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Speaker 1: My welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, are you

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with

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Speaker 1: part three of our exploration of psychedelics. These compounds that

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Speaker 1: lead to the mind manifesting experiences which we've been describing

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Speaker 1: in the past couple of episodes. Now, if you're just

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Speaker 1: tuning in, we recommend that you probably should go and

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Speaker 1: check out the previous two episodes. First, this is probably

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Speaker 1: one it's not best to jump in midstream, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a continuous, though at times meandering journey. The history

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Speaker 1: of psychedelics not an all inclusive history, and so we've

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Speaker 1: stressed multiple times, you know, there's no way that we

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Speaker 1: can cover all of the studies, all the curious tidbits

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Speaker 1: of history, all the various um traditional uses of psychedelic substances.

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Speaker 1: So certainly we implore you to to check out some

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Speaker 1: of the sources we've been ation to hear and explore

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Speaker 1: them for yourselves, as well as you know, additional resources. Right,

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Speaker 1: and so in the previous episodes we mentioned some books

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Speaker 1: that have been part of our guides on the way through.

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Speaker 1: I know you've been enjoying some of the works of

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Speaker 1: Terrence McKenna and Michael Pollen as well. Been reading on that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Michael Polland's most recent book, How to Change Your Mind,

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Speaker 1: is a great book about psychedelics that covers a lot

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Speaker 1: of the same ground as some some history, some science,

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Speaker 1: and especially this recent renaissance in psychedelic research and how

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Speaker 1: it there's renewed interest I think since like the early

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Speaker 1: to mid two thousand's, especially about the clinical significance of psychedelics,

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Speaker 1: how they could actually be used to treat mental conditions, addictions,

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Speaker 1: various problems people have, UH, and that they're not just

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Speaker 1: a recreational drug, though there are also plenty of people

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Speaker 1: who would make the case that it might not be

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Speaker 1: a bad thing to use them recreationally. We're we're not

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Speaker 1: going to try to evangelize or demonize either way or

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Speaker 1: recommend that you use them. We just want to be descriptive, right,

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Speaker 1: But we will we will discus us some of these

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Speaker 1: viewpoints that are brought up regarding UH, the beyond medicinal

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Speaker 1: uses of psychedelics, UH and UH as far as the

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Speaker 1: modern stuff, like again we're living in an exciting time

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Speaker 1: when they're they're all these these current studies going on,

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Speaker 1: and we're revealing more and more about how psychedelics can

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Speaker 1: be used to uh to help treat various UH problems,

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Speaker 1: psychological problems, addictions, etcetera. We're probably gonna get into most

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Speaker 1: of that in the following episode. This episode is largely

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Speaker 1: going to deal with some of the original studies that

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Speaker 1: we're taking place, especially in the nineteen fifties. Yeah, uh so, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a thing that comes as a surprise to

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Speaker 1: a lot of people who, you know, if you think

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Speaker 1: about the the origins of the drug war, the counterculture

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Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties, and I don't know, maybe you

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Speaker 1: have some various ideas about the square nineteen fifties, it

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Speaker 1: might come as a shock to you that there was

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Speaker 1: a flourishing body of psychedelic research going on during the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties, especially focusing on LSD

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Speaker 1: and the treatment of things like alcohol is him in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and then later the use of psilocybin

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Speaker 1: and various types of research in the early to mid

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. YEA, Psychedelics did not just emerge from a

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Speaker 1: van at Woodstock and start corrupting the youth of America.

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Speaker 1: Uh Now, now, before we go any further, I do

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Speaker 1: want to take a step back for just a little bit,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to talk about about fun Guy or

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Speaker 1: fungi if you will, Um, just in fungi if you're

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Speaker 1: making a pizza. Isn't that the Italian way to say it.

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Speaker 1: I've also watched like British documentaries where they for for fungi,

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Speaker 1: but I'm I'm more of a fun guy, so I

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Speaker 1: like go like go for I tend to go for

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Speaker 1: fun Guy. Let's go with fun Guy, all right? So, um,

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Speaker 1: I just want to take you a step back and

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Speaker 1: just talk about just how weird and wonderful the entire

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Speaker 1: Kingdom of fun Guy really is. Yeah. Well, and we

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Speaker 1: should say the reason for that, of course, if you've

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Speaker 1: been with us the last two episodes, is that of

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Speaker 1: all the psychedelics that we've looked at, the most focus

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Speaker 1: has been on psilocybin mushrooms, right, and even LSD is

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Speaker 1: derived from urgat, which is a fun Guy. So so

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Speaker 1: that so the the fungal element here is is very

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Speaker 1: rich and second, so yeah, the kingdom fung gui because

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Speaker 1: fungi are their own kingdom. Uh. We often associate them

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Speaker 1: with plants in kind of an informal way. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: but we and they were considered plants of until the

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Speaker 1: later half of the twentieth century. But there's something different,

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Speaker 1: of course. Uh. They're thought to outnumber plants species on

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Speaker 1: a scale of ten to one, and they all descended

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Speaker 1: from a single species that derived from a common ancestor

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Speaker 1: with animals about eight hundred million to nine hundred million

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Speaker 1: years ago. Is it true that, uh, phylogenetically, humans are

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Speaker 1: more closely related to fungi than to plants. I think

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Speaker 1: that's that that is, that is what I have read,

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Speaker 1: and and it's an amazing thing to think about. It's

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Speaker 1: also something that you know, it's that fact that leads

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Speaker 1: some people to wonder about our relationship with fung gui. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know why in some cases we have this uh,

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Speaker 1: this close relationship because ultimately fun guy have a lot

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Speaker 1: more in common with us than they do with plants. Um.

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Speaker 1: And and again that's interesting considering the close relationship who

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Speaker 1: we have with them, and not only us, so there

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Speaker 1: are other animals as well. I mean think that the

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Speaker 1: leaf cutter ants that stand out is one of the

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Speaker 1: most impressive fung gui dependent species due to their practice

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Speaker 1: of fungal agriculture, their mushroom farmers. Yeah, because you think

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Speaker 1: about how humans use fun guy. We've certainly been focusing

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Speaker 1: on psychedelics, but certainly fun guy factor into our cuisine,

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Speaker 1: into our medicines, both in in major ways, but in

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Speaker 1: also in ways we don't you know, major and obvious ways,

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Speaker 1: but also in ways we maybe don't think about as much.

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Speaker 1: Because certainly you think about cooking and mushrooms, you think

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Speaker 1: about culinary mushrooms that you buy at the store, which

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Speaker 1: I love mushrooms one of my favorite ingredients. Yeah, of course,

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Speaker 1: not every edible mushroom can be cultivated. I got to

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Speaker 1: learn about this over the weekend. I went with a

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Speaker 1: lie S servalists on a on a mushroom foraging walk

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Speaker 1: and we get to pick a few different mushrooms that

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Speaker 1: cannot be uh cultivated at least can't be cultivated in

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Speaker 1: a you know, a dependable manner, and got to bring

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Speaker 1: some home and eat them. Is that why chantrell's are

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Speaker 1: so expensive? You can't grow them on a farm. Yeah? Um, well,

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Speaker 1: I forget the exact species you know, but there are

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Speaker 1: several varieties like that where if if local restaurant is

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Speaker 1: serving them, they have to depend on foragers bringing them

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Speaker 1: in and selling them. And so a lot of a

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Speaker 1: lot of foragers, a lot of mushroom enthusiasts kind of

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Speaker 1: pay for their hobby by selling their mushrooms to local restaurants. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, so there's that level. I would obviously we

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Speaker 1: eat them, but they're also you know, ingredients in many

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Speaker 1: different foods, especially modern processed foods, and they're an important part,

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Speaker 1: an essential part of the fermentation process yeast. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: you don't have to be drinking some sort of weird

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Speaker 1: mushroom tea to be partaking of medicinal fun guy, because

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Speaker 1: of course we have penicillin to get it, which you

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Speaker 1: know is I would love to do a future episode

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Speaker 1: of our other podcast, Invention on penicillin because in terms

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Speaker 1: of fungal inventions or discoveries however you want to describe it,

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Speaker 1: like that is that is a major one and and

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Speaker 1: it is totally fun. Guy depended it came from mold growth, right,

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Speaker 1: which of course is a fungus. And then on top

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Speaker 1: of that, you know, we also have we talked about

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Speaker 1: the microbiome a lot, but we also have a microbiome

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Speaker 1: which is a small but significant portion of the human

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Speaker 1: bodies overall microbiome. UH Fungi also play a crucial role

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Speaker 1: in the nutrient exchange of trees, growing around their roots

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Speaker 1: like fungal gloves and exchanging nitrogen for sugars. Uh and

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Speaker 1: this forms the basis of what some researchers call the

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Speaker 1: wood wide web, which is kind of that that's a

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Speaker 1: little too cute. That's a little it's a little too cute,

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Speaker 1: because ultimately it's like really just mind blowingly weird to

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Speaker 1: think about, because we're talking about a fungal network of hype.

