Psychedelics Today Podcast

Download During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your hosts Joe Moore and Kyle Buller interview Dr. Monnica Williams from the University of Connecticut and Dr. Will Siu a psychiatrist IN private practice based in Manhattan,  and a therapist on MAPS’s MDMA-assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD clinical trials at the University of Connecticut. They join us to discuss race-based trauma, people of color in psychedelics, and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Show Notes About Dr. Will Siu

• He’s a psychiatrist and therapist on the MDMA for PTSD clinical trials with the supervision of Dr. Monnica Williams.
• Based in NYC and has a private practice.
• Does some work in emergency psychiatry at a local hospital.

About Dr. Monnica Williams

• Associate professor at the University of Connecticut.
• Does graduate teaching and multicultural psychology and research in the health center.
• Currently doing a study on MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.

•  What is race-based trauma?
  • There had been some studies previously.
  • When people become traumatized by experiences of racism, oppression, marginalization based on their perceived identity.
  • Often because of ongoing experiences, like microaggressions
  • Eventually, people have so many of these experiences that they start to have symptoms of PTSD.
  • People get so distressed and afraid that they act in a way that might harm them.
  • You have to think about trauma in a non-single event way.
• Exploring the topic epigenetics.
  • Trauma has been passed down from generation to generation.
  • Layer epigenetics on top of what’s currently going on and trauma is understandable.
• How has recruiting been going for the MDMA study?
  • It’s challenging, they’re not drawing from the same population the other sites are.
  • They’re creating a culturally safe, welcoming environment for people of color.
  • There is fear and misinformation that requires them to do a lot of education on the front end.
  • Research abuses haven’t stopped, they’re still continuing today.
  • Psychedelic drugs are almost exclusively used by white people.
• Are there any big problems you’re trying to tackle now in prepping the study?
  • Traditionally there has been no compensation for study participants, but it’s needed for this study.
  • Another layer is paying via direct deposit vs. cash and getting the university on board.
  • How do you send someone back into the trauma you’re trying to heal.
• How do you support people in the study?
  • Support them as much as possible during the study.
  • Continue to follow-up with people after the treatment is over.
• There is a lack of people of color in the therapy field, especially MAPS.
  • Often people of color don’t have a good experience with white therapists.
• Why do you think there aren’t very many people of color in psychedelics?
  • People of color haven’t had the same advantages to become therapists.
    • It’s not safe to talk about substances when your license is on the line.
  • Culturally, psychedelics haven’t played as big of a role with people of color.
• What does an ideal training model look like for you?
  • Watching the videos of people getting well was a big game changer.
  • The training needs a fuller understanding of what people from other ethnic and cultural groups need.
  • Monica is altering the training to be more relatable.
• Talk about enrollment.
  • They have people at all different stages right now.
  • They have about 18 people total who have gone through the stages.
  • They still have to follow the guidelines of an indexed trauma to be accepted.
• How big is your team right now?
  • Three therapist pair teams.
  • A few other people who assist in various ways.
  • Several people are doing double-duty.
• How can the psychedelic community be more inclusive of people of color?
  • Make some close friends who are not white.
• Do you have any fantasy projects you’d like to see play out?
  • Start a master’s program with a specialty track in minority mental health and psychedelic therapy.
  • All scholarships for people of color.
• Any advice you’d give to a young person or professional?
  • There’s a lot of work to be done and we need enthusiastic minds.
  • Change won’t happen overnight or be easy, but it’s worth it.
  • Be involved in the community

Episode Quotes The psychedelic community is a very, very white community - most people of color haven’t had an experience with psychedelics. Ultimately, psychedelics and psychotherapy will be an accepted, licensed form of treatment. About Monnica Williams    Monnica Williams, Ph.D. is a board-certified, licensed clinical psychologist, specializing in cognitive-behavioral therapies. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut, and Director of the Laboratory for Culture and Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic, LLC in Mansfield, Connecticut, and she has founded clinics in Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Will Siu, MD, DPhil I grew up in southern California, where I completed college at UC Irvine and medical school at UCLA. Midway through medical school, I pursued research interests at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC and ultimately completed a doctoral degree at the University of Oxford. After finishing medical school I moved to Boston to complete my psychiatry residency at the Massachusetts General and McLean Hospitals, after which I continued to work for two years while faculty at Harvard Medical School. I moved to New York City in 2017 where in addition to having a private practice, I am a therapist on clinical trials using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD.

Download This is a great episode featuring Daniel Greig. He is a student at the University of Toronto and psychedelic community organizer working with CSSDP and the Toronto Psychedelic Society. We go all over the map but some notable things discussed on this episode including:

• Measuring wisdom
• Mindfulness
• The promise of psychedelics
• Future research opportunities
• How friendly the University of Toronto is to psychedelic research
• Interesting philosophical overlaps with psychedelics and occultism
• and much more!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y5qB-fgWV4 Quotes We’re very much detached from our own traditions here in the west. Just imagining practicing something can have just as much of an effect of your performance than actually practicing it. You have to bring your insights back into the community to be an effective member of society. There’s a strong relationship between wisdom and psychedelics. Without intervention, life will tend toward suffering. Links - Daniel Grieg Youtube - Daniel Grieg Academia.edu Relevance realizing https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2017.00814/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2018.00100/full Wisdom - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/wisdom https://www.academia.edu/1762150/A_route_to_well-being_intelligence_vs._wise_reasoning http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550616652206 http://www.wisdompage.com/Ardelt01.html Development Lines - Ken Wilbur Wiki Marta Kaczmarczyk

Entity Contact

  Paper: Mental Imagery: Functional Mechanisms and Clinical Applications   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmGNhDUe19M&t=7319s

Download   In this 94th episode of Psychedelics Today, host Joe Moore interviews Dr. Benjamin Malcolm, professor of pharmacy at the Western University School of Pharmacy. The discussion revolves around ibogaine, alkaloids, and addiction therapy solutions.   Show Notes:

• Dr. Benjamin Malcolm discusses psychedelic alkaloids that have potential to treat

               addictions.

