Psychedelics Today

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle talk about recent items in the news and dive deep into Stan Grof's work, different types of therapy, and the way touch comes into play in the therapeutic world. They first discuss Wisconsin-based non-profit medical research institution, The Usona Institute, and their recently published new method for synthesizing psilocybin, and how great this is for the community. There is a danger to locking away ideas, and new methods of synthesis could lead to monopolization of the market, but publishing their findings means this can be available to all. They then talk about re-reading Grof and the concept of the body's inner radar bringing forth what the inner healer needs to work on, and the idea that hyperventilation could be the body trying to heal itself. This leads to discussion of Kyle's time at a Soteria-inspired house in Burlington and their method of simply sitting with people and being there through difficult times. They then discuss different types of therapy, from how traditional talk therapy seems to be more of an art form rather than a measurable methodology, to Grof's Fusion Therapy (which is a type of therapy involving touch that may be over the line by today's standards), to new sex therapies that are starting to make headway. The main threads through this discussion are touch: when can touch be used safely, the dangers of touch being perceived as sexual, and the importance of communication and boundary-setting before sessions, and distraction vs. work: when is a participant wanting to talk about things during a session part of the work and important to respect, and when is it simply a distraction and a way to avoid the work? Lastly, they remind us that seats are still on sale for the 2 new rounds of (now CE-approved) Navigating Psychedelics (beginning on September 17th), "Psychedelics and the Shadow: The Shadow Side of Psychedelia" is on sale, and there is a new class developed with Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen called "Imagination as Revelation," focusing on Jungian psychology and how it can be applied to understanding psychedelic experience. Notable quotes "A corporation finding a new synthesis and being able to patent that and then kind of locking it away and saying 'It stays within our corporation and we're the only ones that can produce this in this way' doesn't mean that other people can't find other ways." -Kyle "In holotropic breathwork, Stan [Grof] talks about how if someone doesn't land by the end of the workshop and get somewhat settled and resolved, a traditional psychiatrist might say 'ok yes, this is a psychotic break.' And what do we do? You do your normal interventions. So, optimal for the breathwork and psychedelic world would be to have a place where folks could go and be for days to months to settle and kind of reorganize. That's the model of spiritual emergence, I think, that Stan talks about. You have to have really careful discussions and criteria for: psychotic break? Or possible spiritual emergence? Or, what's the real difference?" -Joe "I definitely saw some magic, by just being with people, not trying to really change their experience." -Kyle "I think delaying is really undervalued. You want to do just the right thing at just the right time. Well, what if you do the wrong thing? Why not wait, so you don't do the wrong thing?" -Joe Links Usona Institute Publishes Breakthrough Development in Scalable Psilocybin Synthesis Direct Phosphorylation of Psilocin Enables Optimized cGMP Kilogram-Scale Manufacture of Psilocybin (scientific breakdown) Psychedelics Today: "Spiritual Emergence or Psychosis" Webinar Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe interviews Court Wing: early adopter of kettlebell training, earner of a 3rd degree black belt in Ki-Aikido, first certified CrossFit instructor for the NYC Metro area, first certified Z-Health instructor in New York, and former co-founder of CrossFit NYC; one of the world's largest CrossFit gyms. Wing was a recent participant of a psilocybin trial in NYC, studying the effects of psilocybin on (mostly treatment-resistant) major depressive disorder. He talks about his struggles with depression and how reading studies about changes in neuroplasticity and neurogenesis made him wonder if his depression could be alleviated, the measures taken and process surrounding the trials, the concerns over receiving a placebo or the psilocybin not working, and post-trial; the amazing transformation he's gone through and the power of his experience, psilocybin, and intention-setting. They talk a lot about pain and the ways pain is related to the mind: the concept that depression may be a nociceptive pain, how common back pain may often be somatosensory pain based on emotional trauma creating a neurological link (similar to Grof's COEX system), and the Ki-Aikido phrase: "Your mind is the body made subtle. The body is unrefined mind." How much of pain is emotional, and how much is the body trying to communicate to the mind that a change needs to be made? Notable Quotes "I can see, going in now, the difference that intention makes in what you're seeking from the session. It's just astonishing that it's responsive to intent. ...It's so mindblowing because you're not just taking this passively." "The contrast from before to after made me want to go back and upgrade my scores in those depression assessments because I had no idea how bad it was until it was gone. And it was in less than 8 hours. ...We did a little intention-setting ceremony, and I did a little Shinto type of prayer thing- [an] incantation that I've always done since I left Aikido, and they gave it to me and put in this chalice, and I looked down at it, and honestly, I was praying to God or my higher power or the universe (however you want to phrase it). I looked at it and said, 'I really hope that's you.' And it was." "I had been in recovery from a profound drinking problem for over 17 years, so there'd been significant hesitation on my part to do this, because there's a lot of cautioning within that framework- you know: 'there's no such thing as a chemical solution to a spiritual problem.' But, what do you do when the chemistry brings you a spiritual experience?" "A false picture has been painted of what's possible here. And when it's only seen in a recreational context where they use some slightly marginalized, perverse catchphrase like 'hippies' or 'dirty hippies' or something like that, and use that as a way to blame and shame people for seeking relief, and even worse- to claim that the results they're bringing back are invalid, I think that's a crime. I honestly do. If I can bring any of my previous experience and reputation to weigh on the scale of the good that can be caused from this, I'm happy to do it." Links courtwing.com About Court Wing Court Wing has been a professional in the performance and rehab space for the last 30 years. Coming from a performing arts background, Court served as a live-in apprentice to the US Chief Instructor for Ki-Aikido for five years, going on to win the gold medal for the International Competitors Division in Japan in 2000 and achieving the rank of 3rd degree black belt. After a 14 year career in martial arts, he returned to Acting, getting his BFA from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film at Purchase College. At the same time, he was simultaneously pursuing three leading-edge performance certifications. First as an RKC/Strong First kettlebell instructor, eventually going on to be ranked a "Top 10 Instructor" and assisting a closed-course certification of SEAL Team 6 at Virginia Beach. Next he became the first certified CrossFit trainer in NYC, becoming the former co-founder of CrossFit NYC in '04, New York's largest and oldest CF gym. His final certification was as a Z-Health Master Trainer, using the latest interventions in applied neuro-physiology for remarkable improvements in pain, performance, and rehabilitation. He has also served as the principal designer for the UN's Close Protection fitness assessment and preparation program, and has been featured in the New York Time's Sunday Routine, Men's Fitness, and USA Today. Please visit him online at https://courtwing.com Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe interviews Court Wing: early adopter of kettlebell training, earner of a 3rd degree black belt in Ki-Aikido, first certified CrossFit instructor for the NYC Metro area, first certified Z-Health instructor in New York, and Former co-founder of CrossFit NYC; one of the world's largest CrossFit gyms. Wing was a recent participant of a psilocybin trial in NYC, studying the effects of psilocybin on (mostly treatment-resistant) major depressive disorder. He talks about his struggles with depression and how reading studies about changes in neuroplasticity and neurogenesis made him wonder if his depression could be alleviated, the measures taken and process surrounding the trials, the concerns over receiving a placebo or the psilocybin not working, and post-trial; the amazing transformation he's gone through and the power of his experience, psilocybin, and intention-setting. They talk a lot about pain and the ways pain is related to the mind: the concept that depression may be a nociceptive pain, how common back pain may often be somatosensory pain based on emotional trauma creating a neurological link (similar to Grof's COEX system), and the Ki-Aikido phrase: "Your mind is the body made subtle. The body is unrefined mind." How much of pain is emotional, and how much is the body trying to communicate to the mind that a change needs to be made? Notable Quotes "I can see, going in now, the difference that intention makes in what you're seeking from the session. It's just astonishing that it's responsive to intent. ...It's so mindblowing because you're not just taking this passively." "The contrast from before to after made me want to go back and upgrade my scores in those depression assessments because I had no idea how bad it was until it was gone. And it was in less than 8 hours. ...We did a little intention-setting ceremony, and I did a little Shinto type of prayer thing- [an] incantation that I've always done since I left Aikido, and they gave it to me and put in this chalice, and I looked down at it, and honestly, I was praying to God or my higher power or the universe (however you want to phrase it). I looked at it and said, 'I really hope that's you.' And it was." "I had been in recovery from a profound drinking problem for over 17 years, so there'd been significant hesitation on my part to do this, because there's a lot of cautioning within that framework- you know: 'there's no such thing as a chemical solution to a spiritual problem.' But, what do you do when the chemistry brings you a spiritual experience?" "A false picture has been painted of what's possible here. And when it's only seen in a recreational context where they use some slightly marginalized, perverse catchphrase like 'hippies' or 'dirty hippies' or something like that, and use that as a way to blame and shame people for seeking relief, and even worse- to claim that the results they're bringing back are invalid, I think that's a crime. I honestly do. If I can bring any of my previous experience and reputation to weigh on the scale of the good that can be caused from this, I'm happy to do it." Links courtwing.com About Court Wing Court Wing has been a professional in the performance and rehab space for the last 30 years. Coming from a performing arts background, Court served as a live-in apprentice to the US Chief Instructor for Ki-Aikido for five years, going on to win the gold medal for the International Competitors Division in Japan in 2000 and achieving the rank of 3rd degree black belt. After a 14 year career in martial arts, he returned to Acting, getting his BFA from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film at Purchase College. At the same time, he was simultaneously pursuing three leading-edge performance certifications. First as an RKC/Strong First kettlebell instructor, eventually going on to be ranked a "Top 10 Instructor" and assisting a closed-course certification of SEAL Team 6 at Virginia Beach. Next he became the first certified CrossFit trainer in NYC, becoming the former co-founder of CrossFit NYC in '04, New York's largest and oldest CF gym. His final certification was as a Z-Health Master Trainer, using the latest interventions in applied neuro-physiology for remarkable improvements in pain, performance, and rehabilitation. He has also served as the principal designer for the UN's Close Protection fitness assessment and preparation program, and has been featured in the New York Time's Sunday Routine, Men's Fitness, and USA Today. Please visit him online at https://courtwing.com Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe interviews Court Wing: early adopter of kettlebell training, earner of a 3rd degree black belt in Ki-Aikido, first certified CrossFit instructor for the NYC Metro area, first certified Z-Health instructor in New York, and co-founder & co-owner of CrossFit NYC; one of the world's largest CrossFit gyms. Wing was a recent participant of a psilocybin trial in NYC, studying the effects of psilocybin on (mostly treatment-resistant) major depressive disorder. He talks about his struggles with depression and how reading studies about changes in neuroplasticity and neurogenesis made him wonder if his depression could be alleviated, the measures taken and process surrounding the trials, the concerns over receiving a placebo or the psilocybin not working, and post-trial; the amazing transformation he's gone through and the power of his experience, psilocybin, and intention-setting. They talk a lot about pain and the ways pain is related to the mind: the concept that depression may be a nociceptive pain, how common back pain may often be somatosensory pain based on emotional trauma creating a neurological link (similar to Grof's COEX system), and the Ki-Aikido phrase: "Your mind is the body made subtle. The body is unrefined mind." How much of pain is emotional, and how much is the body trying to communicate to the mind that a change needs to be made? Notable Quotes "I can see, going in now, the difference that intention makes in what you're seeking from the session. It's just astonishing that it's responsive to intent. ...It's so mindblowing because you're not just taking this passively." "The contrast from before to after made me want to go back and upgrade my scores in those depression assessments because I had no idea how bad it was until it was gone. And it was in less than 8 hours. ...We did a little intention-setting ceremony, and I did a little Shinto type of prayer thing- [an] incantation that I've always done since I left Aikido, and they gave it to me and put in this chalice, and I looked down at it, and honestly, I was praying to God or my higher power or the universe (however you want to phrase it). I looked at it and said, 'I really hope that's you.' And it was." "I had been in recovery from a profound drinking problem for over 17 years, so there'd been significant hesitation on my part to do this, because there's a lot of cautioning within that framework- you know: 'there's no such thing as a chemical solution to a spiritual problem.' But, what do you do when the chemistry brings you a spiritual experience?" "A false picture has been painted of what's possible here. And when it's only seen in a recreational context where they use some slightly marginalized, perverse catchphrase like 'hippies' or 'dirty hippies' or something like that, and use that as a way to blame and shame people for seeking relief, and even worse- to claim that the results they're bringing back are invalid, I think that's a crime. I honestly do. If I can bring any of my previous experience and reputation to weigh on the scale of the good that can be caused from this, I'm happy to do it." Links courtwing.com About Court Wing Court Wing has been a professional in the performance and rehab space for the last 30 years. Coming from a performing arts background, Court served as a live-in apprentice to the US Chief Instructor for Ki-Aikido for five years, going on to win the gold medal for the International Competitors Division in Japan in 2000 and achieving the rank of 3rd degree black belt. After a 14 year career in martial arts, he returned to Acting, getting his BFA from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film at Purchase College. At the same time, he was simultaneously pursuing three leading-edge performance certifications. First as an RKC/Strong First kettlebell instructor, eventually going on to be ranked a "Top 10 Instructor" and assisting a closed-course certification of SEAL Team 6 at Virginia Beach. Next he became the first certified CrossFit trainer in NYC, becoming the former co-founder of CrossFit NYC in '04, New York's largest and oldest CF gym. His final certification was as a Z-Health Master Trainer, using the latest interventions in applied neuro-physiology for remarkable improvements in pain, performance, and rehabilitation. He has also served as the principal designer for the UN's Close Protection fitness assessment and preparation program, and has been featured in the New York Time's Sunday Routine, Men's Fitness, and USA Today. Please visit him online at https://courtwing.com Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe interviews Court Wing: early adopter of kettlebell training, earner of a 3rd degree black belt in Ki-Aikido, first certified CrossFit instructor for the NYC Metro area, first certified Z-Health instructor in New York, and co-founder & co-owner of CrossFit NYC; one of the world's largest CrossFit gyms. Wing was a recent participant of a psilocybin trial in NYC, studying the effects of psilocybin on (mostly treatment-resistant) major depressive disorder. He talks about his struggles with depression and how reading studies about changes in neuroplasticity and neurogenesis made him wonder if his depression could be alleviated, the measures taken and process surrounding the trials, the concerns over receiving a placebo or the psilocybin not working, and post-trial; the amazing transformation he's gone through and the power of his experience, psilocybin, and intention-setting. They talk a lot about pain and the ways pain is related to the mind: the concept that depression may be a nociceptive pain, how common back pain may often be somatosensory pain based on emotional trauma creating a neurological link (similar to Grof's COEX system), and the Ki-Aikido phrase: "Your mind is the body made subtle. The body is unrefined mind." How much of pain is emotional, and how much is the body trying to communicate to the mind that a change needs to be made? Notable Quotes "I can see, going in now, the difference that intention makes in what you're seeking from the session. It's just astonishing that it's responsive to intent. ...It's so mindblowing because you're not just taking this passively." "The contrast from before to after made me want to go back and upgrade my scores in those depression assessments because I had no idea how bad it was until it was gone. And it was in less than 8 hours. ...We did a little intention-setting ceremony, and I did a little Shinto type of prayer thing- [an] incantation that I've always done since I left Aikido, and they gave it to me and put in this chalice, and I looked down at it, and honestly, I was praying to God or my higher power or the universe (however you want to phrase it). I looked at it and said, 'I really hope that's you.' And it was." "I had been in recovery from a profound drinking problem for over 17 years, so there'd been significant hesitation on my part to do this, because there's a lot of cautioning within that framework- you know: 'there's no such thing as a chemical solution to a spiritual problem.' But, what do you do when the chemistry brings you a spiritual experience?" "A false picture has been painted of what's possible here. And when it's only seen in a recreational context where they use some slightly marginalized, perverse catchphrase like 'hippies' or 'dirty hippies' or something like that, and use that as a way to blame and shame people for seeking relief, and even worse- to claim that the results they're bringing back are invalid, I think that's a crime. I honestly do. If I can bring any of my previous experience and reputation to weigh on the scale of the good that can be caused from this, I'm happy to do it." Links courtwing.com About Court Wing Court Wing has been training clients and students in fitness and the martial arts for 30 years. He began his CrossFit training with Nick Nibbler & Dave Werner of CrossFit North in Seattle, the world's first CrossFit affiliate, in late Winter '03 while on a break from the renowned Acting Conservatory at Purchase College in New York, one of the top three Acting Programs in the US. He returned to train with them that summer and earned his CrossFit Level 1 trainer certificate in July '04 (first certification outside of CFHQ), becoming the NYC Metro area's first certified CrossFit instructor. He began doing workouts in the Central Park that Fall and is the Co-Founder & Co-Owner of CrossFit NYC, the world's largest affiliate, as well as New York's oldest & largest. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about recent items in the news, and dive deep into analyzing 2 articles that are very critical of MAPS' involvement with the police, military, and government. They first discuss Canada-based nonprofit TheraPsil's recent win of four people with incurable cancer being granted the ability to use psilocybin for end-of-life therapy, and how this framework could be copied and used in the US through the Right-to-try act, signed into law in 2018. They then discuss Dimitri Mugianis's recent article in Salon, which highlighted the long history of psychedelics being used in negative ways, from Vikings presumably using some sort of mushroom to get to a pillaging, "Berserker warrior" mindstate, to the 11th century Nizari Isma'ili State, which reportedly used hashish as a tool for motivation and control, to MKUltra and experiments on Whitey Bulger, to the most recent death of Elijah McLain from a large forced injection of ketamine. And they discuss David Nickles's article in Psymposia, which poses that since MAPS is working to provide treatment to police and soldiers with PTSD, they are essentially in bed with the enemy, and only promoting organizations that create more violence, division, trauma, and PTSD, while treating the perpetrators instead of the victims. Both articles are critical of MAPS but neglect to see the importance of diplomacy and working to see eye to eye with people in disagreement for the greater good- that yes, these tools can be used against people, but can also be used by people, with immense benefits. Joe reads a comment sent in by listener Danny McCraken, pointing out that "as the saying goes, 'only Siths deal in absolutes.'" This leads to more discussion: when and how should ketamine be used for submission? Why do healthy, trained cops need to even get to that point? How much of this is just governments trying to make the costs of war cheaper? Why don't more people see things from all sides? Lastly, they remind us that on September 17th, 2 new rounds of (now CE-approved) Navigating Psychedelics will be starting up, and there is a new class for sale developed with Johanna Hilla-Maria Sopanen called "Imagination as Revelation," which focuses on Jungian psychology and how it can be applied to understanding psychedelic experience. Notable quotes "I remember when we chatted with Dr. Katherine MacLean way, way back when we first got it rolling. Something that she said- 'it's almost like a birthright for us to try to prepare for death. And do we have to wait to have some sort of end-of-life illness, or can we start trying to prepare a little bit earlier?' Just really awesome to see that these 4 patients will be able to have an experience and maybe discover things about themselves during their last time here. So congrats TheraPsil for making that work for these folks." -Kyle "From the anarchist perspective, this just helps governments, which are typically organizations that have monopolies on power (what anarchists are against, primarily). So any kind of government that's using tools against people is bad, and these are tools that are being used against people. They're also being used for people. It's this weird dichotomy of: these things have such huge healing benefit for so many different types of people, and they can also be used to support things that are against people, like any tool. Like a knife or a gun- it can be used to save a life or take a life." -Joe "Is this what we want? Last episode, we talked a lot about decriminalization vs. legalization, and we didn't really talk about how that contrasts with medicalization. Do we really want these powerful people in groups telling you when you can and cannot take these things? I think the answer is no. We don't want that. We want autonomy. We want cognitive liberty. We want to not go to jail for this stuff. We want safe access." -Joe "Essentially, the critique is that MAPS is supporting cops (PTSD) and soldiers (PTSD), and as a result, MAPS is supporting violent organizations that are causing more PTSD, and treating the perpetrators vs. treating the victims. I understand why they would write this article, but I think it's not done in good taste. I think it's not necessarily aware of the broader implications of these things coming to market and being prescribable and healing a lot of people. But it is helpful in that it says, 'Look, cops are doing bad stuff. Military has done bad stuff. Should we be supporting it?' ...How do we balance those two things? ...I think MAPS is almost at the finish line, so I'm going to cheerlead for MAPS to finish [and] cross the line with MDMA, even though they're kind of pandering to the militarized people who have a monopoly on violence, both inside and outside of the country." -Joe Links 4 Palliative Canadians approved for end of life psilocybin therapy BP will slash oil production by 40% and pour billions into green energy Salon: How psychedelic drug

