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Category: Podcast

Posted on February 2, 2023February 2, 2023

PT386 – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

In this episode, David once again interviews a teacher and student from Vital, speaking with Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork® practitioner, author, and developer of InnerEthics®: Kylea Taylor: M.S., LMFT; and therapist and Lead Consultant of psychological therapists at NEU: Shabina Hale. 

This Vital Psychedelic Conversation is largely centered around ethics: how practitioners and facilitators define ethics; how InnerEthics® is involved; power dynamics; accountability; how the energy in a session is transferable and can bring up shadow elements for both parties; the need to be honest about one’s own scope of competence; the need for facilitators to have more experience both as a sitter and experiencer; and the very simple but most vital aspect of facilitation: considering how any decision made will affect the person on the psychedelic.    

They also discuss having a code of ethics inspired by Indigenous culture and decades of underground use; how the psychedelic experience is affected by the ways it’s treated by its surrounding culture; how the practitioner becomes a protector; defining what is normal in a psychedelic experience (can you?); informed consent and the importance of explaining how roles will change throughout the process; and what the world would be like if everyone followed the same set of ethics.

Have you seen our commercial for Vital yet? We’re pretty thrilled with how it came out.

 

Notable Quotes

“We’re doing psychedelics in a different culture and a different community. I come from an Asian community that is often more tight knit and more tribal in its way of being, and mental health is seen differently within that community, care for elders is seen differently in that community. And so immediately, you’ve got these different rules and different structures that happen. And psychedelics obviously have come from some of those communities, but we don’t have the same communities anymore. We’re in the West. People will take them [and] they don’t go back to communities. They’re on their own. And that’s really isolating. …How do you keep people safe in some form of community when they go back into a society which is much more individualistic?” -Shabina

“I think it helps to just consider it all normal and not abnormal, because it’s only abnormal in the context of our society and our culture. What happened to Indigenous people in their psychedelic experiences was held; whatever it was was held by the culture, so it was not abnormal. It was normal in the extraordinary state of consciousness, and they assumed that it was healing and worked with it.” -Kylea

“You can see things that may not make sense on the outside, but to that person, on the inside, they really do make sense. And they make sense of it in a way that is far more profound than you could ever interpret or analyze or try and take apart.” -Shabina

“I think if people really find out what is theirs to do and do it, that is so satisfying that all these other things that cause problems for other people disappear.” -Kylea

Links

Kyleataylor.com

Innerethics.com

Holotropic.com

Brainspotting.com

Psychedelics Today: PT290 – Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship With Clients for Profound Transformative Work in Our Professional Healing Relationships, by Kylea Taylor

Neupractice.com

Greencamp.com: Honoring the Legends: Stephen Gaskin and The Farm

Maps.org: MAPS MDMA-Assisted Therapy Code of Ethics

Posted on January 31, 2023January 31, 2023

PT385 – Relationships, Conviviality, and The Strength of Empathic Attunement

In this episode, Joe interviews Portland, OR-based licensed marriage and family therapist, ketamine-assisted therapist at Rainfall Medicine, lead educator at InnerTrek, and speaker at our upcoming Convergence conference: Gina Gratza, MS, LMFT.

She talks about how she decided she wanted to become a therapist and when she knew psychedelics were the next step; meeting Rick Doblin at Burning Man; the efficacy of MDMA being used in conjunction with traditional therapy; how the self-compassion of MDMA gives her tremendous hope for its use in treating eating disorders; how non-ordinary states of consciousness teach us the wiseness (and uniqueness) of our inner healer; and her healthy concerns for how Oregon handles psilocybin legality: InnerTrek will be graduating some of the first licensed facilitators in Oregon and they should be certified by summer, but with OHA-approved service centers and manufacturers still up in the air, what happens next?

She and Joe also discuss how non-ordinary states of consciousness teach us the wiseness (and uniqueness) of our inner healers; the need for therapists to continuously do their own work; the idea of a psilocybin-licensed facility doubling as a music venue; David Nutt’s drug harm scale; Kylea Taylor; “The Trialogues”; archetypes of Burning Man; and how in psilocybin-assisted therapy, we can only do so much before the spirit of the mushroom ultimately takes over.

Notable Quotes

“There’s a strength in the empathic attunement that’s happening in the heart space that’s coming forward, so it’s not just talk therapy. There’s a connection happening. And we are creatures of love and belonging and connection, and when we feel that with another human being [and it’s] authentic – that is a very powerful force. We don’t have to compare it, but it’s just as powerful as medicine.”

“I hope to never be a master of any domain. I know that the juiciness of this life and this existence is continuing to stay open to learning and growing and evolving, and for me, that’s coming back to humility: I’ll never know everything, especially when it comes to the realm of altered states of consciousness. We’re trying to understand life in this state of consciousness, let alone bringing in altered states and the many different dimensions at which things can come through to you, and the uniqueness of everyone’s experience.”

“This is what we humans are able to do: Here are the measures, here are the ways in which we’re training. And then there’s the spirit of the mushroom. There’s what we are going to bring and then there is going to be what the mushroom brings: …the mycelium network, the earth, the nature; like a total other force that is beyond our ability to really know or read what will move through that.”