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Speaker 1: Remember that a mushroom. We we often think of the

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Speaker 1: mushroom as the thing itself, but the mushroom is just

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Speaker 1: the fruiting body um and the you know, the the

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Speaker 1: spores viewing death emergence of a larger organism. And so

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Speaker 1: the these this network of hi fi underground and growing

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Speaker 1: around the trees and between trees. It allows for the

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Speaker 1: plants to distribute resources such as sugar, nitrogen, and phosphorus,

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Speaker 1: you know, between one tree and another. Uh and by

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Speaker 1: some definitions, this comprises a form of communication these types

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Speaker 1: of thinking can get really psychedelic on their own. Oh absolutely, Um,

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Speaker 1: mycologist Paul stainments, for instance, who did we mention the

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Speaker 1: previous several times? So yeah, he's he's like a mushroom

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Speaker 1: answer for everything. Guy, uh, you know, very important figure

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Speaker 1: and modern mycology. And he's gone so far as to

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Speaker 1: to suggest, according to Michael Pollen in his book, that

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Speaker 1: these networks are in some sense conscious, that they're aware

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Speaker 1: of their environment and they're able to respond to challenges accordingly,

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Speaker 1: and Paul and says that that initially he thought this

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Speaker 1: was mere metaphor you know that clearly statements is just

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Speaker 1: being overly enthusiastic and metaphoric about what's going on with

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Speaker 1: the systems, but that he thinks that growing evidence actually

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Speaker 1: suggested it might be there might be more involved here. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think this depends heavily on just simply what you

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Speaker 1: mean when you use the word conscious, because there I

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Speaker 1: think you can definitely make the case that mushrooms, in

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Speaker 1: very interesting and surprising ways, are aware of their environments,

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Speaker 1: you know, able to respond to to stimuli and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that. I think it would be much harder to

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Speaker 1: make the case that, you know, the thing that we

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Speaker 1: think of as like the hard problem of consciousness, meaning

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Speaker 1: that it is having a subjective experience. There's something that

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Speaker 1: it's like to be the mushroom. H I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: that that's not true, but I don't know what the

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Speaker 1: evidence for that. I think it's much more of a

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Speaker 1: stretch to make that case. Now. On a on a

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Speaker 1: similar similar lines, though, I got to your Eduardo Cone,

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Speaker 1: Associate Professor of Anthropology at McGill University UH speak on

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Speaker 1: basically the same topic at the twenty nineteen World Science Festival.

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Speaker 1: He's the author of a book titled How Forests Think,

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Speaker 1: and he's worked extensively with Amazonian people in his work,

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Speaker 1: especially considering concerning their use of psychedelic substances. But he's

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Speaker 1: focused on the same issue of like the use of

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Speaker 1: fungal networks in the soil within forests as a as

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Speaker 1: a type of communication or even thought. Yeah, he gets

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Speaker 1: into this as well. So just to give you an idea,

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Speaker 1: because it's ultimately, you know, kind of a heady concept,

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Speaker 1: but but it's basically this idea that not that you

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Speaker 1: have non human entities that quote unquote think via an

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Speaker 1: ability to represent, produce and interpret signs interesting and so

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Speaker 1: that this is uh. This is a quote from his

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Speaker 1: book How Forests Think. Quote. Life is a constitutively semiotic.

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Speaker 1: That is, life is through and through the product of

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Speaker 1: sign processes. What differentiates life from the inanimate physical world

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Speaker 1: is that life forms represent the world in some way

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Speaker 1: or another, and these representations are intrinsic to their being.

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Speaker 1: What we share with non human living creatures, then, is

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Speaker 1: not our embodiment, as certain strains of phenomenological approaches would hold,

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Speaker 1: but the fact that we all live with and through signs.

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Speaker 1: We all use signs as canes that represent part of

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Speaker 1: the world to us in some way or another. In

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Speaker 1: doing so, signs make us what we are. Interesting semiotic

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Speaker 1: definition of life. I don't know if I've ever encountered

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Speaker 1: that before. And I took a class on semiotics. Oh yeah, No,

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Speaker 1: I was that kind of Weirdough. Well, I'm very interested

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Speaker 1: in his his thoughts and his work. I'd I'd love

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Speaker 1: to actually see about having him on the show in

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Speaker 1: the future. But like I said, he's worked extensively with

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Speaker 1: Amazonian peoples and explore their use of ayahuasca, and he

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Speaker 1: said that Amazonians use several technologies including psychedelics, but also

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Speaker 1: dreams to connect with the mind of the forest, and

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Speaker 1: he says that these approaches break down the way language

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Speaker 1: tells us what we are. They help them find a

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Speaker 1: path forward, path of healing and problem solving. And he

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Speaker 1: also pointed out that the Shamans of the Amazon like

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Speaker 1: basically have a message for the rest of the world.

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Speaker 1: They want us to know that the world is a

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Speaker 1: living world and that we have to connect ourselves with

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Speaker 1: the mind of the forest to save ourselves from the

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Speaker 1: planetary depression that we are now entering into. And I

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Speaker 1: found this really interesting because this is UH, even though

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Speaker 1: Cone to my knowledge that never mentioned Terence McKinnon his work,

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Speaker 1: but some of this like lines up with the messages

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Speaker 1: that mckinna had in The Food of the Gods and

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Speaker 1: his other work regarding UH. This idea of an archaic revival,

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Speaker 1: a necessary reconvergence with the natural world through psychedelics and

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Speaker 1: UM and at least in mckinna's definition, and overall, you

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Speaker 1: know Bohemian thread of human cultures to save us u

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Speaker 1: from the you know, the doom of a nature deprived,

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Speaker 1: ego driven dominator culture, to save us from silent running. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah in a way. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, there it matches

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Speaker 1: up with this theory. I mean this, uh, this viewpoint

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Speaker 1: of modern life will come back to this that you

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Speaker 1: see this throughout a lot of the a lot of

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Speaker 1: psychedelic literature and also just sort of counterculture nineteen sixties messaging,

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Speaker 1: including Silent Running, which is very much a product of

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Speaker 1: that time, the science fiction film that we've discussed previously

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Speaker 1: on the show. Now Cone mentioned in the world Science

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Speaker 1: Festivally he thinks even our modern fascination with psychedelics maybe

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Speaker 1: a symptom of our disconnection with nature. And he says

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Speaker 1: the solution isn't simply to to you know, take a

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Speaker 1: psyche cadelic substance, but to rather live psychedelically, to live live,

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Speaker 1: to be in the emergent mind. What exactly do you

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Speaker 1: think he meant by that quote to, like, what is

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Speaker 1: the emergent mind being there? Um my understanding, And like

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Speaker 1: I said, perhaps we can get him on the show

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Speaker 1: to discuss these these topics in greater depth. But I

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Speaker 1: think he's he's talking about this basic idea that again

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Speaker 1: you see again and again in the among advocates of

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Speaker 1: psychedelic that there's there's something wrong with modern humans, that

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Speaker 1: we're cut off from each other, that we're we're sort

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Speaker 1: of in these little individual cells of the mind, and

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Speaker 1: we are in many cases have great difficulty in being

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Speaker 1: part of some sort of a larger system. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it maybe a bit elaborate to you know, to

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Speaker 1: think of it. I mean, I don't know if I

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Speaker 1: would I would describe it. And my understanding is like

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Speaker 1: an emergent mind, you know. But but but that's kind

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Speaker 1: of the vibe I get from the idea that like

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Speaker 1: we're we're cut off from each other, that we don't

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Speaker 1: understand each other, we don't understand nature. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're all wrapped up in our own egos, and if

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Speaker 1: we could break through those boundaries, uh, that we would

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Speaker 1: have a better relationship with each other and with the world.

