In this episode, Joe interviews returning guest Richie Ogulnick, a facilitator/guide who has been helping clients through ibogaine experiences for 26 years.  Ogulnick talks about how ibogaine works, why he prefers working with the whole plant (iboga), why the flood doses he used to recommend weren't as effective, and the importance of allowing his clients to spend as much time as they want on intention-setting before their session. And of course, he talks about the session itself, which usually tends to be a gradual slide into a 15 to 30-hour waking dream state of deep exploration, followed by the slow process of coming out of it, making sense of it, and starting to work towards integrating what was learned. He also talks about LSD, the work of Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (Osho), an instance of someone who had no experience with iboga (and why), methodologies and experience, and tells a story of a time in NYC, watching someone shoot up heroin while explaining their experience to him as a way for him to better understand addiction and an addict's search for a feeling of peace. Notable Quotes “Very often, people ask me if they should bring a tape recorder with them, and I say, ‘Well, just make sure that it’s a voice-activated tape recorder, because you may say a few words and then 15 hours later, you may finish the sentence.’”“Unlike other psychoactives, it’s interesting- it’s almost like you’re introduced to a new language, and 6 months, 8 months later, people are sharing with me that their intentions have finally all been worked through and they’re maybe considering doing another session in 6 months or a year. Whereas, with other psychoactives, you can very comfortably do ayahuasca once a week, once a month, for months or years. People tend to do iboga maybe 2 to 4 times in a lifetime.”  “Psychedelics or iboga or meditation- methods won’t get us to that beneficence. What methods tend to do is allow us to crawl back to ourselves and say, ‘I’ve accumulated all of these experiences through this methodology, but I can’t go any further. I have to let go of this method’ and then the beneficence really happens. So it’s running at the arrogance of adulthood until you crawl back to yourself and you say, ‘I surrender.’”“The cool thing about setting intentions is not so much the content but the impetus. You create the pilgrimage to go deep within, irrespective of what you really explore.” Links Ibeginagain.org His last appearance on the podcast: Richie Ogulnick – Ibogaine Uses and Addiction-Interruption Therapy About Richie Ogulnick Richie Ogulnick is a long time Ibogaine provider and enthusiast Over the course of fifteen and a half years, he conducted about 750 sessions, including addiction-interruption treatments. He spent the next several years referring close to 1,000 more people to other ibogaine providers. During that time, he also trained doctors and ex-addicts who opened ibogaine centers throughout the world. Richie feels a pull to focus again on the more therapeutic and psycho-spiritual treatments where he is able to offer his expertise in ibogaine treatment along with his knowledge of reintegration with individuals who are looking to deepen and enrich their life experience. 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   

Psychedelics Today

PT239 - Richie Ogulnick - Ibogaine, Unicity, and Beneficence

In this week's Solidarity Fridays episode, everyone's back and so is the news. They cover California Senator Scott Wiener's SB 519 bill to decriminalize psychedelics statewide (which is the first time a decriminalize bill has been put through and passed by lawmakers instead of ballot initiatives), a 3rd Massachusetts city decriminalizing psychedelics, an article pointing out how the various flaws in our capitalistic world also thrive in the psychedelic world, and a TIME magazine article on ibogaine and Marcus and Amber Capone's VETS organization (that curiously didn't mention Marcus' 5-MeO-DMT use or iboga's endangered status). But there are 2 big articles that lead to the most discussion this week: first, Psymposia's article about Third Wave's Paul Austin stealing provider information (possibly including Kyle's) from Psychedelic.support and MAPS and the ethics of doing something like this, and second, Vice's article examining patents and ethics within the psychedelic world. How can companies be profitable while also being ethical? How can a company grow within a capitalistic society without falling into the greed traps of our Western ways? And although he doesn't call it out, this episode features the return of this show notes writer's favorite PT segment, Joe's Paranoid Update- this time about the chaos that could ensue if the Colorado River dries up. Notable Quotes “We can work on ourselves, but does that ultimately heal the society when these systemic issues are at play which continue to make us sick? It just feels like this endless feedback loop. ...If we’re just focused on our individuation and not actually engaging and participating in the community, in the society, then what are we doing the work for? Are we just doing it for our individual selves?” -Kyle  “Representation matters so much and it affects people’s self-esteem and self-worth when they don’t have it there, because they don’t think that that’s ever going to be a possibility for them. It just felt so good to be able to put that article out there and to represent some different types of people in this space and highlight their really important and often overlooked work. And we’re going to continue to do it.” -Michelle  “It really is just this cool new therapy for the affluent class [that] Compass [Pathways] wants, and that’s how you make the most money. But I think that if you were an ethical psychedelic company, that wouldn’t be the goal. That wouldn’t be the mission, and you wouldn’t dress it up all in this B.S. language.” -Michelle “I do feel like we’re in the middle of something really powerful and it can either really change everything or... not. I just hope that we, as a community, keep our eye on the prize, which is like- it’s more than psychedelics. It’s cultural change, societal change.” -Michelle Links Marijuanamoment.net: California Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Possession Of Psychedelics Like LSD, MDMA And Psilocybin Masslive.com: Northampton City Council votes in support of decriminalizing psychedelic drugs Psymposia.com: The Third Wave’s Paul Austin Has Been Accused of Stealing Information For His Psychedelic Provider Directory Womenonpsychedelics.org: Why Psychedelics (Alone) Won't Heal Us Theancestorproject.com: Psychedelic Anti-Racism: The Workbook How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi Time.com: Inside Ibogaine, One of the Most Promising and Perilous Psychedelics for Addiction Vetsolutions.org Psychedelicstoday.com: Comparing 18-MC vs. Ibogaine for the Treatment of Substance Use Disorder Vice.com: Is it Possible to Create an Ethical Psychedelics Company? The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi Wikipedia.org: Colorado River Compact Psychedelicstoday.com: PT221 – Bennet Zelner – The Pollination Approach Mt. Tam Psychedelic Integration Jam 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   