In today's episode, Joe speaks with spiritual coach, author, and creator of the upcoming High Together app, John Selby. Selby's most recent book is titled Cannabis for Couples: Enhance Intimacy and Elevate Your Relationship. Selby talks about how he got to where he is today, from signing up for a hypnosis research center at Princeton that turned out to be a secret government NIH psychedelic research center studying if psychedelic states could be induced through hypnosis, to working on the first quantitative EG study of heavy LSD users to determine if it caused permanent damage (that was marred with corrupted data and later found out to have been an MKUltra mind manipulation project), to becoming excommunicated by the Presbyterian church for teaching his youth group yoga and Buddhist meditation, to becoming a therapist, spiritual counselor and author, to his time at Microsoft and Plantronics leading to him wanting to create an app for improving cannabis use. His High Together app (which should be available soon) works in conjunction with his latest book to help cannabis users focus their attention, augment consciousness, and in the case of couples, improve their relationships. Through short guided sessions, statements of intent, and a strong emphasis on breathwork, his goal is to help regular users aim their attention towards more rewarding ventures, and help new users get through their first cannabis experiences safely and enjoyably (some estimate that 10 million boomer couples will try cannabis for the first time within the next 2-3 years). Notable Quotes On leaving Plantronics: "Right when it was time to do the funding and to launch this as their first software product in your headphones, two people on the board- these two old guys- Presbyterian guys- they decided that I was some sort of subterfuge revolutionary trying to undermine American capitalism. And I had to say, 'I think you've got that just about right.'" On his High Together App: "It's everything that I've found, as a therapist and spiritual guide, that's really, really effective for helping people to focus their attention in directions that augment higher consciousness. We can either get stoned, or we can get high, and people don't realize that really, they have the choice." "Most of the people, they really need help in the basics. It's very scary for most people. If you're 60 years old and you've never basically let go of control of your ego, it's like 'WHOA!' I'm there to help people make it safely and enjoyably through that first 10 minutes, when you actually have the muse of marijuana come in and say 'Okay, here we go! Let go- there's nothing you can do about this, so enjoy the ride.'" "There's a pretty sober sense of responsibility that we really have a world civilization that can really self destruct if we don't wake up and act. I think that cannabis and psychedelics are powerful medicines to help us in that direction." Links Website: mindfullyhigh.com Cannabis for Couples: Enhance Intimacy and Elevate Your Relationship About John Selby John is both a fiction and non-fiction author with over thirty published self-help/meditation books plus eleven feature screenplays and half a dozen novels and 40 published folk-jazz songs. John's most recent book is titled Cannabis for Couples: Enhance Intimacy and Elevate Your Relationship. Over the years he has been a cognitive therapist and spiritual counselor, and conducted NIH brain-research studies examining the inner mechanics of mindfulness meditation. John has taught creative writing and publishing strategies, coached authors in book-project development, and ghostwritten over a dozen books for aspiring authors on a wide variety of themes and genres. He now continues with this satisfying work, while also developing a new app-driven approach to mindfulness training and personality growth. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down to discuss recent topics in the news and analyze the ongoing debate of decriminalization vs. legalization. They first discuss the story of LSD chemist William Leonard Pickard, who was released from prison on July 27th due mostly to his age, health status and risk for contracting Covid-19, and while it's great that he's out, how it changes nothing about the conspiracy surrounding his arrest ("Halperngate") and the very questionable DEA claims of LSD availability decreasing by 95% after his imprisonment. They then talk about Denver mushroom grower Kole Milner, who is facing up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, and all the complications surrounding state or city legality vs. federal legality, and how anyone in this space should be extremely careful about what personal information they share publicly, regardless of any perceived legal safety. This leads to a long discussion about decriminalization vs. legalization: the need for more conversation, what the model might look like for the US, what we can learn from Portugal, how Covid-related economic issues might influence things, the "my drug is better than your drug" issue with advertising, the problem with D.A.R.E.'s "scare you straight" model and the need for truth instead of manipulation, and how advertising and corporate profit incentives may come into play- does legality mean that companies will try to convince more people to use these powerful medicines irresponsibly? Notable quotes "It's a false dichotomy to just say 'decriminalization vs. legalization.' As we say, decriminalization doesn't necessarily mean anything. It can mean something for a municipality or a county or a state but it doesn't necessarily mean that's the case for the feds. And as soon as you're crossing state lines, that's when they can be really into it. But realistically, the DEA seems to have plenty of power to do whatever they want." -Joe "I remember a few years ago, I started making this comment: 'Oh cool, so you want it to stay illegal so you can have your heady, farm-to-table LSD. Cute, but that's not really how it works and there's plenty of people getting hurt as a result of not having these controls in place.' ...It just takes a couple high schoolers whipping up a shitty lab, or non-safety-oriented people just trying to make a quick buck to get a few people hurt. I want to be a libertarian, but I don't necessarily trust people's motives enough to fully be a libertarian. I feel like there needs to be incentive structures in place and regulation in place for a lot of things." -Joe "I remember them threatening us: 'If you do this, we will come and arrest you.' Like, whoa... What if you had somebody that was like, "Hey, psilocybin mushrooms- these were originally used in ceremonial contexts, they had these kinds of safety mechanisms built in place, and this is what's going on, here are the risks and dangers, this is why you would want to do it in a situation like this, people are using it to find spiritual growth…" And I don't know, is that more enticing to people? Like, "Oh. I'm really curious!" But at least when they would practice, hopefully, they'd be like, "Oh yea, remember, they told us to do it in this context" instead of being like "This is an illegal thing, we're going to get arrested so let's hide and do it in secrecy and not tell anybody about it because the police chief is going to kick down my door and arrest me and tell me I'm a bad person." -Kyle "Let's just be fact-based. Like, 'Ok, here are the laws, here's where it comes from, here's the history, here are the pluses and minuses, and here are the legal consequences at this point in time.' I would just like the facts, you know? I don't need to be manipulated. Because that's all I felt it was- a manipulation of the truth and a manipulation of us. This is not science-based policy, and I think a lot of us now want science-based policy." -Joe Links Breaking: LSD Chemist William Leonard Pickard to be Released From Prison Lucid News: LSD Chemist And Psychedelic Icon William Leonard Pickard To Be Released From Prison Erowid character vault on William Leonard Pickard Erowid's article on Halperngate LSD Use Up 56% Since 2015, According To Study by University of Cincinnati Man Accused of Selling Mushrooms Faces Up to Twenty Years Al Jazeera youtube stream: Are magic mushrooms going mainstream? Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's episode, Kyle interviews Lauren Taus: yoga instructor with 20 years of experience, host of the Inbodied Life podcast, and psychotherapist specializing in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Taus talks about growing tired of more traditional therapy and cognitive loops so many people find themselves in through cognitive behavioral therapy leading to her taking a break from therapy altogether, trying psychedelics with her brother, learning of psychedelics being used therapeutically, and coming out of the psychedelic closet to her father (who now works with her). She speaks about her practice, and the process and importance of building up therapeutic relationships first before introducing any psychedelics. She discusses how Covid-19, cannabis legalization and the way our culture is set up are all exacerbating mental health issues and the challenges of fighting through that while trying to better partner with disadvantaged communities, the frustrations around the illegality of certain medicines, the power of ketamine, the concept of spiritual bypassing, what she's doing differently during this disconnected time, harm reduction around psychedelics without a therapist nearby, mindfulness, and the importance of touch and dancing. Notable Quotes "Healing happens in relationship, and it happens in relationship with self too. I believe that so many people (and I certainly have been one of them) are walking warzones. The violence that happens inside of an individual heart and mind is far more outrageous than what you'd read in the news, and what you read in the news is a lot. ...With my work, I want to know you, I want to feel you, I want you to feel safe, I want you to feel love, I want you to feel unconditional regard and care. And that doesn't happen overnight, and that doesn't happen when you take a pill." "When I think about what's happening with cannabis now, there's essentially white cartels, and there's cannabis stores on every block of Venice Beach, and people making lots and lots of money on weed. And then there's so many black and brown people in prison for smoking a joint. And so the inequity there- what kind of reparations can we do? I like to say you can't bypass the 'fuck you' on your way to forgiveness. And love is big enough to hold the anger and the rage, and there's appropriate righteous anger that's due." "People are struggling to be with what is- to welcome the wildlife that courses through their veins, to sit still with their fear and their sadness, and even their joy. I have so many people who try to crush their joy and celebration because they're afraid of losing it. And they will- it's going to shift. But can we be in the big wideness of what it is to be human? And in our inability to do so, we create all these different unique and not-so-unique misguided defense mechanisms. All these mechanisms for evasion- flight strategies. They can look like work, they can look like sex and food and drugs and alcohol and running or even meditation. The intention is what informs it a lot- what are you doing? Are you looking to go in, or are you looking to leave?" "Do your work and remember to play along the way. Joy is an act of resistance." Links Inbodiedlife.com Instagram Inbodied Life podcast, featuring Kyle About Lauren Taus Lauren Taus graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College at Columbia University in 2004 with a BA in Religion before continuing on to NYU for her Masters in Social Work. Lauren is licensed as a clinical therapist in both New York and California with a specialty in addiction and trauma treatment. As a clinician, Lauren integrates alternative modalities of treatment into her work. She trained with David Emerson under the supervision of Bessel van der Kolk at The Trauma Institute in Boston in trauma sensitive yoga, and she's trained by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) for MDMA assisted psychotherapy for complex PTSD. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss two news stories emerging from Portland, Oregon- first, paramilitary-like federal agents showing up in unmarked cars and arresting protestors, and second, the beating and pepper-spraying of one of those protestors, Christopher David. They look at these events from multiple perspectives- what fears are driving the opinions of people who are against these protests? Why does there always seem to be money when it comes to military expenses, but never any money when it comes to the wellbeing of people? How many police officers fully stand behind what they're doing, and how many are simply following orders or deeming certain evils necessary solely to earn their federal pension? They analyze systems and better ways forward, like considering a bottom-up approach vs. the standard top-down approach or Ken Wilbur's framework of transcending an old system while including all the lessons from it. They also discuss decriminalization vs. legalization and the importance of regulation, and the massive scale of concepts and systems, like how MKUltra needs to be included when discussing the history of psychology. They also discuss telehealth and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and the complications surrounding it right now, from both therapists and clients not wanting to be in an office to the concerns of self-administration at home, to the benefits of self-exploration for those who do feel comfortable and safe engaging on their own. And lastly, they talk about their upcoming Navigating Psychedelics class, which is selling fast and will never be cheaper than it is now. Notable quotes "This is illegal, and people seem to forget that it's illegal. Even if it's decriminalized in a locality, doesn't mean the feds can't come in and shut you down. And that's why they call me the party pooper." -Joe "How many people get into higher systems and institutions with really good intentions [of] wanting to make change, and thinking... "I'm going to change it from the top down." ...What would a 'bottom-up' approach be, and how could we give power back to communities to start to create their own change, instead of thinking that we need to change it from these hierarchical systems? I always come back to Bucky Fuller's quote about just creating a different system- you don't change a system by trying to change it, you make a new system that's obsolete to that old way of being. ...I'm thinking also too, from the somatic lens in therapy- approaching it more cognitively, intellectually- this whole top-down brain approach vs. a body-oriented approach and working with the trauma, working with the body and thinking about, ok, what's the body? It's people, it's communities. How do we start to work that way?" -Kyle "I just prefer to see government funds spent on stuff like the green new deal to save us from climate change. Or health care for all- those kinds of things. Why spend to put people in jail, when we could have, just like with cannabis, taxable revenue. I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Just because it's not equitable, I don't think that totally excludes the thing. I'd just like to see less people going to jail, less people being harmed by black market drugs, and more clean appropriate drugs available to the people who want them." -Joe "How do we have the money to send these paramilitary agents in but you didn't have the money to produce personal protection equipment for hospitals? What's going on here?" -Kyle Links U.S. Homeland Security confirms three units sent paramilitary officers to Portland Navy veteran beaten and pepper-sprayed by federal agents at protest in Portland Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Kyle speaks with Imperial College London research assistant and past guest, Dr. Malin Vedøy Uthaug, who just earned her doctorate and published her dissertation on Ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT research. Uthaug discusses how she started working in this field, why Prague is a good place for research, what past research has led to today, how certain factors could predict whether someone would have a more challenging or more mystical experience, how these experiences can treat people with PTSD differently, what dissociation actually means, the differences between vaporized 5-MeO-DMT and intramuscular 5-MeO-DMT injections and how injections typically lead towards better trauma resolution over the "too much too soon" effects of vaporization. They also talk about reactivation (re-experiencing parts of the 5-MeO-DMT experience at a later time) and why it might happen, how it is different from LSD flashbacks, and how expectations, the experience, and the facilitator all come into play. They discuss her research and dissertation, which consisted of 2 studies on ayahuasca and 3 on 5-MeO-DMT, focusing on if participants saw improvement in convergent thinking and mental health variables (depression, anxiety and stress), and how her placebo-controlled study revealed that those who received the placebo still saw a marked improvement. This leads to a conclusion that often, context may play a larger role than the medicine- feeling safe and being heard in a ceremonial, community-based setting may be the biggest factor towards healing. Notable Quotes "Once you make the unconscious conscious, then you can learn from it, and [it's not] so much about resisting anymore. Carl Jung says, 'what you resist persists,' and what I think is happening, especially with PTSD, is that you're kind of just holding this ball underwater and it's not allowed to float to the surface." "You need to feel safe, you need to experience being heard and seen. Psychedelics do help us remember things that we have repressed, but obviously, [they] also make us very vulnerable and things might come up. And having somebody witness that and validate those feelings that are expressed and shown can be incredibly healing for people." "What we can learn is to learn to sit with difficult emotions and to not push them aside. ...I learned that there is comfort in the discomfort. I learned that you can basically figure out so many things about yourself if you just sit with yourself for a moment and you stay in that uncomfortable silence." Links The Exploration of Naturalistically used Ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT: by Malin Vedøy Uthaug (dissertation) Imperial College London- Centre for Psychedelic Research Her past Psychedelics Today appearance, 3/21/2018 Save a Toad, Exploit a Chemist t-shirt About Dr. Malin Vedøy Uthaug Malin completed her PhD at the department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, at the faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. As part of her PhD, she investigated the short-term and long-term effects of Ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT in naturalistic settings, while simultaneously initiating several other studies on the psychedelic substance Mescaline and the breathing practice known as Holotropic Breathwork (HB). Malin is currently working as a Postdoctoral researcher at The Centre for Psychedelic Research, at Imperial College London, led by Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris. Here she is investigating the effects of 5-MeO-DMT on mental health related variables, brain activity and consciousness together with Dr. Christopher Timmermann. Besides being a researcher, Malin is also an editor for the 'Journal of Psychedelics Studies', a board member of the American podcast-show known as Psychedelics Today, and the co-founder of the Norwegian Association for Psychedelic Science (Norsk Forening for Psykedelisk Vitenskap [NFPV]) whose main aim is to educate the general public as well as researchers, and mental health practitioners in Norway about psychedelics. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. The Exploration of Naturalistically used Ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT: by Malin Vedøy Uthaug (dissertation)

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about various topics in the news and dive deep into somatic psychology. They first discuss Canadian mushroom life sciences company Cybin Corp's recent collaboration with drug delivery company IntelGenx to create an orally dissolvable film to administer psilocybin in controlled doses. This feels to them like the early days in the expansion of cannabis offerings, and how, for people with difficulty swallowing or pill-phobia, this may be the best option for psilocybin. Next, they talk about a recent study of 65 U.S. Special Operations Forces veterans who took Ibogaine on day 1 and 5-MeO-DMT on day 3 (with surrounding processing and integration time) and the amazing results, including most participants rating their psychedelic experiences as one of the top five most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Joe brings up a seldom-asked question on whether non-combat veterans should be differentiated from combat veterans in these studies and therapies. The last article they look at highlights a study where physicians used a new selective‐dose cannabis inhaler to administer microdoses of THC (either .5mg or 1mg) to patients with great results in decreasing pain without affecting cognitive performance. They talk about their experiences with low dose edibles and how they've seen great benefits from tiny amounts. They then discuss many aspects of Kyle's area of expertise (and often not mentioned in-depth on this podcast), Somatic psychology. They talk about how breathwork and a session with a physical therapist led Kyle to this practice, the concept of character armoring, William Reich's idea of neurosis being represented throughout the entire organism, how the western mind focuses on the material body, trying to fix things, and technique, how the smallest muscle quivering during a breathwork session can show where work needs to be done, and the difficulty people have in discussing the body- how it's almost a secret language only learned through experience or their therapist's suggestive questions on whether they're feeling a certain emotion or even seeing a color. Notable quotes "Thinking about my early years exploring psychedelics, I was so focused on the mind- the experience was outside of me, the knowledge and the wisdom was in the numinous. And that's where I was going to find all the answers. ...It wasn't until I had my first breathwork experience, where it was such a somatic experience- where I was feeling the experience in my body vs. externalizing my experience outside of my body and viewing it more as this thing of novelty- of something I've never experienced before. Actually having that experience and feeling it within myself, [I realized] I have felt this before, and it's inside of me." -Kyle "[Bodywork] just reveals how much is not immediately available in the day-to-day consciousness. There's so much happening- so much stored in our body that we just don't even really have a handle on it. ...My favorite line (which, I'm starting to feel like I'm cheating) is: "Mind is, at the very least, diffused throughout the body." -Joe "As a culture, we're so body-oriented at times, right? We think about diet, exercise, yoga has turned more into more of an exercise than a lifestyle or practice. ...We're so focused more on the physical, material body than the emotional body, and that's something that's really hard to tap into." -Kyle "Try not to set out with some of these goals that 'we need to change this.' What does it feel like to just maybe feel some of these things?" -Kyle Links Psychedelics For Seniors: A New Sublingual Option Psychedelic Treatment for Trauma-Related Psychological and Cognitive Impairment Among US Special Operations Forces Veterans The pharmacokinetics, efficacy, and safety of a novel selective‐dose cannabis inhaler in patients with chronic pain: A randomized, double‐blinded, placebo‐controlled trial Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's episode, Joe interviews Author Mike Crowley to talk about his book, Secret Drugs of Buddhism.