Links

Ginagratza.com

Rainfallmedicine.com

Innertrek.org

Chrisstauffermd.com (SNaPLAB: Social Neuroscience and Psychotherapy Lab)

YouTube: MDMA-assisted Therapy for Social Anxiety in Autistic Adults – Alicia Danforth

Clinicaltrials.gov: Psilocybin-Enhanced Psychotherapy for Methamphetamine Use Disorder

Clinicaltrials.gov: Study of Feasibility and Safety of MDMA-Assisted Group Therapy for the Treatment of PTSD in Veterans (MPG1)

Pubmed: MDMA-assisted therapy significantly reduces eating disorder symptoms in a randomized placebo-controlled trial of adults with severe PTSD

Hopkinspsychedelic.org: Anorexia Nervosa Study Seeking Research Participants

David Nutt’s Drug Harm Ranking scale

Marijuanamoment.net: Most States Will Legalize Psychedelics By 2037, Analysis Published By American Medical Association Predicts

Wikipedia.org: Feminist pedagogy

Psychedelics Today: PT288 – Annie & Michael Mithoefer – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Pubmed: Combining Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD with 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA): A Case Example

Psychedelics Today: PT227 – Dr. Anne Wagner – Couples Therapy, MDMA, and MAPS

The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship With Clients, for Profound Transformative Work in Our Professional Healing Relationships, by Kylea Taylor

Psychedelics Today: PT290 – Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

Exploring Holotropic Breathwork: Selected Articles from a Decade of the Inner Door, Edited by Kylea Taylor

Sheldrake.org: The Sheldrake – McKenna – Abraham Trialogues

Damer.com (Dr. Bruce Damer)

Psychedelicsalon.com: Dr. Bruce Damer

Posted on January 26, 2023January 26, 2023

PT384 – Vital Psychedelic Conversations

In this episode, David interviews two people from different sides of Vital: clinical psychologist, adjunct professor, Co-Founder of the Psychedelics R2R nonprofit, and Vital instructor, Dr. Dominique Morisano, CPsych (the teacher); and writer, psychedelic-assisted medicine facilitator, integration coach, and Women On Psychedelics Co-Founder, Jessika Lagarde (the student). 

With the 2023-24 edition of Vital set to begin in April and applications closing at the end of February, we thought it would be interesting to relaunch Vital Psychedelic Conversations, but with the spin of speaking to both instructors and students to hear their different perspectives on retreats, facilitation, psychedelic education, the quickly advancing psychedelic space, and of course, Vital itself. 

Morisano and Lagarde mostly discuss experience: how it’s gained, how it changes perspectives and methodologies, how one decides they’ve experienced enough to be able to know the terrain enough to help others, the importance of knowing when a patient needs a facilitator/therapist who has had the same life experience, and knowing when one’s own skills and limitations means a patient would be better off seeing someone else. And they discuss safety, the importance of being trauma-informed (and what does that mean, really?), and the puzzling cases when facilitators haven’t had their own psychedelic experience but feel the need to use psychedelics to help others. 

And of course, they talk about Vital: the joy in joining together in community with people they’ve only known virtually; how interesting these retreats are compared to others due to the level of the participants’ experience; how partnering up and taking turns as the sitter and experiencer shows how little of a difference there is between student and teacher; and how many people have reported the most impactful part of the retreats was not their own experience, but being there for someone else.

Notable Quotes

“Do you know the terrain? Let’s say you’ve taken ketamine once, and you’re doing six sessions of ketamine with a client. Do you really know what they’re going to be experiencing, and can you have had the full range of experience? …How do we define this? I can tell you: You have a hundred psychedelic experiences; most likely you’re going to have a different experience each time, and a different connection to inner/outer terrain or different realms or different ways of thinking and being. So when is enough enough? When did you learn your lesson? When did you gain the experience necessary to navigate someone [else’s experience]?” -Dominique

“You learn a lot about yourself as well, I find at the end of a day. Every journey is also a journey for the facilitator, and we are constantly mirrors to each other, so it’s very interesting work to do in that sense as well, because your own inner work is continuously being done.” -Jessika

“It’s never the same. Two sessions are never the same, and even how you show up on that day for that session, or set and setting; all of that influences [the experience], so we have to constantly be placing ourselves between being a student [and being] a teacher sometimes, but never put ourselves in the spot that we think, ‘Okay, now I know everything. Yeah, I’m done.’” -Jessika

“How do you develop wisdom? The way to develop wisdom is through experience, and often, pain.” -Dominique

Links

Drmorisano.com

Fromresearchtoreality.com: Global Summit on Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Medicine

Celebrating Women in Psychedelics podcast: Mental Health for the Masses – The Potential and Pitfalls of Scaling Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, with Dr. Dominique Morisano and Sonia Stringer

Psychedelics Today: PT315 – Dr. Dominique Morisano – From Research to Reality: Planning a Global Psychedelic Summit

Jessikalagarde.com

Womenonpsychedelics.org

Psychedelics Today: Reclaiming Ownership of Your Body With Psychedelics, by Jessika Lagarde

Spotify: The Jimi Hendrix Experience- Are You Experienced (it’s an album, not a song, David!)

Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers, by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hoffman, & Christian Rätsch

CIIS.edu

Synthesisretreat.com

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

Journals.sagepub.com: Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists

Posted on January 24, 2023January 24, 2023

PT383 – Identity, Rage, Culture, and Venture Capital

In this episode, David interviews Raad Seraj: host of Minority Trip Report, a podcast for underrepresented views in psychedelics and mental health, and founder of Mission Club, an education and investment platform.

Seraj tells his story of growing up in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and eventually finding himself in Canada, and how the discomfort and rage he felt as a result of class and xenophobia affected him. He talks about the idea behind his podcast, Minority Trip Report, and how, while they need to be heard, underrepresented and BIPOC voices aren’t a monolith. And he talks about the incestuous and gatekeeping nature of venture capital and the complications of actually turning investments into lasting business. With Mission club (which is partnering with Microdose), he aims to create opportunities for people who don’t have a ton of money to invest in early stage companies in this space, to help the dreamers who don’t necessarily fit the bill for traditional VC.

And he discusses much more: David Chalmers’ theory of “The Extended Mind”; the problems with having one idea of mental health and summarizing complicated minds into little boxes; how we are made up of different selves and how psychedelics can help us to acknowledge and integrate our minority selves; the differences between anger and rage and how 5-MeO-DMT helped him shed his rage; how we can use technology, culture, and capital together to amplify what exists and build what doesn’t; the three places that have transformed him the most; and initiating a bus-wide Cyndi Lauper sing-along while on tour with Finger Eleven as a host for Much Music.

Notable Quotes

“If you talk about mental health and healing: all healing is the reintegration of the narrative landscape – the autobiographical story. But the problem is; when you only have one type of story, one type of autobiographical narrative that gets to be heard, that gets to be embedded, that gets to be shared, that gets to go viral; and from that, you build courses and infrastructure and definitions of what mental health is and then you sort of impose it on the rest of the world – that is a problem because mental health is ultimately about being a human being, and we are multipolar beings and we are forced to be summarized in very small ways, whether by society or by systems.”

“You have a part that is elevated above the body and the mind and the consciousness, and seeing and observing yourself and your truest nature and your truest needs and wants and desires and so on, and I think with people who are on the margins (again, whether you’re Jewish, whether you’re bisexual, whether you’re a person of color, whether you’re an immigrant, or whatever), the parts that you suppress the most all of a sudden find light. They can be seen; that’s where the light gets in. And then that temporary visibility of all of a sudden seeing that part of you without judgment, and being almost agnostic to those parts, is powerful.”

“I recognized very early on [that] there was class. Race came after. Race is a 400-year-old concept. Class is a permanent part of any human society, but class is so much more insidious. We don’t talk about it.”

“At the surface of everything, whether it’s culture, politics, music, tech: it’s all bullshit. There’s a thin sheen of garbage. You have to dig a little deeper to find the true stuff.”

Links

Minoritytrip.com

Missionclub.co

Your Symphony of Selves: Discover and Understand More of Who We Are, by James Fadiman, Ph.D., & Jordan Gruber, J.D.

Theculturetrip.com: Toronto Named The Most Diverse City In The World By BBC Radio

Wikipedia: Much (TV channel)

YouTube: Finger Eleven – Paralyzer

YouTube: Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time

Wikipedia: Extended mind thesis

Navalmanack.com

Angellist.com

Yahoo.com: Black women lead in starting businesses, but struggle to get funding

The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future, by Sebastian Mallaby

Microdose.buzz

Enthea.com

Psychedelics Today: PT376 – Ketamine and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy as Employee Benefits, featuring Sherry Rais

Mayahealth.com

Fox4kc.com: Psychedelics Today Re-Launches Vital Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Scholarship Fund to Support Student Practitioners

Vital: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tuition Scholarship Access Fund

Ourcortes.com (Cortes Island)

Posted on January 20, 2023

Psychedelics Weekly – Client Data Concerns in Oregon, Hopeful Legalization in New Hampshire, and Vital & The Five Elements

In this week’s episode, Joe is joined by Kyle, calling in from The Atman Retreat in Jamaica, where he’s running the fourth of five retreats offered through our Vital program. 

They first discuss some news: Oregon Senator Elizabeth Steiner introducing a bill (SB-303) to essentially override many of the recommendations of the Oregon Health Authority, especially around client data – which would be provided to government agencies instead of staying private (which the people voted for); a reparations proposal in San Francisco recognizing the harms of the drug war; GOP lawmakers in Missouri and New Hampshire proposing bills for psilocybin therapy and psychedelics legalization (respectively); and Canada’s Apex Labs being granted approval for a take-home psilocybin microdosing trial.