PTSF54 - Theft, Patents, and Ethical Psychedelic Companies

In this episode, Joe and Kyle interview Palo Alto-based Ph.D., author, clinical psychologist, and "integration specialist," Kile Ortigo. From what he's learned at his time at the Grady Trauma Project, the National Center for PTSD, VA work, hospice work, and his own practice, he talks about the flaws of active intervention models of therapy and why what can be most healing for someone is often just letting them be and bearing witness to their experience. And he talks about burnout in healthcare, secondary trauma, common factors that help in all therapy techniques, Jung, "Altered States," and what we might derive from the popularity of Marvel movies. And he talks about his book, Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide For Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration, and integration: what it actually means, the basics of how he works with clients, if it'd be possible to create some sort of integration measurement, the importance of being flexible when intention-setting, how the psychedelic journey relates to Campbells' idea of the hero's journey, and the importance of movies like "Joker." Notable Quotes “I think that’s one of the downsides of working in any sort of big, large, complex system- is that the metrics that you’re being evaluated on are how many patients you’re seeing a day or a week, not necessarily: are they improving?” “We need to loosen our attachments on active interventions sometimes and realize that just bearing witness- being present in a mental way can be what’s most healing.”  “Mythology is being created, I would say, at a very rapid pace these days, and it’s being communicated in a much higher scale. And that’s primarily through our science fiction, I think, because it’s previewing some of these challenges that are here right now and we knew they were coming, but we haven’t been paying attention to them and we need to. ‘Black Mirror’ is important.” “There have always been multiple stories that need to be told, including counter stories to our dominant narratives (our hero’s journey). And that’s why a film like ‘Joker’ from last year was so incredibly important. We needed to hear the story of the shadow and why we need to pay attention to the shadow, and not from a place of judgment or antagonism, but of compassion.” Links Existentialexploration.org Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide For Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration, by Kile M. Ortigo, Ph.D. Psychedelic.support Project New Day Gradytraumaproject.com Psychedelics Today: PTSF 34 (with Craig Heacock) About Kile Ortigo Kile M. Ortigo, Ph.D., is an award-winning clinical psychologist and founder of the Center for Existential Exploration, which supports people exploring profound questions about identity, meaning, life transitions, and psychospiritual development. He also serves on advisory boards of Psychedelic Support, an online training and clinician directory for legal, psychedelic-informed care, and Project New Day, a non-profit organization providing harm reduction resources for people using psychedelics in their addiction recovery process. He received his PhD from Emory University and is a certified psychedelic therapist trained at CIIS and mentored by Dr. Bill Richards (who wrote the foreword to his second book, Beyond the Narrow Life). For several years, Dr. Ortigo worked at the National Center for PTSD (NC-PTSD) where he collaborated on technology development and implementation projects, ranging from apps like Mindfulness Coach to online programs like webSTAIR. With colleagues at NC-PTSD, NYU, and Harvard, Dr. Ortigo coauthored Treating Survivors of Child Abuse & Interpersonal Trauma: STAIR Narrative Therapy (2nd Edition), which was released in June 2020. 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   

PT238 - Kile Ortigo - Integration and Existential Exploration

In this week's Solidarity Fridays episode, technical difficulties lead to a week off from the gang reviewing the news, and instead, Joe interviews microdose & mindset mentor, entrepreneur, author, public speaker, retreat leader, and voice of the Psychedelic Leadership podcast, Laura Dawn. Dawn talks about her path from Montreal to building a retreat center by a volcanic hot spring in Hawaii, only to see that dream end with the volcano's eruption. But due to an ayahuasca experience that fed her a song and the lyrics, "Trust in the great unknown," she did exactly that and followed her heart towards coming out of the psychedelic closet and beginning teaching people the ways of microdosing and ways to inspire creative thinking.  They talk a lot about creativity: how to define it, misconceptions about learning and practicing creativity, the 4 Ps of creativity, the concept of convergent/divergent thinking and cognitive fluidity, the 5 stages of creativity, flow state, peak performance, and her framework of preparation, practice, and psychedelics towards a more open and creative mind. Notable Quotes “When we think about creativity and creative thinking, we can start to understand this as a range of cognitive processes that can best be described as a dynamic fluid movement between multiple states of mind, and of course that’s where psychedelics really come in.” “By creating a conceptual framework, we can teach ourselves. It’s almost like uploading a neurological program in the mind, which then allows you to perceive reality differently, and you can train yourself how to perceive in that way by taking that framework and that understanding into the psychedelic space.”“Think about creativity and creating not for the thing in and of itself. ...It’s not about the thing. When people are afraid to create, take the leap for the act of flying through the air, not because you think you’re going to stick the landing.”“I think everything comes down to intention. There is very much so this quality of focusing on peak performance from a place of like, the drill sergeant and the whip, and ‘I’m not good enough, I need to get over there and be better,’ and I think it’s easy to fall down that road. But then there’s also another aspect that we can choose to relate to it differently, of like: how much can I expand what I believe is possible to create with my life on this planet while I’m alive?” Links Livefreelaurad.com Instagram Flowgenomeproject.com Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work, by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, by Yuval Noah Harari The Neuroscience of Creativity, by Anna Abraham Researchgate.net: The 4P’s Creativity Model and its application in different fields Psychedelic Leadership podcast: This is Your brain on Psychedelics, with Psychedelic Neuroscientist Manesh Girn James Taylor’s Five Stages of the Creative Process Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life, by Alison Gopnik Pubmed.gov: Updating the dynamic framework of thought: Creativity and psychedelics Hopkinsmedicine.org: Single Dose of Hallucinogen May Create Lasting Personality Change Patañjali’s quote Unlimitedsciences.org 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   