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about various topics in the news. They first discuss Rise Wellness (a company focused on teaching people how to microdose psilocybin)'s recent merger with CannaGlobal and Sansero Life Sciences to become CannaGlobal Wellness, and why many smaller companies are merging, and why Canada may be a hot new destination point for these companies. Joe suggests a new idea of helping people microdose through the use of a transdermal patch. They talk about psychology today and the idea of no theory being complete without including all perspectives (including psychedelic perspectives), the concept of re-phrasing "what's wrong with you?" to "what has happened to you?", a recent student's theory that schizophrenia may actually be a protection mechanism, Amsterdam-based psilocybin-retreat company Synthesis' recent $2.75 million funding towards developing an end-to-end professional wellness & therapy platform, and what that means to the community- are these companies focusing on the drug as the crux, or the full therapy picture? Lastly, they talk about the death of Elijah McClain from a 500-milligram injection of ketamine, using thoughts from past guest and regular administrator of ketamine to patients, Dr. Alex Belser. They talk about how ketamine can be necessary, but how it has unfortunately been used as a weapon for chemical restraint against people of color, which brings about larger questions on whether people should be allowed to hurt themselves or not- what role do physicians, therapists and police officers ultimately have in people's freedom to do what they want with their bodies? And just as a reminder, Psychedelics Today is currently offering a course developed by Kyle and Dr. Ido Cohen called Psychedelics and The Shadow: The Shadow Side of Psychedelia. And the next round of Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists will be starting in September, with a new self-paced option. Notable Quotes On William James: "As soon as he found out about other states of consciousness other than the normal waking state, he's saying that no theory for how the world works is complete unless we include all perspectives. So, like, what is the American constitution when you're on nitrous or on LSD? What is appropriate political idealogy, given all of these things? Essentially, he's saying that we're going to keep developing new tools to understand the universe, and every time we have one of these new tools, it kind of expands the scope of what we need in our theories for how the world works. ...Psychedelic states, shamanic states- how do we include that into our worldview to have a complete scientific framework? I think it's just a never-ending process, and a fun one." -Joe "Even the people that I've worked with [who] are really really struggling, and I've seen medication work really well for them at times, I always come back to: 'what has this person been through? Do they actually have this thing that science and probably psychiatry would label as a disease?' ...Some of the trauma stuff that's coming out, the neuroscience, some of the somatics- it's all kind of merging. And with the help of psychedelics, I'm feeling more optimistic that maybe the field will go into more of a growth, healing-oriented route vs. this pathology [of] 'sick.'" -Kyle "With these clinics that are popping up- are you exclusively focusing on the psychedelic experience, or are you trying to focus on the therapeutic relationship, the rapport, the container, the trust that's developed over time, and really developing that relationship with the client? There's tons of research that suggests that a therapeutic relationship is the one factor in getting better in therapy. So, as money is coming into this space and more of these clinics are popping up, are you creating a center around therapy, and really thinking about how to bring wellness and work with people in this space, or are just focusing it exclusively on the substance, thinking that's the change?" -Kyle Links CannaGlobal, Sansero Life Sciences and Rise Wellness Merge Synthesis Raises US$2.75M to Develop End-to-End Professional Platform for Psychedelic Wellness & Therapy Alex Belser's thoughts on ketamine as a chemical restraint Is Ketamine the new police weapon against black lives? Psychedelics and The Shadow: The Shadow Side of Psychedelia Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's episode, Joe interviews Jesse Gould, founder and president of the Heroic Hearts Project, a nonprofit organization that connects military veterans to ayahuasca retreats, and Keith Abraham, head of the newly created Heroic Hearts UK branch. They discuss the similarities of their military pasts and post-combat struggles, and how they both took part in ayahuasca ceremonies at Peru's La Medicina, where they eventually met. They note the need to create the UK branch came from the realization that UK vets simply weren't getting as much attention as those in the US. They talk about the unlikely allyship of Crispin Blunt, member of Parliament and co-chair of the All Party Parliamentory Group for Drug Policy Reform, the consideration of using psilocybin in future work as a less intense ayahuasca alternative, current microbiome studies and the excitement around new data vs. the "death by survey" complications when working with people in need, and how helpful a military mindset can be in these situations. They share some success stories but talk about how far we need to go in helping veterans come back to society, and how much we'd benefit from a more ceremonial acceptance of the passage from one way of life to another. The corporate 9-5 world can be tough for anyone, but ultimately, finding a purpose and connecting to a community is what's most important toward these veterans reintegrating back to their "pre-army" lives. Notable Quotes "Ayahuasca changed everything. I came out of that jungle a very different person. I wouldn't say that I had a 400% healing experience, but I had that massive, massive, massive catalyst where I knew that my life had to change. And it has. And from there, in the year since, when I got myself together, I started realizing, 'you know what? I'm in a good place. How can I introduce UK veterans to the experience that I've had, because I see that as vitally important?' And then I was introduced to Jesse, and it turned out that the organization that I thought I wanted to create had already been created perfectly." -Keith Abraham "My sons actually in the same unit as I was (in the parachute regiment.) When I left the parachute regiment and went for my ayahuasca experience in Peru, I then came back, and my son was looking at me like, "wait, you're a grizzly old war veteran, and now you're talking about, like 'everything is connected, and love and peace and harmony' um... this is… strange.'' He's gotten really used to it now, but yea, it's wonderful that these plant medicines can do these things for us. [We have] such strong minds and characters, and this ingrained training as well, but it can be overwhelmed in a good way." -Keith Abraham "One of the things we teach through Heroic Hearts, especially in the integration process, is: it's fine to maintain your warrior- that warrior spirit, that warrior soul. But now you need to learn to use that energy and use that strength towards other means. You might be done with the fighting for now, but that doesn't mean you're set out to pasture and done with society. There's a lot of different ways you can use that energy. ...How can you continue to be a warrior, just on a different trajectory?" -Jesse Gould Links Heroic Hearts Project Website Heroic Hearts Project UK Website Heroic Hearts Facebook group Heroic Hearts Twitter Heroic Hearts Instagram La Medicina Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. About Jesse Gould Jesse Gould is Founder and President of the Heroic Hearts Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit pioneering psychedelic therapies for military veterans. After being deployed in Afghanistan three times, he founded the Heroic Hearts Project in 2017 to spearhead the acceptance and use of ayahuasca therapy as a means of addressing the current mental health crisis among veterans. The Heroic Hearts Project has raised over $150,000 in scholarships from donors including Dr. Bronner's and partnered with the world's leading ayahuasca treatment centers, as well as sponsoring psychiatric applications with the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Georgia. Jesse helps shape treatment programs and spreads awareness of plant medicine as a therapeutic method. He has spoken globally about psychedelics and mental health, and received accolades including being recognized as one of the Social Entrepreneurs To Watch For In 2020 by Cause Artist. Driven by a mission to help military veterans struggling with mental trauma, he is best known for his own inspiring battle with PTSD and his recovery through ayahuasca therapy. Jesse's work can be seen and heard at NY Times, Breaking Convention, San Francisco Psychedelic Liberty Summit, People of Purchase, The Freq, Psychedelics Today Podcast, Kyle Kingsbury Podcast, Cause Artist, WAMU 88.5 and The GrowthOp. About Keith Abraham Keith Abraham served 9 years as a member

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about various topics in the news. They first discuss the duality of how Covid-19 affects different people, and how much of a privilege it is to be able to reconnect with family in new ways and use this time to grow spiritually while so many are out of work and struggling to get by. They discuss a recent tweet from @Shroomstreet concerning psychedelic stocks and the money being invested in this emerging market, and concerns that some of these unknown companies could be fake or following the "exit scam" model of holding onto investor money and then closing up shop. How many of these companies are in it for the right reasons, and what does this all mean on a grand scale? They talk about recent reports of psychedelic retreats in excess of $10,000 and the various aspects surrounding these prices, from the cost of education and the need for physicians and therapists to make a living while helping others, to the idea of "pay what you can" and taking a hit financially if it means helping the local community or those really in need without the finances to be able to participate in these retreats. Is pastoral counseling or group therapy the best way to help the most people? And lastly, they talk about Oregon's progress in getting legal psilocybin therapy on the ballot in November and the benefits of legality, most importantly towards the ability to report abusive sitters under a framework that would completely remove them from this field. Notable quotes "The Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm is just so focused on the how- on the mechanics of 'how does a psychedelic work? Oh, ok, it can treat this. How does it treat this?' vs. thinking about the idea of final cause and thinking about the why- why do these things exist? What is its purpose, and what is the potential implication here, on a bigger level, than just thinking about this how and thinking 'this thing does this thing and that's all we're really worried about,' not thinking about that overarching why- like, what is the purpose here?" -Kyle "I think everybody really should be able to access healing eventually. I think people shouldn't be starving to death either, but people are still starving to death. I remember Kwasi (Adusei, in Solidarity Fridays week 10) at one point was like, 'should we bring psychedelics to minority communities for healing?' Well, why not bring regular mental health services first? Let's start with clean water, as opposed to 'let's give them a road that they didn't want.' What's the cheapest, lowest-hanging fruit that's going to give the best reward?" -Joe "Education programs probably would be really helpful. And I think that's how we fit in. It's a philosophy thing that could be helpful for both recreationalists and people providing therapeutic experiences, and the experiencers themselves too. It helps to have some education before you go to see God." -Joe "I think states should be experimenting with different ways of going forward. Yes, I want everything to be decriminalized- I want everything to be legal, really- personally. I don't think therapeutic use should be the only use-case. But it's certainly a lot better than what we've got now." -Joe Links Shroomstreet's tweet: Why do you think Psychedelic stocks continue to bleed? Regulated psychedelic mushrooms are one step closer to being on the ballet in Oregon in November Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe speaks with Peter Hendricks, Ph.D. and Associate Professor at the University of Alabama, currently involved in researching the effects of psilocybin on people dealing with cocaine-related substance use disorder. He discusses the details of the pilot trial (following the Johns Hopkins model, with music created by Bill Richards), some early findings and speculations, what music might work best for these sessions, how excited he is to bring these findings to the criminal justice system, and how religion and tribalism come into play when looking at what people get out of these psychedelic experiences. Hendricks points out that while psilocybin is currently being researched as a treatment for tobacco use (by Matthew Johnson at Johns Hopkins) and alcohol use (by Michael Bogenschutz at NYU), this is the first large study with cocaine and could lead to the first medication for major stimulants. And while there have been many studies on psilocybin in general, they've rarely been focused on the people he's working with, who are often poorer, less educated, often out of work, and usually struggling more than those typically involved in these studies. They also talk about what research of the past has given us data-wise, and how inspirational it has been to the work being done today. Notable Quotes "The participants in our trial- they haven't read Michael Pollan's book or others. They're not in the know. I'll have to explain to them what the drug is, and the common reaction is, 'uhh, so you're going to help me stop getting high by getting me high?' and I'll try to explain how the drug might differ from others, from more addictive drugs like cocaine. And as we know, it's an ineffable experience- it's a difficult experience to put to words…. I'm honored and I have admiration for our participants because they have the courage to dive into this study conducted at a University by people they've never met. It can be a very frightening experience and they say, 'you know what, I've tried everything. At this point, I'm desperate, let's give it a try.' I probably couldn't overstate how much courage it takes for them to do what they do. I don't know that I could do it myself." "I think for most of the world's fates, the tenants are that we're all in this together, and we're bound by love. And that really might be the message that most people get from psychedelics, but similar to religion, sometimes that message is perverted a bit and what you take from it is, 'my in-group is what's most important and I'm going to act to preserve my own tribe, even if it means treating others in an awful, inhumane way…' Sometimes experiences that are really meant to foster a connection with everybody can go haywire and we have to be aware of that" "One criticism of some of the studies conducted so far has been, how do we know that psilocybin might have these effects on a sample that isn't all college-educated or doctorates or who are Professors at Universities who make more than 100,000 dollars per year and live comfortably? How do we know that this experience would have any meaning to somebody who's making less than 10,000 per year, who has a fifth-grade education, who's unemployed and homeless? I think in large part, this study might answer that question. If we find an effect, then we can say it appears to also have an effect among those who look different and whose life circumstances are much different than some of the earlier participants." Links Twitter Heffter Research Institute Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics About Peter Hendricks PhD Dr. Hendricks received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida and completed a post-doctoral Fellowship in Drug Abuse Treatment and Services Research at the University of California, San Francisco. His research centers on the development of novel and potentially more effective treatments for substance dependence, with specific areas of focus on tobacco, cocaine, and polysubstance dependence in vulnerable populations.

