the person on the psychedelic.
They also discuss having a code of ethics inspired by Indigenous culture and decades of underground use; how the psychedelic experience is affected by the ways it’s treated by its surrounding culture; how the practitioner becomes a protector; defining what is normal in a psychedelic experience (can you?); informed consent and the importance of explaining how roles will change throughout the process; and what the world would be like if everyone followed the same set of ethics.
Have you seen our commercial for Vital yet? We’re pretty thrilled with how it came out.
Notable Quotes
“We’re doing psychedelics in a different culture and a different community. I come from an Asian community that is often more tight knit and more tribal in its way of being, and mental health is seen differently within that community, care for elders is seen differently in that community. And so immediately, you’ve got these different rules and different structures that happen. And psychedelics obviously have come from some of those communities, but we don’t have the same communities anymore. We’re in the West. People will take them [and] they don’t go back to communities. They’re on their own. And that’s really isolating. …How do you keep people safe in some form of community when they go back into a society which is much more individualistic?” -Shabina
“I think it helps to just consider it all normal and not abnormal, because it’s only abnormal in the context of our society and our culture. What happened to Indigenous people in their psychedelic experiences was held; whatever it was was held by the culture, so it was not abnormal. It was normal in the extraordinary state of consciousness, and they assumed that it was healing and worked with it.” -Kylea
“You can see things that may not make sense on the outside, but to that person, on the inside, they really do make sense. And they make sense of it in a way that is far more profound than you could ever interpret or analyze or try and take apart.” -Shabina
“I think if people really find out what is theirs to do and do it, that is so satisfying that all these other things that cause problems for other people disappear.” -Kylea
In this episode, Joe interviews Portland, OR-based licensed marriage and family therapist, ketamine-assisted therapist at Rainfall Medicine, lead educator at InnerTrek, and speaker at our upcoming Convergence conference: Gina Gratza, MS, LMFT.
She talks about how she decided she wanted to become a therapist and when she knew psychedelics were the next step; meeting Rick Doblin at Burning Man; the efficacy of MDMA being used in conjunction with traditional therapy; how the self-compassion of MDMA gives her tremendous hope for its use in treating eating disorders; how non-ordinary states of consciousness teach us the wiseness (and uniqueness) of our inner healer; and her healthy concerns for how Oregon handles psilocybin legality: InnerTrek will be graduating some of the first licensed facilitators in Oregon and they should be certified by summer, but with OHA-approved service centers and manufacturers still up in the air, what happens next?
She and Joe also discuss how non-ordinary states of consciousness teach us the wiseness (and uniqueness) of our inner healers; the need for therapists to continuously do their own work; the idea of a psilocybin-licensed facility doubling as a music venue; David Nutt’s drug harm scale; Kylea Taylor; “The Trialogues”; archetypes of Burning Man; and how in psilocybin-assisted therapy, we can only do so much before the spirit of the mushroom ultimately takes over.
Notable Quotes
“There’s a strength in the empathic attunement that’s happening in the heart space that’s coming forward, so it’s not just talk therapy. There’s a connection happening. And we are creatures of love and belonging and connection, and when we feel that with another human being [and it’s] authentic – that is a very powerful force. We don’t have to compare it, but it’s just as powerful as medicine.”
“I hope to never be a master of any domain. I know that the juiciness of this life and this existence is continuing to stay open to learning and growing and evolving, and for me, that’s coming back to humility: I’ll never know everything, especially when it comes to the realm of altered states of consciousness. We’re trying to understand life in this state of consciousness, let alone bringing in altered states and the many different dimensions at which things can come through to you, and the uniqueness of everyone’s experience.”
“This is what we humans are able to do: Here are the measures, here are the ways in which we’re training. And then there’s the spirit of the mushroom. There’s what we are going to bring and then there is going to be what the mushroom brings: …the mycelium network, the earth, the nature; like a total other force that is beyond our ability to really know or read what will move through that.”
In this episode, David interviews two people from different sides of Vital: clinical psychologist, adjunct professor, Co-Founder of the Psychedelics R2R nonprofit, and Vital instructor, Dr. Dominique Morisano, CPsych (the teacher); and writer, psychedelic-assisted medicine facilitator, integration coach, and Women On Psychedelics Co-Founder, Jessika Lagarde (the student).
With the 2023-24 edition of Vital set to begin in April and applications closing at the end of March, we thought it would be interesting to relaunch Vital Psychedelic Conversations, but with the spin of speaking to both instructors and students to hear their different perspectives on retreats, facilitation, psychedelic education, the quickly advancing psychedelic space, and of course, Vital itself.
Morisano and Lagarde mostly discuss experience: how it’s gained, how it changes perspectives and methodologies, how one decides they’ve experienced enough to be able to know the terrain enough to help others, the importance of knowing when a patient needs a facilitator/therapist who has had the same life experience, and knowing when one’s own skills and limitations means a patient would be better off seeing someone else. And they discuss safety, the importance of being trauma-informed (and what does that mean, really?), and the puzzling cases when facilitators haven’t had their own psychedelic experience but feel the need to use psychedelics to help others.