PTSF53 - Psychedelics and Creativity, with Laura Dawn

In this episode, Joe interviews Dena Justice, who uses her unprecedented 4th appearance on Psychedelics Today to not talk a whole lot about neuro-linguistic programming or ways to beat anxiety. Instead, she blasts out of the psychedelic closet and opens up like few guests have before, taking us on the harrowing and life-changing journey of the last 6 years of her growth. She talks about how her first MDMA experience made her realize how many limiting beliefs, insecurities, and issues with never feeling safe all came from childhood abuse and could be traced back to one specific morning. She discusses the "ages and stages of Dena," and getting to know her childhood self, Little Dena, and how Little Dena, her 15-year-old self, and her future self influence her today. And she talks about the breakthroughs and realizations from each subsequent experience (MDMA, LSD, and ayahuasca), and how each was just another step leading to her year of "energy and life cleanup," culminating in the most profound psychedelic experience of her life, where she found the frequency of safety she'd been seeking her whole life.  The first few minutes of this episode feel tense and you may be cautious to continue, but stick with it- like many beneficial psychedelic experiences, you may have to go through some rough stuff to get to the gold, but in the end, it's worth it. This one's pretty powerful.   Notable Quotes “This whole morning as a 4-year-old is ingrained in my memory. I remember what I was wearing, I remember the way my Mom looked, I remember the sunlight streaming into the living room through our front windows. ...And I’m standing at the top of the flight of the stairs, screaming at her and sobbing because she’s not hearing me. And in that moment, I created an entire set of beliefs that literally ran my show until 3 months ago.” “I look at what I’ve done since I started really utilizing psychedelics intentionally, and my whole life changed. In the last 5 years, my whole life is completely different than where I was in November of 2015, and I don’t look at the person in the mirror and recognize her anymore the way I was familiar with myself before. I’m like, ‘Where did this woman come from? She’s pretty amazing.’” “I literally saw all of this energy moving and I traveled up one thread of this energy to a point of light, and I articulated it so clearly- I said, 'Wow. I found the frequency of safety. I can see it and I can feel it in my entire being, and this is what I’ve been seeking my entire life.'" “Everybody who has trauma should be able to experience this kind of healing. Everybody should get to feel this free from the past that has tormented them.” Links Ecstaticcollective.com Spotify: Koan- When The Silence Is... (“When the Silence Is Speaking- Blue Mix” is her song) Her past Psychedelics Today appearances: PT218 – Dena Justice – How to Beat Anxiety Dena Justice – Using Neuro Linguistic Programming to Create Change in the Unconscious Mind Dena Justice – Neuro Linguistic Programming and Non-ordinary States of Consciousness About Dena Justice Dena’s training as a facilitator, educator, trainer, mentor, and coach started at age 7 when she took her first social-emotional training program. That started years of training in conflict management and mediation, leadership, communication, facilitation, and more. By 15, she was facilitating personal development courses. 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   

PT237 - Dena Justice - Finding the Frequency of Safety

In this week's Solidarity Fridays episode, Kyle, Joe, and Michelle start out by reflecting on the awesome conversation with Dr. Carl Hart from earlier in the week and everything it made them think about concerning the drug war, society's framing of addiction, how different drugs have been vilified in different eras, privilege, and how greed is keeping the truth from us. They then launch into the articles, which really run the gamut: Nebraska's governor saying cannabis will kill your children, the Biden administration asking staffers to resign over past cannabis use (What? A politician LIED TO US?!), a study from 2008 showing no statistical difference between SSRI and placebo effects (notable because it mirrors findings from the recent microdosing study they keep discussing), and an opinion piece on the healing power of mushrooms. They then talk about an interesting study where researchers are looking to predict who will do best with psychedelic-assisted therapy, and who might have a really challenging experience. Could you always predict that? Or is it just about getting to know a patient, supporting them, and titrating the dose, hence the title? And since there aren't enough links on this page: If you've been looking to take the Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists live course you keep hearing about, new dates are up, so now is the time! And if you want a free copy of Dr. Carl Hart's amazing book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups, we're giving away 5, thanks to Penguin Random House, so make sure to enter the giveaway! Notable Quotes "Why are we only concerned about someone’s psychological well-being when it has to do with drugs?” -Michelle “Heroin was killing a lot of Black men in the 70s and no one cared. And now that it’s killing all these white people with opioids and all this middle-class stuff, all of a sudden, we care. And we want harm-reduction and we want laws and we want drug-checking. But no one gave a fuck 40 years ago.” -Michelle “So we had the war on drugs and ‘drugs are bad.’ ‘Weed, psychedelics- they’ll make you go crazy.’ And now we have that part of the drug war sort of ending and we’re legalizing them and we’re making money off of them, so all of a sudden, we’ve gone from one untruth which is 'all drugs are bad’ to this kind of other untruth which is like, ‘Weed and psychedelics: they’ll save your life, they’re great, everyone should use them!’ It’s like, fuck, dude, where was the middle? Where was the neutral? Where was the actual truth?” -Michelle “How do we catch medicine up to the state of science? Medicine seems to be 10 to 30 years behind science, often. ...Sorry doctors- I don’t mean to insult you, but it’s your field, it’s not you as an individual. If you’re listening to this show, clearly you’re ahead of the curve.” -Joe “Just thinking about how transpersonal came out of the humanistic movement because they needed something new, we’re at a new point where like, how do we incorporate and integrate a lot of this neuroscience, the somatics, the transpersonal, the depth, and what could a new field look like? ...What would that look like to create a new branch of psychology that really incorporates and integrates a lot of this stuff, and the impact that psychedelics have had on this? What type of theories and frameworks do we need, moving forward, as psychedelics become more integrated into the culture and into the medical realm? Do we need to bring psyche back a little bit with the psychedelics, to really help give a framework or some context to some of these transpersonal and numinous experiences?” -Kyle  Links Hilary Agro’s tweet Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel, by Tom Wainwright Hightimes.com: Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts Says Marijuana Will ‘Kill Your Children’ Norml.org: Marijuana Regulation and Teen Use Rates Rollingstone.com: Evanston, Illinois Will Use Weed Tax to Fund Nation’s First Government Reparations Program Thedailybeast.com: Biden White House Sandbags Staffers, Sidelines Dozens for Pot Use Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, by Irving Kirsch, PhD Chemistryworld.com: LSD: cultural revolution and medical advances Bdnews24.com: Can magic mushrooms heal us? Talkbusiness.net: Alice Walton’s Whole Health Institute will build a new medical school in Bentonville Scienceblog.com: Predicting Who May Do Best With Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Pubs.acs.org: Predicting Reactions to Psychedelic Drugs: A Systematic Review of States and Traits Related to Acute Drug Effects Psychedelics Today: Kyle Buller and Joe Moore – A Clinical Approach to Trauma Resolution Utilizing Breathwork 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   