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down to talk about topics in the news including Mindmed's phase one research into DMT, the intricacies of intravenous or infusion-pump administration, the potential clinical application of DMT, and whether or not mainstream science is ready to handle some transpersonal phenomena like entity encounters that sometimes occur during DMT experiences. They also discuss the projections for the psychedelic drug market and the intentions of the companies entering this space, and a recent tweet from the Drug Policy Alliance discussing how the war on drugs is a tool of racial oppression. They dive deep into the war on drugs and racial oppression by discussing how sentencing for crack-cocaine is much harsher than cocaine (while basically the same drug), how NYC's "stop-and-frisk" program was essentially put in place to put people in jail for cannabis possession, and how Breonna Taylor never would have died if police weren't looking for drugs. They discuss the tragedy of Elijah McClain and what purpose a lot of police activity really serves, while looking at the "protect ourselves first" fraternity mentality that a lot of these power organizations have and how difficult it can be for a good person to become a whistleblower in those situations. They also talk about revisiting philosophy through Lenny Gibson and how beneficial it has been to explore that world as more mature people and see connections to psychology, as well as learning the limitations of scientific explanations when dealing with deep, transpersonal experiences.Lastly, they mention their excitement in participating in the re-scheduled Philosophy of Psychedelics conference coming up next year in England. Notable quotes "I stopped doing research on near-death experiences at some point, where I was just like, 'I'm sick of reading about [how] these are just physiological reflexes and responses within the brain, maybe the lack of oxygen, or all the different neurochemistry that's going on within the brain at the time of dying…' There's something so interesting about that experience, that no matter how much mechanistic information I have, there's still something there that eats at me… kind of like this lore… the lore of beauty and life kind of unfolding. It's oriented towards growth and beauty, and I guess that's what some of these experiences have really taught me- and it is that lore to grow, evolve, and move towards something. And I think when I try to put some sort of biological explanation to it, it almost halts that and says 'that experience doesn't really mean that much.'" -Kyle "Science has limited capacity to help people with meaning-making." -Joe "Do we have enough spiritual literacy? Do we have an inclusive enough cosmology to handle all of these cases? ...Are psychologists willing to call in an exorcist of some kind? Or some sort of priest [who] can handle this kind of thing? …I tend to think shareholders might be a little creeped out if publicly traded companies are talking about spirits and entities. Are we ready for that?" -Joe "What does it mean that you have to put somebody in prison for 10 years for a non-violent offense, as a cop? Like, you pulled someone over, you found some drugs in their car, and now they go to prison. And their life is essentially ruined. And you made the decision to become a police officer and uphold laws. Like, can you sit with that and be ok with that, as an individual? Why do you think drugs are so bad that locking another person up in a cage for years and years and years is ok? …[They say], 'because they have meth or fentanyl, they are the most dangerous people out there!' What about the rapists and murderers? What about drunk drivers that could kill 20 kids in one night? Why are you spending time on drug offenses when there are rapists out there? There are tons of untested rape kids at all these police departments across the country."- Joe Links NeonMind Files Patent Application for Therapeutic Use of DMT Philosophy of Psychedelics conference MindMed investigating potential benefits of DMT in upcoming Phase 1 clinical trial collaboration Psychedelic Drugs Market Projected to Reach $6.85 Billion by 2027 Drug Policy Alliance's tweet about the drug war Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies Jon Krakauer's "Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town" 2 Million People Want Justice For Elijah McClain And His Story Is Gut-Wrenching Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe speaks with award-winning musician, producer, transpersonal guide, shamanic practitioner, and certified graduate of Grof Transpersonal Training, Byron Metcalf. They discuss Metcalf's path from being a Nashville-based studio musician (who played on Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler") to a "midlife correction" of taking a class with Stan Grof and Jacquelyn Small leading to him discovering holotropic breathwork: a whole new world he had never seen before that perfectly suited his musical mind. They discuss how Metcalf works with music- from recording and producing to making mixes for sessions, how different types of music work better for different types of sessions, and how important it is to think about the flow of a mix and the transitions and mixing between songs in how it relates to the journey of the people listening- when does up-tempo music work best in comparison to more heart-centered, emotional music? When is more shamanic, percussion-based music more appropriate? He also talks about the effect of people's projections in these sessions and a funny story of when he thought he heard Christmas music during a session, using Spotify for session music, streaming vs. downloading, 320kbps vs. 24-bit recordings, creating music sober vs. under the influence, the effectiveness of binaural beats, and co-creating retreats with clients to fit their custom personal and musical needs. Notable Quotes "It just… changed my life. I mean, literally, just like, 'what is this? How is this even possible to just do some deep breathing and listen to this incredible music?' ...What it reminded me of was a psychedelic experience. And so I immediately saw the potential in it… And of course… how that model uses music was kind of just a perfect fit for me." "You're doing your own work. The best healers or the best facilitators, therapists, whatever- are the ones who really have done their own work, and in fact, I don't trust anyone [who] hasn't." "I was really fortunate that Stan would enlist me to do music sometimes at these bigger events- the Insight and Opening where Stan and Jack Kornfield would combine the holotropic breathwork with Vipassana meditation for a week. And it was groups of 200, and so you got 100 people breathing at one time and it's [a] pretty fantastic energy field as you could imagine. And just seeing- observing what happens for people and to people and through people, still- when I think about it and start describing some of the things that I've witnessed and observed and experienced, it almost sounds like [I'm] making this stuff up… It's like trying to explain a psychedelic experience to someone that's never had it before… There's no way you can really convey that. So it has to be experienced." "There's something higher, bigger- that's at work here that we want to make contact with and surrender to. So that's the goal. And sometimes if people are projecting on the music, not liking the music- sometimes changing it would be good. Other times, not. Because maybe it is bringing up a great piece for them. And [they say] "I don't like this! I don't like this!" Of course that's projecting onto the music. What's going on underneath that?" Links http://byronmetcalf.com/ http://holoshamanicstrategies.org/ http://byronmetcalf.bandcamp.com/ Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and talk about topics in the news including what psychedelic companies owe to the community (both indigenous people and the underground psychedelic world), psilocybin-like drug alternatives for treating depression and the many reasons newer companies are trying to remove the psychedelic part of the medicine, and Dennis McKenna's recent appointing to New Wave Holdings' psychedelic research advisory board and what that says about the current climate of corporations moving into this space. They discuss the dangers of "sponsored content"-like corporate messages, the malleability of laws and power of lobbyists and interest groups, and how manipulation is faster and quieter than ever before, while many big decisions are being made by people crippled from decades of unseen cultural baggage. And why are companies trying to remove the psychedelic side of medicine? Is it solely for profit, or could it be because there are so many in need that streamlining the process or using these medicines differently than we're used to in this space would be beneficial to the most people? Lastly, they talk about the importance of making the right connections and having the right arguments and really asking yourself what you're trying to do when engaging with those who disagree with you- are you just trying to be right, or are you trying to make a change? Additionally, Joe shares an important harm reduction story and tip, and gives the news that Psychedelics Today recently surpassed 1 million downloads. Thank you for the support! Quotes "Is the only box you can fit in, like 'I want a career, a home and a family'? And everything else doesn't matter? Is that it? I think it's more complicated than that. We're not just atomic units, like nuclear families. We're far more interconnected than that, and it's kind of irresponsible to ignore that." -Joe "Big businesses end up creating these systems that we all seem to rely on over time and to some extent, I think we appreciate the convenience. If that crumbled, what would our life look like? Could we tolerate living more locally, doing things on a much smaller scale? ...What would that look like in a world where the government didn't give huge bailouts to these big companies? Our world would drastically change, and could we shift?" -Kyle "Maybe a thing to just keep in the back of our minds when we're hearing all this stuff about new pharma companies is that pharma is not guaranteed money for these people. Pharma is still a gamble. Unless they really nail it, they could go bankrupt in a couple years, or just have earnings way lower than they hoped for. So it's big money, it's big bets, and they're betting on big returns, so they kind of have to go out on a limb and stay stuff like this. But the fact that Forbes put that out- that psilocybin could be toxic- seems irresponsible to me… To me, this kind of looks like sponsored content. Or it's just like, 'how do we get these corporations to talk to us and be comfortable, so we have to promise fluff.' Or, is this organized propaganda?" -Joe "Some of the people in this space are just getting so nasty that a lot of people are just saying, 'nah, I'm out, later. I'll go watch Seinfeld reruns for the next couple years while this shit plays out.' Are you moving allies away, or are you bringing allies closer to you? Think about that. You want more allies. What's the best tool? Sweetness. Anger, bitterness, spite- those are things that make people want to go away from you. How effective do you want to be, why do you want to be effective, and what tools are you willing to employ to be effective?" -Joe Links What Do Psychedelic Medicine Companies Owe to the Community? 2nd Gen Psychedelic Drugs For Depression Can Be Safer For Older Adults New Wave Holdings Corp Appoints Dr. Dennis McKenna to Psychedelic Research Advisory Board Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe Interviews Dosed filmmakers Tyler Chandler and Nick Meyers, as well as the subject of their documentary, Adrianne. Show Notes Nick and Tyler tell the story of how they went from really knowing very little about the psychedelic healing movement to becoming advocates solely from a panicked call from Adrianne. Adrianne speaks of her journey from opiate addiction and severe depression to trying mushrooms and eventually learning she needed Iboga and a community around her to really fight her way out of a life she no longer wanted to live. They touch on the costs of Iboga compared to other rehabilitation methods, the often glazed-over dangers of Iboga, the effectiveness of psilocybin against opioid withdrawal, anxiety in the western world, holotropic breathwork as a safer method towards healing, the power of the Pixar movie, Inside Out, and why it would be beneficial for young viewers to watch Dosed. Resources www.dosedmovie.com Notable Quotes "I have gotten sober and detoxed many, many, many times and not stayed sober, so obviously while the physical withdrawals are completely excruciating and definitely a big barrier to getting sober, there's really something more to recovery than that, and that's that kind of spiritual experience or awakening. And the psychedelic component is really important to that and I feel like that's what's contributed to me... not only getting sober but staying sober." -Adrianne "The real problem is that… people are forced to make these decisions and take these risks because something that has been known for 40 years to have this wonderful effect on opioid addicts is somehow something that nobody knows about and isn't legalized." -Nick Meyers "No matter how you choose to recover or what you do to get sober and stay sober, having a community around you and staying connected with people is so, so important." -Adrianne "I definitely had a lot of discomfort just learning to… be still or be with myself and not have an escape. That's part of recovery and it's very uncomfortable. It takes time to get used to that. I was always used to having some kind of coping mechanism that took me out of myself, that just helped me not feel uncomfortable or whatever negative feeling I was feeling. So that's always a challenge and there's no shortcuts to that- you do have to just learn to be in your body and feel feelings, which I did not like very much. But, you know, it gets easier over time." -Adrianne "Everybody is so scared of just saying... 'this is something that teens should do' because nobody wants to have anything bad happen and then have it get traced back to them. But look at the realities of what teens are going through with... the rampant alcohol and other drugs, and… vaping and smoking and all the other vices- prescription medications, everything that's available. And there's like, no guidance, no supervision a lot of the time… What we're doing right now isn't working. Can I dare say it? It would be better if there were rites of passage with psychedelics in controlled settings with proper set, setting and dose with young people, because it really helps you recontextualize and reframe things in your mind." -Nick Meyers About Dosed After many years of prescription medications failed her, a suicidal woman turns to underground healers to try and overcome her depression, anxiety, and opioid addiction with illegal psychedelic medicine such as magic mushrooms and iboga. Adrianne's first dose of psilocybin mushrooms catapulted her into an unexpected world of healing where plant medicines are redefining our understanding of mental health and addiction. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community.

In today's Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and discuss topics in the media including the usefulness of brain activity scans and the idea that "brain does not equal mind," how language can shift the social narrative to or away from stigma when describing substance use, and psilocybin testing in mice and when we might see psilocybin start being prescribed. They spend a lot of time on the questions everyone is asking right now- what changes can we make that will help the most people and give the oppressed what they need? What tangible changes do the oppressed actually want? What should the role of police look like, either compared to or in conjunction with social work or therapy? They look at these questions with hope, but through a realistic lens- disasters, illness and even global warming always affects the poor and oppressed more than those in power. And historically, people have always shown a natural tendency to want to hold others down. What is the real purpose behind what those in power do (for example, outlawing encrypted texting or arresting someone for doing drugs)? Are they trying to encourage only specific conversations they're comfortable with? Quotes So what really can we do, and what specifically can those with white privilege do? The answer there is to find where your voice is most effective, and to have those tough conversations. "Find those inarguable points. Don't let the media steer your narrative. Major media outlets want you to talk about certain things. Don't do that. Find out what you think is most important and most helpful to discuss with the people you're around. Where do you have the most influence?" -Joe "How can we... shift the narrative there to help people heal instead of… putting them in this lifelong box of 'you'll never heal from this because you have this disorder and this disease'? I'm always on the side of healing [rather] than trying to completely pathologize experiences." -Kyle "It sounds nice to say that we want to eliminate violence, we want to eliminate racism, we want to eliminate rape- all these really bad things. But how long have those things been with us? At least 14,000 years, I think. What's it going to really take to totally reprogram the human genome- the human mind- to transition to this ideal? Is it possible? I don't know... I want to see these police held accountable, I want to see… criminals in the government go to jail. But it's kind of the nature of these institutions. They have this monopoly on violence that was granted to them a long time ago, and there's no real recourse. They've got way bigger budgets than any of us as individuals or gangs have, much more training, much better gear… I don't totally see a great path out." -Joe Links Studies of Brain Activity Aren't as Useful as Scientists Thought Language Matters in the Recovery Movement Interview: Adam Halberstadt, UC San Diego Protests Drive DC Psychedelics Decriminalization Signatures As Activists Launch Major Mailer Campaign Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In this episode, Joe speaks with Mark Plotkin, Ph.D., author of The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know, and President and co-founder of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT). Plotkin talks about studying under Richard Evans Schultes ("the father of ethnobotany"), biocultural conservation (the main point of the ACT), Covid-19 and the possibilities for cures in the Amazon, how ayahuasca news can always be viewed as both good and bad, how indigenous people often know much more about their environment and plant medicines than we realize, and how not all ayahuasca is created equal. They mostly talk about the purpose of the ACT- using ethnographic mapping to help indigenous people take control of and protect their own land from their government and mining or logging interests, all while trying to bring a focus on respecting and protecting the environment, culture, and traditions encompassing the Amazon and its many people. "The race is on. Protect the forests, protect the shamans, protect the frogs, protect the plants, protect the fungi, and let's learn what these people know before that knowledge disappears because the knowledge is disappearing much faster than the forest itself." Resources: www.markplotkin.com www.amazonteam.org www.psychedelicexperience.net (essentially a Yelp! for the psychedelic world) Notable Quotes: On the ACT: "When we set up the Amazon Conservation team about 25 years ago, the idea was that you had groups like the World Wildlife Fund (where I had been working) that was focused on protecting rainforests, and you had groups like Cultural Survival that was focused on protecting indigenous culture, but they really didn't talk to each other. And so we wanted to help create a discipline now known as Biocultural Conservation because those of us who work with indigenous cultures (whether it's in the far north of Canada or it's in the Amazon) know that there is an inextricable link between traditional shamanic cultures and their environment. And nobody was addressing that." "There's a great saying… that the rainforest holds answers to questions we haven't even asked. So who knows if the answer to Covid-19 or SARs or the next virus which is coming at some point is in the Amazon, and the answer is- nobody knows, and nobody's really looking for it. So why not protect this treasure, steward it better, look for these answers, and keep the earth a rich and wonderful place?" "The medical office of the future, if we get it right, is going to have a physician... a nutritionist... a pet therapist... a music therapist... a dietitian... a shaman... a massage therapist. Because there's no one person and one way that's going to embody all aspects of healing at the same time." "We all go to the grocery [store and ask]: 'I want to buy organic stuff.' How come nobody ever asks where the ayahuasca comes from? Is it harvested sustainably? Was it grown organically? You know how many times I've been asked that question? Never. If we're having raised consciousness, why the hell aren't we asking these questions? So my challenge to all of our like-minded colleagues is: Let's make sure we're getting this from a sustainable source. Let's make sure it's being replanted when it's harvested. Let's make sure it's benefiting tribal communities or peasant communities that are respectful of nature and shamanic processes and things like that because I don't understand why anybody would go to the grocery store and want to get organic grapes but will buy ayahuasca off the internet without knowing where it came from." "The shamans often say everything is connected, which sounds sort of trite- this "butterfly effect." But here's proof of that. This whole terrible pandemic is due to our lack of respect for nature." "It's not nice to screw mother nature either, because, you know, mother nature always wins. And thinking that we can get away with this and make a few bucks or eat a few weird dishes and not pay the ultimate price is foolish… It's us [who are] following our nests... abusing indigenous cultures... abusing forests… and mother nature is ultimately going to have her revenge." About Mark J. Plotkin, Ph.D. Dr. Mark Plotkin is a renowned ethnobotanist who has studied traditional indigenous plant use with elder shamans (traditional healers) of Central and South America for much of the past 30 years. As an ethnobotanist—a scientist who studies how, and why, societies have come to use plants for different purposes—Dr. Plotkin carried out the majority of his research with the Trio Indians of southern Suriname, a small rainforest country in northeastern South America, but has also worked with elder shamans from Mexico to Brazil. Dr. Plotkin has a long history of work with other organizations to promote conservation and awareness of our natural world, having served as Research Associate in Ethnobotanical Conservation at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University; Director of Plant Conservation at the World Wildlife Fund; Vice President of

In today's Solidarity Fridays Episode, Kyle and Joe interview Kwasi Adusei, Nurse Practitioner, and board member of Psychedelics Today. In the show, they talk about the root of protesting, privilege, the country's leadership, the importance of this conversation and ways to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Show Notes About Kwasi It's difficult for all groups of people to talk about, not everybody is coming from the same place on this topic Kwasi says it's wonderful to see so many people rising up to fight against injustice These things have been happening for a long time, and it speaks to the history in America Kwasi grew up in The Bronx, and it wasn't uncommon to hear about deaths, gun violence, etc Kwasi went to receive his Doctorate, but reflects on his time in middle school and barely graduating It wasn't because of him and his willingness to learn, it was because of his environment The high school he went to is now shut down because of the low graduation rates The Perfect Storm Kyle says he wonders why this time in particular, why this is impacting the nation and the world more than anything else going on Kwasi sees it as a two part thing, it's a snowball effect, the anger around these instances continue to grow The other part of it, has a lot to do with the Coronavirus, people are losing their jobs, having trouble paying rent, feeding their family, etc They are losing their outlets to grieve, and they go through it for weeks Then something like this happens and it results in rage Making the Right Statement It's important to look to the family of George Floyd, they are angry at the violence coming out of the protests Some people believe that the anger that people are showing when damaging property, is causing the same anger when lives are lost But some people are capitalizing on chaos, burning buildings and bringing destruction, and it takes away from the message of changing the systemic issues, it perpetuates it It brings the spotlight to those who are inviting hate by graffiti-ing, lighting buildings on fire, ec The conversation needs to prove that protests are making a statement Poor Leadership We have a President that is enforcing law and order to remove peaceful protesters in a violent way The leadership we have is very important, how crisis is approached is really important "How [as a leader] do you calm the nerves of people, while getting to the root of the problem?" - Kwasi We have a lot of people that support Drumpf, and he doesn't do the best job at leading and supporting the country in a respectful way, especially in these times Joe mentioned videos out there of undercover cops breaking windows that are 'bait' to bring in stronger forces to shut down the protests "We should all be asking ourselves, if I care about the messaging, how do I use my sphere of influence to change things?" - Kwasi There are so many roots to this problem How much are we using to fund the police force versus funding education, community services, public health? How to Support Joe says this platform (Psychedelics Today) is to create a space for people to give back, have an impact, share stories and support movements like this Kwasi says to look locally to give your time, money and support He says look to get involved in local elections, making a small difference in your local community, makes a difference on the larger scale when multiplied Stay informed for yourself and share that information with everyone else People are thinking heavily right now "where are my tax dollars being spent?" Instead of extra funding to the local police force, you can vote for that increase to go toward something else like education Having the Conversation Our voice is our vote Many people who listen to the Psychedelics Today podcast are probably privileged The psychedelic movement is (and if not, should be) connected to so many other movements like BLM Psychedelics Today is mainly about social justice, changing the narrative on drug policy, the drug war, psychedelic exceptionalism and access Kwasi says that for those who have acknowledged their privilege, not to just keep themselves in the pillar of 'because I support the psychedelic movement and its connected to the BLM movement, I've done enough' He encourages becoming an ally of the BLM movement, as well as any other movement Privilege Being a spiritual and privileged person, you have even more time to sit and process and think about all of this, especially when it's not affecting you It's difficult to analyze one's own privilege Kwasi says he went on a medical mission to Ghana, where he was born Going back and seeing what the lifestyle was like there, it shifted a lot in him to understand his own privilege He had the privilege of coming to America, receiving an education, etc Because of his education, he is asking himself how to give back Making Change through Action If you're going to voice your support, that voice needs follow up with actions Actions like donating to groups,