• When conducting human subjects research, it’s a good idea to at least

   run it past an IRB.

• There are risks involved in taking in ibogaine that can be used to treat addiction.
• For people age 18-24, opiates are a major cause of death.
• Holistic House teaches addicts heath habits for treatment.
• Ibogaine is still an unregulated area.
• 2CB haven’t had that many research studies.
• Surveys tend to have a bit of bias, often given to supportive subjects to begin with.
• Mescaline, San Pedro, and peyote appears to lack research.
• There is going to be a need to potentially or switch between traditional therapeutic

  modalities and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies.

In this episode of Psychedelics Today, host Kyle Buller interviews Alyssa Gursky, a Masters student at Naropa University with a focus in mental health counseling and transpersonal art therapy. Their discussion dives into the intersection between art therapy, transpersonal art, and psychedelics. Ketamine, symbols, and meaning are also areas of this interview.

3 Key Points:

1. Alyssa Gursky has been working with the MDMA research In Boulder, Colorado and now in Fort Collins for the last three years as a night attendant.
2. Creating art is a gift from our unconscious, to be able to see what is happening within ourselves.
3. There is art in therapy and there is art as therapy.

More at: www.psychedelicstoday.com

Navigating Psychedelics: psychedelicstoday.teachable.com/p/navigatingpsychedelics

Introduction In this episode of Psychedelics Today, host Joe Moore and Kyle Buller interview Matt Pallamary, and have a discussion with him about his writing, research, and ayahuasca experiences. He also shares his concerns about self-proclaimed gurus and some issues that have been emerging because of the popularity of ayahuasca. 3 Key Points:

1. Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury was a mentor of Matt Pallamary.
2. There are pros and cons to ayahuasca shamanism in Peru.
3. The more in touch with the natural world you are the more balanced you are.

Show Notes

• Matt Pallamary was part of the early psychedelics podcast scene.
• Matt grew up in Dorchester near Boston, and he began early experiences with sniffing glue, weed, and getting acid from a chemist from M.I.T..
• He has almost 20 years experience with ayahuasca.
• Too many people have a couple of ayahuasca experiences and claim to be a guru.
• Famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury was a mentor of Matt Pallamary.
• Everything is energy—the whole universe exists between our eyes.
• Matt labels shamans as the first storytellers, the first musicians, the first performers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and first performers.
• Being in touch with the natural world makes a person more balanced.
• The boundaries between your conscious and subconscious are blurred, overlapping your visions, dreams, and waking life.
• When going through an ayahuasca experience, you have to be in a safe place where you can be vulnerable and around people you can trust.
• For ayahuasca experiences, be sure to get references from people that have successfully worked with a group.

Resources Mentioned:

• Matt Pallamary – Website for Matt Pallamary

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCKedqiAQ7g] About Author     Author, Editor, and Shamanic Explorer Matthew J. Pallamary is an award winning writer, musician, and sound healer who has been studying shamanism all of his life. He incorporates shamanic practices into his daily life as well as into his writing and teaching. He has over a dozen books in print that cover several genres, many of which have been translated into foreign languages. His book on writing, Phantastic Fiction: A Shamanic Approach to Story took First Place in the International Book Awards Writing and Editing Category, and his popular Phantastic Fiction Workshop has been a staple of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and the Southern California Writer’s Conference for over twenty five years. He has also lectured about writing and shamanism at numerous venues throughout the United States. Matt has spent extended time in the jungles, mountains, and deserts of North, Central, and South America pursuing his studies of shamanism and ancient cultures. Through his research into both the written word and the ancient beliefs of shamanism, he has uncovered the heart of what a story really is and integrated it into core dramatic concepts that also have their basis in shamanism.

Download Caution!! A few important notes. This is an episode of an individual experimenting with powerful drugs to see if he can get any sort of relief from autism. In this case, it appears to have been successful. That said, this came with a substantial amount of risks, and people need to be aware. Please read the below bullets so you understand. 

• Autism is not what is treated. The thing being treated would be a symptom like social anxiety.
• "The field of autism science includes a long and shameful history of quack treatments and parents taking desperate and harmful measures to “fix” their children. Autism is a spectrum of congenital and neurocognitive variants, and there are no published research data in support of any compound that can influence its course." Alicia Danforth, PhD
• Please do not administer these drugs to children with autism.
• There are only two researchers investigating where MDMA and autism meet - Alicia Danforth PhD and Dr. Charlie Grob. A scientific paper will likely be available on this in the next few months. Expect to see more here. 
• These drugs have not been shown to cure or treat autism, but in some cases, just like with neuro-typical individuals, some have seen meaningful changes. 
• Even if changes are noticed the person is still autistic no matter how many high doses of psychedelics they take.
• Obtaining pure drugs is very difficult if not impossible in black markets.
  • Verifying purity will require the resources of mass spectrometry from organizations offering these services like Energy Control or Ecstasy Data
  • Providing unsafe, dirty or compromised drugs to people can cause serious harm or death.
• If you are planning to use MDMA to alleviate some suffering on your own, please wait or don't.
• Do substantial research and have skilled people available to help. 