PTSF52 - Start Low, Go Slow

If you're a regular listener of Psychedelics Today, you know how much Joe loved Dr. Carl Hart's newest book and testament to responsible, out-of-the-closet drug use: Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear. In this episode, Joe and Kyle get to sit down and talk with the man himself for nearly 2 hours. This one's in the "can't miss" department, folks.  Hart's main points echo many of ours: that the drug war is doing exactly what those in power created it for, that drug exceptionalism is wrong and only seeing one path towards progress is limiting, that our job is to use facts and logic to battle inaccuracies and people clearly pushing a false narrative, and that drugs can be fun and coming out of the closet about responsible drug use only opens up the dialogue more (and in the interest of that, this show notes writer is high right now).  They also discuss how scientists rationalize their work within the drug war, the frustrating inaction from drug policy organizations around coming out of the drug closet, opinion-makers and their relationship to the rest of society, what needs to be done to help Brazil, how decriminalization doesn't stop problematic policy and police, the treatment industry's misaligned focus on drugs over environment, incorrect assumptions about heroin, and the importance of safe supplies and testing your drugs.   Notable Quotes “I’m always thinking that all I have to do is make this argument logically, and then people will fall in line. That’s naive as fuck, as I’m discovering. But that’s the world in which I live, and I love that world because I can’t live in an illogical world.” “If the treatment provider is focused on the so-called drug of the person who’s having a problem ...they’ve already lost.”“High Price was a book that was kind of comfortable for progressives and conservatives as well- it’s an up-from-slavery book, you know? A poor, Black boy from the hood done well, ‘We feel good about ourselves and our society. See? It can happen to you!’ kind of story. Whereas this book is like, ‘Fuck that. We want our rights.’” “When these people say that they are worried about drug addiction or what I’m saying might increase drug addiction, that’s some bullshit distraction. If you’re really worried about the negative effects of drug addiction, you would make sure everybody in your society is working. You’d make sure they all have health care. You’d make sure that basic needs were handled. Because if you did those things, you don’t have to worry about drug addiction.” “The way they portray heroin in the movies sometimes, it’s upsetting because they portray it like people are deadening their emotions and feelings. It’s like, no, shit, you take heroin to feel.” “When politicians or whoever are out here saying that they care about the opioid crises and they’re not talking about drug-checking, you can stop listening to them because those people are idiots or they think you are an idiot, but in any case, there’s no reason to listen to those people.” Links Drcarlhart.com Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, by Dr. Carl L. Hart Nytimes.com: When Getting High Is a Hobby, Not a Habit Hightimes.com: Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts Says Marijuana Will ‘Kill Your Children’ About Dr. Carl Hart Dr. Carl L. Hart is the Ziff Professor of Psychology in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. He is also a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Professor Hart has published numerous scientific and popular articles in the area of neuropsychopharmacology and is co-author of the textbook Drugs, Society and Human Behavior (with Charles Ksir). His book High Price was the 2014 winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. 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   

PT236 - Dr. Carl Hart - Drugs: Honesty, Responsibility, and Logic

In this week's Solidarity Fridays episode, Kyle, Joe, and Michelle first discuss an article from Salon.com that illustrates the flaws behind psychedelics being continually hailed as a miracle cure: has everyone just replaced the oft-criticized model of selling a “miracle” pill with selling the narrative that a few psychedelic sessions can cure anything? And inspired by Lenny Gibson, they point out that this rabid focus on medicalization is a direct result of these substances being made illegal in the first place. What would things look like if that had never happened? They then cover the developing drama between Compass Pathways and seemingly anyone compassionate and not making money from Compass Pathways' seedy behavior, represented this week by Tim Ferriss and David Bronner. The latest update includes Compass co-founder Christian Angermayer calling Ferriss' millions in donations a "drop in the ocean" in an odd donations-measuring contest, an email sent to investors saying competitors will never be able to bring a product to market due to the (absurd) patents they've filed (which Angermayer actually defended), and co-founder and CEO George Goldsmith mobilizing opposition to Oregon's Measure 109. This, not surprisingly, leads to a discussion about the competition between corporations, the race for patents, the drug war, how companies overestimate costs of drug-research and potential loss, how so little of the money being made is going to the Indigenous cultures we got all of this knowledge from, and more fun stuff in the endless mire of bullshit we have to wade through as a result of the drug war and greed. Notable Quotes “The only reason why we need to get this medicalized is because we made it illegal and we put it on a scheduling system. So, to make it official and legit and to deschedule it to make it into a medicine, we have to go through FDA-approval. ...What if it was never made illegal to begin with?” -Kyle (inspired by Lenny Gibson) “I really don’t believe in the antibiotic of psychiatry. You really have to actively work on changing the way you think and behave and react and all these things, and it’s a lot of hard work. Mushrooms make it more fun, but it’s a lot of hard work.” -Michelle “We’re not trying to be the enemy, but please be open to critique and understand where we’re coming from. In the same way a white male in America needs to understand American history and Imperialism and the crazy shit we’ve done, medicine should also try to own that a little bit. Like, why don’t certain communities trust you? Why don’t you get the results that the data says you should?” -Joe“This is not just about decrim. This is about restoring our rights as citizens of the world, regaining autonomy over our bodies, [and] improving science.” -Joe Links Salon.com: Why mental health researchers are studying psychedelics all wrong Psychedelicstoday.com: Dimitri Mugianis- Iboga, Psychedelic gas-lighting, and Structural Criticism Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs, by Richard J. Miller Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life, by Allen Frances Vice.com: The Race to Patent Psychedelics Is Just Getting Started Drbronner.com: Sounding the Alarm on Compass’s Interference with Oregon’s Psilocybin Therapy Program Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, by Peter Thiel Tim Ferriss: Some Thoughts on For-Profit Psychedelic Startups and Companies Tim Ferriss’ tweet/Christian Angermayer’s reply Vice.com: Investors Are Debating Who Should Own the Future of Psychedelics Pubs.acs.org: Ethical Concerns about Psilocybin Intellectual Property Ohchr.org: Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the World Indigenous Nations (WIN) Games Narrative Medicine: The Use of History and Story in the Healing Process, by Lewis Mehl-Madrona Psychedelicstoday.com: Psychedelic Capitalism and Other Myths: Is the Joke On Us? 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   

PTSF51 - Miracle Cures, Money, and Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