In this episode, Joe speaks with Jacob Curtis a photojournalist at Denver7, a Denver-based ABC affiliate. Curtis covered Alaska's marijuana legalization in 2014, and as a photojournalist living in Denver, has been at the forefront of the Decriminalize Denver movement, even providing some of the first broadcasted footage of a local mushroom grow. Curtis speaks about attending Psychedelic Club meetings and meeting James Casey, wanting to be the person to bring this story to the mainstream, and how these meetings and growing interest from the community were ultimately the incubators for the Decriminalize Denver, and later, Decriminalize Nature and #thankyouplantmedicine movements. They also discuss the National Psychedelic Club (of which Joe reveals he is now on the Board of Directors), Edward Snowden and the dangers of speaking with the media, and advice for how to protect one's identity, the Telluride Mushroom Festival and documentaries like "Dosed," the Psilocybin Mushroom Policy Review Panel, new startups in the field like MindMed, the Denver Mushroom Cooperative, MkUltra experiments in Denver, the importance of the #thankyouplantmedicine hashtag, and ultimately, how much Covid-19 has impacted the speed of progress in bringing legalization to the mainstream. Resources: www.facebook.com/somasagas Notable quotes On James Casey: "He was an awesome subject to sort of wrap the story around, and he was the perfect poster child because he had all the right ingredients- he was a veteran, really well-spoken, and just pretty straight-laced." (9:41) "It is interesting to watch, how the media sort of responds and works with stories that are on the fringes and then move slowly towards the mainstream. It's one of those things about our culture- it bends and shifts. The times change and what was radical 10 years ago is normal now." (13:51) "We've had so many huge events that have taken place in our lifetimes that this kind of seems trivial… it's not the highest priority anymore after we had the 2000 election, September 11th, the Iraq war. Those things [psychedelics] aren't as high on the list of things that we are supposed to be worried about anymore." (14:45) "I don't think that we're going to shy away from talking about psychedelics after a catastrophic virus collapses the world economy. It'll be an easy topic." (15:57) On #thankyouplantmedicine: "I don't think there was necessarily a hashtag for drug policy reform that has been a conscious effort like that before, so it definitely gained some attention... If anything, it brought people together. If it didn't get this big media splash, it definitely helped grow the network." (53:09) About Jacob Jacob is a photojournalist at Denver7, a Denver-based ABC affiliate. He has been at the forefront of the Decriminalize Denver movement, even providing some of the first broadcasted footage of a local mushroom grow. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Friday's Episode, Kyle and Joe sit down to talk about Grof Legacy Training, Peyote scarcity, a DMT survey on entities, and more. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes Grof Legacy Training Its based on Stanislav Grof's research into psychedelic therapy, holotropic breathwork, transpersonal psychology, and spiritual emergencies Dr. Stanislov Grof and his wife just launched this program It's not just about breathwork His involvement in the Grof transpersonal training program dropped off in the last few years He wasn't allowed to teach breathwork in the GTT model, there wasn't any growth in the company, so a lot of people like Grof left and started their own thing Kyle says this is pretty common with trademarks and protocols Joe says he's very excited about it Kyle says Stan's work is very important and a lot of the reason Psychedelics Today came to be Peyote Native American Churches don't have as much access as they need to properly grow Peyote Perhaps, in countries where Peyote isn't illegal, there should be growing of Peyote Native American's are in a bad spot due to colonialism As insiders, we need to talk about how to use less Peyote "Pick one, plant two" should be the mindset Kyle says, "how do we just respect these sacred medicines?" DMT Survey Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine: Phenomenology, interpretation, and enduring effects 2,561 individuals (mean age 32 years; 77% male) completed an online survey about their single most memorable entity encounter after taking N,N-dimethyltryptamine Senses involved were visual and extra-sensory The most common descriptive labels for the entity were being, guide, spirit, alien and helper 41% of respondents reported fear More than half of those who identify as Atheist before, no longer identified with Atheism after the experience Out of any other method, DMT seems to occasion the most entities

In this episode, Joe and Kyle interview Erik Davis, Author of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. In the show they cover topics on La Chorrera, uncertainty, synchronicities and more.

In today's Solidarity Friday's Episode, Kyle and Joe interview Dave McGaughey, Founding Partner of NorthStar. In the show, they talk about NorthStar, Ethics, and the story, "We Will Call It Pala".

In today's episode, Joe and Kyle sit down with Dr. Mike Hart. In the show they talk about Cannabis and Ketamine used as medicine. 3 Key Points: The main uses for Cannabis are for chronic pain and mental health. CBD is really good for people with inflammation. When it comes to any psychedelic/plant medicine therapy, it's all about agency. The power lies within the individual, the therapy and the drug are just tools to help the person obtain the power to heal themselves. Ketamine is a useful treatment for depression. It's instant, a patient can take it and it's effective right away, where typical antidepressants may take 4-6 weeks to kick in. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Dr. Mike Hart He attended Med school on Saba Island Then he came to Ontario where he did his residency 8 months after practicing he started prescribing cannabis He got into cannabis because it's a great alternative to opioids and pain pills, etc. Cannabis The main uses for Cannabis are for chronic pain and mental health CBD is really good for people with inflammation CBD is good for anything with -itis like arthritis, etc THC is found to be much better than CBD for things like sciatica and nerve pain Kyle mentions that when he takes CBD he has flashbacks of ayahuasca dreams/experiences CBD is not psychoactive in that it doesn't get you high Kyle says that people can have spiritual experiences just by breathing, so the CBD is just another vehicle that helps Adding a small amount of THC to CBD isn't going to potentiate it, but there may be an entourage effect that can be a further benefit to a patient Don't use more than 2.5mg of THC with CBD if you don't want psychoactive effects Mike says that some people use CBD isolate, and that's great, but like an egg, it's best not to eat just the egg whites, it's best to eat the whole egg to get all of the benefits So just like eating the whole egg, the best way to get all the benefits of cannabis is to use/consume the whole plant There are definitely situations where using the whole plant is best, and other situations where isolation is best Cannabis and Therapy Anxiety can be treated very well with exposure therapy Exposure therapy is exposing something you're afraid of, and exposing it over and over until its not an anxiety anymore CBD can decrease learned fear PTSD is a learned fear "The people who end up doing the most in life, are the people who have had the most trauma. We need to tell people that their trauma does not define them." - Mike It's all about personal agency It's not about the drug, its you It's not about therapy, its you The power is in you, its just learning how to harness and use that power Mike says your relationships, your job, and your health are the three most important things to master Going without something makes you more grateful for that thing Ketamine Mike has been prescribing Ketamine for just over a year now It is helpful for mental health and chronic pain Ketamine is really useful for treatment resistant depression He prescribes Ketamine orally He advises his patients to take it in the morning as soon as they wake up on an empty stomach If it is taken that way, they get a psychoactive effect, and he thinks that it is the most effective way Its instant, a patient can take it, and its effective right away, where typical antidepressants may take 4-6 weeks to kick in Links Website Instagram Twitter About Dr. Mike Hart Michael Hart, MD is the medical director and founder at Readytogo Clinic in London, Ontario. Readytogo Clinic focuses on cannabinoid medicine, but also offers family medicine services, IV vitamin therapy and specialized hormone testing. Dr. Hart is a recognized speaker on the topic of cannabis. He has spoken at CME events throughout Ontario, multiple cannabis conferences and has been featured on a variety of cannabis websites. In March of 2017, Dr. Hart released a free Ebook with his co-author Jeremy Kossen. Dr. Hart has seen first hand how the opioid epidemic is affecting our population and wanted to take action by finding a solution. Dr. Hart believes that cannabis is an excellent alternative to opioids and has seen excellent results in his practice. Dr. Hart emphasizes lifestyle changes in his medical practice and follows a low carb diet himself. Dr. Hart actively trains MMA at Adrenaline Training center and follows a comprehensive strength and conditioning program. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In today's Solidarity Friday's Episode, Kyle and Joe sit down to talk about therapists being unprepared to talk to people taking psychedelics, the drug war and more. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes MAPS Press Release PRESS RELEASE: Interim Analysis Shows At Least 90% Chance of Statistically Significant Difference in PTSD Symptoms after MDMA-assisted Psychotherapy MAPS hired a third party to work through their data set and they may be getting FDA approval Therapists Are Unprepared to Talk to People About Taking Psychedelics Should there be some sort of body regulating therapist training in integration? Should there be a standardized training? There are going to be good therapists that care, and go out of their way and get the training, and there will be bad therapists, that do harm It's a long and difficult topic Should people be going to jail for being bad therapists? Looking at breathwork, there are training groups, but there isn't one large, overarching group that governs all trainings "Are we acting with integrity if we aren't bringing the utmost safety to the table?" - Joe Group Setting Impact How is COVID going to impact psychedelic tourism? In breathwork, people are potentially coughing, crying, and in general just doing heavy breathing, COVID is super contagious About Kyle Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle's life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, "Stanislav Grof's Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences," and the other one which he co-created, "The History of Psychedelics." Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle's clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops. About Joe Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In this episode, Kyle and Joe interview Eamon Armstrong, host of the Podcast, Life is a Festival. In the show, they talk about Eamon's Iboga experience, the festival culture, rites of passage, ethics and more. 3 Key Points: Eamon Armstrong is the host of Life is a Festival, a podcast promoting a lifestyle of adventure and personal development through the lens of festival culture. Maya is an intelligence platform for psychedelic therapists to manage their clients and their protocols. Rites of Passage can look different for everybody, they can look like going to Africa to be initiated in an Ibogaine ceremony, to attending Burning Man. Show Notes About Eamon Eamon is the host of the Podcast, Life is a Festival It's not about festivals, it's about how to make life like a festival Eamon is very passionate about mental wellness After graduating college, he felt very lost He was throwing mushroom tea parties, making electronic music with his friends The key to throwing a mushroom tea party is to have people drink less mushrooms than they think that they're drinking, everyone just thinks they are tripping harder than they were He went to Burning Man in 2010 He started working in social media for Burning Man's off playa events Psychedelics and harm reduction became core to their editorial voice He worked closely with Psychedelic Peer Support, Zendo, Kosmicare, etc Ibogaine Experience Eamon attended an Iboga retreat in Gabon, Africa, and he says it was more about the retreat than the Iboga He was in the chamber for 5 days, and he was alone in it This retreat was in the Bwiti religion He really went there for a full sledgehammer experience He felt he had some addicted aspects that were hindering his sexual experiences Iboga goes to the root of the trauma and shows you where the addictive pattern of behavior is Iboga has a long integration period Iboga is a root, and he consumed it in a form of a tangled nest He felt very blasted open from the experience Iboga took him directly to his anger "We have in our modern Western Culture, a lot of lost, young people" - Eamon "The value of a rite of passage, is that you are confronted with certain things that you can't get to on your own" - Eamon The fact that you can die in an Iboga experience, is part of the initiation Rites of Passage Burning Man isn't a rite of passage, but it can be used as a rite of passage Burning Man is a temporary experience in civic living, it is not orchestrated by elders There is a growing topic on psychedelic parenting, and taking psychedelics with children Maya Maya is designed in partnership with psychedelic practitioners & ceremony leaders Maya is an intelligence platform for psychedelic therapists to manage their clients and their protocols Ethics in psychedelics are so important right now This does not replace the therapist, it's everything the therapist needs to support their clients in healing "The ecosystem itself will thrive when we are all working in service to each other" - Eamon "If you want to be a part of the cool kids, and the cool kids are doing it ethically, then you have to do it ethically" - Eamon Final Thoughts The soul is the most beautiful thing "Psychedelics as medicine, treat society, beyond individuals" - Eamon Links Eamon Armstrong Website Life is a Festival Facebook Group Maya Maya Health Facebook Page Psychedelic Therapy Podcast Psychedelic Therapy Podcast by Maya Facebook Group About Eamon Armstrong Eamon Armstrong is the creator and host of Life is a Festival, promoting a lifestyle of adventure and personal development through the lens of festival culture. He is the former Creative Director and public face of Chip Conley's industry-leading online festival guide and community Fest300, where he was a global community builder. Eamon's belief in the transformational power of psychedelics led him to take part in a traditional Bwiti initiation in Gabon, and to become a trained Sitter with MAP's Zendo Project. Eamon is a passionate advocate for mature masculinity and offers public talks and workshops from mythopoetic men's work to stand-up comedy on integrating masculinity. Headshot Photo Credit: GBK Photos Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Friday's Episode, Kyle and Joe sit down with Brett Greene, who was the very first guest on Psychedelics Today four years ago. In response to last week's episode on the Corporadelic topic, Brett comes on the show to talk about companies and drug discovery. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes Brett Greene Brett Greene was the very first guest on Psychedelics Today four years ago Brett and Kyle originally met at the Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics conference in New York City in 2013. He works at The Center for Drug Discovery Drug Development At his new company, they are making drugs from tryptamines that are more predictable His team has not only done this countless of times with the FDA, they have also done it with psychedelics Ethics The psychedelic movement doesn't own psychedelics, they don't own molecules, but they do own their history "We should get away from the right and wrongness of the mechanics, and get into the right and wrongness of the ethics" - Brett "Patents are the language of invention" - Brett "An ethical charter is one that covers cognitive liberty, business ethics, and responsibility and accountability for patient safety" - Brett What are the minimal acceptable requirements when doing this work? Final Thoughts We need to be kind with each other We need to balance truth with kindness and compassion For those interested in a work postiton email [email protected] About Brett Greene Brett works in research administration under Alexandros Makriyannis, one of the world's top cannabinoid researchers. His job consists of a multitude of functions, ranging from administrative support for a team of 15+ grant submitting scientists to lab equipment and lab management, and diverse recruitment for NIH grants. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In this episode, Joe interviews Tom and Sheri Eckert, organizers of the Oregon Psilocybin Therapy Initiative. The IP 34 is the bill that would legalize psilocybin therapy. 3 Key Points: IP 34 asks the Oregon Health Authority to create a licensing system that will create a regulated program where Oregonians suffering from depression, anxiety, trauma and other challenges can see a licensed and trained facilitator to receive supervised psilocybin therapy. IP 34 was written by licensed therapists in Oregon along with the country's leading advocates in the field. It is supported by healthcare professionals, treatment providers, veterans' groups and community leaders across the state. There has been a multitude of studies from leading medical research institutions such as Johns Hopkins, UCLA, and NYU showing that psilocybin therapy works. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Tom and Sheri began their interest in psilocybin research about 5 years ago when they read an article in The New Yorker by Michal Pollan They realized how powerful psilocybin was for clinical work They are both therapists, and were inspired to find out if there was a way to create a modality that allowed them to provide psilocybin therapy to help their clients Psilocybin Assisted Psychotherapy Psychotherapy is supposed to be experiential, the breakthrough is where the change happens Sheri says that psilocybin therapy gets all parts of the brain in communication together "The more intense the mystical experience the more clinical outcomes that are achieved" - Tom Ballot Initiative They started in 2015 They wanted the breakthrough studies and the research proving low risks to work for them The psychedelic community was very helpful They went through rotations with the way the initiative was written They like the therapy model, its safe, careful and mindful Clause Joe asks about a Supremacy Clause, where the state supersedes local districts This initiative does not get in the way of any other initiative There are angles on all different types of drug policy reform There is nothing in the IP34 that blocks any other initiative like decriminalization We are all a part of the big picture, we all need to work together GMP Psilocybin They wanted to keep this in the frame of non-commercialization Their goal with this is not about money, it's really about the healing "We are trying to move forward a healing modality to help people, we are trying to legalize psilocybin assisted psychotherapy" - Tom There is a part in the initiative that says measures will have to be taken to make sure the psilocybin is 'food grade' standard or in general just clean and safe Oregonians to Sign the Petition Download the petition, sign it, and mail it in Final Thoughts Sheri says that the team behind the initiative is inspired by what is happening globally around psilocybin and research They are right at the end of their signatures, but they need help to reach the goal "We've got to see the bigger picture here, and get behind it." - Tom Links Website About Tom and Sheri Eckert As husband-and-wife founders of the Oregon Psilocybin Society (OPS) and authors of the Psilocybin Service Initiative (PSI), Tom and Sheri Eckert have set in motion a historic campaign to legalize Psilocybin Services, also known as Psilocybin Assisted Therapy, in their home state of Oregon. A growing number of Oregonians are getting behind the idea, largely in response to the latest science. The Eckerts, with a growing army of volunteers, are spreading a truth held increasingly self-evident: that the psilocybin experience, when facilitated under safe and supportive conditions, can be a life-changing gift.In addition to their activism, the Eckert's own and operate "Innerwork" – a private psychotherapy practice serving the Portland metro area. Included in their catalog of services is their groundbreaking "Better Man" program, which is shown to neutralize intimate partner and family violence. Sheri has been awarded a Cosmic Sister Women of the Psychedelic Renaissance in support of her presentation at the Spirit Plant Medicine conference. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In today's Solidarity Friday's Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk mostly about Corpora-delic, companies and wealthy individuals investing in the psychedelic industry. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes Psychedelics Company Orthogonal Thinker Closes $6M Seed Round The company is valued at 111 million The CEO, Jason Hobson says, "The current health pandemic has resulted in a societal shift in the way we think about our health and the importance of access to treatment, both physical health and mental health. Ei.Ventures believes this is the right time to lean into mental health issues such as mood disorders and addiction, and eventual access to therapeutic treatments from innovations in botanical compounds that have been around for thousands of years." Joe and Kyle say that there is so much money coming in, and it worries the psychedelic community because they aren't used to seeing capitalism Joe says that he hopes that some patents don't equate to ruining access Thiel Backs Psychedelic-Drug Startup in Latest Funding Round "Are these companies going to bully the smaller organizations out of existence so that diversity doesn't really exist in the way we think it should?" - Joe Medical is a great model, but it should be reduced to that only Kyle says the sacred-ness feels like it may be taken away, and big companies just look at it as a commodity Medical Researchers Worry Silicon Valley Could Screw Up Psychedelics "Not everyone sees this opportunity for entrepreneurship as a good thing. For researchers looking into the efficacy of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes, these substances are far more than a market opportunity—they're potentially life-saving medications. And after decades of prohibition, psychedelics are just barely gaining mainstream acceptance.' - from the article People are bold enough to stand up to companies they don't agree with It's no joke how much money was spent on making Tim Leary look bad DARPA Wants Benefits of Psychedelics but Without Hallucinations The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is launching a new drug program for treating soldiers with PTSD, depression, anxiety, and drug addiction, and it is drawing inspiration from psychedelic research. Kyle mentions that this is tricky, its both a biochemical and experiential thing Will eliminating the hallucinations ruin the experience? Joe says that there are some people that are so unstable that a psychedelic experience can be really a lot Joe also says that there arent alot of drugs that their use needs to be supervised (medically) and psychedelics are some of them How Climate Justice Could End the Drug War Joe recorded with Erica Darragh from Sunrise Movement Their talk was about how climate justice could end the drug war They talked about more equitable ways of including people of less power, influence or privilege into the world of psychedelics The more ahead we are of the government, the more likely we are to influence policy, Joe says it's best to just stay informed A North Star for the Emerging Psychedelics Industry If we aren't coming from psychedelic values when bringing these substances into the mainstream, then what are we doing? What are psychedelic values? Valuing the planet, valuing your place in the planet, a sense of connection, cooperation vs. competition, how do we honor a lineage or where these medicines come from? these could be some psychedelic values Following the permaculture principles and applying them to life is a great tool for systems thinking About Kyle Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle's life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, "Stanislav Grof's Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences," and the other one which he co-created, "The History of Psychedelics." Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle's clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops. About Joe Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe h