Thanks to Alicia Danforth for helping us understand the nuance's in this area. ..autism is a genetically determined cognitive variant. It's pervasive, and it affects the whole person, not just the brain. No chemical compound has been shown to treat, cure, or alter the course of autism. However, for some people, substances like MDMA can help them manage symptoms such as anxiety, social anxiety, and trauma effects. - Alicia Danforth, Ph.D Introduction Joe Moore and Kyle Buller interview Jon and Dre of the Voices in the Dark podcast out of England. The discussion addresses treating autism with MDMA and LSD, what types of doses you should take, and how to in part do it safely. Note there are always risks with any kind of drug. Learn the basics over at our Navigating Psychedelics course.   3 Key Points:

1. A lot of autism is sensory overload. As far as emotions are concerned, we see potentially too many things in other people’s faces.
2. A good range for MDMA dosages is between 100mg and not going over  200mg.
3. 125 micrograms per drop of liquid LSD, and not going above 250 micrograms is recommended.

Show Notes

• • • Jon’s first psychedelic experience shifted his academic career path and helped him to deal with depression.
    • Dre first tried MDMA as a first step and it unlocked emotional empathy.
    • Sensory overload is a lot of Autism according to Dre.
    • Jon’s experiences with MDMA made him feel like himself without the fear and the worry.
    • MDMA and LSD at the same time didn’t feel as emotional when combined to Jon.
    • 125 micrograms per drop of liquid LSD, and not going above 250 micrograms is recommended.
    • Democratising psychedelic therapy is where Joe would like to see the industry go.
    • Jon is against the fetishizing of any particular concept of belief system in its totality.
    • Jon is excited that he is starting to see more types of research on LSD/MDMA and autism.
    • Dre’s experiences have shifted his autism by feeling that he has a foot in both worlds to know how living without it feels in his mind.

Resources Mentioned:

• • Voices in the Dark – Website for Voices in the Dark
  • Instagram – Psychedelics Today Instagram
  • Patreon – Psychedelics Today Patreon donation page
  • DMTX.org – Website for DMTX.org
  • Ecstasy Could Help Adults With Autism Cope with Social Anxiety - Discover Magazine
  • MDMA-Autism - MAPS.org
  • MDMA-assisted therapy: A new treatment model for social anxiety in autistic adults
  • Autism and LSD-25

Additional Resources https://vimeo.com/198405527 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eINBXdqTfOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ5P4AYAvuE   About Voices in the Dark          LEARNING HOW TO HUMAN At Voices in the Dark, we bring you powerful, mind- and soul-expanding conversations about real life psychology, philosophy, psychedelics, spirituality, social dynamics and much more. We’re a podcast, a blog, and a community of likeminded individuals who want to become the best versions of themselves. We’re dedicated to never stop Learning How To Human. Our mission is to entertain, provoke, inform, and make you question everything you think you know. DRE A disturbingly quick study in most fields, Dre’s autism made learning people more of a challenge. The works of Robert Greene shone a light on the otherwise deeply confusing world of other people’s psyches, transforming the world around him into something which finally made sense. JON After spending far too many years in educational institutions, Jon got a PhD in History but is now finally learning something about the real world and the people in it. He always felt that science and scholarship needed more dick jokes and is on a mission to redress that balance. He writes, talks, travels, sings, and has a problematic relationship with cake and coffee.

Download Kyle and Joe discuss professionalism in the psychedelic field. There are a number of people out there doing very unprofessional things. We need to be aware of what professionalism could look like, what self care, ethics and boundaries look like in this world we are actively developing. In light of festival season, we are offering a $30 off coupon for our online store with every purchase of our course,  Navigating Psychedelics: Lessons on Self-Care and Integration throughout the month of June. If you are a student, please email us with your university email address to receive a special discount! Joe and Kyle will also be offering some special live online course options. If you want to stay up-to-date about these offerings, sign up for our email list. If you're interested in learning more about DMTx, you can enroll in the DMTx 4-week Psychonaut Training. Proceeds go towards the DMTx project.

In this 88th episode of Psychedelics Today, host Joe Moore interviews Mike Brancatelli of the Mikeadelic podcast. After returning from a three-month Amazonian ayahuasca sojourn, Mikeadelic himself shares information about this extraordinary experience, how he has gotten involved in psychedelics and his journey. Show Notes: ● Mike Brancatelli spent his three-month trip in Peru at the Temple of the Way of Lights with their residency program in the heart of the Amazon jungle during an ayahuasca retreat. ● Mike was previously doing stand-up comedy in New York City with his friend Dave Smith called “Part of the Problem.” ● Mikeadelic the podcast began in the spring of 2016. ● Drinking ayahuasca will produce an effect on you, especially when coupled with ceremony and healing songs. ● During an intense healing ceremony, a song cut to the core of the collection of pain that Mike was experiencing, and it felt like he was being unclogged of this negative energy, and it came out in the form of a very vocal purge. ● He feels passionate about ending the war on drugs and the prison industrial complex. ● You can remain filled with passion and compassion without being emotionally attached. Sit with your feelings without letting them control how you respond. ● The information overload of media drowns your spirit. ● A morning routine with meditation is helpful to get centered and focused for the rest of the day. ● The Netflix TV series “Wild Wild Country” is a true story about a controversial cult leader claiming to enlighten people. ● “Enlightenment Now” is a book about the enlightenment philosophy “science, reason and humanism”. It is a contemporary take on that philosophy - you could call Pinker’s take a Modern Enlightenment philosophy. Steven Pinker wrote the book. Joe Moore, suggests it and found out about it from the Bill Gates’s. ● “The Internet of Money” Volume 1 and Volume 2 by Andreas M. Antonopoulos is another interesting read suggested by Joe Moore. ● Before ayahuasca use, listen to your heart to understand why you want to try it. 3 Key Points: 1. During an intense healing ceremony, a song cut to the core of the collection of pain that Mike was experiencing, and it felt like he was being unclogged of this negative energy, and it came out in the form of a very vocal purge. 2. It is incredibly brave to be willing to confront your stress and be willing to stare into your soul and slay your demons. 3. Remain passionate, compassionate, and acknowledge the problems in the world, but don’t stay emotionally attached to them. Become mindful of how you respond.

