Health

PT260 – Benjamin Mudge – Ayahuasca and Bipolar: Pathways to a Protocol

August 31, 2021

In this episode, Michelle and Kyle interview Ph.D. candidate and return guest, Benjamin Mudge. 

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In this episode, Michelle and Kyle interview Ph.D. candidate and return guest, Benjamin Mudge. 

You may remember Benjamin Mudge from Solidarity Fridays episode 59, where he talked about the controversial topic of bipolar people taking psychedelics: something he knows a lot about as someone who has been managing his own bipolar disorder with ayahuasca for 12 years (to the point where he now considers himself “post-bipolar”). 

In this “Part 2” episode, he discusses what his options are as a Ph.D. candidate who is certain he’s figured out a way to help save countless lives but doesn’t have a ton of expendable money, a massive team behind him, or a clearly defined path: What are the requirements necessary for creating a protocol for bipolar people? How can you prove efficacy and appease ethics departments the fastest? How do you actually begin a research study? 

And he talks about a lot more surrounding bipolar disorder and ayahuasca: why people with bipolar shouldn’t have other reactionary substances with ayahuasca, why THC can amplify brain destabilization, the work of Dr. Leanna Standish and Dr. Victoria Hale, how clinical methods too often strip away spirituality in favor of reductionism and results, how “micro ceremonies” have helped save his life, the idea of “pharmahuasca” and maintenance medications, the importance of sacred reciprocity, and why the best path toward affordable access may be a combination of the efforts of nonprofits and for-profits.

Notable Quotes

“All I can say in truth is it’s a theory, but I honestly believe that I’ve worked out something that the community as a whole does not get yet, and that’s about how the other ingredients (harmaline and tetrahydroharmine) play a crucial role in the brew. And I’m aware that that’s a very arrogant thing for a guy without a PhD …to talk about, but this is what I believe I’ve figured out.”

“Every psychiatrist says to every bipolar person: ‘You need to take pills for the rest of your life.’ And actually, I agree with them. But I’m saying these could be freeze-dried ayahuasca or it could be pharmahuasca pills. It doesn’t have to be Seroquel. It doesn’t have to be something that numbs your creativity and your spirituality and your libido.” 

“In a lot of ways, I would prefer to work with someone who’s going to make millions of dollars out of this if it’s going to get the medicine to my people quicker than working with [a] University or working with a not-for-profit like MAPS, who are going to take 20 years to do it.” 

“This whole concept of pharmahuasca is really, really controversial. And quite frankly, it is, effectively, biopiracy in the sense of: it is taking an Indigenous, traditional medicine, turning it into a pill, and selling it in the Western market. There is a lot inherently wrong with that unless a huge amount of the profits from that goes back to the Amazon.”

Links

Bipolardisorder.me

Psychedelics Today: PTSF59 – Bipolar and Psychedelics, with Benjamin Mudge

Psychedelics Today: Bipolar and Psychedelics: An Investigation into the Potential and Risks

​​Sacredmedicines.earth

NCBI: Rapid antidepressant effects of the psychedelic ayahuasca in treatment-resistant depression: a randomized placebo-controlled trial

Clinicaltrials.gov: Antidepressant Effects of Ayahuasca: a Randomized Placebo Controlled Trial in Treatment Resistant Depression

Nature.com: Examining changes in personality following shamanic ceremonial use of ayahuasca

Frontiersin.org: Psychedelic Communitas: Intersubjective Experience During Psychedelic Group Sessions Predicts Enduring Changes in Psychological Wellbeing and Social Connectedness

Smallpharma.com

Psytechglobal.com

Numinuswellness.com

Panaceaplantsciences.net

North Star Ethics Pledge

About Benjamin Mudge

Benjamin Mudge has a background in music, art and political activism, and is now a PhD candidate in the Psychiatry Department at Flinders University, as well as Director of Bipolar Disorder CIC. He taught himself the science of bipolar disorder, while working at Neuroscience laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline, to be able to manage his own personal experience of manic depression. After psychiatrists prescribed him 17 different pharmaceuticals (all of which were problematic), he gave up on pharmaceutical psychiatry and decided to find his own solution to living with manic depression. He has been managing his bipolar disorder with ayahuasca for 14 years – without any need of pharmaceuticals – and was awarded a PhD scholarship to research whether his personal protocol could assist other bipolar people. His future vision is to make ayahuasca ceremonies available to bipolar people as an alternative treatment to pharmaceutical drugs.


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