In this episode, Joe interviews Amanda Feilding, Founder and Director of The Beckley Foundation. In the show, they cover topics on psychedelic research, policy work, regulation, and the benefits of psychedelics in a time of crisis. 3 Key Points: The Beckley Foundation pioneers psychedelic research to drive evidence-based drug policy reform, founded and directed by Amanda Feilding as a UK-based think-tank and NGO. There is some interesting research happening around LSD expanding the neuroplasticity of the mind and increasing neurogenesis. We are in the midst of a mental health crisis, especially in the West, and psychedelics may be helpful in improving mental health. Show Notes The Beckley Foundation Amanda says she felt alone for a long time, they were taking a scientific approach, and it was much too serious for the underground The Beckley Foundation is doing policy work, medical work, scientific work, etc Amanda has a passion for science, but felt a social responsibility to do the policy work It's a very destructive work with 'drugs', because they are all under the same umbrella, but we psychedelic enthusiasts know, that psychedelics are beneficial and different than other drugs Joe mentions he always thought how crazy LSD sentencing is, in some places it is longer than murder charges "The ego is really a mirror of the government, and it can be much too restrictive and damaging" - Amanda LSD LSD increases cognitive function by expanding the networks of integrative centers in the brain Amanda thinks that LSD is better at increasing cognition than mushrooms She says they are doing exciting work with LSD and how it expands neuroplasticity of the mind, and how it increases neurogenesis She thinks we haven't really even scratched the surface of exploring the benefits of these compounds Joe says he is hearing about a lot of athletes using LSD as a performance enhancing drug Neuroplasticity is like when the brain becomes hot metal and it can adapt and change Crisis We have a horrible mental health crisis in the west, 1 in 3 teenage girls are depressed Out of all death causes in the US, air pollution is one of the largest "Our society needs a paradigm shift" - Amanda Amanda says that she doesn't believe that all people need to take psychedelics, but that they can be very beneficial Regulation Joe says he would love to see regulation everywhere The cause of most drug harms are prohibition Portugal and Switzerland are great models for boosting public service Recognizing the potential benefits helps (starting with medical but not stopping there) Final Thoughts We are all moving in the right direction The spreading of knowledge and education is the right path The intuitive gains are the main benefits of these altered states of consciousness Links The Beckley Foundation About Amanda Fielding Amanda Feilding has been called the 'hidden hand' behind the renaissance of psychedelic science, and her contribution to global drug policy reform has also been pivotal and widely acknowledged. Amanda was first introduced to LSD in the mid-1960s, at the height of the first wave of scientific research into psychedelics. Impressed by its capacity to initiate mystical states of consciousness and heighten creativity, she quickly recognised its transformative and therapeutic power. Inspired by her experiences, she began studying the mechanisms underlying the effects of psychedelic substances and dedicated herself to exploring ways of harnessing their potential to cure sickness and enhance wellbeing. In 1996, Amanda set up The Foundation to Further Consciousness, changing its name to the Beckley Foundation in 1998. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics

In today's Solidarity Fridays Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk about current topics in the news including MindMed, psilocybin synthesis, treating climate grief with psychedelics, psychedelic decriminalization and more. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes MindMed Psychedelic Pharmaceutical Company MindMed Develops LSD Neutralizer Technology To Shorten and Stop LSD Trips MindMed is a psychedelic Pharmaceutical company that is exploring LSD and patenting anything they find during the research Joe comments and says that organizations like Zendo are able to do optimal work and we don't necessarily need a Pharma company to help in recreational/festival settings But in a clinical setting, this is more necessary "Are these big companies coming into the space as allies are not?" - Joe Joe says he thinks they are part of the ecosystem, for better or worse Joe says, imagine if drugs were legal, they would be so much safer Kyle questions what legalization would look like not in a capitalistic market Scientists Turn Yeast into Psychedelic Psilocybin Factories There is a lot of reason why people choose not to play in commodified markets "How do we know what is true? How do we know what is helpful for us?" - Joe Joe says lets not have a quick easy answer "It's infeasible and way too expensive to extract psilocybin from magic mushrooms and the best chemical synthesis methods require expensive and difficult-to-source starting substrates" - a quote from the article Can Psychedelics Treat Climate Grief? 20 years is when it's going to be really bad for climate change It's been more prominent, people getting therapy for trauma of what's happening in nature The question of a conference that Joe and Kyle attended was, "Can extraordinary experiences help save us from planetary, ecological collapse?" We are able to make people feel more connected to ecological systems with psychedelics We have to be able to feel the grief, but we have to be able to act Are we stewards of the earth, or do we want to work pointless jobs and be a part of consumerism? D.C. Would Vote To Decriminalize Psychedelics, Poll Shows If COVID wasn't a thing currently, it looks like decrim would happen in the belly of the beast, in D.C. Despite the public health crisis, its looks like citizens want to reassess entheogenic use "When there is hardship, creativity seems to spike" - Joe Joe says to check out the microdose VR by Android Jones About Kyle Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle's life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, "Stanislav Grof's Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences," and the other one which he co-created, "The History of Psychedelics." Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle's clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops. About Joe Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In this episode, Kyle interviews Melissa Stangl and Daniel Cleland, Co-founders of Soltara Healing Center. They talk about integration, Shipibo healing lineage, accessibility of psychedelics, and psychedelic tourism. 3 Key Points: Soltara is a Healing Center dedicated toward integration as well as practicing and preserving the Shipibo tradition of Ayahusca healing. It doesn't make sense to take nature based traditions and turn it into instant gratification and business. The further you get from tradition, the less beneficial it may be. Tourism for Ayahuasca can bring both harm and benefits to the local community. Reinforcing the heritage, paying the healers very well and giving back to the forests in terms of sustainability are all ways that Soltara is using Ayahuasca tourism to help the local communities. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Melissa Melissa originally comes from the STEM field She was working in corporate America and was in search for a deeper meaning She met Dan and after joining one of his initial ayahuasca journeys into Peru, it changed her mindset about healing Dan looked for someone to help him after starting up his first ayahuasca center in Peru, and so she dropped everything and moved to the jungle to make it happen After witnessing the healing potential working within the Shipibo tradition, and the need for integration within the community, she later founded Soltara with Dan in Costa Rica About Daniel Daniel grew up in a small town in Canada He followed the typical life trajectory, go to school, go to college, get a job, etc He didn't have big ambitions at the time, very in line with the middle class area that he grew up in After entering the work-force, he was in un-ambitious jobs He thought "are there just 30 years of doing this until this is over?" He felt a strong pull towards South America He was very close to nature in his upbringing He got a job leading tours He had a personal crisis that led him to do some soul searching Within the span of a few years, the trajectory pushed him to build his own healing center in Peru Pillars of Soltara They feel very strongly about having the Shipibo healers lead the ceremony, and everything that they (Mel, Dan and the team) do is to help honor the tradition They focus a lot on integration For the Shipibo culture, their life is integraton, but for a lot of people that are coming from the Western world and other places, that is not the case They started collaborating with clinical psychologists to help create a program that puts the retreat at the start of the program, the work comes after Soltara includes a workbook for integration afterward Our transition times in modern life are shamed, getting your period, having a mid life crisis, having a psychedelic experience, but these experiences can be very sacred "Connecting to the sacredness of life is so healing and so needed for modern-day society" - Melissa Container for Safety and Integration The sensationalism is more around the experience itself People think that you just go in and have the experience and then your life is changed forever and that is not the case A place where people not only can find who they are, but then be who they are in that container, and meet people and create community, is so powerful Kyle said when he attended his retreat there, he can't shake how safe he felt He said it really stood out to him, for someone who is looking at integration and so involved in this field "I would like to bring people to this tradition in a way that is accessible, and I think that starts with safety" - Melissa Corporadelic There are new products, treatment centers, etc The further away you get from tradition, the less beneficial it may be Dan says it doesn't make sense to take nature based traditions for instant gratification, monopoly, and business The ceremony is the healing part, the ayahuasca allows one to connect with the plants, and that it is just the songs in ceremony that really create the healing Melissa says she understands that the science is helping the movement, but she is so afraid that big corporations will just run with this and ruin tradition around it Kyle says during his experience at Soltara, he just felt flooded with gratitude to experience the medicine healing in nature and in the Shipibo culture, where it is natural Ayahuasca Tourism Tourism for Ayahuasca causes harm but also brings benefits to the community too Dan says they are expanding the work, they are not taking away from the traditions It takes a certain capacity to travel to the jungle, speak the language, figure out where to go, how to get there, and how to receive healing is not typically possible for the vast majority of people The Shipibo is receiving really good pay doing this work, which isn't typicall

In today's Solidarity Fridays Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk about the Shadow Panel, embracing the weird in psychedelia, what is real, re-examining 'normal', and more. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes Shadow Panel Topics in the Panel include Ayahuasca retreat centers Maximization culture to use psychedelics for optimization Ketamine therapy and shadow as aspects of character The collective shadow and astrology and much more! Erik Davis Joe and Erik just had a call and they talked about his book High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (The MIT Press) It is a study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson It's a really nice survey of the weird "Are you acknowledging what you're getting by believing something is true? It's a part of your analysis" Joe says if you're into the weird stuff in psychedelics, this book is for you. If you are only into the clinical stuff, then this is good for you. Kyle says sometimes we don't give enough credit to the weirdness in the psychedelic space Corporadelic is a means of spiritual bypassing The weirdness is core to what the psychedelic experience is What is Real? Psyche means more than just mind When its mind, body, spirit, breath, it seems more accurate It is worth reading Alfred Whitehead and James Fadiman, Philosophy is important We are trying to understand and have helpful language around the psychedelic experience "There are no whole truths, there are only half truths" Kyle said that at the core of our being, how do we know what is true and real? At the fundamental truth of what real is, Kyle says that sitting in the CAT scan machine and being on the brink of death, that's the only place where truth sits for him Psychedelic Liberty Summit Saturday and Sunday April 25th and 26th Receive a discount here This is a psychedelic conference that turned virtual due to COVID-19 Group Work Breathwork, retreat centers, etc are at an undetermined standstill because we don't know how this is going to plan out The Navigating Psychedelics Today Online class has students learn the information first and then come together to talk about it There are so many means of transmission Kyle mentions he read something about COVID being transmitted on the soles of shoes We will probably need additional shelter in place measures all the way until 2022 We are almost hitting 9/11 death toll numbers on a daily basis Re-examining Normal Do we want to go back to the way things were? Or do we want to take this weird/uncertain time and do something with it? The worst of climate change is only a mere 20 years out It's easy to have emotional heartbreak when ecological destruction happens Eco-psychology is a huge field Mind Medicine Australia Australians crippled by anxiety from the coronavirus crisis 'should be treated with MDMA and magic mushrooms', charity claims Final Thoughts Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists, May co-hort is SOLD OUT The wait list for the next co-hort can be found here Psychedelics and the Shadow: A Series Exploring the Shadow Side of Psychedelia Enroll Today! About Kyle Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle's life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, "Stanislav Grof's Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences," and the other one which he co-created, "The History of Psychedelics." Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle's clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops. About Joe Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In this episode, Joe interviews Michelle Janikian, Author of Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion. In the show, they talk about Michelle's book, the need to speak about the unspoken, and how psychedelic experiences differ for everyone. 3 Key Points: Michelle Janikian is Author of the book, Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion, an easy-to-use guide to understanding magic mushrooms, from tips and trips to microdosing and psychedelic therapy. Psychedelics can help people, but they don't solve all problems. Doing the homework after an experience is so important. The psychedelic subculture has a lot of repressed stuff going on like sexual abuse. We need to speak about the things that aren't necessarily good for the movement, we need to talk about all of it. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Michelle Michelle was originally a cannabis journalist Then she was a staff writer for Herb She then started writing her own book, Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion So much has been happening with mushrooms lately, and Michelle thought we really needed a resource on how to use mushrooms safely Ulysses Press did a few Cannabis books Michelle was approached by them, they wanted to do a mushroom guide She first took mushrooms when she was 17 She took them for fun, but had so many deep and meaningful experiences too Michelle believes there are multiple right ways to use psilocybin, either therapeutically, ceremonially, recreationally, etc. "As long as you're being safe with your surroundings, and with yourself, anyway is the right way (except for the fact that they are still illegal)" - Michelle In places where mushrooms are decriminalized, she mentions it totally changes your comfort level and experience when you're not so afraid to have them on you Retreat Michelle just volunteered as a trip sitter at a week long women's retreat in Mexico at Luz Eterna Retreats She says she doesn't have all the answers, but the group environment can be really great for some, and not good at all for others She suggests, "do what feels right for you" Routes of Administration There isn't one ideal form of administration across all drugs Joe says one route of administration may be good for one person, and not for another You can powder the mushrooms and put them into capsules, put them on food, eat them plain, make a tea out of them, etc Michelle says she has a great recipe in her book for mushroom tea to prevent nausea Different for Everyone Michelle felt a calling to write the book because she says many other books and publications were coming out, and she didn't want some people to feel upset when psychedelics didn't just 'heal them' She says psychedelics help her, but they don't solve all of her problems Doing the homework after an experience is so important The Unspoken She says she feels uninspired to write about the 'black and white', the same old, stereotypical narrative She wants to write about the grey, the unexpected, the in-between Michelle asks how do we talk about the things that aren't right for the movement? Like the sexual abuse that happens in this space This psychedelic subculture has a lot of repressed stuff going on, and how do we talk about it? We need to keep learning in this field to keep improving, it is dense and detailed Michelle leaves us with a final thought, "read more books written by women!" Links Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion: An Informative, Easy-to-Use Guide to Understanding Magic Mushrooms―From Tips and Trips to Microdosing and Psychedelic Therapy Website About Michelle Janikian Michelle Janikian is the author of Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion, the down-to-earth guide that details how to use magic mushrooms "like an adult." As a journalist, she got her start writing about cannabis for publications like High Times, Rolling Stone and Herb. Now, she writes a column for Playboy on all things drug related and also contributes regularly to DoubleBlind Mag, MERRY JANE, Psychedelic's Today and others. She's passionate about the healing potential of psychedelic plants and substances, especially psilocybin and cannabis, and the legalization and de- stigmatization of all drugs. Michelle studied writing and psychology at Sarah Lawrence College before traveling extensively in Latin America and eventually settling down in southern Mexico. Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, Michelle ventures back to the States a few times a year to give talks and workshops on safe mushroom use and other cannabis and psychedelic related topics. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In today's Solidarity Friday's episode with Kyle and Joe, they cover current events on psychedelics for treatment of COVID-19 trauma, an article on single dose psilocybin effects, psychedelic investments, self care and more. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes A Single High Dose of Psilocybin Alters Brain Function Up to One Month Later It was a small study of only 12 people The article states, the researchers found that self-reported emotional distress was reduced one week after psilocybin administration, but returned to baseline levels at one month after psilocybin administration Doctor Calls for "Temporary Approval" of Psychedelics to Treat COVID-19 Trauma There were a few doctors and people that didn't understand the value of psychedelics being used as psychiatric tools Kyle thinks especially of all of the first-responders that are working non stop, without a break, for weeks on end, witnessing tons of people dying daily, and then trying to come back and process this The mental health, long term of these people is going to be so impacted Then we have to think about the people that can't come together for a funeral after they lose someone This pandemic is going to be traumatizing for people Joe says this looks like a global ego death, all of the systems that we have had before are not adequate The Spanish flu of 1918 was only a few years away from the Great Depression We know that traumas influence health and behaviors, but we have tools and technologies to get ahead of this, from an epigenetic standpoint Psychedelic Investments Kyle and Joe talk for a while about psychedelics and money and research and funding It's a tricky thing, because we want there to be funding to make this accessible, but we want people to invest with integrity and to not start a monopoly on the funding Joe says we (as a company) have been approached by investors, but we have been hesitant to stay with our vision, keep our integrity and stay on track with our mission Self Care Kyle says stay in the present moment, limit news consumption (watch it maybe once a day to know what's going on, but then put the phone down and not drown in it) It's helpful to develop more of a spiritual practice in this time (yoga, meditation) Self care is going to look different for everybody Joe says 'Maslow it', get good sleep, drink good water, satisfy basic needs, those are first step during this time Kyle says that he uses movement, somatic work, breathing into places in the body that are tense, etc Kyle says that those who are doing a lot of online work, take time to move and stretch This is a time to do a lot of work we have put off, but at the same time, its okay to give our bodies a break, take time to rest, get outside, find movement, etc It's important not to take on too much or do too many things Psychedelics and the Shadow: A Series Exploring the Shadow Side of Psychedelia Enroll Today! About Kyle Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle's life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, "Stanislav Grof's Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences," and the other one which he co-created, "The History of Psychedelics." Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle's clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops. About Joe Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado. Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday

In this episode, Joe invites previous guest, Dena Justice back on the show to continue the conversation on Neuro Linguistic Programming and non-ordinary states of consciousness. 3 Key Points: 93% of what we do on a day to day basis, is unconscious. If we can figure out how to work with that 93%, then we can really do some important things. A lot of times we aren't happy with our behavior, first we have to distinguish between cause and effect. With effect, you blame other people, but when you're a cause in your life, you're taking responsibility for what's happening. Creating new habits is hard at the conscious level, because it requires conscious thought. NLP focuses on the unconscious. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes Last Episode 93% of what we do on a day to day basis, is unconscious If we can figure out how to work with that 93%, then we can really do some important things Communicating with the unconscious mind is kind of how we communicate with ourselves The previous episode was called Neuro Linguistic Programming and Non-ordinary states of consciousness NLP is all about our nervous system and what is coming in with our 5 senses, then the linguistic part is all about how we communicate what is happening in the body NLP basically creates all of our behavior The more we are able to understand how our unconscious mind works, the better we are able to get the outcomes we actually want Outcomes A lot of times we aren't happy with our behavior First we have to distinguish between cause and effect When you're at effect, you blame other people, but when you're a cause in your life, you're taking responsibility for what's happening "When we can help people be more at cause, they get those desired outcomes, and people start to get to where they want to go in life" - Dena Perception is Projection Whatever you're believing that which is outside of yourself, it's actually a reflection of you Dena said that she won't go to fitness classes simply because of the language they use Altering your state through movement makes a person very vulnerable and the language can be very suggestive What are we subjecting ourselves to everyday? When we sit down to watch TV or movies, we are in a trance-like state Dena suggests being very careful to be aware of what we let in Getting rid of barriers and obstacles to get where you want in life is the goal for NLP Prepping the Unconscious Mind Going to the gym is a habit so many people want to have and don't Creating new habits is hard at the conscious level, because it requires conscious thought When we try to make decisions at the conscious level, it gets really difficult "All learnings and behaviors, happen at the unconscious level" - Dena "How many times did you have to tie your shoes consciously, before you tied your shoes, unconsciously?" - Dena Most people don't have good language running in the background, and that is a big reason why people are stuck in poor behaviors Prime Directives of the Unconscious Mind We create gestalts of emotions and experiences A gestalt looks like a pearl necklace, and they are all related to each other All of our experiences of our emotions (ex. anger) all get hooked together like a necklace It's a way that our mind organizes the information When we learn to re-frame intentionally, we can take it as a tool into non-ordinary states of consciousness Re-framing In psychedelic experiences, we are re-framing the conscious mind, we shake loose of our gestalts "We need to learn new tools in order to directly communicate with the unconscious mind" - Dena When we can get to the 'aha' moment, we can create change more quickly Limiting beliefs and negative emotions get in the way Getting rid of limiting beliefs causes massive aligned action which leads to massive life change Tools Our unconscious mind loves following instructions We tell the mind so many don'ts, 'don't cross the street, don't walk on the grass, etc We need to tell the mind exactly what to do People are really clear about what they don't want, but they aren't always clear on what they do want 7% of what we are saying are just words, the other 93% is is how we say it, our emotions, our infections, are body positions, etc Joe mentions somatic techniques, but that only goes so far, NLP takes it home We learn language, but we don't learn to be effective communicators Workshop Joe, Kyle and Dena are talking about doing a 5-day breathwork and NLP workshop in Sonoma, CA Breathwork is such an amazing tool for non-ordinary state of consciousness Until more news is released about the retreat/workshop, Dena invites listeners to take her course over at her website, Ecstatic Collective Sign up at psychedelicstoday.com/NLP to be notified of the future workshop Links Website About Dena Justice As a master manifes

In today's Solidarity Friday's episode with Kyle and Joe, they cover current events on COVID-19, social media narratives, a new world, psycho-pharma, psychedelic VICE articles, movies about acid and more. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes Coronavirus Joe and his girlfriend are recovering from being sick, potentially coronavirus (they weren't allowed to be tested without being hospitalized) Joe said he was really sick in a new and novel way Kyle is located in New Jersey (currently around 19,000 cases, close to 250 deaths) He has a weak immune system, so he is trying to be super careful by staying isolated (he hasn't left the house in weeks besides to go on a walk outside) Joe says this whole thing is really going to impact humanity and life on earth The ecosystem of commerce is fragile and this is a strong way of showing it Kyle says that Drumpf estimated 250,000 deaths in the US Joe says we are going to get through this, and life will go on, but what will that look like? How can the conscious show up as leaders? When we are in a fear state, we don't make rational decisions Narratives Kyle says all of the psychedelic people that he is connected to on social media are posting so much on 5G right now There are dual narratives, like people dying, but also a lot of info on conspiracies What do we pay attention to, and what is really happening? Joe said that he played in the conspiracy, occult area for a while, and he couldn't find any solid ground In times like this, the conspiracy media ramps up, because people are afraid, and that impairs cognition There is a lot of media saying that COVID-19 is a biological weapon There is a lot of unknowns, and how do we not panic? Processing All of This We were not evolved for this moment Now, how do we evolve to handle this stuff? How do we build resilience? As ecosystems collapse, some organisms start to mingle with other organisms and then viruses like this can come up, and will pop up more in the future We are in a spiritual emergence-y right now, we need to bring up our shadow and do the work What can I actually do in my life right now? Instead of worrying about everything A New World 90% of products in the consumer economy right now are completely non-essential We are on a finite planet with finite resources don't mesh with infinite growth Hopefully this is the emergency that we need to re-imagine the future There is a role that the psychedelic community plays in this The psychedelic culture is familiar with sitting with shadow, doing the inner work, and taking a creative approach at alternative systems and reimagining the future Kyle says this feels psychedelic, having new ideas about what the future could look like, what we can offer the future A lot of the things that we wish for are starting to unfold, in some sense, the collective has been wishing for the things that are happening When we take substances, we are upgrading our operating system Psycho-Pharma MindMed (Mind Medicine) call themselves a leading neuro-pharma company for psychedelic inspired medicines Right now they are working on a compound, essentially an iboga-like drug There is a lot of suffering happening in the world, and whatever tools that can help with the suffering will do There is a roller coaster of the psychedelic experience If every experience was just rainbows and happiness, it would just devalue the human experience Vice Researchers got people to hallucinate from fake psychedelics Kyle says think about it, that sitting in a chair for a few hours with music can easily induce a psychedelic experience Joe says "the experience is within you, the drug is a key to help unlock that" Shadow Panel Kyle is co-hosting a Shadow Panel with Ido Cohen and takes on a Jung approach to process the shadow They host interviews with doctors and other speakers on the topic They explore a lot of somatics in the shadow It is a donation based course right now, potentially paid in the future Final Thoughts Joe says we are heavily impacted by COVID-19, a ton of breathwork events all had to be cancelled But we have a ton of online courses and resources available, from integration books, to online guided therapist and clinician courses, to psychedelic online courses, coaching, and more Joe said he had a fun conversation with a film producer (Malibu Road) on the acid scene in the 70's The film cant be streamed yet, but the trailer is out About Kyle Kyle's interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle's life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism

In this episode, Kyle sits down with Dylan Beynon, founder of Mindbloom, NYC based mental health and wellbeing platform. In the show they talk about how Mindbloom differs from other centers, paving the way for accessibility and affordability. 3 Key Points: Mindbloom is a next-generation mental health platform, catered to accessibility and affordability. They use ketamine tablets, different from lozenges and any other method. The tablets are held in the mouth and then spit out to avoid entering the liver, causing a sedation-like experience. Mindbloom differentiates themselves from other psychedelic therapy options by using a patient-choice model, to keep it affordable for those who need it. They offer the 4-week therapy model and give patients the option to choose 'add-ons' like extra integration. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Dylan Dylan is not a clinician or a doctor, he is an entrepreneur and a psychedelic medicine and therapeutic ketamine patient These medicines have been transformative in his life and he wants to bring their benefits to the public He grew up in a family that suffered greatly from mental illness He lost his mother to addiction He discovered positive psychology When learning about the science of happiness, he realized that he wasn't happy He was in business school and wanted to be a banker and make a ton of money He soon realized that money doesn't buy happiness, and he thought maybe everything he was doing was a lie He was self medicating with psychedelics About 5 years ago he heard about psychedelic therapy About 18 months ago he started working with a clinician doing ketamine therapy He saw that when it's done in a therapeutic context, it can have a profound effect for people to get the most out of it "Recreational vs therapeutic use is a false dichotomy" - Dylan Mindbloom The goal is to build the next-generation mental health platform Right now they are doing Ketamine therapy They are trying to make it accessible by making it affordable They are trying to bring an elevated client experience, which they do with the space and software Software Background Voters Friend - a platform to help inform voters on the candidates, to increase access to democracy Mighty - increasing access to social justice Mindbloom - increase access to psychedelic medicines Differentiation The protocols that Mindbloom are using are capped They are increasing access to the medicines, making it affordable They keep it at $150-$250 a session, where at most Ketamine Therapy centers, it can range from $1000-$2000 a session Dylan says he makes this possible by bringing in technology and software tools to make the sessions for efficient and effective They use patient choice care, where the patient can use their best judgement on how in depth they want their treatment They can 'add on' extra integration time onto the therapy session, or choose not to This keeps the price down and accessible for each individual patient if need be Mindbloom is a 4 session program, usually 1-2 months They use the platform to have the client practice using the information in the weeks between each session, so they can practice integration even when not with a therapist or in session The Program The clinician prescribes a 4 week Ketamine Therapy session for anxiety and depression The clinician will schedule a video interview to learn their symptoms Then they will meet in person and build an integration program if needed Its $1000 for the 4 session program and $600 for the renewal program They use Ketamine tablets (similar to lozenges but faster acting) They're not swallowing it, they spit it out after If they swallow it, it breaks down in the liver into nor-ketaine, and that produces a sedative effect After they spit it out, there is about an hour of music with no vocals After the session, they move to an integration room where they are journaling The protocols at Mindbloom were based on the MAPS protocol They don't have a clinician in the room during the experience, only for after the experience Dylan is looking to expand to other locations A lot of people request couples or group therapies, so they will be taking that into consideration when building new locations Final Thoughts The more people who are thinking critically about this and putting their intentions into making this more accessible the better There needs to be more gentle conversation around psychedelics and therapy, especially around the people that are still so unaware about this field We should bring sacredness, specialness, and care to the conversation with those who might still be afraid about it Links Website About Dylan Beynon Dylan is the Founder & CEO of Mindbloom, an NYC-based mental health and wellbeing startup helping people expand their human potential with clini

In this episode, Kyle sits down with Dr. Ryan Westrum, Psychedelic Integration Therapist. In the show, they talk about topics and teachings from Ryan's book, The Psychedelic Integration Handbook. 3 Key Points: The Psychedelics Integration Handbook is designed to bring psychedelic experiences into the flow of your life and maximize their potential for helping you create the life you want to live. There is an important part in distinguishing integration from aftercare. Aftercare can look as simple as taking care of your body, getting good rest, eating well. You can't integrate without taking care of yourself first. One of the pillars of integration is PREP (purpose, reflecting on experiences, expectations, potential). Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Ryan Ryan is a Clinical Psychologist in the Minneapolis area He has been a licensed Marriage Therapist for 15 years He works in the realms of psychedelics and sexuality He has a 14 year old daughter, and likes to take a psychedelic approach to parenting He holds healing circles with mothers and fathers and their child(ren) Psycho-ed and harm reduction are his focus with families This is a group of people that need an honest conversation At a young age he was into Stan Grof and Jungian literature and psychedelic experiences His graduate program was focused on non-ordinary states of consciousness Kyle mentions a good book, The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise "As a western civilization, we have really minimized the opportunity for growth, the expansion of consciousness, and to be ourselves." - Ryan These experiences are powerful, and to come back to a culture that does not support it, is hard The goal is being conscious with your confidence of why you're doing this work About the Book The Psychedelics Integration Handbook is designed to bring psychedelic experiences into the flow of your life and maximize their potential for helping you create the life you want to live This is not a book with black and white answers but an offering to individual people who want to explore all the possibilities for being alive and seeking wholeness. The Psychedelics Integration Handbook contains historical perspective, maps of consciousness, approaches for integrating body-mind-spirit, and practical suggestions for all stages of psychedelic exploration. The Psychedelics Integration Handbook The book was written for people to make it their own Its broken into 3 parts, educational, a 'your turn' section, and then integration Its about having a compartment, and then playing within the compartment Everyone has unique nuances, integration looks different to everyone Integration practices don't matter if they don't personally mean something to you Integration The question to help determine the integration needs is, "What does the individual lead with?" It's the mind, body, emotion in the spirit altogether Immediately after a psychedelic experience, some want to talk about it, others embody it Do they lead with thoughts or emotions? There is a part in the book: The difference between integration and aftercare How do we distinguish between self care and integration? Is my body rested? Am I comfortable? Are my needs taken care of? Aftercare is grounding "If you're not taking care of your body, you won't be able to integrate" - Ryan It might not be as complex as it needs to be, its as simple as taking care of yourself An important part of aftercare, is asking yourself when it is okay to practice again Ryan was mentored by James Fadiman, and he believed in taking big doses every 6 months One of the pillars is PREP (purpose, reflecting on experiences, expectations, potential) Ryan says he is not the gatekeeper Controlling willpower is a huge step in integration Some people want to just take psychedelics, but not write, or do yoga, or do any other mindful activity Safety Dose, set and setting are the obvious It's like a goldrush, some just want to jump in blindly You have to understand what safety means to you Ryan thinks we aren't talking enough about the recreational use He is excited about all of the conversation on therapeutic use, but he thinks we are ignoring recreational use He wants to see ritual and reverence in the recreational community Preparation is so important Kyle says that a lot of times after an experience he has all of these ideas for how to live his life, and he tries to practice them, but sometimes he finds himself slipping into old patterns of behavior Ryan says he believes there is still movement and progress, be gentle with yourself Links Healing Souls LLC Psychedelic Integration About Ryan Dr. Ryan Westrum, PhD, LMFT, is an internationally recognized psychedelic integration expert. For more than 15 years, his primary focus has been working with individuals and grou

In this episode, Kyle interviews Jessica DiRuzza, Psychotherapist, Astrologer and Teacher. In the show they talk about how astrology can be used as a tool and framework for navigating and understanding psychedelic experiences. 3 Key Points: Astrology can be used as an integrative tool for psychedelic and other exceptional experiences. The planets are emitting some type of force that are letting us behave a certain way. Astrology is the one thing we have agreed upon across millennia and era. A Saturn Return transit can be a difficult but transformative time in one's life. This transit happens around age 28-31. During this time, we face crises in our life as we take on greater responsibility. It can feel like death and a rebirth. It can correlate to Grof's Perinatal Birth Matrix II ("No Exit" and "Cosmic Engulfment"). Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Jessica She is a Psychotherapist She teaches and practices Astrology She uses Astrology to help put meaning and understanding to what happens in visionary states She received her bachelors at CIIS and studied and taught with Stan Grof and Richard Tarnes in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness Program Since the 70's, Stan Grof was following his transits and all the transits of his clients Richard Tarnas and Stan Grof studied astrology as a diagnostic tool for those who would do psychedelics They studied transit astrology By looking at these transits, what they found were archetypal similarities "Our solar system is an extension of our ecosystem here on earth." - Jessica\ "For millennia, the one thing that human beings have agreed upon across cultures and eras, are the meaning of the planets" - Jessica Astrology is the original science Free Will vs. Determinism The planets are emitting some type of force that are letting us behave a certain way They are reflective, what is happening in the sky is indicative of what's happening here Astrology is like a clock, a clock does not make it be a certain time, it just helps us tell the time Interest in Astrology Psychedelics brought Jessica to Astrology Jessica went to her first Burning Man at 20 years old She received an astrology reading there and said it broke her open She went to CA to see the reader that gave her the initial reading She did a high dose LSD session She re-lived her birth experience, and gave birth to her new self The person who gave her the reading was teaching with Stan Grof and Richard Tarnas at CIIS She dropped out of college and moved to attend CIIS She was in a Uranus conjunct Ascendant transit Through these experiences she uprooted her entire life Astrology Lingo Sun represents our sense of self, our identity in the world, egoic consciousness Moon represents our relational matrix, our early childhood experiences, our emotions and experiences, and a deep sense of belonging Rising represents who we are from moment to moment, how we initially meet existence Zodiac means belt of life Each aspect carries a different quality Conjunct means new moon, representing a new beginning A full moon represents when the sun is opposite than the moon, a blossoming or fruition. Astrology is a language, the language of the stars There are so many ways to speak this language, and so many schools of thought What really matters is the cosmology that goes behind the description "Both astrology and psychedelics are a tools for self reflection, that hopefully we are using to become more kind and more caring" - Jessica "Astrology provides a world view or a cosmology to hold what happens in those visionary states, it's a grounding place to integrate and make meaning of what's happening" - Jessica Saturn Return Saturn return happens from age 28-31 During our Saturn Return, we face crises in our life and take on greater responsibility It can feel like a death, but also like a birth "The greater the death, the greater the rebirth" - Jessica The 4 bpms correspond to the four outer planets It's not just in entheogenic spaces that this is applicable "Working with the resistance consciously, actually helps us move into what the divine or the universe wants us to step into our life, karmically, what we are here to do" - Jessica Astrology and Psychedelics Kyle asks about using astrology to pick a time of when to do psychedelics Jessica responds saying that if you have a strong calling to do so for healing and balance, and you have all the components for proper integration, then it's a good time Then, astrology can be used to help find themes and help dissect the experience Your Saturn transits contain a difference component in each person The sense of responsibility grows in you "My deepest calling in this life is to bring Astrology and Psychology together in one unified field" - Jessica Final Thoughts Jessica is so proud of th