Then, Kyle gives us an update on his very busy last few months, running Vital retreats: breathwork in Costa Rica, breathwork and cannabis in Colorado, and psilocybin in Amsterdam and Jamaica. He talks about the retreats themselves, the five components of breathwork, the idea of safety and “brave spaces,” the power of community and being witnessed, the concept of focusing on technique over the substance, what students have been saying, and finally: how the five elements relate to Vital, psychedelic therapy, seasons, and the process of growth. Reminder that applications for Vital’s 2023 edition (beginning in April) close at the end of February, so if you’re curious, head to the site to learn more or attend an upcoming Q+A here!

Links

Psychedelicweek.com: Psychedelic Surveillance Bill Would Raise Social and Economic Cost of Oregon Psilocybin Services

Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative

Msn.com: San Francisco reparations committee proposes a $5 million payment to each Black resident

Cnn.com: North Carolina city votes to approve reparations for Black residents

SF.gov: African American Reparations Advisory Committee

Marijuanamoment.net: GOP New Hampshire Lawmaker Files Bill To Legalize Psychedelics Like LSD And Psilocybin

Marijuanamoment.net: Lawmakers Are Already Pursuing Psychedelics Legislation In Nearly A Dozen States For 2023

Marijuanamoment.net: New Hampshire GOP And Democratic House Leaders Team Up On Marijuana Legalization Bill For 2023 (there is progress!)

Wcia.com: Illinois lawmaker introduces bill to create regulated psychedelic therapy program

Newswire.ca: Apex Labs Granted Approval for 294 Patient Take Home Psilocybin Clinical Trial

Marijuanamoment.net: GOP Missouri Lawmaker Files Psilocybin Therapy Bill For 2023 Session

Psychedelics Today: What is Breathwork? (The five components)

Umaryland.edu: The 6 Pillars of a Brave Space

Brenebrown.com

Posted on January 17, 2023

PT382 – The Body & Catharsis: Do We Need Psychedelics or Just Better Lifestyles?

In this episode, Kyle interviews researcher, speaker, writer, competitive freediver, and one of the world’s leading experts on 5-MeO-DMT: Dr. Malin Vedøy Uthaug.

As a society, we mostly live in our minds, emotionally constipated while surprisingly disconnected from our bodies, with basic human needs that are all too often not met. Uthaug and Kyle talk about what manifests when those needs aren’t fulfilled, the strength of one’s inner mind state to change perspective, and how powerful true catharsis and embracing grief can be. And they talk about somatics: why we don’t focus on the body more, and how we could embody experiences with non-ordinary states of consciousness to better connect to our inner world.     

She discusses the impact (or non-impact) of following a strict dieta before a big experience; preparing for an experience with physical exercise (even right before the ceremony); freediving; the challenge of therapists/facilitators sitting with someone through strong catharsis; the popcorn theory; the guilt people feel from experiencing love and bliss; and the paralysis-by-analysis problem of not making the connection between insight and action.

Notable Quotes

“What I’ve seen throughout all these years working in the field is that there is at least very commonly this notion that the psychedelic is going to heal them; they don’t have to do any other work – just popping that tab of psilocybin or smoking that pipe of 5-MeO is going to result in change. And that expectation is a bit dangerous, I think. They might not get the help that they are seeking because they’re placing that help externally to them. …Healing is actually hard work. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s the tiny little steps of change accumulated that creates a bigger change. It’s changing your tiny, tiny habits until it changes your life.”

“You can realize a bunch of things, but if you’re not doing anything, nothing is actually going to change. It might feel like it changes because you have felt it in your brain or you’ve seen it or have this insight, but that needs to be translated actively into your life.”

“I think putting the body back into the equation is the way forward, however that might look.”

Links

Drmalinvedoyuthaug.com

Psychedelics Today: Dr. Malin Vedøy Uthaug – Ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT Research

Psychedelics Today: Malin Vedøy Uthaug – Exploring Ayahuasca Ceremonies and 5-MeO-DMT

The Ethical and Ecological Considerations of Inhaling Bufotoxins from Incilius Alvarius, by Malin Vedøy Uthaug

Dailymail.co.uk: Was Sigmund Freud really just a sex-mad old fraud? The founder of psychoanalysis was a money-obsessed cocaine addict who groped women patients and had a genius for self-promotion

Link.springer.com: Sigmund Freud’s Use of Catharsis and Cognition

The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise, by Martín Prechtel

NeuroDynamic Breathwork online

The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain, by Steven R. Gundry, MD

Psychedeliceducationcenter.com: DMTx Psychonaut Training Webinar

Johnheron-archive.co.uk: Catharsis in human development

Traumatized.com: Peter Levine – Somatic Experiencing

Your Golden Shadow: Discovering and Fulfilling Your Undeveloped Self, by William A. Miller

Love, Sex, and Your Heart, by Alexander Lowen, M.D.

Posted on January 13, 2023January 13, 2023

Psychedelics Weekly – Prince Harry and Psychedelics, Proposed Legalization, and The Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Professorship Fund

For this week’s episode, we had plans for a guest to join Joe to talk about some legal battles, but as seems to be the norm this time of year, sickness postponed that conversation to a future date. With David taking some much-deserved time off and Kyle in Jamaica on a Vital retreat, this Psychedelics Weekly is a rarity: just Joe, monologuing the news.