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Speaker 1: Like so often in the world of psychedelics and stuff

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Speaker 1: coming from psychedelic enthusiasts, that that's the kind of statement

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Speaker 1: that is either true, really profound, or extremely banal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I yeah, I get it, because I know

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Speaker 1: a lot of people out there are probably shaking their

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Speaker 1: hands as saying like, well, that just sounds like hippy nonsense,

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Speaker 1: and it's not even new hippie nonsense. It's hippie nonsense

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Speaker 1: I've heard time and time again. But for my own part,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think, yeah, you can be overly optimistic

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Speaker 1: about a lot of this stuff. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: you know, you look at the literature, the scientific literature

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Speaker 1: that that is that shows us and is continuing to

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Speaker 1: show us what psychedelics can do. I think at this

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Speaker 1: point it's you know, it's it's more a question of, like,

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Speaker 1: at what level are psychedelics useful? Uh, you know, is

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Speaker 1: it is it purely in the clinical world, Is it

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Speaker 1: purely among you know, people who are suffering from some

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Speaker 1: condition or another, or does it go beyond that? You know?

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Speaker 1: I I think it depends on who's advocating on where

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Speaker 1: that line should be drawn. I mean, some people draw

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Speaker 1: it all the way at the horizon. Where you draw it,

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Speaker 1: I think it's clearly a source of the conflict that

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Speaker 1: led to the demonization of psychedelics and to the sort

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Speaker 1: of closing of the psychedelic research regime in the in

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Speaker 1: the mid to late nineteen sixties. Right. Yeah, Well, on

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Speaker 1: that note, let's let's go to the nineteen sixties. In fact,

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Speaker 1: let's go to the nineteen fifties. Okay, let's go. Let's

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Speaker 1: go back. In fact, let's go to the nineteen let's

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Speaker 1: do it. I'll take you up, and that we'll go

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Speaker 1: all the way back to the forties. And let's just

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Speaker 1: discuss twentieth century psychedelic research itself. So, as we've discussed,

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Speaker 1: most of these substances are nothing. Humans have used them

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Speaker 1: for thousands of years, and even the synthesized substance LSD,

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Speaker 1: of course is derived from a good fun guy that

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Speaker 1: has been around forever as well. Right, But there was

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Speaker 1: certainly a period of time between Albert Hoffman's nineteen forty

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Speaker 1: three bicycle ride and Nixon's Controlled Substance Act of nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy in which there were tons of studies that examined

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Speaker 1: psychedelics and and and especially LSD in many cases because

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Speaker 1: it was more readily available at the time. One reason, also,

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Speaker 1: I think, is that the pharmaceutical manufacturer that Albert hof

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Speaker 1: On worked for in the nineteen thirties and forties, uh Sandoz,

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Speaker 1: which I guess held the patent on LSD, was just

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Speaker 1: giving it out like candy. Basically, they were I think

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Speaker 1: they were trying to find uses for it and their

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Speaker 1: Their method of doing that was like, well, let's just

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Speaker 1: give it for free to tons of researchers and they'll

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Speaker 1: find a good way to use it. Yeah, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like in the Lorax, the sneed was invented, which

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Speaker 1: everyone needs. Like, if you invented this thing that clearly

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Speaker 1: has some sort of use, but you're not exactly sure

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Speaker 1: how to market it, You're not sure what the the

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Speaker 1: uses for it, you you kind of just let everybody

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Speaker 1: play with it so you can figure out how you're

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Speaker 1: going to make your billions of dollars off of it.

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Speaker 1: But I don't say that to undermine the fact that

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Speaker 1: it really does seem like some researchers were finding extremely

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Speaker 1: promising clinical uses for LSD in the nineteen fifties. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: particularly in how they might be used to treat addiction, depression, UM,

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Speaker 1: obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, autism, and end of life anxiety.

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Speaker 1: So in his book, Michael Pollen chats with Stephen Ross

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Speaker 1: m D at the n y U Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study,

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Speaker 1: which of course comes back to that end of life

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Speaker 1: anxiety question that was explored earlier. I guess we'll explore

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Speaker 1: that more, probably in the next episode. Yeah, we will.

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Speaker 1: But in the book, uh Ross mentions to Pollen that

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Speaker 1: you know, these efforts involved roughly forty research participants in

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Speaker 1: more than a thousand clinical papers. So when we're talking

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Speaker 1: about LSD studies of of the of the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: for instance, you know, we're not talking about where we're

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Speaker 1: gonna highlight a few isolated studies, but we're not talking

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Speaker 1: about like just a study here, study there. You know,

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of research going on. It was huge.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just a blip. Yeah, And initially, reach the

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Speaker 1: researchers thought that LSD and later psilocybin, that they might

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Speaker 1: be used to understand psychosis, as they believe that individuals

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Speaker 1: who are using these substances to play displayed similar thoughts

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Speaker 1: and behavior, And so clinicians also thought that, well, you

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Speaker 1: could take one of these substances yourself and therefore get

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Speaker 1: a taste of what a psychotic episode is like and

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Speaker 1: then be better able to empathize with a patient exactly.

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Speaker 1: And in this vein the same compounds we now refer

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Speaker 1: to as psychedelic were then referred to by many clinicians

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Speaker 1: as psychoto mimetics. Mimicking the state of psychosis, so your

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Speaker 1: therapists could take this in order to understand what you

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Speaker 1: were going through. Now, key figure from this period, uh English, Uh,

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Speaker 1: psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond entered the picture, and he figured that Okay,

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Speaker 1: if you had a substance like mescaline, and if it

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Speaker 1: could if it could induce this sort of symptom, that

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Speaker 1: these sort of symptoms in in a in a human

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Speaker 1: who took it, then perhaps uh, you know, schizophrenia was

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Speaker 1: due to a chemical and balance in the brain, which

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Speaker 1: is kind of you know, ultimately an eye opening hypothesis. Right,

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Speaker 1: If if this substance makes my brain do this, then

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Speaker 1: perhaps what this patient's brain is doing is due to

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Speaker 1: something you know, very chemical in nature as well, something

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Speaker 1: that could be addressed perhaps with another chemical. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, and I think the middle of the twentieth

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Speaker 1: century period was actually a very important time for understanding

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Speaker 1: the role of physical causes in mental phenomena. Like I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, there was of course the rise of Skinnerism

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Speaker 1: like B. F. Skinner and behaviorism, which you can have

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Speaker 1: lots of criticisms about. Maybe it doesn't take into account

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Speaker 1: cognition and the mind and uh, enough about what our

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Speaker 1: thoughts and emotions mean, because it was just about what

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Speaker 1: can we do to control and measure external behaviors because

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Speaker 1: that's the only thing we have access to as scientists.

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Speaker 1: That that might not be the right approach, but it

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Speaker 1: was certainly useful in some ways to kind of clear

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Speaker 1: out I think a lot of the uh, the kind

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Speaker 1: of almost religious, kind of metaphysical baggage that had been

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Speaker 1: coming along for the ride with some versions of psychology

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Speaker 1: up until then, with you know, Freud and Young and

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Speaker 1: all that. Yeah. It so so you know, ultimately we

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Speaker 1: have this this push for biochemical answers to you know,

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Speaker 1: concerning mental issues, and this prepared alls the the the

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Speaker 1: young field of neurochemistry, leading in time to our modern

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Speaker 1: understanding of neurotransmitters and their role in our mental states,

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Speaker 1: leading to the discovery of serotonin and the development of

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Speaker 1: s sr I antidepressant drugs. But then, you know, some

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Speaker 1: also made the connection between the symptoms of psychedelic use

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Speaker 1: and delirium tremens or the d T s Uh. This

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Speaker 1: is of course associated with alcohol abuse, alcoholism, alcohol withdrawal.