Joe Moore interviews Britta Love, a passionate writer and sex educator based in New York City. Britta shares about the overlap of sexuality and psychedelics, her field of consciousness and embodiment studies, and dealing with the psychedelic patriarchy. She shares her desires to diversity the field and make supporters he safe and supported. Quotes

We have to be OK with the fact that as we get confronted by the internalized racism and patriarchy and privilege that our psychedelic sub-culture carries, that its going

to be a little messy for a while, and we are all going to have to feel uncomfortable at times.

Giving up your privilege is the ultimate psychedelic trip. There is something about that surrender that’s really deep.

If you are someone who does what we call holding space or facilitates in someway, to actively hand that power back as often as possible, when you realize someone is trying to give it to you it, is a really powerful meditation.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmzDUK-EZqQ Show Notes ● Britta Love talks about sexual abuse stories that were discussed on a panel on psychedelic patriarchy she participated in. ● In Britta’s anti-racist work, whenever she starts to feel uncomfortable, she recognizes that that discomfort is not as bad as what it must feel like to get oppressed by systemic racism. ● Author Robert Anton Wilson’s idea of “reality tunnels” is that we all have our B.S. (Belief System). What if we could flip between belief systems and be more flexible and be more literate with reality and open-minded. ● Britta speaks about a healer who was sexually abusive to a woman she knows. ● A woman was raped by a male nurse and she was strong-armed to sign a non-disclosure agreement. ● The psychedelic community needs more diversity, more women and people of color to balance out the equality of voices. ● We need healthy models of sexuality to express sexual energy in a positive and constructive manner to get rid of sexual aggression and power dynamics. ● We are too willing to hand over our power to healers and shamans. We can become our own healers when we are in safe environments. ● Psychedelic therapy can be demystified and taught, and doesn’t have to remain esoteric with a hierarchy of privilege structures. ● Forming collectives of up to 100 people with different skills to form a safe, supportive, and collective village of awareness and wisdom. ● How do we create containers that are encouraging of and supportive of the deep reflection that is required to undo racism and patriarchy and systems of oppression require? 3 Key Points: 1. In Britta’s anti-racist work, whenever she starts to feel uncomfortable, she recognizes that that discomfort is not as bad as what it must feel like to get oppressed by systemic racism. 2. We are too willing to hand over our power to healers and shamans—we can become our own healers when we are in safe spaces. 3. Know your value and contribution within a group. People feel better when they are a giver. Resources Mentioned Instagram - BrittaLoved The Daily Transmission Links 10 Reasons to End the War on Drugs and the War on Sex Workers Britta Love Britta Love is a writer, somatic sex educator and multi-dimensional healer based in Brooklyn, NY. A graduate of the London School of Economics and Goddard College, she wrote her thesis in Consciousness Studies on the healing and spiritual potential of altered states, specifically those induced by conscious sexual practice and the ritual use of psychoactive plant medicines. She writes for Alternet, Psymposia and Reality Sandwich, gives talks and facilitates workshops in NYC, and blogs on sex, drugs and consciousness        

Download During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your host Joe Moore interviews Daniel McQueen of Medicinal Mindfulness in Boulder, CO about his DMTx project and some of the reasons he is so interested in the DMTx project.   Show Notes

• • What is DMTx
  • Who originated the concept.
    • Dr Rick Strassman and Dr Andrew Gallimore.
  • Daniel's story of a very intense and meaningful DMT experience
  • Much more!

Resources Mentioned

• Medicinal Mindfulness
• DMTx.org

Daniel McQueen, MA Daniel  discovered meditation and spiritual practices at twelve and has been interested in exploring inner states ever since.  He apprenticed under a number of shamanic teachers and has been a practicing intentional journeyer for over 16 years.  For Daniel, working in the professional field of Cannabis and Psychedelics isn’t a career interest, but represents a core identity and life calling.  Finding a place to honor such a life calling within a world that has until recently prohibited it has been an interesting challenge. After graduating from the University of Arkansas with a degree in Communication, Daniel traveled down a many forked and unmarked road through the wild terrain of political activism, corporate accountability research and campaign finance reform for many years in Washington, DC.  Disillusioned by the city, he moved to Florida and opened a small meditation center to explore grassroots community organizing before moving to Boulder, CO and returning to school at Naropa University. Daniel earned a Masters Degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa and received advanced training in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy through a year internship with the MAPS Boulder MDMA for PTSD Study.  It was his experience with MAPS that inspired Daniel to explore alternative visions in cannabis and psychedelic activism and entrepreneurship. Daniel bridges transpersonal paradigms with the grounded clinical and organizational skills necessary to begin addressing the significant ecological and mental health crises facing our society today.  Although Daniel no longer practices as a clinical psychotherapist, he supports his clients as a teacher, coach, ally and event facilitator, providing individual and group transformational experiences and deeply held intentional conversations.  In his practice, Daniel quickly realized that the most important intervention he could provide to his clients, who were isolated and longed for meaningful contact with others, was a sense of community.  Medicinal Mindfulness is, in a very real way, a cultural intervention that provides a safe and transformational community container for healing and awakening... a program based on skill development and not dogma.  Since 2012, Daniel has been teaching a psychedelic harm prevention and intentional psychedelic use course called Psychedelic Sitters School.  Since the legalization of recreational cannabis in Colorado, he has been facilitating group journey experiences called Conscious Cannabis Events and guiding individual cannabis journeys. In addition to his work with Medicinal Mindfulness, Daniel has a successful spirituality and life coaching practice with his wife, Alison, through their company, Aspenroots Counseling LLC.  Highly skilled in identifying and cultivating giftedness in young people and supporting significant life transitions, Daniel is inspired to support passionate and talented individuals striving to live into their calling.  A primary focus of his practice involves assessing and addressing the benefits and difficulties related to psychedelic and cannabis use and misuse. Daniel co-founded the Naropa Alliance for Psychedelic Studies and helped organize the first annual Psychedelic Symposium at Naropa University in 2012. About Medicinal Mindfulness Medicinal Mindfulness® LLC and Medicinal Mindfulness Events LLC Medicinal Mindfulness is a grassroots consciousness community/membership organization and education program that supports individuals and groups who choose to use cannabis and psychedelics with intention.  Founded by Daniel McQueen, MA, and his wife, Alison McQueen, MA, our community has come together to provide an enjoyable, safe, open and affirming space to share transformational cannabis and breathwork experiences. We use clinically informed, mindfulness-based approaches within a somatically oriented, transpersonal and community paradigm to create an holistic (mind, body, spirit) process that initiates powerful transformations in healing and personal development. Services are available for individuals, couples, families and groups. Given the common misunderstandings and concerns that accompany the field of psychedelics and cannabis harm prevention and advocacy, we are committed to making ourselves available to public service and safety professionals to answer questions regarding psychedelic and cannabis harm reduction programs.