It’s probably best to just listen and head to the links to follow along, but some highlights this week are: Prince Harry coming out of the psychedelic closet; Virginia lawmakers proposing the legalization of psilocybin; psychedelics legislation already in plans for nearly a dozen states in 2023; NBC news recognizing the need psychedelic therapists, facilitators, and education; the WHO aiming to rename 5-MeO-DMT to Mebufotenin; and Roland Griffiths creating The Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Professorship Fund to ensure his work continues to be recognized after he passes.  

He also talks about Convergence, and you should know that prices increase on January 16, so don’t wait any longer! Check back next week for more news and, *fingers-crossed* a co-host – hopefully Kyle calling in to tell us all about the retreat!

Links

Cbsnews.com: Prince Harry says he’s used psychedelics to help cope with grief

Npr.org: On Point podcast (“Psychedelics and who should be able to use them” from 1/6)

Psychedelics Today: PT338 – Melissa Lavasani – The Power of Storytelling, The Preservation of Peyote, and “How to Change Your Mind”

Psychedelics Today: PT223 – Daniel Carcillo – Life After Sports

Psychedelicmedicinecoalition.org

Cnn.com: Chasing Life Podcast, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta – What Promise Do Psychedelics Hold As Therapeutics​​

Marijuanamoment.net: Lawmakers Are Already Pursuing Psychedelics Legislation In Nearly A Dozen States For 2023

Virginiamercury.com: Virginia lawmakers propose legalizing medicinal use of psychedelic mushroom compound psilocybin

Westword.com: Drug Record-Sealing Clinic In Wake of Colorado’s New Psychedelics Law

Cityweekly.net: Dr. Strangelove: Accused killer Dr. Robert Weitzel has a troubled career, but plenty of defenders.

Atmanretreat.com

Nbcnews.com: Psychedelic therapies are on the horizon, but who will administer the drugs?

Futurism.com: Startup Trying to test Whether People on DMT Experience a Shared Alien Universe

Dmtx.org

Psychedelics Today: Daniel McQueen – DMTx and Future Psychedelic Technologies

Twitter.com: Psychedelic Alpha: WHO Gives 5-MeO-DMT Generic Name: Mebufotenin

Tim Ferriss Show #646: Brian C. Muraresku with Dr. Mark Plotkin: The Eleusinian Mysteries, Discovering the Divine, The Immortality Key, The Pagan Continuity Hypothesis, Psychedelics, and More

Psychedelics Today: Mark Plotkin – Bio-Cultural Conservation of the Amazon

Psychedelics Today: PTSF 35 (with Brian Muraresku)

Griffithsfund.org

Hopkinspsychedelic.org

UCLA Psychedelic Studies Initiative

UCLA Psychedelic Studies Initiative’s survey: Psilocybin to treat drug addictions

Mixmag.net: New Zealand Authorities Believe 4KG of MDMA Was Flushed Down A Toilet

Psychedelics Today: Convergence

Posted on January 10, 2023January 10, 2023

PT381 – DMT, Hierarchies of Complexity, and Reality Switch Technologies

In this episode, Joe interviews Dr. Andrew R. Gallimore: computational neurobiologist, chemical pharmacologist, researcher, and writer of Alien Information Theory: Psychedelic Drug Technologies and the Cosmic Game.

Gallimore feels that DMT is the most efficient and effective reality switching molecule we’ve seen, and that there is no other psychedelic experience that is so in your face: If we really could communicate with entities not of our known universe (who may have created our universe), how can so many dismiss that as a hallucination? Why would we not want to pursue something so mind-bending and revolutionary? His hope for his newest book, Reality Switch Technologies: Psychedelics as Tools for the Discovery and Exploration of New Worlds, is that it will be the quintessential guide for how psychedelics work in the brain from all levels of organization, what happens when you perturb the brain, and the future: how we might be able to fine-tune our brains to access different realities at will. 

He discusses the element of design used in his books; why understanding something as complex as DMT is a multidisciplinary practice; the genius of Terence McKenna; what Alien Information Theory was about; his work with Rick Strassman in researching intravenous infusion DMT pumps to keep someone in the DMT verse; Conway’s Game of Life and the unpredictable levels of complexity that can arise from simple rules; lucid dreaming; John Mack, alien abductees, and trusting a patient’s experiences as real; psilocybin yeast; and much more. 

This one will definitely make you think!

Notable Quotes

“It’s always felt a little bit sci-fi in a way, in that you’re planning basically a program of inter-dimensional citizenship. It feels like that. I mean, Terence McKenna used to [say] ‘galactic citizenship,’ and it’s almost like we’ve leapfrogged over galactic citizenship and we’re now going straight to inter-dimensional, trans-dimensional citizenship (whatever you want to call it) where we’re interfacing and communicating with an intelligence not of this universe. I mean, that’s a wild idea. And we have the technology now. To me, this infusion technology; this is the way to do it.”