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Speaker 1: I think so like if you you're used to extensive

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Speaker 1: alcohol consumption and then somebody stops, they might experience these

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Speaker 1: uh negative symptoms that have been referred to as the

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Speaker 1: delirium tremens. Yeah. So this led to a to the

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Speaker 1: I think by modern from a modern viewpoint, kind of

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Speaker 1: a weird idea, a weird seeming idea that you could

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Speaker 1: use LSD to sort of shock alcoholics into sobriety and

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Speaker 1: so osmond and a gentleman by the name of Abram

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Speaker 1: Hoffer conducted these studies with hundreds I think seven hundred

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Speaker 1: according to pollen uh alcoholics, and they found it effective

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Speaker 1: roughly half the time. You mean using LSD to treat alcoholics. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: And this particular study, by the way, was one of

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Speaker 1: the ones that caught the eyes of Stephen Ross decades

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Speaker 1: later as an example of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics

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Speaker 1: quote buried in plain sight. Um. But anyway, the the

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Speaker 1: original researchers here, they expected that the trips in question,

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Speaker 1: the psychedelic experiences in question, would be essentially just nightmare

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Speaker 1: fuel that would approximate the feelings of the d t s.

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Speaker 1: And this was seemingly based on physicians Sydney Katz's reports

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Speaker 1: that Paul and summarizes as being something like you'd you'd

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Speaker 1: see in an an anti LSD propaganda from the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: just about how it's just just pure nightmare fuel and

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Speaker 1: you know, it was running from demons sort of a thing. Um.

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Speaker 1: But of course what happened is that they gave a

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Speaker 1: court in their study anyway, that they found that when

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Speaker 1: they gave these substances to people, they reported all manner

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Speaker 1: of things, beautiful things. Even so, there was definitely some anxiety,

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Speaker 1: some depression, some hallucination uh in individuals when they were

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Speaker 1: administered psychedelics, but most reported feelings that were described as

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Speaker 1: transcendental in nature, so that, for instance, an ability to

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Speaker 1: see one's self objectively, almost as if for the first time.

425
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 1: And so this would seem to be the experience or

426
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:29,960
Speaker 1: this was possibly an experience that was was playing a

427
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 1: role in them then being able to cease their addiction.

428
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: And of course, outside of the black box of experience,

429
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: the research results spoke for themselves and indicated that, you know,

430
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:42,959
Speaker 1: something was working here. So this opened up the idea

431
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:45,639
Speaker 1: that there was something more to the experience and that

432
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 1: it might be utilized as a treatment method. Now I

433
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 1: know it was especially in Canada that that LSD treatment

434
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,120
Speaker 1: for alcoholism was picked up, and I think I think

435
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,159
Speaker 1: this one, this particular study was in Saskatchewan, I believe. Yeah, well,

436
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 1: I think that was where Humphrey Osmond was based for

437
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:05,679
Speaker 1: a long time. But that another thing I think to

438
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: make clear is that it's it's not thought that just

439
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: giving somebody the drug triggers a change in the body

440
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: that defeats alcoholism. That that there's something important going on

441
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:22,159
Speaker 1: by about the nature of the experience that people have

442
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 1: on psychedelics that contributes to their recovery and and staying

443
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: sober over time. Right right, Yeah, this sort of this

444
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: metaphorical shaking of the snow globe, as as some call it,

445
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: is playing a role in allowing, uh, some sort of

446
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 1: you know, curative therapy to take place. Now, I should

447
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: point out that in terms of this particular study, later

448
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: on in the early sixties, the Addiction Research Foundation in

449
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 1: Toronto set out to replicate these results with better controls,

450
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: and they failed to reproduce the you know, the same

451
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: robust results. Uh, And this ended up giving fuel to

452
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: critics of of LSD, but also porters again stressed the

453
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: importance of set and setting, right, I mean, this is

454
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: something that I guess we'll come back to the sentiment,

455
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: so all, I'll save my tangent here for later. But yeah,

456
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 1: we'll put a pin in that and just know that

457
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: we're gonna come back to the importance of set and

458
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:15,360
Speaker 1: setting in research. But but still there there was enough

459
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 1: going on here that people were very encouraged, and by

460
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: the by the end of the nineteen fifties, LSD was

461
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 1: considered like a miracle cure for alcohol addiction. A lot

462
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: of people were excited about it, and Paulin points out

463
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: that one of the people that it was that ended

464
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: up getting excited about it was none other than Bill Wilson,

465
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: co founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Yeah, who who incidentally created

466
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,959
Speaker 1: credited his own sobriety to a life changing mystical experience

467
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 1: he had on on belladonna, which also has psychoactive properties

468
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: and was used in a treatment in treatment at Town's

469
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: Hospital in New York City in nineteen thirty four. That's

470
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: when when he had the substance as part of the treatment.

471
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 1: And so you can see that in a lot of

472
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 1: the Alcoholics Anonymous messaging, like the idea of the the

473
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:04,880
Speaker 1: idea of acknowledging a higher power, you know. I think

474
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: a lot of times people just interpret that as a

475
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: more traditional kind of like, you know, you need a

476
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: religion or something, especially if you're meeting in a church

477
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: basement or you know, or something. Yeah. But in fact,

478
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,479
Speaker 1: it seems like this has something to do with the

479
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: common kinds of mystical experiences that people have on psychedelics,

480
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 1: where they, you know, they commune with some kind of

481
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 1: reality greater than themselves. They believe that they've encountered some

482
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 1: other being or some universal consciousness or the universe itself.

483
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: It might have something to do with the ego dissolution

484
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: that sometimes people experience on psychedelics. Wilson, by the way,

485
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: would later try LSD with some researchers in l A.

486
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,160
Speaker 1: And he actually thought that it might prove very useful

487
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: in treating alcoholism, and that that it might even have

488
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: a place in a A. But others in the in

489
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: the organization struck down this idea, you know, for for

490
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: a few different reasons, one of which being that it

491
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: would perhaps m the like the messaging of the organization itself, right, like,

492
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:07,880
Speaker 1: you know, that you would turn to another chemical um. Yeah,

493
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: And so for a time LSD assisted psychotherapy was considered

494
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: a powerful, legitimate and evidence based method for treating alcoholism

495
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: in Canada. Definitely, But maybe we should take a break

496
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: and then when we come back we can discuss some

497
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: problems with scientific research on psychedelics. Thank thank Alright, we're

498
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,439
Speaker 1: back now. I think this is a good place to

499
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: start discussing the fact that there are widely acknowledged inherent

500
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 1: difficulties with doing rigorous scientific experiments on the effects of psychedelics.

501
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:44,239
Speaker 1: And so one of these problems is the problem with

502
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: placebo control. Now, normally when you want to test and

503
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: see if a new drug works, you need to do

504
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 1: a placebo controlled test. You have to do this if

505
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:58,439
Speaker 1: you want to sort out specific pharmacological efficacy versus the

506
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 1: placebo effect, you know, the effect that uh sometimes people

507
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: who are given a treatment, even if the treatment doesn't

508
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: have active ingredients, just the fact that they think they're

509
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: being treated appears to cause uh a feeling that their

510
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: condition has improved. They will report less, fewer negative symptoms

511
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: or something like that. So, yeah, I imagine you give

512
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 1: a hundred people a new anti nausea drug and then

513
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: fifty of them report their nausea going away. Was it

514
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: because the compound in the pill relieves nausea fifty of

515
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: the time, or could much shore all of that response

516
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: just be due to the placebo effect people thinking that

517
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: they're being treated. So if you placebo control your drug

518
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: trial to find out if there's a difference, subjects get

519
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: randomly sorted into multiple groups, with one group getting the

520
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: actual drug being tested and one group getting a pill

521
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: that has no active ingredients, then you might be able

522
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: to get a better idea. If the group who receives

523
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: the drug gets significantly more of a desired outcome than

524
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: the placebo group, then you can have confidence that the

525
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: drug probably actually works. So if you wanted to run

526
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: a placebo controlled test of whether, say, psilocybin helps people

527
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: kick in alcohol addiction and then stay sober for six months,

528
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: you'd want to run a test with people who actually

529
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: get psilocybin versus people who think that they might be

530
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 1: getting it but are actually getting a placebo. So why

531
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: is this a problem with psychedelics, Well, that's because of

532
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: the next issue, which is blinding. Uh So the thing

533
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 1: you've got to do to have an effective placebo controlled

534
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: test is blinding and double blinding. This is to avoid

535
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: response biases from subjects and from the people who are

536
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: carrying out the test. You have to blind the experiment,

537
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: meaning subjects don't know which group they're in, and the

538
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: people working with the subjects to conduct the experiment don't

539
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: know who's in what group. Psychedelics make this hard because

540
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: most of the time you can definitely tell whether you've

541
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: received a large dose of psilocybin versus a placebo. Right,

542
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 1: I mean, even even if the individual, the test subject

543
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: in question, and has no experience of psychedelic use, there's

544
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: a very good chance that they have been exposed to

545
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:10,719
Speaker 1: some representation of it, some expectation of what the uh,

546
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: the the the the experience is going to be like,

547
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: just through media and culture. Yeah. Well, and the effect

548
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: of the drug tends to be so powerful on the

549
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: mind that it's nearly impossible for you to think, like, no,

550
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 1: I didn't get anything. I mean no, Like if if

551
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 1: you are becoming a Comets tale of disembodied consciousness, you

552
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: watch your ego dissolve like sugar and a stream, you're

553
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: probably part of the active test group. Right. But but yeah,

554
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: even but even if the effects are not that strong,

555
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: if the dosage is lower, like it will be undeniable. Yeah,

556
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe not always because some people are very suggestible,

557
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: you know, But but the majority of the time people

558
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: are going to be able to tell what group they're in. Furthermore,

559
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: the experiment ers can usually tell if the subject they're

560
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: working with is on LSD or psilocybin versus a placebo,

561
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: like if you know, people who are on these drugs

562
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: tend to act a certain way that's pretty different than

563
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 1: people who are just getting a sugar pill. Now, there

564
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 1: are some ways of making this a little bit better.