In this episode, Joe interviews the most guests he's ever had on at once- 5 people from the Entheo Society of Washington: Leo Russell (Executive Director), Monique Bridges (Head of the Female Battalion and Head Guardian of the Santo Daime Ayahuasca Church), Malika Lamont (Director of VOCAL Washington), Tatiana (a lot of day-to-day duties that sound like project management), and Solana Booth (promoter and teacher of traditional Native American healing techniques and modalities).   The Entheo Society of Washington is a 501c3 organization and sister agency to Decriminalize Nature Seattle that is working to create community and treatment centers and eventually a movie about the underground psychedelic culture in the Pacific Northwest (in addition to their obvious fight for the decriminalization of entheogens). Their larger, more socially-focused goals are to encourage people to reconnect to the earth, accept our emotions more, hold space for healing and encourage others to do the same, see the economy around legal cannabis and psychedelics become much fairer, and their biggest goals: to help the most marginalized people receive care without being criminalized, and to dismantle the very systems of power that keep marginalizing them. Notable Quotes “I consider the first wave of the psychedelic movement to be very masculine-oriented. So for me, just my personal opinion- the second wave just feels much more diverse, and I see a lot more women leading, and I’m excited about these women. I have lots of curiosity about them. ...how they’ve come up and how they found their voice. We’ve never seen women before lead in grassroots psychedelic political efforts. We’ve never seen that in human history. So I just want to celebrate these women. I want to help the ones that are behind a mountain and lift them up.” -Leo Russell “What is extremely attractive about decriminalization of psychedelics is that we know that the most potential is there to be able to help people heal from the issues that have impacted them through systemic violence. However, we can’t stop there, because just to heal somebody to throw them back into a harmful system is not enough. We need to dismantle the systems.” -Malika Lamont “I do believe that there’s also a shift in general towards not criminalizing people for any kind of substance use. I think that that is a very real, attainable goal. It’s coming, and I really believe that." -Tatiana “I really don’t like it when people say ‘use psychedelics’ when they’re talking about mushrooms or talking about plant medicines, because we don’t use people. Like, I’m not going to ‘use’ my sister Leo when I’m in a conversation with her. I’m going to partner with her and listen and look at her face (if I can see her) and be with her in that moment. So, I’m not going to use any plants; I’m going to go into the medicine, I’m going to ask permission.” -Solana Booth “With all of the talk of being gentle and reaching higher consciousness and being cognizant of the healing properties of these plants, I think that we also cannot lose focus that trauma out of context can look like culture. Trauma out of context can look like personality or be perceived as weakness.” -Malika Lamont Links Entheosocietywa.org Decrimnatureseattle.org Defender.org: VOCAL Washington About the Entheo Society of Washington 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   

PT235 - The Entheo Society of Washington - Dismantling Power Systems Through Decriminalization

In last week's Solidarity Fridays episode, Kyle, Joe, and Michelle talked a lot about a landmark new trial to study microdosing and the placebo effect. And this week (the big SF50!), they're joined by 2 key members of that very trial, lead researcher Balázs Szigeti and principal investigator David Erritzoe.  Szigeti and Erritzoe explain all the factors of the trial in great detail: how participants blinded themselves and the complications with capsule weight (and burping?), what substances participants took, how they were able to track which participants were in which group, what "breaking blind" meant specific to this trial, how they essentially used cognitive performance tests as a control, how depression factored in (or didn't), why they specifically chose people with experience in psychedelics, and why this study mimics real-life microdosing so perfectly. And they talk about the fascinating results: that while across the board, people scored better and felt better after microdosing for 4 weeks, the people who thought they were microdosing did too, and nearly as much.  They're working on future editions of the trial- one that will likely be much longer in duration and work through the new psychedelic app, Mydelica, and one that will be more traditionally placed in a lab, where they can study the neuroscience present (or maybe not so present) in microdosing. Notable Quotes “If you really simplify it, you can say that ...in a way, the guess was [a] 10 times better predictor of some of these acute outcomes than was the actual condition- what they actually took.” -David Erritzoe   “I’m not trying to invalidate your experience by saying, “This is placebo,” but I’m saying it could be, because that’s what the trial actually came up with. But it doesn’t mean that those experiences are not real, it’s just that a lot of those effects come from a combination of hoping, believing, expecting things to become better, and then your mind [does] magical tricks. And that’s the beauty of placebo, in particular when it comes to mental health and well-being.” -David Erritzoe “Based on our data, there is no question that people do better after microdosing. It is just that people feel equally better after they have taken a placebo.” -Balázs Szigeti “I was in a panel recently about microdosing where the people kept asking, ‘Oh, but what are the mechanisms?’ ‘How is it that microdosing works?’ And I’m like, ‘Let’s maybe start by seeing whether it works.’ It’s only so interesting to find out how something works if it works.” -David Erritzoe Links Selfblinding-microdose.org Elifesciences.org: Self-blinding citizen science to explore psychedelic microdosing Szigeti and Erritzoe’s last appearance on Psychedelics Today Mydelica.com About Balázs Szigeti, PhD Dr. Balazs Szigeti has studied theoretical physics at Imperial College, but turned towards neuroscience for his PhD studies at the University of Edinburgh. His main work is about the behavioural neuroscience of invertebrates, but he has a diverse scientific portfolio that includes computational neuroscience and driving forward the OpenWorm open science initiative. Balazs is also the editor of the Dose of Science blog that is published in collaboration with the Drugreporter website. Dose of Science discusses and critically assesses scientific studies about recreational drugs. Recently Balazs has started a collaboration with the Global Drug Survey to quantitatively compare the dose of recreational users of various drugs with the scientific literature. About David Erritzoe, PhD Dr. David Erritzoe is qualified as a medical doctor from Copenhagen University Medical School and currently holds an Academic Clinical Lectureship in Psychiatry at Imperial College London. Alongside his clinical training in medicine/psychiatry, David has been involved in psychopharmacological research, using brain-imaging techniques such as PET and MRI. He has conducted post-doc imaging research in the neurobiology of addictions and major depression. Together with Prof Nutt and Dr Carhart-Harris he is also investigating the neurobiology and therapeutic potential of MDMA and classic 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. Navigating Psychedelics   

PTSF50 - Microdosing and the Placebo Effect, with Balázs Szigeti and David Erritzoe