And of course, they talk about Vital: the joy in joining together in community with people they’ve only known virtually; how interesting these retreats are compared to others due to the level of the participants’ experience; how partnering up and taking turns as the sitter and experiencer shows how little of a difference there is between student and teacher; and how many people have reported the most impactful part of the retreats was not their own experience, but being there for someone else.
Notable Quotes
“Do you know the terrain? Let’s say you’ve taken ketamine once, and you’re doing six sessions of ketamine with a client. Do you really know what they’re going to be experiencing, and can you have had the full range of experience? …How do we define this? I can tell you: You have a hundred psychedelic experiences; most likely you’re going to have a different experience each time, and a different connection to inner/outer terrain or different realms or different ways of thinking and being. So when is enough enough? When did you learn your lesson? When did you gain the experience necessary to navigate someone [else’s experience]?” -Dominique “You learn a lot about yourself as well, I find at the end of a day. Every journey is also a journey for the facilitator, and we are constantly mirrors to each other, so it’s very interesting work to do in that sense as well, because your own inner work is continuously being done.” -Jessika “It’s never the same. Two sessions are never the same, and even how you show up on that day for that session, or set and setting; all of that influences [the experience], so we have to constantly be placing ourselves between being a student [and being] a teacher sometimes, but never put ourselves in the spot that we think, ‘Okay, now I know everything. Yeah, I’m done.’” -Jessika
“How do you develop wisdom? The way to develop wisdom is through experience, and often, pain.” -Dominique
In this episode, David interviews Raad Seraj: host of Minority Trip Report, a podcast for underrepresented views in psychedelics and mental health, and founder of Mission Club, an education and investment platform.
Seraj tells his story of growing up in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and eventually finding himself in Canada, and how the discomfort and rage he felt as a result of class and xenophobia affected him. He talks about the idea behind his podcast, Minority Trip Report, and how, while they need to be heard, underrepresented and BIPOC voices aren’t a monolith. And he talks about the incestuous and gatekeeping nature of venture capital and the complications of actually turning investments into lasting business. With Mission club (which is partnering with Microdose), he aims to create opportunities for people who don’t have a ton of money to invest in early stage companies in this space, to help the dreamers who don’t necessarily fit the bill for traditional VC.
And he discusses much more: David Chalmers’ theory of “The Extended Mind”; the problems with having one idea of mental health and summarizing complicated minds into little boxes; how we are made up of different selves and how psychedelics can help us to acknowledge and integrate our minority selves; the differences between anger and rage and how 5-MeO-DMT helped him shed his rage; how we can use technology, culture, and capital together to amplify what exists and build what doesn’t; the three places that have transformed him the most; and initiating a bus-wide Cyndi Lauper sing-along while on tour with Finger Eleven as a host for Much Music.
Notable Quotes
“If you talk about mental health and healing: all healing is the reintegration of the narrative landscape – the autobiographical story. But the problem is; when you only have one type of story, one type of autobiographical narrative that gets to be heard, that gets to be embedded, that gets to be shared, that gets to go viral; and from that, you build courses and infrastructure and definitions of what mental health is and then you sort of impose it on the rest of the world – that is a problem because mental health is ultimately about being a human being, and we are multipolar beings and we are forced to be summarized in very small ways, whether by society or by systems.”
“You have a part that is elevated above the body and the mind and the consciousness, and seeing and observing yourself and your truest nature and your truest needs and wants and desires and so on, and I think with people who are on the margins (again, whether you’re Jewish, whether you’re bisexual, whether you’re a person of color, whether you’re an immigrant, or whatever), the parts that you suppress the most all of a sudden find light. They can be seen; that’s where the light gets in. And then that temporary visibility of all of a sudden seeing that part of you without judgment, and being almost agnostic to those parts, is powerful.”
“I recognized very early on [that] there was class. Race came after. Race is a 400-year-old concept. Class is a permanent part of any human society, but class is so much more insidious. We don’t talk about it.”
“At the surface of everything, whether it’s culture, politics, music, tech: it’s all bullshit. There’s a thin sheen of garbage. You have to dig a little deeper to find the true stuff.”
In this week’s episode, Joe is joined by Kyle, calling in from The Atman Retreat in Jamaica, where he’s running the fourth of five retreats offered through our Vital program.
They first discuss some news: Oregon Senator Elizabeth Steiner introducing a bill (SB-303) to essentially override many of the recommendations of the Oregon Health Authority, especially around client data – which would be provided to government agencies instead of staying private (which the people voted for); a reparations proposal in San Francisco recognizing the harms of the drug war; GOP lawmakers in Missouri and New Hampshire proposing bills for psilocybin therapy and psychedelics legalization (respectively); and Canada’s Apex Labs being granted approval for a take-home psilocybin microdosing trial.
Then, Kyle gives us an update on his very busy last few months, running Vital retreats: breathwork in Costa Rica, breathwork and cannabis in Colorado, and psilocybin in Amsterdam and Jamaica. He talks about the retreats themselves, the five components of breathwork, the idea of safety and “brave spaces,” the power of community and being witnessed, the concept of focusing on technique over the substance, what students have been saying, and finally: how the five elements relate to Vital, psychedelic therapy, seasons, and the process of growth. Reminder that applications for Vital’s 2023 edition (beginning in April) close at the end of February (update: we’ve extended the date to March 26), so if you’re curious, head to the site to learn more or attend an upcoming Q+A here!