Download During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your host Joe Moore interviews Brian Normand of Psymposia and coordinator of the Cryptopsychedelic Conference.

• Banks are devaluing currency by charging high fees.
• With block chain, you’ve got to think in the long-term.
• There’s so much going on with crypto, you can’t keep up.
• What blockchain developer wants to go work for Facebook?

Show Notes

• Joe and Brian discuss the CryptoPsychedelic Conference the took place in Tulum, Mexico.
• What is blockchain?
  • A next-gen decentralized ledger.
  • A peer-to-peer border-less, institution-less payment system.
  • Money will be one of the first users of blockchain.
  • Banks are devaluing currency by charging high fees.
  • The whole concept of money will transform, it will be a border-less thing.
• When Napster came out, peer to peer transfer became a very popular technology.
  • When the record companies worried about being irrelevant, they sued.
  • There could be something like Spotify that pays artists more fairly than Spotify currently does.
  • Social media could be rebuilt.
    • We could no longer be the product being sold, but get paid for our contributions.
• Could crypto be used to trace the history and purity of substances?
  • Yes, that’s a definite use case.
  • The first voting on a block chain happened in Sierra Leone.
  • You’ve got to think in the long term.
• What were some of the more interesting things that came out of the CryptoPsychedelic conference?
  • Some of the new relationships and seeing the potential collaboration between the two communities.
  • Projects in this space need to be taken on.
  • It was a time to question, not really a time for answers.
  • Watch the movie 2001 a Space Odyssey in one sitting.
    • Every time you watch it you come away with a new experience.
  • Cryptocurrencies are border-less, some have minimal fees, and it’s instant.
• Decentralized systems
  • Information is easier to access, it doesn’t have to climb up a ladder.
  • The DAO is the Decentralized Autonomous Organization – there is no hierarchy.
  • Government could eventually be run via blockchain.
• How could we use the internet to further the message of psychedelics?
  • Before the internet, the only way you were exposed to information was top down.
    • Networks, authority institutions.
  • Because of the internet, information is moving more horizontally.
  • How do you change incentive structures in the drug war? Could it be these new technologies?
• The rate of innovation now is way faster than it was when the internet was first coming out.
  • You cannot keep up with what’s going on, there’s too much going on.
  • Look at money as a tool or form of energy.
• Crypto will change everyone’s concept of paying taxes.
  • Air BnB cut the cities completely out of the picture.
  • Taxes and healthcare or both extremely important and impossible for people to understand.
  • Internet privacy is a big deal in crypto and psychedelics alike.
  • Brian doesn’t think that Facebook will ultimately make it.
• Developers want to build new tools to take down the giants like Facebook.
  • Recently, Facebook announced a decline in users.
  • What can you do to reverse becoming “uncool”?
  • Reddit’s price per impression is much lower.
  • Steemit has a fascinating model.
  • It would be cool if you could be compensated for putting helpful content online.
• We assume that the way the internet is now is how it’s always going to be.
  • How can we use the tool to help the people whose lives aren’t privileged like ours?
  • In a lot of refugee camps, you can’t have cash, so crypto is huge for them.
  • What happens when people who are impoverished around the world can now crowdfund?

Resources Mentioned

• Psymposia
• CryptoPsychedelic

Brian Normand Viveros Brian Normand is CoFounder of Psymposia, entrepreneur, and advocate of psychedelic science, therapy, and drug reform. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst and holds a B.S. in Plant, Soil, and Insect Science, Magna Cum Laude.        

Download

Introduction

During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your hosts Kyle Buller and Joe Moore talk to Zach Leary host of the MAPS podcast and It’s All Happening. We have an incredible time talking to Zach and his worldview, experiences, opinions and much more. It was a very fun time recording with Zach and we hope it can happen again in the near future. 