In this episode, with his recent salvia experience in mind, Kyle interviews creator of the salvia pipe, and somatic salvia guide working to bring mindfulness to salvia use, Christopher Solomon. To many of us, the word "salvia" conjures up images of one or both of the following: smoking salvia with friends and having a panicked, out-of-body experience that (rightfully) scared us away from ever doing it again, or watching Youtube videos of people filming themselves doing the same. Solomon's goal is to reframe salvia's reputation from one of confusion and panic back to how it's known to the Mazatec people who discovered its power: as a loving, empathetic healer.  He talks about his first time smoking salvia after meditating and meeting a female entity, the differences between smoking, chewing leaves, and drinking a tincture, virtual salvia sessions, why you should smoke tiny amounts of salvia repetitively rather than 50x bong hits, why so many people feel like they’re zippers while on salvia, and his thoughts (and salvia's) on if salvia should be smoked or not. And he lists out all the unique feelings that salvia can bring to the table if it's approached with mindfulness, trust, and respect. “The more respectfully and cautiously and mindfully one approaches salvia, the more rewards she gives.”    Notable Quotes “Aside from the fact that I was taken aback at seeing this entity, what was also amazing with it was the sense of emotion and love that was coming from this being. There was a very genuine, caring, telepathic connection that I had with this being that was made out of colorful, almost magnetic-looking lines.”  “When we think of transformation or transformative experiences, we think about these big, explosive, cathartic things, like, ‘Oh my gosh, my entire life flashed before my eyes and I could understand everything, and boom! I had this big transformation, and now I’m healed.' And that can happen, but the real transformations happen in small, bite-sized moments that can be integrated, like taking that small sip of air- getting that one deep breath in if you haven’t had a deep breath in a long time.” “Maybe we’re experiencing the zipper because we go so deep within our bodies that we’re actually getting taken into the felt experience of our DNA replicating.” “If you’re trying to make decisions in your life and you’re waffling back and forth and making lists of pros and cons and debating with yourself and then getting guidance from other people and you’re not sure where to go- you bring those questions to salvia, and she very quickly gets straight to the heart of the matter.” Links Salviahealings.com Salviapipe.com Psychedelics Today: Does Salvia Divinorum Have Therapeutic Potential? Psychedelics Today: Peter H. Addy PhD – Salvia: Research and Therapeutic Use Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, by Jeremy Narby About Christopher Solomon Christopher Solomon is a somatic Salvia guide, teacher, and inventor of a pipe that aids in the mindful exploration of Salvia Divinorum. Incorporating lessons learned directly from Salvia and as a student of somatic psychotherapy, Christopher is pioneering techniques to use Salvia as a therapeutic tool for guided self-healing, meditation, and introspection. Christopher lectures about the proper, intentional, and therapeutic use of Salvia, offering a blend of scientific, esoteric, and therapeutic perspectives. He also cultivates a medicinal Salvia garden for use in his therapeutic practice with clients. His main goal is to teach people how to use Salvia for themselves in a manner that is supportive, informative, and empowering. He has a B.A in Psychology from the University of Texas at Dallas, and received his training in somatic psychotherapy from the Hakomi Institute of California. 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   

PT234 - Christopher Solomon - Salvia as a Therapist

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Kyle, Joe, and Michelle once again meet through the airwaves to discuss recent news articles and see where that takes them.  They first talk about a North Wales police boss who wants to give prisoners controlled amounts of cannabis as a way to combat violence and drug addiction and how that questions the notion of prisoners being expected to suffer. Then, they head to "Missurah," where a bill was just introduced to remove their established provision against Schedule I substances, expanding eligibility and getting them closer to how other states use 2018's federal Right to Try Act to help people with terminal and life-threatening illnesses. They then talk about a study that showed significant reduction in alcohol consumption after MDMA use and why the sense of connection that MDMA fosters could be the reason, a self-blinding microdosing study that proved the power of the placebo (and expectation) effect and what that might mean for regular microdosers, and a listener email highlighting the importance of establishing the idea that rituals and ceremonies don’t have to have a Shaman, healer, or some other person in an all-knowing, leadership role. Other topics covered: how to make therapy cheaper, whether or not a lot of letters after someone's name matters, learning survival skills, Paul Stamets, NASA, and astromycology, Zapatistas, Star Trek: Discovery, and Pauly Shore (but only a little- hopefully more next week). Notable Quotes “I feel like they’re getting a little out of hand sometimes with how we sell these treatments. In press releases or on websites for retreat centers, it’s like: 'Cure everything that’s ever been wrong with you in one week!' and 'Addiction no more!' -all this kind of stuff. ...It’s not as sexy to sell a mushroom retreat as like: 'Start this new relationship with mushrooms and work on it every day for the rest of your life!” That’s not going to sell.” -Michelle “How essential is it that the therapist is even in the room? Can’t you just be somewhere really safe with a volunteer sitter or somebody that doesn’t have a huge student debt to pay off? Is the conversation being steered in a particular direction because of incentives like graduate degrees, licensure, etc? ...If I can consume $30 of street MDMA and not have to pay 12 grand, and I can just go to my medicare-covered therapist a few times before and after, that’s a way cheaper proposition.” -Joe “There’s a lot of great healers in the world that would be really amazing at doing a lot of this stuff, but could they afford their degree? The answer is probably no, and so they don’t get to even be at the table to make any of these decisions.” -Kyle  “We can say microdosing is all a placebo effect, but I think there’s something more interesting here on the power of the expectation effect, and how we’re almost manifesting our own mood change.” -Michelle “You don’t need a Shaman there, I think, for a spiritual experience. ...You don’t need someone in a seat of power. I also feel like Shamans and healers- they’re fascinating and they’re a deep part of human history, but so is the desire for power. ...You don’t have to get stuck in that ‘I’m nobody, the Shaman has all the power, and I need you for learning' [narrative].” -Michelle Links Bbc.com: Police boss wants cannabis trial for prisoners Marijuanamoment.net: Missouri Bill Would Add MDMA, Psilocybin Mushrooms And LSD To Right-To-Try Law Independent.co.uk: Taking MDMA could help to treat alcoholism, study suggests Dr. Ben Sessa’s appearance on Psychedelics Today Elifesciences.org: Self-blinding citizen science to explore psychedelic microdosing Drweil.com: Is The Placebo Effect Real? Nature.com: Positive expectations predict improved mental-health outcomes linked to psychedelic microdosing Paulstamets.com: Astromycology funded by NASA, Science Fiction becomes Science Fact Nasa.gov: Making Soil for Space Habitats by Seeding Asteroids with Fungi Damer.com (Dr. Bruce Damer) Mehl-madrona.com (author Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Psychedelicstoday.com: Online Psychedelic Community Options to Ride Out the Rest of Covid-19 Free Psychedelics Today Event: On Dreams, the Feminine and the Practice of Psychotherapy: An Interview with Maria Papaspyrou (with Kyle and Johanna Hilla) 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   