565
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: For example, you can use an active placebo, which is

566
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: a placebo that does something to the body that the

567
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: subject will be able to sense. One example that has

568
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: been used in historical research is niacin, which causes physiological

569
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: effects like flushing of the face and tingling in the body.

570
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: But still a lot of subjects and experimenters can probably

571
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: still pretty easily tell the difference between if you've gotten

572
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: a large dose of psilocybin or LSD versus niacin. So

573
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: you still are going to have this blinding problem. But

574
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: then there's another problem that makes it worse, a problem

575
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: with conducting psychedelic research the same way you would conduct

576
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: other drug research. And that is as we mentioned a

577
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: minute ago, the importance of set and setting, And I

578
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: remember it was in the first episode, I think, where

579
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: we talked mostly about the importance of set and setting. Uh,

580
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: people's takeaways from psychedelic assisted therapy seem hugely dependent on

581
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: their expectations on the environment and on the guide. Yeah.

582
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: I think it was a Poulin who pointed out that

583
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: really the only person to ever take LSD without any

584
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: expectations of what it might consist of was Albert Hoffman himself. Yeah,

585
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: because he took it by accident and nobody knew what

586
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: it was yet. Yeah, that's funny. But I mean it's

587
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: clearly true that people's experiences on these drugs are highly

588
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: dependent on on priming and on stimuli from around them

589
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: and what they're told going in and all that kind

590
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: of stuff. Yeah, like, for instance, just maintaining a very

591
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 1: like calm therapeutic in a physical environment, having people interact

592
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: with you, you know, the researchers in question in a

593
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: likewise manner, that sort of thing. In other words, I

594
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: would say, to get the most clinical use and the

595
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 1: most positive effects out of these drugs, it seems like

596
00:32:56,960 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: you specifically want to do the opposite it of what

597
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: you normally do in a drug trial. You explicitly do

598
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: want to bias the subject's expectations and interpretations of their

599
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: drug experience in a way that suggests it will help

600
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: them with their problems. Yeah. So basically, yeah, if you're

601
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: doing a psilocybin study in which the individuals taking psilocybin

602
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: are going to be laying on a beam bag jair

603
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: for instance, listening to some ambient music and attended to

604
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: by you know, you know, very courteous therapists, you would

605
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: have to have the same situation going on with the

606
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 1: placebo group, and in doing that you have all of

607
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: these like situational effects that may well create like something

608
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: kind you know, certainly not the psychedelic experience itself, but

609
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 1: some sort of comforting, suggestible, um uh situation. But this

610
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: has also been invoked to explain some of the differences

611
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: in like some of the replication difficulties that people have

612
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 1: had with psychedelic experiments, because sometimes, you know, people in

613
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: these experiments are given psychedelics with a certain kind of

614
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 1: set and setting, and then the replication attempt it just

615
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: sort of gives them the psychedelics, but doesn't replicate the

616
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: set and setting and finds that, oh, in this in

617
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: this study that didn't replicate the original set and setting,

618
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: people are not getting nearly as positive a benefit. Uh,

619
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: And that just seems to show again how dependent the

620
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: experience is on set and setting. Well, it comes back

621
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: to like what the substance does that you know, and

622
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: these even these early researchers, they they you know, pretty

623
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: early on, we're convinced that it was not something that

624
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: the substance was doing to the body. It was what

625
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: it was the mind state it was creating. Exactly what

626
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 1: could be gain from that mindset. Yes, psychedelics seem to

627
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: be in into whatever extent that they are effective at

628
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: helping people and have clinical significance. They seem to be

629
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: more a facilitator of experiences than a direct action drug.

630
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: It's not that you take psilocybin and the compound curious

631
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: your alcoholism, but that taking psilocybin allows you to have

632
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 1: an experience of profound emotional significance that helps people overcome alcoholism.

633
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:10,399
Speaker 1: It seems it's the experience that actually matters. So just say,

634
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 1: locking somebody in a sterile, uncomfortable white room, giving them

635
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: a shot of psilocybin without a therapist or guide present

636
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: is maybe not a very good recipe for getting the

637
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 1: most positive effects out of the drug. But this is

638
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: frustrating if you're like, you know, if you're used to

639
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: running drug tests, because it seems that when psychedelics have

640
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 1: a clinical significance, it is in some ways similar to

641
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: an active placebo. It just appears to be an extremely

642
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: effective active placebo. So yeah, there have been these kind

643
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 1: of difficulties over the years. Like I'd say, the bottom

644
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 1: line is that objective research is so important in medical science,

645
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 1: but the standard methods that we have for objective research

646
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: don't apply especially well to psychedelics, and some methods of

647
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: achieving objectivity appear to directly counteract the most powerful clinical

648
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:03,240
Speaker 1: potentials of the compounds. Another problem we could talk about

649
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 1: from the history of psychedelic research is not a systematic

650
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: methodological obstacle, but it's more like a historical trend that

651
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 1: you know, we're not alone in observing other people who

652
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: observe this, which is that I would say, due to

653
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 1: the unique properties of these drugs, a lot of researchers

654
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: who focus on this subject area appear over time to

655
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: tend to lose objectivity and become more endorsers and enthusiasts

656
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: than objective scientists just trying to find out what's true. Well,

657
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 1: I mean, and I don't know to what extend. It's

658
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: a lot of them, but I guess the problem is

659
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 1: that the ones who do become certainly more noticeable voices

660
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: are often the loudest. Right now, and again, I want

661
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: to be clear, I'm not saying all people, all scientists

662
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: who work with psychedelics to this or maybe not, probably

663
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: not even most, but but but some significant numbers do

664
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: follow this path, right and and and and again, their

665
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: voices are the loudest. And in terms of loud the

666
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: psychedelic voices, few voices were louder than Timothy Learies. Um. So,

667
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: like one example of of of what you're talking about

668
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: here Timothy Leary's work on the Harvard psilocybin project in

669
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 1: the early sixties. Uh. Some of Lear's methodology there was

670
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 1: highly criticized, and it basically seems like he was intentionally

671
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: biasing the experiments to make psychedelics seem more clinically useful. Uh.

672
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,919
Speaker 1: You know, which is a shame because the research does

673
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: actually suggest that they're useful. It's just the uh, you know,

674
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: he was being hasty. He was being hasty, he was

675
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: taking shortcuts for example. UM. An example of this is

676
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:41,839
Speaker 1: the Concord prison experiment, which was aimed at studying recidivism

677
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: and inmates that were administered psilocybin, and uh, you know,

678
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:48,359
Speaker 1: this is basically the ideas like if you give them psilocybin, like,

679
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: how are they going to successfully transfer into uh, you know,

680
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:55,879
Speaker 1: back into normal everyday life or are they gonna wind

681
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 1: up in back in the prison system again? And so

682
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 1: he uh, you know, it sounds like a pretty interesting premise,

683
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: but then the execution was flawed. He looked at recidivism

684
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 1: rates ten months after release for the psilocybin takers, but

685
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: thirty months later for the control group. And of course

686
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: time is vital in all this because you're dealing with

687
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: somebody like returning to life. Uh, and so like the

688
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: I mean not just like month to month, but like

689
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: day to day, week to week is vital in any

690
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: kind of study having to do with recidivism. You know,

691
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,479
Speaker 1: you know because like the first day back, you know, what,

692
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,240
Speaker 1: what's somebody doing there be a visiting family or whatever.