Show Notes

• Joe and Kyle discuss Zach’s connections with Ram Dass
• Zach Leary calls himself a futurist and we discuss what a futurist is.
  • A natural way to continue the narrative of our physical evolution and our spiritual development.
  • Cyberspace is an invention as a result of our human condition.
    • The way and the reason we invented it is that we found a need to create another dimension.
  • Futurism and transhumanism and embracing the way technology is augmenting the human experience is a great place to be.
• Do you see any major problems in psychedelia?
  • Overall, it’s a great time to be into psychedelics.
    • There’s so much research and data available to the end-user and the discussion is improving.
    • Many people are starting to be more open about their beneficial relationship with psychedelics.
    • It’s important to get people in the mainstream aware of their beneficial properties.
    • The Ayahuasca fad going on in the U.S. has many people calling themselves shamans, which raised a red flag to Zach.
    • It used to be that going to the medicine man was a common occurrence in any culture.
    • Mysticism didn’t go away, it just got turned into a more doctrinal practice.
• The part of the church that bothers Zach is the authoritarian aspect, that there is only one god.
  • There’s an element of fanaticism when someone says there’s only one drug that’s worth taking.
  • April 19 is the 75th anniversary of the first intentional use of LSD (Bicycle Day).
  • We have to start re-thinking about what “natural” means.
    • The human imagination and what it creates is a by-product of nature.
• There’s no stopping the technological march, the train has left the station.
  • A return to nature can include biodiverse rooftop gardens in New York.
  • It’s very hard to get off the grid.
• What do we have that’s readily available and sustainable?
  • Mushrooms
  • LSD
  • Other synthetic compounds that don’t bother the rainforest, etc.
• Drugs that may not be sustainable:
  • Ayahuasca, Peyote, 5-MeO (Sonoran Desert Toad - Bufo Alvarius toad venom)
  • Some people are playing fast and loose with 5-MeO
    • There are people who give do things to “patients” that are non-consensual while they are under the effect of the drug.
• Psychedelics are often highly individualistic.
  • It’s nice to be able to jump in with a shaman, but to what extent?
• There is some cultural appropriation here when you take ancient practices and move them into new environments.
  • It’s best not to ignore the roots and traditions of these practices but honor them as best as you can.
• How do we not make mistakes in psychedelics?
  • There’s so much data, examples and role models now.
  • There are best practices based on data now.
• Zach would like to see less consumption of MDMA.
  • People over-consume MDMA.
  • More of a concern about bodily harm.
  • 2-3 times a year is probably enough.
• There are parallel paths going on and if the parallel path of computers and humanity are going on, what does that look like eventually?
• What are some of your major influences in the psychedelic world?
  • Terence McKenna, Jim Fadiman, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Dennis McKenna
• How would you like to see the future of psychedelics evolve?
  • We’re seeing the rumblings of what’s to come.
  • There’s going to be a firmly legitimate place in the psychiatric world for the psychedelic therapy.
  • Hopefully, it carries over into recreational use and cognitive therapy.

Links

• ZachLeary.com
• The MAPS Podcast
• Psychedelicstoday.teachable.com
• Bluebird Botanicals

About Zach Leary

     

Zach is the host of both the “It’s All Happening with Zach Leary” podcast and “The MAPS Podcast.” They have helped to cement him as one of the most thought provoking podcasters in the cultural philosophy genre of podcasting. He’s also a blogger/writer, a futurist, spiritualist, a technology consultant and socio-cultural theorist.

In all of Zach’s work he blends his roles as a spiritual aspirant and a futurist into a unique identity all his own. His spiritual background has it’s roots in being a practitioner of bhakti yoga as taught through many of the vedantic systems of Northern India, in particular Neem Karoli Baba as taught by Ram Dass. Through the practice of bhakti yoga he has found keys that unlock doorways that allow the soul to experience it’s true nature of being eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. In addition to bhakti yoga, Zach is influenced by many different methods and traditions of consciousness exploration ranging from trans-humanism to buddhism and clinical psychology. Zach is also a frequent pundit on the political systems that are fueling todays economic and cultural structures. At the core of all of Zach’s work is the belief that we have been fused together by the collective practice of using technology to expand our species imagination with spirituality and mysticism to define the very nature of who we are.

Check out our online store

 

/**/

/**/

/**/

Download During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your hosts Kyle and Joe Moore talk to Dr. Matt Segall, a philosopher with a Ph.D. working at CIIS as an administrator and adjunct lecturer. In this episode, we explore psychedelics through the lens of philosophy and Alfred North Whitehead.

Show Notes:

• Philosophy is really important when talking about psychedelics.
  • This movement is working on a lot of different levels.
  • Looking to get accepted into academia therefore it’s important to be precise.
• About Dr. Matt Segall
  • Strong interest in Alfred North Whitehead
  • 12 levels of abstraction away from Plato.
  • Ropes in all of western philosophy and science into a cohesive system that seems to reenchant the world a bit.
• Extended state DMT research
  • Use an IV pump to keep a steady stream of DMT in the bloodstream for an undetermined amount of time.
  • The initial phase of the study is 10-20 minutes.
  • Not just for medical research, it’s for the community.
  • Join the class at psychedelicstoday.teachable.com.
• How did Matt Segall stumble his way into the Whitehead world?
  • Philosophy came first, but not by much.
  • He had a teacher who introduced him to some psychedelic teachers.
  • His first experience with psychedelics was when he was 19 years old with mushrooms.
    • He realized that there were many other worlds running in parallel with this one.
  • These substances open up our perceptions of other worlds and other facets of the same world.
  • We need to incorporate the experience induces by these substances.
  • Western philosophy is rooted in the psychedelic experience.
  • Plato’s encounter with the ideal forms that led him out of the cave proves that the origins of philosophy include psychedelics.
  • There is chemical evidence that the rituals in Athens were psychedelic in nature.
  • When ancient Greeks refer to wine, they’re talking about something that was way more mind altering.
• What drew you into Whitehead?
  • In college, he listened to a McKenna lecture and he mentioned Whitehead a lot.
    • McKenna introduced him to Whitehead.
    • He waited until he started graduate school, so he could take a course on him and study him alongside other graduate students.
    • Whitehead incorporated 20th century physics and a version of Darwin’s understanding of evolution expanded to a cosmological level.
    • Combining advanced science with an enchanted view of the universe.
  • The modern era has alienated human beings from the rest of the natural world.
    • The industrial revolution made this alienation even more profound.
    • There has been a gradual isolation of the human being from the rest of life and the universe.
    • Human beings have come to think of the rest of life and just robots seeking to reproduce.
      • Value has to be assigned to anything non-human by humans.
      • This thinking is highly destructive.
      • Our idea has not fit the reality and it’s destroying the reality.
    • Whitehead helps us re-inhabit the planet as one of the many species.
    • When human beings come to recognize that value is not just made up in our human society but it’s an intrinsic cosmic value, they can act accordingly.
  • Whitehead’s process is called a process-relational process.
    • We’ve traditionally been thought to have a soul or mind that’s independent of others.
    • Whitehead proposes that our soul or mind is in relation to others.
      • So that what it means to be me is that I’m not unique, but my uniqueness comes from my unique perspective and works with the other souls in the environment.
      • This attempts to move us away from thinking of ourselves as isolated minds.
      • The biggest challenge is to get people to not shut down when they see Whitehead’s terminology.
    • Philosophy can serve to help us develop a language that actually serves to represent our experience.
      • It’s well worth it to learn the dictionary that Whitehead provides.
    • Whitehead’s understanding of perception is welcoming more indigenous ways of knowing back into the realm of philosophy.
      • Whitehead helps us make sense of indigenous experience.
      • All of human culture stems from these shamanistic practices.
      • We don’t yet have the words to explain yet what these psychedelic journeys are doing to us.
      • A downside to being in the west is that we don’t have relationship with psychedelic substances.
      • The plants that are a part of the ayahuasca brew told the indigenous people how to brew them.
      • People talk about nature deficit disorder, kids being raised indoors being told the outdoors is dirty.
      • The problem is not one of trying to reinvent the wheel, we have to stop beating this capacity out of children.
    • When we talk about the human nervous system in the context of symbiotic relationships with our ecosystem:
      • It doesn’t make sense to consider the human brain and nervous system as enclosed within the skull.
      • The human nervous system is actually a lot more ecological in its extent than most physiologists would let on.
      • The chemical metabolism of our brain extends out into the environment.
    • Richard Doyle wrote a book called Darwin’s Pharmacy where he coins the term “ecodelic” which challenges the idea of an autonomous individual.
      • The idea is we’re actually permeated by the chemicals flowing through our environment.
      • Our consciousness is shaped any time we eat anything.
      • Some drugs are not thought of as drugs: sugar, caffeine, tobacco.
        • These are accepted psychedelic substances.
      • The fact that cannabis and other psychedelics are becoming more mainstream again shows that we in late-stage capitalism.
    • Is there anything in particular you’ve been excited about in psychedelics lately?
      • The research on MDMA for PTSD in veterans coming back from Iraq and the success rate they’re achieving.
      • The FDA may be forced by the sheer weight of the evidence to approve MDMA.
      • The hope is that we can use MDMA to treat “pre-traumatic stress disorder.”
        • Enhance the empathic capacity of those who handle a great deal of conflict.
      • Within a year or two the FDA is going to be approving MDMA, which is unbelievable.
    • Joe and Matt talk about how credentials are often forced as a barrier to entry into certain fields.
      • Matt is all for a standardized approach to mainstream these things.
      • He wants to go in all directions to get the therapy out.
      • The plants used in psychedelics are so much safer than any drug that’s on the market right now.
      • Some lawmakers are trying to pass a law to allow the death penalty for drug dealers, including those who sell cannabis.
    • Do you have any places you’d like to send people to re-engage with philosophy?
      • Study the history of philosophy.
      • Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas.
      • Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
    • Matt teaches an online course on Whitehead, the next one begins in January 2019.
      • Philosophy is not an abstract linguistic analysis.
      • He approaches philosophy as a spiritual practice.
      • Philosophy is learning to die.
        • We’re embodied creatures and philosophy is a way to come to terms with that.
      • Psychedelics help you experience ego death, but we’re still conscious.

Tweetable Quotes

• Psychedelics are not just theoretically interesting, they have profound practical implications for how we organize our lives.
• Whitehead’s terminology is an attempt to return us to our concrete experience.
• Philosophy is learning to die.

Resources Mentioned

• Psychedelicstoday.teachable.com
• Bluebird Botanicals
• Footnotes2plato.com
• Pharmakon – book by Michael Rinella
• Passion of the Western Mind – book by Richard Tarnas
• Story of Philosophy – book by Will Durant
• Introduction to Process Relationship Philosophy – book by Robert Mesle
• 0thouartthat0 – Matt’s Youtube Channel

About Matthew Segall, Ph.D.

    

Matthew T. Segall, PhD, received his doctoral degree in 2016 from the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. His dissertation was titled Cosmotheanthropic Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. It grapples with the limits to knowledge of reality imposed by Kant's transcendental form of philosophy and argues that Schelling and Whitehead's process-oriented approach (described in his dissertation as a "descendental" form of philosophy) shows the way across the Kantian threshold to renewed experiential contact with reality. He teaches courses on German Idealism and process philosophy for the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. He blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com.