PTSF49 - MDMA For Alcoholism, The Placebo Effect, and Ceremonial Magicians

In this episode, Joe interviews the founder and CEO of MindMed, JR Rahn. This one's a bit different and plays out perhaps unsurprisingly, as Joe's well-established talking points against the drug war and DEA, legalize-everything stance, and all-inclusive focus on the many branches of drug-use (medical/therapeutic use, religious use, celebration/partying, inner work and exploration, and creative problem-solving) meet an addict businessman whose life was saved by psychedelics and who doesn't want to talk about the battle but instead wants to push forward, all-in on the method he thinks will get people in need the medicine that could save them the fastest: not putting so much effort towards state-by-state decriminalization and demonizing the DEA, but instead, working with them towards medicalization, and telling them what we want by passing measures that allocate more capital and resources towards infrastructure that will help people.  Rahn talks about what MindMed is working on: the first approved commercial drug trial studying the effects of microdosing LSD on adult ADHD, and their more long-term plan, developing a trip-neutralizing drug that would be a safer option than Xanax for ending a challenging trip and getting people back to stability. He also discusses the importance of scalability and lowering healthcare costs, changing anecdotal evidence into real science, and his life-saving (and cheaper) hope of patients being able to work with therapists in their homes rather than in expensive, anxiety-increasing medical environments.  Notable Quotes “As a society, we need to prioritize treatment and we don’t. ...It’s just completely illogical to me that, as a society, we stare it in its face every day and we blame the opioid crisis and we blame drug addiction for our crime and all these things, yet, as a society, we don’t allocate the resources necessary to solve it.”“I think there’s that Forbes article where I was like, ‘Oh, I want nothing to do with the decrim people.’ I definitely said that, but that’s not really what I meant. What I meant was: if we’re going to make psychedelics into a medicine, and we’re going to make it scalable and accessible, I think we should be having a federal conversation about it, and to me, the most efficient pathway to do that is the FDA. And I’m concerned that we’re going to go through this process of state-by-state legalization that happened in the cannabis days and we’re going to get some pretty unsavory people involved in this community ...and I’m just concerned that, if it happens in that manner, it becomes a political battle, and it doesn’t become: How do we help people? How do we get medicine to folks that are in need?” “If we’re going to get people willing to healing themselves and get over the stigma, I think it’s important to have the feature of: ‘Look, we have the emergency stop button. Your therapist can press it if they need to when they feel that you’ve reached a point that is not good anymore.’ And I think that, ultimately (and we’ll have to study this), it might make the experience even more therapeutic. ...They should be walking into a cocoon and we’re taking care of them. They should not be walking into [a room] or sitting on their couch, going, ‘Holy shit, am I going to die?’” “I’d love to get to the point where we have destigmatized these substances enough in society that people value them for what they are, and I think we will be a much better society when we get to that point, but I don’t think we can do it all at once. People tried that- didn’t work. I would just hate to watch the potential for so many people that are actually suffering from mental health and addiction [to] not get access to this treatment because we went too fast.”  “Psychedelicstoday.com: best podcast in psychedelics.” Links Mindmed.co Newswire.ca: MindMed Expands Psychedelic Microdosing Division, Adds Groundbreaking Study Evaluating LSD Microdosing Through Next-Gen Digital Clinical Markers Mindmed.co: MindMed Develops LSD Neutralizer Technology To Shorten and Stop LSD Trips Forbes.com: This New York City Pharma Startup Wants To Turn LSD Into An FDA-Approved Medicine For Anxiety Disorder (the notorious "Forbes article") Rahn’s Twitter follow-up (scroll up to read the full convo) ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic, by Alan Schwarz Psychcongress.com: Suicide Risk Elevated After Psychiatric Hospital Stay Drugabuse.gov: Benzodiazepines and Opioids (increased risk by combining them) About JR Rahn JR is a former Silicon Valley tech executive who realized that transformational solutions to mental illness and addiction might lie in psychedelic medicines. He spent 2 years researching and began personally investing in psychedelic research through his investment company. JR partnered with drug development veteran Stephen Hurst to start MindMed in 2019, assembling a leading clinical drug discovery and development team with vast experience conducting clinical trials and research on drug candidates derived from psychedelics. Before starting MindMed, JR worked in market expansion and operations at Uber. 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   