693
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 1: It's it's the as the days go by, as the

694
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: weeks go by, as the months go by, they're gonna

695
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: have to potentially deal with greater temptation and he and

696
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 1: he was widely criticized by colleagues at the time for this. Yeah,

697
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: Richard Alpert, who was also known as Ramdas, would later

698
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 1: explain that, you know that the aim of the project

699
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: was solid and had a reasonable therapeutic model, but would

700
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 1: it would but it would have required long term application

701
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: and study, and Leary just didn't have the patients for

702
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 1: long term studies. Ultimately, this is something you see throughout

703
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: Leary's life. You know, this restlessness, this lack of patients, passion,

704
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: but then a tendency to rush things. And it's almost

705
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: like he had more system one thinking, you know, the

706
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: system to thinking. And of course, uh, this is not

707
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: the preferable balance for serious scientific inquiry right now. There

708
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 1: was another classic experiment from the golden years of psychedelic

709
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: research in the nineteen fifties and early sixties, and this

710
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 1: one I think we should look at for a minute

711
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: that this was done under the supervision of Timothy Leary's

712
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: Harvard psilocybin project, But it wasn't, I think directly carried

713
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: out by Leary. It was directly carried out by a

714
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:43,320
Speaker 1: guy named Walter Panky. And this was the nineteen sixty

715
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: two experiment with the use of psilocybin to occasion mystical

716
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: experiences that were subjectively perceived as positive and valid by

717
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:55,280
Speaker 1: religious people. And this is sometimes known as the Marsh

718
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: Chapel experiment or the Good Friday experiment because it took

719
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: place on Good Friday, nine seen sixty two. So Walter

720
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,720
Speaker 1: Pankey at the time was a divinity student at Harvard

721
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: Divinity School. And the basic details went like this, So

722
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 1: you had twenty divinity students in the Boston area and

723
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: each got an injection before a Good Friday Service at

724
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: the Marsh Chapel of Boston University. Half got psilocybin, half

725
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: got an active placebo, which was niacin. And remember Nia's

726
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: intends to cause flushing and tinkling, so they would feel

727
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: something going on. And the basic findings were that the

728
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: students in the test group overwhelmingly reported positive and in

729
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: some cases, life changing religious experiences, and some later rated

730
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 1: this experiment Good Friday Service day as among the most

731
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: profound and significant experiences of their lives. But there were complications.

732
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: One subject on psilocybin had some kind of episode which

733
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 1: involved trying to leave the chapel to proclaim a religious message,

734
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 1: and he had to be tranquilized with thorazine. I think

735
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: they backed off with the franquilizing people with thorazine after

736
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: this experiment. And these were they These were the researchers,

737
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: not like the old church ladies right, who may also

738
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: keep thorazine on hand the pastor tranquilizing and so I

739
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: was like, I was wondering, you know, how did this

740
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 1: experiment hold up over time? What do people think looking

741
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 1: back on it. There have been some later attempts to

742
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: analyze and follow up on the experiment. One was by

743
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,399
Speaker 1: Rick Doblin of of maps uh an organization. I don't

744
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: know if we've mentioned already, but I think you'll refer

745
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: to later. Yeah, it's the Multi Disciplinary Association for Psychedelic

746
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: Studies and they're they're involved in a number of research

747
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 1: efforts and involving psychedelics and also m D M a UM.

748
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,720
Speaker 1: By the way, they also are involved in something called

749
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: the Zendo Project, which aims to promote proper psychedelic peer support,

750
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: especially for individuals, especially first timers who are having a

751
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: difficult trip. So I think they've like set up operations

752
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: that um major cultural festivities such as Burning Man before.

753
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 1: But I think this is a really in our project.

754
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 1: I like to see how it develops because I think

755
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: it's an important step. If you know, we're going to

756
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 1: see decriminalization of psychedelic substances in the United States, Oh yeah,

757
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: I mean this is something we should continue to explore

758
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 1: more as we go on. But I think, um, the

759
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:19,959
Speaker 1: idea of having the proper guides who know what they're

760
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: doing is and is a very important part of what

761
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,879
Speaker 1: might be considered legitimate psychedelic use. I mean, a lot

762
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: of the research on the clinical significance of psychedelic so

763
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: we should really stress is not just giving somebody a

764
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: compound and then leaving them alone, right, you know it is.

765
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:42,760
Speaker 1: It is psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. So you might have a guide,

766
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist or a psychologist or somebody who is experienced

767
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 1: in working with people. The therapist of some kind who

768
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: either like guides you through the experience itself or sort

769
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: of holds the space with you while you have your

770
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: experience and then later helps you talk through it and

771
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 1: go through the integration SSS. I think the idea of

772
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: having positively socially chaperoned and uh and sort of like

773
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 1: expert guided psychedelic experiences is a very important thing that

774
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 1: shouldn't be under emphasized, and it's present in a lot

775
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,439
Speaker 1: of the traditional uses of psychedelics, Like when we talked

776
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: about the traditional uses with the curanderas in southern Mexico.

777
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: I mean that this wouldn't be you just take a

778
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 1: drug out in the void by yourself. I mean you

779
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: would be guided by someone who is a is a

780
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: religious leader. You would have a shaman and in these uh,

781
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: these test cases, you would have a therapist or you know,

782
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: or a researcher that was that was filling in for

783
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 1: that role. And then outside of the you know, the

784
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:43,920
Speaker 1: traditional usage or the research or medicinal or psychotherapist usage,

785
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: there is still room for an individual like that, like

786
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: somebody that is guiding the experience and setting and attending

787
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: to set and setting. Yeah. Oh, but so that was

788
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 1: important to mention, but we did get sidetracked, so I

789
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: we're talking about Dublin. Yeah. Well, the follow up and

790
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: analysis of the Origin Channel marsh Chapel experiment from nineteen

791
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: sixty two. Rick Doblin followed up on it in the

792
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and he made some criticisms of the original

793
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 1: studies methodology, Like he pointed out that there were the

794
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: problems you would expect with double blinding that we already

795
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, um there were some imprecise questions and

796
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: the questionnaire given to subjects to evaluate their experience, and

797
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: a few other things, like the original study failed to

798
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: report the fact that one participant had to be tranquilized,

799
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: so it seems like something you probably should have mentioned.

800
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: And there was also the fact that, while on the

801
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: whole the students viewed their mystical experiences on psilocybin as

802
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,720
Speaker 1: very positive and profound, many of them struggled with intense

803
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: bouts of fear and difficulty and negative emotions at some

804
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: point over the course of their trips, and this probably

805
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: should have been reported in more detail than it was,

806
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: though the experiences were positive overall, but also so. Dublin

807
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: conducted a twenty five year follow up with some of

808
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: the seminary students from the original study, and he confirmed

809
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: that they reported sustained profound positive effects from their religious

810
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 1: experiences with psilocybin. And I think it's really notable of

811
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: the marsh Chapel experiment that this was not like so

812
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,240
Speaker 1: many of the studies that came before, research into how

813
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 1: to treat people's problems like addictions or mental illness, but

814
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,800
Speaker 1: to use psychedelics in a way to enhance the experience

815
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: of so called healthy normals. This was a case where

816
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: you know, these people weren't like suffering and needing a treatment.

817
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:34,399
Speaker 1: It was like, could they have a profound religious experience

818
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: that they deemed valid on with the aid of these substances.

819
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,360
Speaker 1: And the answer appears to be yes. But that's a

820
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: very different question than most drug trials investigate, right right, Yeah,

821
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,439
Speaker 1: I mean generally it is it is with the aim

822
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: of curing a particular malady, of seeing if something that

823
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 1: those substances useful in treating a particular condition or symptoms.