“We’re just at the beginning now. You take virtual reality technology and the way that that is progressing, then you add artificial intelligence into the mix, and then you add pharmacology and neuropharmacology, chemical pharmacology and other neural manipulation systems, and you begin to realize that our brain is this tool – this world-building machine that we can learn to tune to access other worlds.”

“There’s also deja vu of course, the sense of having been there before – this very profound, deep sense of deja vu; not like we’ve all had, that occasionally you get that sense of deja vu that something has happened before. This is like, ‘I really, really have been here before. This is the most bizarre place I couldn’t possibly have imagined or conceived of; an impossible place of impossible geometry, and yet at the same time, it seems bizarrely familiar. ‘Why? Why would some place that should be the most unfamiliar place possible– There isn’t a more unfamiliar realm that you could imagine than the DMT world, and yet people think, ‘Oh my God, I’ve come home.’ And the entities, the elves will sing and cheer and bells will ring and lights will flash and [they’ll] say, ‘He has returned! The one has returned home! Welcome back! We’re so pleased to see you!’ This great uproar, this great celebration as you burst into this space. Why would that happen?”

Links

Alieninsect.net

Alieninsect.substack.com

Reality Switch Technologies: Psychedelics as Tools for the Discovery and Exploration of New Worlds, by Andrew R. Gallimore

Psychedelics Today: Dr. Andrew Gallimore – Accessing High-dimensional Intelligence through DMT

Pubmed: A Model for the Application of Target-Controlled Intravenous Infusion for a Prolonged Immersive DMT Psychedelic Experience

Medicinalmindfulness.org

DMT-nexus.me

Psychedelicreview.com: Early Clinical Research History of DMT

Wikipedia.org: Conway’s Game of Life

Stephenwolfram.com

Wikipedia.org: Edward Fredkin

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan

Wikipedia.org: Chaos magic

Psychedelics Today: What do Alien Abduction and Psychedelic Experiences have in Common? Let Dr. John E. Mack’s Work Explain

Ralph-abraham.org

Drzee.org

Newatlas.com: Scientists turn yeast into psychedelic psilocybin factories

Posted on January 6, 2023January 6, 2023

Psychedelics Weekly – Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy for I.B.S., NY Aims to Legalize, and B.C.’s Decriminalization Experiment

In this week’s episode, Joe and David meet up to talk about Vital, Convergence, and the latest news: 

-Tryp Therapeutics and Mass General signing a letter of intent for a Phase 2 clinical trial investigating the effects of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome – interesting because it further highlights the likely effect of psychedelics on the brain-gut connection and that psychotherapy is involved;

-New York lawmakers pre-filing a bill to legalize DMT, ibogaine, mescaline, psilocybin and psilocyn (and remove them from the state’s banned substances list) for 2023;

-New York’s first cannabis dispensary finally opening on December 29;

-British Columbia responding to their opioid crisis (the latest data reports 14k deaths since 2016) by beginning a Portugal-like decriminalization model, allowing people 18 years and older to carry a combined 2.5 grams of drugs (heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and even MDMA);

and finally, an interesting but confusing (maybe a follow-up is necessary) article showing that what we’re learning about ketamine could lead towards a better understanding of psychosis and schizophrenia.

Links

Accesswire.com: Tryp Therapeutics and Massachusetts General Hospital Sign Letter of Intent for Clinical Study Investigating the Use of Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy for the Treatment of Patients Suffering From Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

Psychedelics Today: PT350 – Psilocybin and Accessing the “Off” Switch For Nociplastic Pain, featuring Jim Gilligan

PT283 – Greg McKee – Nociplastic Pain and Psychedelics

PT369 – Chronic Pain and Phantom Limb Pain: Could Psilocybin Be the Answer? Featuring: Timothy Furnish, MD & Joel Castellanos, MD

Lucid.news: Researcher Charles Nichols Studies the Impact of Psychedelic Substances on Inflammation

Marijuanamoment.net: New York Lawmakers File Psychedelics Legalization Bill For 2023

Fox5ny.com: NY lawmakers propose bills to decriminalize, study psychedelics

Nydailynews.com: Crowd swarms first legal NYC marijuana shop on second day; long line to enter East Village store

Housingworks.org

Cheknews.ca: B.C. poised for drug decriminalization experiment, but will it help stem deadly tide?

Wiley.com: The psychotomimetic ketamine disrupts the transfer of late sensory information in the corticothalamic network

Neurosciencenews.com: Ketamine Found to Increase Brain Noise

Sciencedirect.com: Canalization and plasticity in psychopathology

Posted on January 3, 2023January 3, 2023

PT380 – Microdosing, Talking to Physicians About Psychedelics, and Nurses as the Scalability Solution

In this episode, Kyle interviews C.J. Spotswood, PMHNP-BC: author and board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner currently enrolled in CIIS’ Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research certificate program.

Spotswood has worked with Psychedelics Today, teaching masterclasses for our Vital and Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists courses, but this is his first appearance on the show. His first book, The Microdosing Guidebook: A Step-by-Step Manual to Improve Your Physical and Mental Health through Psychedelic Medicine came out last year, and we’re giving away three signed copies (US and Canada only). Click here to enter!