PT233 - JR Rahn of MindMed

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Kyle and Joe are joined once again from Mexico by Michelle Janikian, and let's take a moment to do what wasn't done last week: welcome Michelle to the podcast, as she will be joining the guys on SFs for the foreseeable future, and possibly on other podcasts soon as well. Welcome to the revolution, Michelle! As you’d expect, they discuss the news: Norway's plan to decriminalize personal drug use based on recommendations from the U.N. and W.H.O. and why that may be related to Norway's high rate of drug-related deaths (or maybe even a high suicide rate), a new bill in California to not only decriminalize psychedelics (including MDMA and LSD, and excluding peyote) but expunge records as well, a new Massachusetts bill to decriminalize all drugs and study psychedelics, a study where researchers achieved real-time communication with lucid dreamers, and Alex Jones' (likely true) claim that government officials regularly use DMT to communicate with freaking aliens. The most-discussed articles though, are Vice's post about how psychedelic therapy needs to embrace the mystical side of things, and Tim Ferriss' recent blog, pleading people to follow more ethical, safer, and more environmentally-friendly paths in their explorations of different medicines. They also talk about Ferriss' concept of a minimum effective dose, the progress of cannabis legalization in Mexico, using caution with frameworks, Pascal's Wager, how the idea of a psychedelic community is becoming antiquated, and whether or not Kyle is regularly astral projecting without realizing it.  Notable Quotes “This concept of political capital- you only have so many ‘politics tokens’ to put in the machine, and being a politician, you kind of have to play the game of not only influencing what you and your constituency want but [also] ‘how do I get re-elected too?’ It’s not spending political capital to be anti-drug in most states. [To] be a really hardcore prohibitionist, you actually gain political capital in a lot of ways. But putting your neck on the line for something like this is quite risky for a politician, so, good on ya!” -Joe “It just doesn’t fit into that narrative where it’s like: ‘Can psychedelics revolutionize mental health?’ Yes, but not just help people and cure, heal- we have to change the way we think about the human experience and we have to let in so many other weird, unworldly experiences to really, fully-- like, yea, it’s going to revolutionize mental health. It’s going to revolutionize everything if we really integrate it and take all aspects of it into consideration. But that’s really hard for doctors and these psychiatrists in-training to really do- they just want a new medication to help their patients. Do they really want to like, rethink reality? [sarcastically:] That’s just for weirdos like us.” -Michelle “Sometimes when I’m in conversations with other clinicians and it’s so pathology-oriented, I’m like, do we need to keep continuing that language? Could there be other ways of viewing and seeing this? How [can] psychedelics- or not even psychedelics- just extraordinary experiences in general help shift our view of what it means to be human? What does it mean to be well in the world? Do I always need to be sick when I come to a mental health professional? Do I always need some sort of diagnosis? I think these are the questions that my exceptional experiences have made me think about- traditional systems and how they’ve really shifted over the years.” -Kyle “The dream world, to me, has always been so fascinating, because it’s like the natural psychedelic everyone has every night. Dreams are so weird. There’s no psychedelic that really touches how weird dreams are. And yet we go to that place every night.” -Michelle Links Bloomberg.com: Norway to Decriminalize Personal Drug Use in ‘Historic’ Shift Msn.com: New California bill would decriminalize psychedelics, expunge criminal records Marijuanamoment.net: New Massachusetts Bills Would Decriminalize All Drugs And Study Regulated Sales of Psychedelics Playboy.com Viva la Cannabis? Not so Fast (Michelle’s article) Tim Ferriss’ blog: An Urgent Plea to Users of Psychedelics: Let’s Consider a More Ethical Menu of Plants and Compounds Academia.edu: DMT Research From 1956 to the End of Time, by Andrew R. Gallimore and David P. Luke Wikipedia.org: Pascal’s Wager Vice.com: Psychedelic Therapy Needs to Confront the Mystical Psychologyconcepts.com: The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness (Kyle was right, Joe had it wrong) Newatlas.com: Scientists establish freaky two-way communications with lucid dreamers Cell.com: Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep (the actual study) Youtube: Qualia Research Institute’s video (that’s causing debate in the facebook group) Matthew Segall’s appearance on Psychedelics Today Marijuanamoment.net: Alex Jones Says Secret Government Program Uses Psychedelics To Communicate With Aliens Alien Information Theory: Psychedelic Drug Technologies and the Cosmic Game, by Andrew R. Gallimore Recursion, by Blake Crouch 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   

PTSF48 - Decriminalization, Embracing the Mystical, and a Plea for More Ethical Exploration

In this episode, Kyle interviews clinical psychologist focusing on sexual trauma, health, and identity, and author of The Psychedelics Integration Handbook, Dr. Ryan Westrum. Westrums' biggest focus and conversation with clients right now in our age of Covid concerns who we are without medicine- how we fill the liminal states between our sessions or rituals. He talks a lot about the work people can do on their own now: learning to listen to our inner healers, honing and sharpening what we already know, stretching ourselves, listening to the different parts of our intuition (our physical bodies, emotional hearts, and cognitive thinking) and realigning when one is out of sync, and maybe the most important lesson: embracing the idea that self-work doesn't have to be built on trials and tribulations, and often, challenging ourselves to use our hands and practicing something we know we're good at or getting back into a long-forgotten hobby can be just as effective towards growth and feeling better about ourselves.  He also talks about solitude, how to use technology the right way and not fall into false engagement, what safety means to people in today's climate, the importance of tethering yourself to trustworthy allies, how psychedelics and his work with sexuality converge, and how to embrace the wonder and beauty of what we discover through psychedelics in everyday life. Notable Quotes “We have to consciously watch what we’re consuming, being prudently aware of this mindful consumption rather than this inappropriate consuming of information when we don’t even know why we just touched our phone or why we just engaged in learning more. Without sounding blasphemous (because I love the internet), what’s it for? What are we doing it for? ...How often are you getting lost in people you don’t even know? And how often are you reaching out to people that could actually be there for you? And it leads to psychedelic medicine work- are you leaning on the people that could actually support you?”  “What is the higher level of intention we’re living? If we are going to take the challenge to dive into medicine work by ourselves, we should still be constructing something that’s higher level, and to speak volumes of motivating the purpose of why we’re doing it. If you’re just doing it to do it because you think that’s the next thing, I’d ask you: what are you doing in your life away from the medicine?”  “Some of the most amazing transcendences are personal, and without being disrespectful to the medicine, do we need it to evoke that? Is that a state of being that we can find within ourselves through evocative breathing, through a great song, sexual pleasure with your partner, whatever? There’s other avenues. That’s what that leads me to, is the plethora of opportunity outside of taking psilocybin or doing an ayahuasca ceremony- [the] plethora of experiential experiences that are very evocative towards healing.”“Without going into hours of conversation, even in couples, people are unaware of what they can share, unaware of entering into what they want to ask for. And that’s where the intersection of psychedelics happens, is it gives them this embodied expression of: ‘This is genuinely who I am, sexually, emotionally, spiritually,’ and it’s quite beautiful.” Links Healingsoulsllc.com The Psychedelics Integration Handbook, by Ph.D. Ryan Westrum His last appearance on the podcast Thelightphone.com About Dr. Ryan Westrum 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   

PT232 - Dr. Ryan Westrum - Who We Are Without Medicine

A show discussing the important academic and other research in the field of Psychedelics. We discuss how psychedelics relate to human potential and healing.