In this episode, Kyle sits down with Rob Heffernan, an independent researcher and activist. In the show, they talk about churches, Ayahuasca, accessibility and the Psychedelic Liberty Summit by the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. Rob is also part of Chacruna's Council for the Protection of Sacred Plants. The Council for the Protection of Sacred plants is "an initiative of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines that endeavors to advocate for the legality of sacred plant medicines among indigenous peoples and non-indigenous communities, encourage legal harm reduction practices that protect those who use them, educate about conservation of plant species, document relevant legal and social issues, and consult on legal cases including possible litigation. " 3 Key Points: The Psychedelic Liberty Summit is a gathering on legal, cultural, and political issues around the emerging psychedelic renaissance. Accessibility is not just about whether or not people can afford psychedelic therapy, people cant even afford regular therapy, the whole healthcare model is an issue. A lot of churches get a bad name, but really most churches are built around community. Psychedelics can help revitalize churches. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Rob Rob is a member of the Chacruna Council for protection of sacred plants He is an integrative sound and music practitioner He is involved in the Santo Daime He has been drinking Ayahuasca for over 20 years He began to ponder and ask a lot of questions about involvement with medicine communities Psychedelic Liberty Summit Rob will be hosting a talk on religious exemptions and more There will be speakers of all different initiatives, from decriminalization to indigenous relations There are a lot of investors interested in the psilocybin market The issue is complex because there is this ongoing cultural history of the US and other countries exploiting those cultures and removing resources (oil, medicines, etc) Ayahuasca The first time Rob drank Ayahuasca was back in 2000, where there weren't Ayahuasca retreats going on then People who lived in the area were not familiar with Ayahuasca use People started coming from around the world to use Ayahuasca There are feedback loops between the cities and the forests People typically think integration is what happens afterwards, but really it is also the sacrifice from the start, the preparation, such as a dieta We need to honor what we have learned from the indigenous, and give back Traditional dietas don't involve actually drinking the Ayahuasca, the culture has come a long way Accessibility While these medicines are relatively safe, you can get in trouble using these substances recreationally, there is a role for the therapeutic support It's not just about whether or not people can afford psychedelic therapy, people cant even afford regular therapy, the whole healthcare model is an issue Santo Daime It was founded in the 1930's in Brazil The reason that the Santo Daime looks more white in the USA is due to the segregation There are all sorts of ways that the Santo Daime may look When Rob first got involved in drinking Ayahuasca, he wasn't sure that he wanted to get involved in the Santo Daime, but he said the container was so strong There are hymns sung, and it's very structured It allows you to really go deep Sometimes it can look like drumming, dancing, and fire, but there is also a style of sitting in silence There is a profound ethical foundation which is really important All of the elements make for a really important container In the traditional form, you do not touch anyone, unless there is a certain circumstance, and a prior consensual agreement, and waivers signed, etc There have been issues of sexual abuse in the psychedelic realm, the Santo Daime takes many precautions against this Churches There are legal churches in the US through the Daime and the UDV (União do Vegetal) The Daime has 5 churches that are explicitly legal The government has decided not to pursue or prosecute Ayahuasca for those other churches From Shock to Awe Someone tragically died at the Soul Quest Church, but it wasn't related to ayahuasca There are a lot of people that claim to be a part of a Native American church that are not A lot of people reach out to Chacruna on how to become a part of the Native American Church to hold ceremonies, and it's not easy, you almost have to already be a part of it, instead of just joining Some people don't like the word church, but it originates from the words 'congregation' and 'assembly' "The problem is the controlled substances act, that these things are illegal in the first place" - Rob "The experience in all those settings is about community. The goal isn't to have spiritual experiences, its

In this episode, Joe interviews Clinical Psychologist, Alicia Danforth. In the show, they cover topics including how to get involved in the space, consent, research, MDMA, Autism and more. 3 Key Points: Alicia Danforth is a Clinical Psychologist who will be having a talk on Ethical Challenges in Psychedelic Medicine at the ICPR Conference in the Netherlands, April 2020. There is a possibility for MDMA to have a non-responder effect. No one has done research dedicated to why some people don't react at all to MDMA. Psychedelic science is very hard to talk about. We have the language of science that studies the psychopharmacological effects of drugs but no language that holds the effects of an altered state of consciousness yet. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Alicia Her path to her current place is such a random road that led her to where she is She was going to burning man and getting into harm reduction when she realized the untapped value of psychedelics, its where her interest began She began volunteering, doing administrative work for a doctor She was offered to be a study coordinator She got introduced to the power of psilocybin as a medicine, for dying cancer patients The patients had a prognosis from 6 months to a year To see how this state of consciousness helped people transition to the end of life so smoothly, that is what inspired her 5 months after she started working on the study, she got a cancer diagnosis Getting Involved in the Space Alicia would always get people approaching her about how to get in the field and she tells them "what field?" Her Power Point making skills, are what technically got her involved in this field "You never know what skill may be needed in this field" - Alicia Alicia encourages people to look into their own collection of skills, and dig deep into that, find your niche, and then use that to contribute to the movement Clinical therapists and psychologists are not the only people in this field We need accountants, marketers, etc Consent People start to get really religious around this field Joe mentions a story where someone performed non-consensual reiki Current Research She is currently looking at why psychedelics appeal to people who typically like to abuse power She did a talk at burning man about 'coming down from the psychedelic power trip' She tries to cite as many references and research as possible Her talk at ICPR is going to be the very professional, version of that talk Why are individuals who seek to abuse these tools so irresistibly drawn to psychedelics? "If someone gets abused, and people say don't come out about it because it's not good for the movement, then what kind of movement is that?" - Joe Empathogens MDMA is known as an Empathogen Can empathogens help people who are not empathetic, become empathetic? Cohen's D is the measure of effect size Big pharma uses this all the time, to determine the effects of one drug compared to another The Cohen's D is how large that difference is Non-response MDMA There is a known, non-responder effect with MDMA There was a few double-blind sessions, where the patient received MDMA, and they didn't react, their vitals didn't change At the end, it was revealed that they truly received MDMA, and then even to be sure, they would do a blood test, and it showed up in the blood No one has done research dedicated to why some people don't react at all to MDMA It's probably common, that for people who are relying on MDMA to work as their last resort option and try it and not feel anything at all, to end their life afterward Media and Support It's the most difficult thing in dealing with the media When you are entirely dependent on funding, if you don't talk about what you're doing, then you can't get funding at all There is a crisis in science on the replicability on these studies Joe says its cool to have these studies replicated outside of the US "Psychedelic science is very hard to talk about due to the subjective nature of the psychedelic experience. We have the language of science that studies the psychopharmacological effects of drugs. There is no language that holds the effects of an altered state of consciousness yet." - Alicia The rapport that the patient and facilitator have, and the effect of that relationship, is a variable Links Website About Alicia Danforth Alicia received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto in 2013. Since 2006, she has worked in clinical research at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center on clinical studies for adults with anxiety related to advanced-stage cancer and with autistic adults who experience social anxiety. She is currently a lead clinician and supervisor for a clinical trial at UCS

In this episode, Kyle and Joe interview Mike Margolies of Psychedelic Seminars. In the show, they cover topics including guests and conversations from the Psychedelic Seminars, the decriminalization of all drugs, and the importance of allowing psychedelic use to be a part of training therapists for psychedelic therapy. 3 Key Points: Psychedelic Seminars is an educational conversation series deepening awareness of the benefits, risks, and complexities of psychedelics. There are large topics of decriminalizing psilocybin or the movements for 'decriminalize nature', but the conversation on decriminalization of all drugs is rare, which is what's really important. Some companies (MAPS for example) allow the option to use MDMA as a part of their therapist training program while other companies who are training therapists for psilocybin therapy, don't have the option to use it. This leaves the question, "Should the psychedelic experience be part of the psychedelic therapy training?" Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Mike Mike used to work as a chemical engineer in corporate America, and then he did Ayahuasca When he returned, he thought to himself about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life He took a look at the pulse of the country and looked at what it needed There wasn't anyone organized locally in Baltimore, so he started Psychedelic Seminars Now he is living in the Bay Area, doing events locally He has been interviewing people and putting the videos out globally Psychedelic Seminars They will be having some Indigenous people at the seminar It's hard to get Indigenous people to seminars and conferences, because, what's in it for them? The goal is to ramp up the project and do a seminar every month, where it usually takes place every few months They are doing it all in a home, privately The whole project is donation dependent, they are doing it all for free You can support the mission here After Michael Pollan, they did one with Jim Fadiman He did another with Ayelet Waldman The talks were on microdosing and the unknowns of microdosing Just because there is no real harms taking a large dose of LSD, doesn't mean there aren't any harms taking a low (micro) dose of LSD frequently Mike thinks that the term Jim Fadiman uses is its 'sub-perceptual', in that you have a noticeable effect on the mood, but no other way of noticing it Decriminalization Drug Policy tends to stay in the realm of psychedelics only There are large topics of decriminalizing psilocybin or the movements for 'decriminalize nature', but no one likes to talk about the decriminalization of all drugs, which is what's really important Poppy is not considered in decriminalize nature, which is selective nature decriminalization It's not a real decriminalization, it's just a low priority for law enforcement He's been asking in his conversations, opinions on decriminalizing all drugs Different drugs have different risk profiles "Just because you're not using criminal justice as your mechanism for reducing risks of drugs, doesn't mean you do nothing. The last thing we want to do is add criminalization to those who are already suffering, this is why we should decriminalize all drugs" - Mike Laws should be written in terms of what are you not allowed to do, not what you're allowed to do He is allowed to walk down the sidewalk, but not punch someone he walks past, but the law shouldn't be to get a license for walking down the street so long as you don't punch someone The communities that are marginalized continue to be marginalized by the drug war Psychedelic Therapy and Experience with Use With MAPS, there is an option to do MDMA as a part of the training With psilocybin, at least with Compass Pathways, there is not an option to use psilocybin. Mike says that's a huge issue When you scale treatment, there is the risk of losing the quality of care "We aren't going to solve the problems of our future by mass distributing psychedelics" - Mike The fact that we have such mass amounts of widespread depression, means that we have a deeply ingrained systemic issue at hand Psychedelics treat the symptoms, but we still need to fix the underlying cause "If you are distributing psychedelics, but still exacerbating the same underlying issues, you now have the problem and solution in the same hefty package" - Mike "Psychedelic experience is intrinsically something spiritual. How can you guide someone in spiritual practice if you haven't experienced it yourself?" - Mike "Inducing a state intentionally, and guiding someone through a process, its completely unethical to guide someone through a spiritual process that you haven't been through yourself." - Mike New Economy Burning man is not a barter economy, it's a gift economy, where things are given without an expecta

In this Episode, Kyle sits down with Elizabeth Nielson and Ingmar Gorman, Co-founders of Fluence, Training in Psychedelic Integration. They are both therapists on the MAPS clinical trial for MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD. 3 Key Points: Elizabeth and Ingmar are co-founders of Fluence, an online Psychedelic Integration Training program. If psychedelic treatments become available more widely, the fear is that therapists won't be as educated on how to handle their patient interactions based on the behavior of each psychedelic. Psychedelic Integration Therapy Training is so important. There are 3 phases to the MDMA for PTSD clinical trial. Phase 1 would be pre-clinical data about the chemistry of a drug, Phase 2 is where you begin to test your treatment in a patient population, and Phase 3 is where you get the data to demonstrate that the treatment is superior to a placebo and other treatments in general. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Ingmar Ingmar is a previous guest of the show He is a private Investigator for the MAPS MDMA trial He is a therapist and the Co-founder of Fluence About Elizabeth Elizabeth is a Clinical Psychologist She has a long history in working with clinical trials as a therapist She is part of the psychedelic education and continuing care program She does a lot of supervision and training for therapists The Trial The approval of expanded access by the FDA includes 50 people in total They are near the end of MAP 1 (out of MAP 1 and MAP 2) When they transition into MAP 2, it will be a little more refined MAP 2 is different participants than MAP 1 There are 3 phases Phase 1 would be pre-clinical data about chemistry of a drug and how it metabolises, if its poisonous, etc Phase 2 is where you begin to test your treatment in a patient population Phase 3 is where you get the data to demonstrate that the treatment is superior to a placebo and other treatments in general They are done as a double-blind trial, both the therapist and patient don't know if the patient is receiving the treatment or now Take-aways There is a lot of information that has to be shared effectively The therapists are very much in the lives of the participants on top of just the MDMA Instead of learning from the trials of what to do on a practical level, its about inspiring them to bring this as an actual treatment for people The multiple ways that PTSD can manifest and look like, and the may ways that MDMA can look like when administered, have some commonalities The deepening, the broadening, the way they communicate, can all be the same Ingmar holds the belief in the inner healing intelligence of all people One of the first things he does when he begins with a new patient, he says that this is something he really believes in, and his role as a therapist to help them in their own healing process and mechanism What Elizabeth wanted to learn, know and practice while she was going through school, isn't what she she thought it was until she found it She says this work really requires them to trust people's minds and experiences There is something that they tell their patients, "Don't get ahead of the medicine" - Elizabeth There is an interesting paradox between not knowing and following intuition, to having an actual method and following that There is a sweet spot between following a script to following your intuition as a therapist You want to trust that inner healer process of the patient, but also need to know when to intervene (usually from a safety standpoint) Fluence 3 days after Horizons, Elizabeth was at home with a cold, and talked to Ingmar that morning curious for a name for the project Fluence means, magical or mystical power or source of power It can also refer to the density of particles of energy They teach about harm reduction and integration with their patients in their practice They aren't teaching protocols in the workshops, they just think the harm reduction is important The last part of integration is mindfulness Ingmar's biggest influence are his clients and patients, he is so inspired by them A large piece of the motivation for creating Fluence is from patients just looking for someone to talk about their experience with The Why A mother whose teenage daughter with depression, reached out to Ingmar with trouble trying to treat her depression The family decided it would be a good idea to use Ketamine therapy, which was successful She was doing so well, so well that she then went to a therapist to integrate it The therapist that she went to then instead of responding positively, decided to fire the teen for further therapy, and report the parents to child care services for providing ketamine therapy Ingmar says their position is not that everyone needs psychedelic integration therapy, its specificall

In this episode, Joe interviews Jon S. on his experience in the psilocybin-assisted trials for alcohol dependency at NYU. In the show, they dive into Jon's background and how psilocybin assisted therapy helped him out of his alcohol dependence and into a new life. 3 Key Points: Jon participated in the NYU Double-Blind Trial of Psilocybin-Assisted Treatment of Alcohol Dependence. The study was double-blind. In each session, he didn't know if he was going to receive psilocybin or Benadryl. The sessions helped him so much with this dependence on alcohol, he believes he is a better father, husband, and human overall. He hasn't had a drink in 5 months (or a desire to). Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About Jon He is based in New York Jon is the father of 2 kids He spent a lot of his life DJing, so he has spent a lot of time around alcohol He found out about a psychedelic therapy study at NYU from someone at a Holotropic Breathwork Retreat The study took place in New York City He had always wanted to explore the psychedelic side of things He read Michael Pollan's book and it said in the book that the Holotropic Breathwork community would be a great group to help find a guide The Trial In his assessment, he found out truly how much he was drinking He would crack a beer before even playing with his kids He was into craft beer and at 8% a beer, his 3 beers were more like 5 He was asked to not have his sessions recorded so he could be as open as he could be The session was very focused on curbing drinking His wife knew he was going down the path of psychedelic healing "I'm not doing this to have a good time, I'm doing this to be a better person" - Jon His trial was double-blind He was never told when he was receiving the psilocybin at each session He was told that he was either going to get 1 or 3 doses in the trial The First Session The first session with the eye shades on (on psilocybin), was very visual In that first session he kept seeing this pirate ship underwater His sons would say "come on daddy, lets play on the pirate ship" He would go to the pirate ship with his sons and then say "I need to go back down and do some work", and he would swim back into the depths He came home that day, and his youngest son greeted him at the door, and said let's play power rangers, I'll be the red power ranger and you be the pirate It hit him in a float tank session, the message of that session was to play with his sons more He had a moment in his first session of rebirth Integration There is a 2 hour integration session the very next day He didn't think it was going to be as important as it turned out to be He had the choice to keep it at the same dose or up it He upped the dose to 40mg instead of 25mg He was told his second session wouldn't be anything like his first The medicine was so intense the second time, he couldn't even remember the music In his second session, he saw a body being chopped up (realizing it was his body) He realized that he was one with the universe, love is the only thing that matters He wanted to be a part of everything He was compensated about $100 per session "When the university gives you financial compensation, you buy everyone in the ice cream shop ice cream" - Jon Jon says he has a new baseline for anxiety He never thought he had anxiety, but after his sessions, he found that he is way less anxious than he was, even though he really wasn't He didn't have a desire to drink, he hasn't had a drink in 5 months He has never felt better or happier He's a much better dad, and husband Life After the Experience He is re-reading Aldous Huxley and is finding a whole new meaning to it all He is spending more time with his family and being present with the He spends a ton of time with his kids now Stuff that used to worry him, doesn't worry him anymore His experience was everything he hoped for and more He genuinely believes, that whatever he got out of a session, is what he needed Final Thoughts He is talking to the Decrim Nature in NY He appreciates the platform (Psychedelics Today) for the space to talk about his experience He appreciates everyone at NYU for the work they are doing Use code PSYTODAY at Onnit for a discount on all products except fitness equipment Get a 30 day free audible trial at audibletrial.com/psychedelicstoday