824
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 1: But this is more about, if anything, it's about treating

825
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 1: the human condition itself, right, Uh, seeing what effect it

826
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,479
Speaker 1: could have on just sort of baseline human experience. Yeah,

827
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 1: And I think maybe we should take another break and

828
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: then come back and explore that concept a little more

829
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:16,280
Speaker 1: than all right, so we sort of know the general

830
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: outline of what happened in the mid nineteen sixties. There

831
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: was this significant backlash to what had been for a

832
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 1: while now, at least a decade and a half of interesting,

833
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 1: in some ways very promising psychedelic research. But by nineteen

834
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 1: seventy or so, drugs were public Enemy number one and

835
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: scientific research in them dropped off dramatically, encountered a lot

836
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: of obstacles at that point, and it's only more recently

837
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: that we've seen this renaissance of of psychedelic research. So

838
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 1: I guess we might want to look at a question

839
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: of like, and this is something that's hard to answer

840
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: in a definitive way, but examining some possible reasons for

841
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: the cause of the moral panic around psychedelics in the

842
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 1: mid nineteen sixties. First of all, I think some of

843
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: it you could chalk up to a somewhat legitimate reaction

844
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: to the perceived over enthusiasm of people like Timothy Learies,

845
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 1: some of the scientists involved in psychedelic research. We're clearly

846
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: not practicing the most rigorous subjective science, and we're in

847
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: some cases turning into enthusiasts and gurus, something more like

848
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: alternative religious leaders. And it's not surprising at all that

849
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 1: this caused a lot of skepticism and and uh and

850
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 1: push back within the scientific community. Right, yeah, because here's

851
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: here's the leary, this kind of weird and at times

852
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 1: kind of goofy character, um and and at times very

853
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: profound and well spoken. I mean he was, he was

854
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: a very charismatic guy. But you can you can understand

855
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 1: I think, you know, especially members of the older generation

856
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: and more traditional folks, uh, being a little suspicious of

857
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,399
Speaker 1: this character. Yeah. Another big part of the backlash I think,

858
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 1: which Paullen definitely acknowledges at length in his book, is specifically,

859
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:01,800
Speaker 1: this is what we were talking about before the break,

860
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: how scary it seemed that some psychedelic enthusiasts were recommending

861
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: psychedelics to so called healthy normals, you know, just regular people.

862
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 1: Like the ideas, well, we're going to tolerate a lot

863
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 1: of different methods of treating people who are facing problems,

864
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:23,319
Speaker 1: people who have mental illnesses or addictions. Uh. And many

865
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 1: of these solutions could include drugs, even drugs that have

866
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 1: a potential for abuse, because we think, well, it's you know,

867
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 1: it's fighting a problem and it's helping people get better.

868
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,799
Speaker 1: But what if a drug implies that the whole of

869
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 1: society is sick and there's something wrong with the baseline

870
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: culture that's so called normal people could benefit from using

871
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: it to affect change on themselves. Yeah, I mean it's

872
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: quite a pilled, a hard pill to swallow, you know,

873
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: to to hear, oh, there's something there's something terribly wrong

874
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:56,719
Speaker 1: with us, or there's something terribly wrong with the way

875
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: we're conducting ourselves in the modern world. I mean, this

876
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: continues to be one aspect of you know, of the

877
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 1: problem with communicating the you know, the the dire threat

878
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 1: of climate change is because there is a certain amount

879
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: of judgment to be placed on the way that that

880
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: modern industrial society has conducted itself. Well, yeah, I think

881
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean, there's always going to be negative

882
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 1: reaction against any indictment that goes to our general way

883
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 1: of life. Like we we want to indict you know,

884
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:32,240
Speaker 1: antisocial abnormality, like the murderer or the you know, somebody

885
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: who did something very unusual. But what if everybody is

886
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 1: doing something that's harmful. If if that's the case you

887
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 1: want to make, you're gonna have a hard time getting

888
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 1: people to accept it. Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah, I mean ultimately nobody,

889
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna want. Everybody is afraid of change. And certainly

890
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:50,759
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties were a time and where there in

891
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: which there was a great fear of various changes, not

892
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:57,719
Speaker 1: only the changes that were uh you know, offered or

893
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 1: at least advertised by you know, the psychedelic counterculture, but

894
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 1: also the fear of change via uh, political ideologies, the

895
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: fear of communism, the fear of racial integration. Uh, you know,

896
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,320
Speaker 1: all these various changes that were uh, that we're taking

897
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 1: place in society. Yeah, and so you can definitely see

898
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 1: why there's a lot of fear around the idea of

899
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 1: treating normality. So Altice Huxley and Humphrey Osmond they you know,

900
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: we're friends and wrote back and forth to each other

901
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. Uh. And there there was one

902
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: letter that was quoted in Pollen's book that I thought

903
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: was interesting where Huxley was writing to Osmond in nine

904
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: about people taking compounds like mescal and an LSD, and

905
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: Huxley wrote, quote, people will think that they are going mad,

906
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: when in fact they are beginning when they take it

907
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: to go sane. And also, as Pollen notes from his experience,

908
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:53,799
Speaker 1: researching the book, that there's this quote drift from the

909
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: treatment of individuals with psychological problems to a desire to

910
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:03,520
Speaker 1: treat the whole of society. And uh, this drift, he says,

911
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: is a change that quote seems eventually to infect everyone

912
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: who works with psychedelics, touching scientists too, And so I

913
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 1: think everyone there is probably an overstatement. I think he's

914
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: you know, being a little casual, but it does seem

915
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 1: to me to be a startling trend, maybe one that

916
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 1: should give us pause. I don't know, I mean, it's

917
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:25,839
Speaker 1: worth considering that. But like how many scientists involved in

918
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:30,839
Speaker 1: the UH in the investigation of psychedelics do end up

919
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:34,359
Speaker 1: thinking that it shouldn't just be used to treat people

920
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 1: in a clinical setting who are experiencing one problem or another,

921
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:41,359
Speaker 1: but it's something that so called healthy normals should take

922
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 1: to improve their lives and improve the whole of society. Well,

923
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:48,439
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it comes back to the traditional uses

924
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: of these substances. In many cases they were they were

925
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: not necessarily taken purely as as as medicine for an ailment.

926
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 1: But in any case, it's just part of you know,

927
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 1: your continued uh, you know what will would we describe

928
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:03,399
Speaker 1: now as in a mental health Uh. Yeah. I mean

929
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 1: that's a good point. And while we certainly don't want

930
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: to demonize these substances, I do think also we should

931
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: be skeptical of of that impulse. I mean, it's worth

932
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: asking the question, is that correct or is that just?

933
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: Is that over enthusiasm based on positive personal experiences that

934
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:23,759
Speaker 1: people have had. Yeah? Yeah, And then I guess you

935
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 1: could also say it's it's kind of like if you're

936
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: if you're acknowledging that they're big, almost impossible problems in

937
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: the world, wicked problems as the uh you know, as

938
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: we often refer to them, things that seem insurmountable, the

939
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: kind of problems that make us, you know, the lead

940
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 1: us to be convinced that surely only you know, the

941
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 1: return of a savior or the interference on by by

942
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: aliens could possibly help us solve Like humans are just

943
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 1: incapable of solving these problems on their own. Then perhaps

944
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 1: we're putting, we might be putting too much stock in

945
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 1: the powers of a psychedelic substance to somehow fix that

946
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: for us on an individual level or a cultural level. Yeah,

947
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:01,399
Speaker 1: I think that a good point of comparison. I mean,

948
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 1: while while we certainly don't want to deny the evidence

949
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,359
Speaker 1: of the potential positive uses of these things, you don't

950
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:10,279
Speaker 1: want to make them a god either. I mean, you

951
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 1: don't want to drift into the miracle cure mentality, because

952
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:16,759
Speaker 1: one a lot of these studies show, quite frankly, is

953
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of potential for psychedelics in

954
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 1: in treating things like addiction and depression and all that.

955
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,359
Speaker 1: But they're not miracle cures. It's not like you know

956
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 1: that this fixes all your problems immediately and then the

957
00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: world's a perfect place. Now, there's another reason that we

958
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 1: can go to to explain the anti psychedelic backlash that

959
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 1: I think is probably the most obvious one, right, the

960
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: countercultural associations with and possible direct effects of psychedelic use.