Download In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Kyle and Joe speak to Dennis McKenna (of Dennis McKenna fame) and Mark Plotkin founder of the Amazon Conservation Team. We discuss a broad range of subjects. One of the most interesting was a project that Dennis and many others have been working on for over a year at the time of recording this, titled Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs, which was a conference in the UK in 2017. It was a 50 year follow up to the initial event (and later seminal book) that Richard Evan Schultes, Ph.D helped coordinate and host. This link will take you to a page where you can see all of the talks that were given at ESPD50. https://vimeo.com/album/4766647 We really think you'll enjoy the show. Please let us know what you think and if you can, pre-order the ESPD 50 to save some money on the post release price. About Mark Plotkin, Ph.D Dr. Plotkin has led ACT and guided its vision since 1996, when he co-founded the organization with his fellow conservationist, Liliana Madrigal. He is a renowned ethnobotanist who has spent almost three decades studying traditional plant use with traditional healers of tropical America. Dr. Plotkin has previously 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 Conservation International; and Research Associate at the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution. Among his many influential writings, Dr. Plotkin may be best known for his popular work Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice (1994), which has been printed continuously and has been published in multiple languages. Other works include the critically acclaimed children's book The Shaman's Apprentice - A Tale of the Amazon Rainforest, illustrated by Lynne Cherry, and Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets. His most recent book, The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria, coauthored with Michael Shnayerson, was selected as a Discover Magazine book of the year. In 1998, he played a leading role in the Academy Award-nominated IMAX film Amazon. Dr. Plotkin's work also has been featured in a PBS Nova documentary, in an Emmy-winning Fox TV documentary, on the NBC Nightly News and Today Show, CBS' 48 Hours and in Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, Elle, People, The New York Times, along with appearances on National Public Radio. Time magazine called him an "Environmental Hero for the Planet" (2001) and Smithsonian magazine hailed him as one of "35 Who Made a Difference" (2005), along with Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, and fellow New Orleanian Wynton Marsalis. Dr. Plotkin has received the San Diego Zoo Gold Medal for Conservation; the Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Award; an International Conservation Leadership award from the Jane Goodall Institute; and, with Liliana Madrigal, the Skoll Foundation’s Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2010, he received the honorary degree of "Doctor of Humane Letters" from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Plotkin was educated at Harvard, Yale and Tufts University. About the Amazon Conservation Team The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving South American rainforests. This small but robust outfit occupies a unique niche among other environmental non-profits working in the tropics: ACT works hand in hand with local indigenous communities to devise and implement its conservation strategies.   About Dennis McKenna Dennis Jon McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacognosist, lecturer and author. He is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines.  McKenna received his Master's degree in botany at the University of Hawaii in 1979. He received his doctorate in botanical sciences in 1984 from the University of British Columbia,[2] where he wrote a dissertation entitled Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in Amazonian hallucinogenic plants: ethnobotanical, phytochemical, and pharmacological investigations. McKenna then received post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health, and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine. Dennis McKenna Links Dennis on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dennisjonmckenna/ Dennis's Recent book - Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss Symbio Life Sciences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKiKfAmysrI Links https://www.ted.com/talks/mark_plotkin_what_the_people_of_the_amazon_know_that_you_don_t

Download Joe had the opportunity to interview an old friend Tarif Ahmed while visiting Long Island, New York recently. They had the opportunity to record about all sorts of things from diversity, privilege, open source experimentation with different psychedelic regimens, bringing psychedelics safely into Islam and much more. If you enjoy the episode, please let us know what you think by leaving an iTunes review!

Malin Vedøy Uthaug, a PhD candidate from Prague,  joins Psychedelics Today to talk about her interest and research with ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT. Malin shares her experience how she got involved studying psychedelics and shares a little bit about her personal experiences with ayahuasca. Malin is currently working on an interesting research study examining the potential influence that the ritual and ceremony may have on the overall ayahuasca experience.

More at https://psychedelicstoday.com

Download James Norwood, MA, joins Kyle and Michelle Hobart for a talk about spiritual emergence, madness, entheogens, and the Gnosis Retreat Center. Learn more about Gnosis: http://www.gnosisretreatcenter.org/ [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4-lJWwwRc8] A brief introduction to Gnosis Suppose you come to the end of your tether, can no longer cope, have a break-down, fall apart, go to pieces. To whom would you turn? Where would you go? What alternatives do you have when you desperately need help, but have little, if any, say in the kind of help available? When a person’s suffering becomes insupportable, to him or herself and to others, and yet persists, that person is in a state of distress. Once you find yourself in distress you come to realize that you are at the mercy of other people. Which of those people are you willing to be at their mercy, for better or worse? To whom are you willing to entrust your life? If you don’t happen to know anyone who comes to mind, then how will you go about finding someone you can trust? Do such persons exist? Gnosis Retreat Center aspires to be such a place, by providing a safe place to be, when you are alone and afraid, confused, bereft, and not sure whom to turn to for help. Gnosis is a household that is populated by others like yourself, a refuge for those who are lost, afraid, bewildered, or simply seeking a fresh start, who may, if they choose, get over their ordeal and see it through, without jeopardy. If you want to learn more about spiritual emergence(y) check out this online webinar: Spiritual Emergence or Psychosis? Links

• Gnosis Website: Gnosisretreatcenter.org
• Gnosis Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Gnosisretreatcenter/
• Gnosis Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1MQyM14pcKhu96Zr5e2WA?view_as=subscriber 
• Gnosis donations: https://www.youcaring.com/gnosisretreatcenter-752245
• Gnosis Twitter: https://twitter.com/GnosisRetreatC

Tickets for our upcoming event, Mad To Be Normal | The West Coast Premiere can be found here: madtobenormal.eventbrite.com Additional video link of interest to the viewers: This is the video of the talk on Why Radical Community is Vital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOI_qT0mDKs&t=15s About James Norwood, MA James Norwood, MA, is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California. Norwood is presently working as a clinical intern, researching MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in concert with the Multi-Disciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, and is on the board of directors of Free Association Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides alternatives to treatment for people with altered experiences of reality in the Bay Area. About Michelle Anne Hobart, MA Michelle Anne Hobart, MA: is a practitioner of energy medicine and holistic health educator. She holds a BS in Biology, and an MA in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. Currently, she is doing coursework in Integral Counseling Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies. Michelle is an advocate for the Neurodiversity movement and a certified Spiritual Emergence Coach. She supports sensitive, empathic people whose gifts and experiences have been judged or oppressed and who are in the process of reclaiming and recovering their self-care, power, and personal truth. Michelle offers workshops, retreats, support groups, and one-on-one sessions.

Matt Kay, Co-Founder of the East Coast Float Spa, joins Kyle on this episode of Psychedelics Today. This is another experiential episode where Kyle gets to float and report on his experience. Kyle and Matt also talk about the benefits of floating, the history, and how Matt got involved in the float business. We hope you enjoy this episode! Let us know what you think below in the comment section.

Learn more at psychedelicstoday.com