He talks about his introduction to psychedelics and his first patient immediately asking him about microdosing; why he changed his mind on microdosing and why he wrote his book; microdosing studies he’s most excited about; the terms: treatment-resistant depression, risk reduction, and flight nurses; Irving Kirsch’s work uncovering the bad science of research studies; the need for physicians to know enough about psychedelics to be able to meet their patients where they are; the importance of group work; and how, while they’re already so well-versed in caring for patients, using nurses to their full licensure could be the answer to the quickly growing psychedelics and scalability problem.

Notable Quotes

“When you look at the early research into the 50s in the 60s; they were doing microdosing research, they just didn’t have a title for it. They thought they were using placebo levels but they were actually looking for threshold levels; things like that. Really, it was what by today’s standards [would be an] amount that we would consider as a microdose.”

“I don’t like the term [treatment-resistant depression] when we use that because if you’re using [it] when you’re looking at the standard medications like SSRIs [or] SNRIs, they’re basically all the same. …So when you say that someone’s ‘treatment-resistant’ for three medications, four medications that are all basically working the same pathways and in the same amount; is that truly treatment-resistant, or are we just trying the same thing with just different medications, whereas doing microdosing is a different pathway [and] is a different approach?”

“My first patient I ever saw as a new clinician, like, literally my first patient: I come in and I’m starting to talk to them for the first interview and I got to the point and I’m asking them: ‘Where are we going, what do you need?’ and they said to me, ‘Do you know anything about microdosing?’ …I said to them, I go, ‘Yeah, I know a little bit.’ …So I asked her what she knew, and she knew quite a bit. And she goes, ‘What do you know?’ and I kind of just said to her: ‘I don’t really know how to put this, [but I] wrote a book on it and it’s going to be coming out next year.’ …It reinforced my feeling [that] I’m doing the right thing: this career suicide I’ve thought of, going into working with psychedelics and being open and talking about it, hearing my first patients talking about it – it’s got to be serendipity.” 

Links

Entheonurse.com

Win a signed copy of The Microdosing Guidebook: A Step-by-Step Manual to Improve Your Physical and Mental Health through Psychedelic Medicine here!

Wmtw.com: ‘Zombie’ drug Spice worsening Maine epidemic, officials say

The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys, by James Fadiman, Ph.D.

Journals.sagepub.com: A low dose of lysergic acid diethylamide decreases pain perception in healthy volunteers

Psychedelics Today: Surprising Results: Psilocybin Trial for Depression Alleviates Chronic Pain

Psychedelics Today: PT369 – Chronic Pain and Phantom Limb Pain: Could Psilocybin Be the Answer?, featuring Timothy Furnish, MD & Joel Castellanos, MD

Pubmed: Low doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) increase reward-related brain activity

Nature.com: The Discovery of Serotonin and its Role in Neuroscience

Psychedelics Today: PTSF50 – Microdosing and the Placebo Effect, with Balázs Szigeti and David Erritzoe

Psychedelics Today: PTSF89 – A Macro Dive Into Microdosing

Pubmed: Positive expectations predict improved mental-health outcomes linked to psychedelic microdosing

Madinamerica.com: Irving Kirsch: The Placebo Effect and What It Tells Us About Antidepressant Efficacy

Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, by Irving Kirsch, Ph.D.

Spiritpharmacist.com

Psychedelics Today: PT285 – Andrew Penn, NP – The Need for Nurses in Psychedelics, The Placebo Effect, and Appreciating the Subtle

Maps.org: Notes From a Psychedelic Research Nurse

Grecc.org: Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists, Janis Phelps 2017

Watsoncaringscience.org: Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy Practices and Human Caring Science: Toward a Care-Informed Model of Treatment

Posted on December 30, 2022January 2, 2023

Psychedelics Weekly – Psilocybin and Stress Response, the Minnesota Medical Association Endorses Decriminalization, and Scott Wiener Introduces Senate Bill 58

In this week’s episode, Joe and Kyle are together again before Kyle sets off for a 2-month road trip centered around Vital retreats, where we hope he’ll be able to report in from live while in Jamaica. 

They talk about Vital: applications are open for the April 2023 edition and close in February, so if you have questions, check out the website or attend an upcoming Q+A. And Joe and other members of the team will be at MAPS’ conference in Denver this June (use code PT15 at checkout for 15% off), as well as Cannadelic in Miami this February.  

And for the news, they highlight four stories this week: “Psilocybin induces acute and persisting alterations in immune status and the stress response in healthy volunteers,” showing that, even with a small study, long-term stress response was much lower than the placebo group; The Economist highlighting psychedelic medicines as one of the five stories to watch out for in 2023; the Minnesota Medical Association endorsing the decriminalization of drugs with a 219-34 vote, mimicking the Portugal model and saying that there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that criminal penalties for possession deter drug use; and San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener submitting a new version of his previously denied SB-519 (now SB-58) that no longer includes LSD and MDMA – modeling the more natural medicine model that we’ve seen succeed in other states. As Joe says often, we want everything and we want it now, but every step helps, as we’ve seen with recent posts about people not being sent to prison for the rest of their lives.

Links

Convergence

Vitalpsychedelictraining.com

Vital 2023: Informational Session and Q&A

Microdosing Masterclass: Investigate the history, science, and best practices for safe and effective microdosing

Psychedelicscience.org (MAPS conference, use code PT15 for 15% off)

Medrxiv.org: Psilocybin induces acute and persisting alterations in immune status and the stress response in healthy volunteers

Psychopharmacology in Maastricht’s Twitter thread about this study

Springer.com: Effects of psilocybin on hippocampal neurogenesis and extinction of trace fear conditioning

The Economist: The World Ahead 2023: five stories to watch out for

Awaknlifesciences.com

Yahoo.com: Medicine Innovations Group Announces Closing Under Share Subscription Agreement

Marijuanamoment.net: Minnesota Medical Association Endorses Decriminalizing Drugs

Marijuanamoment.net: New Jersey Senate President Files Psilocybin Legalization Bill That Includes Home Grow Option, Unlike Current Marijuana Law

Sfgate.com: ‘Magic mushrooms’ would be decriminalized in California under new bill

Lawenforcementactionpartnership.org

Instagram: ICEERS’ post about Kat Courtney, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison in the USA for ayahuasca

Cannadelic.miami

Posted on December 27, 2022December 27, 2022

PT379 – Intergenerational Trauma, Late-Stage Capitalism, and the Urban Indigenous Collective

In this episode, David interviews published researcher, social entrepreneur, and internationally recognized Indigenous rights activist: Sutton King, MPH.

In New York City alone, 180,000 people identify as Indigenous, Native American, or Alaskan Native, and this community is facing a disproportionate prevalence of mental health disparities, poverty, suicide, and PTSD due to intergenerational trauma from attempted genocide, forced relocation, and the erasure of culture and identity via boarding schools. Her purpose has become to bring light to what Indigenous people are facing due to being forced to live under a reductionist, individualistic Western approach that is in direct opposition to their worldview.

She talks about growing up being instilled with the importance of ancestry and tradition; why she moved to New York; how psychedelics helped her move through the trauma she felt in herself and saw so commonly in her family tree; and capitalism: how we need to move away from our private ownership, profit-maximalist, extractive model into a steward mentality inspired by the Indigenous voices and principles that have been silenced for so long.

And she lays out all that she’s doing to push these goals forward and help these communities: her work with the Urban Indigenous Collective, Shock Talk, the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, Journey Colab and their reciprocity trust, and even her time last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos. We’re thrilled that she’ll be speaking at our conference, Convergence, this March 30 – April 2.

Notable Quotes

“One of the principles that I always was taught is that Indigenous peoples were always taught to be humble and not to be proud and not to be loud. But I have always felt like that was a way to keep us stagnant, to keep us complacent. So I would say I’m definitely a disruptor of this generation.”

“We are dealing with a burden of poverty, we’re dealing with so much chronic morbidity and mortality, as well and our chronic health. There is a number of different issues that we’re facing as Indigenous peoples. However, I’d also like to highlight how resilient we are as well. To be able to survive genocide, forced relocation, boarding school, and the poor socioeconomic status that many of us face [and] our families face, but continue to be a voice for our communities; continue to be on the front lines, advocating for missing and murdered, advocating for the protection of our land and demanding land back – I see a resurgence.”

“When you look at that skyline of that concrete jungle in New York City, I love to remind folks that it was the Mohawk ironworkers who risked their lives on that skyline, to be able to create the world we see around us. The paths that we walk today [and] the rivers that flow have always been used by the Indigenous peoples who came before us.”

“When we think about the economy and this market, it’s not capital that creates economic growth; it’s people. And it’s not this reductionist, individualistic behavior that’s centered at the core of economic good; it’s reciprocity, and being able to make sure that we have a market and an economy that’s inclusive; that’s bringing in all voices, that’s also considering all voices, all of the different parts of the ecosystem – not to silo people, but to bring everyone together, I think, will be the opportunity of a lifetime to really be able to really enact change.”

Links

Sutton-king.com

Urbanindigenouscollective.org

Imc.fund

Doubleblindmag.com: Why the “Psychedelic Renaissance” is just Colonialism by Another Name

Menominee-nsn.gov

YouTube: The Jingle Dress Dance

Wikipedia: Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Wikipedia: Ingrid Washinawatok (Flying Eagle Woman)

NPR.org: The pope’s apology in Canada was historic, but for some Indigenous people, not enough

Nysenate.gov: Senate Bill S6924A

IHS.gov (Indian Health Service)

Shocktalk.io

Wikipedia: Potlatch

Theseventhgeneration.org: Introducing The Seventh Generation Principle – to Promote True Sustainability

YouTube: TED Talk: The dirty secret of capitalism — and a new way forward (Nick Hanauer)

Bloomberg.com: Forget Burning Man — Psychedelic Shamans Now Heading to Davos

Journeycolab.com

Journeycolab.com: The Journey Colab Reciprocity Trust

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