961
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: Of course, we all know these compounds came to be

962
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:52,920
Speaker 1: associated with rebellion and rejection of mainstream culture and rejection

963
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 1: of political authorities. You know, Timothy Leary would would proclaim

964
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 1: to people that kids who took acid, quote, won't find

965
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: your wars, won't join your corporations. I mean that that's

966
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:07,439
Speaker 1: scary to the authorities, right, You do you think they're

967
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: not going to fight our wars anymore. How are we

968
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 1: gonna how are we gonna fight? They're not gonna be

969
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: a part of corporations. They're not going to found Silicon

970
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:18,239
Speaker 1: Valley corporations in the future. Yeah, well that's funny. I

971
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: mean that turned out not quite to be true. A

972
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: lot of the yeah, a lot of these acid takers

973
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,319
Speaker 1: did turn out to be business leaders. It's obviously not

974
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,760
Speaker 1: a panacea against business. But I did want to quote

975
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: a couple of sections from Pollen that I thought were very,

976
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:35,239
Speaker 1: very smart on this part. So first, the first one

977
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:38,800
Speaker 1: is where Paullen said, quote LST truly was an acid,

978
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 1: dissolving almost everything with which it came into contact, beginning

979
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 1: with the hierarchies of the mind, the super ego, ego,

980
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: and unconscious, and going on from their to society's various

981
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:53,520
Speaker 1: structures of authority. And then two lines of every imaginable kind,

982
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:58,760
Speaker 1: between patient and therapist, research and recreation, sickness and health,

983
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:03,040
Speaker 1: self and other, subject and object, the spiritual and the material.

984
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 1: If all such lines are manifestations of the Apollonian strain

985
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:11,880
Speaker 1: in Western civilization, the impulse that erects distinctions, dualities, and

986
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:17,440
Speaker 1: hierarchies and defends them. Then psychedelics represented the ungovernable Dionysian

987
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:21,440
Speaker 1: force that blithely washes all those lines away. That's beautiful,

988
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 1: and that comes back to Terence mckinna's definition of them

989
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: is boundary dissolving. Yeah, and I think that's largely correct

990
00:55:28,080 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: based on everything we've read. But another passage that I

991
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 1: thought was very interesting about this counterculture backlash is uh.

992
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,360
Speaker 1: It goes like this quote. For what other time in

993
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:42,440
Speaker 1: history did a society's young undergo a searing right of

994
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:47,800
Speaker 1: passage with which the previous generation was utterly unfamiliar. Normally,

995
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 1: rites of passage helped knit societies together, as the young

996
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: crossover hurdles and through gates erected and maintained by their elders,

997
00:55:56,440 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 1: coming out on the other side to take their place

998
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:02,080
Speaker 1: in the community of adults. Not so with the psychedelic

999
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: Journey of the nineteen sixties, which at its conclusion dropped

1000
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:10,160
Speaker 1: its young travelers onto a psychic landscape unrecognizable to their parents.

1001
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:13,240
Speaker 1: That this won't ever happen again is reason to hope

1002
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 1: that the next chapter in psychedelic history won't be quite

1003
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 1: so divisive. Well, I mean it won't happen quite the

1004
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:22,200
Speaker 1: same way again. But as Paul himself points out, like

1005
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:27,200
Speaker 1: he grew up in the dark times of of you

1006
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:30,120
Speaker 1: know that he basically grew up in the moral panic period. Yeah,

1007
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 1: so didn't really experiment much with psychedelics when he was younger,

1008
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,320
Speaker 1: and really wasn't until quite recently as as an older

1009
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: man that he was able to really experiment with them

1010
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 1: and understand them in a greater sense. So I feel

1011
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:45,759
Speaker 1: like there are still going to be generational gaps there. Well,

1012
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,160
Speaker 1: that last sentence maybe far too optimistic. I mean, the

1013
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: main part I was thinking about was the beginning of

1014
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 1: this where he points out the idea of rights of

1015
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 1: passage that expand the consciousness. They are supposed to be

1016
00:56:55,640 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: passed on from parents to children. And we've the generations together,

1017
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 1: and if the young acquire a consciousness altering right of

1018
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: passage that the older generations don't have, that can be

1019
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:10,160
Speaker 1: terrifying to the older generations. It's like they're not our

1020
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 1: children anymore. They've been initiated into some other tribe. No,

1021
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:15,640
Speaker 1: I think it's a great point. I mean, yeah, this

1022
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:18,160
Speaker 1: was a new ride of passage that the older generation

1023
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: by and large had no experience with there's one other

1024
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: possible thing going on in the nineteen sixties that I

1025
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 1: think might be worth mentioning, which is and well, maybe

1026
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: we'll get into more detail about these studies in the

1027
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:33,120
Speaker 1: in the next episode. But there are at least a

1028
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:36,440
Speaker 1: couple of studies I've been reading from the last decade

1029
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:39,080
Speaker 1: or so, one from two thousand eleven and one from

1030
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 1: eighteen that are about adult personality change occasioned by use

1031
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:47,360
Speaker 1: of psychedelics. So you've got these various ways of measuring

1032
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: personality traits, and and people might you know, your personality

1033
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: might overtime sort of be in flux, but you know,

1034
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: mostly your traits are going to be pretty set by

1035
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 1: the time you're an adult. You know, you're around a baseline.

1036
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 1: You might hover. But there appears to be some evidence

1037
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 1: that using psychedelics can actually change adults personalities. And so

1038
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: one of the many things that's been observed is that,

1039
00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 1: for example, use of psychedelics appears to increase people in

1040
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 1: a psychological personality trait that's known as openness to experience.

1041
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 1: People who take psychedelics appear to increase in openness, and

1042
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 1: openness is actually a highly socially significant personality trade. Uh,

1043
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:32,720
Speaker 1: It's been associated with all kinds of other things in

1044
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 1: societies in various research, Like openness is highly correlated with

1045
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: with like lack of prejudice and lack of authoritarianism, and

1046
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 1: stuff like appreciation for art and for other cultures and things.

1047
00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:50,720
Speaker 1: I think you'd find the openness personality trait largely associated

1048
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: with like environmentalism and multiculturalism. Yeah, I mean, just if

1049
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:57,000
Speaker 1: nothing else, Like if if you were to become more

1050
00:58:57,160 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: neophilic and you know, uh, you know, attracted to new experiences,

1051
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:04,640
Speaker 1: you become more attractive to travel, and in traveling, you're

1052
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:07,760
Speaker 1: exposed to to uh. I mean, travel itself is kind

1053
00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 1: of I think has a lot to in common with

1054
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 1: psychedelic experience. You know, where you suddenly you're in in

1055
00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 1: a place that is mostly the same but a little different,

1056
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:20,560
Speaker 1: and uh, people around you are different and yet the same,

1057
00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 1: and it forces you to sort of reconsider who you

1058
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 1: are in the whole scenario. So if this is true, yeah,

1059
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:29,560
Speaker 1: that that there are these cascading effects from the use

1060
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: of psychedelics that maybe on a broad scale, say changing

1061
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 1: the personality is of a young generation, especially changing them

1062
00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: in ways that might not be so congenial to you

1063
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 1: if you are Richard Nixon or something that these personality

1064
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 1: changes could be perceived as a direct threat to the

1065
00:59:48,040 --> 00:59:50,840
Speaker 1: polity of the country. Yeah, and that's exactly how Richard

1066
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 1: Nixon saw it. I mean, Richard Nixon is is the

1067
00:59:54,080 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 1: anti psychedelic uh U S president by far? Yeah. I

1068
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 1: mean it's difficult to unravel all this because on one hand,

1069
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:04,360
Speaker 1: you have to you have to sort of try and

1070
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,280
Speaker 1: figure out what the nineteen sixties were, you know, like

1071
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:10,920
Speaker 1: what was the nineteen sixties experience? And certainly you and

1072
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:13,240
Speaker 1: I were not around in the nineteen sixties, so we

1073
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:16,120
Speaker 1: can't attest to it. Um. We do have some listeners

1074
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:18,520
Speaker 1: I know that were and so hopefully we'll hear from

1075
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: from you on it. Um. I remember my my father

1076
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 1: told me once that Jefferson Airplane Somebody to Love captured

1077
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:29,280
Speaker 1: what the sixties felt like. I but I never had

1078
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: a chance to ask him what he really meant by that.

1079
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:33,480
Speaker 1: Maybe he just meant it was an iconic song of

1080
01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:36,480
Speaker 1: the time, which you know it certainly was. Um. But

1081
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:38,920
Speaker 1: I guess that's one of the things with it with

1082
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:41,320
Speaker 1: the sixties. Two is that, like all times, you know,

1083
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 1: the older generation is always going to be concerned with

1084
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:46,000
Speaker 1: what the young generation is doing and how what they're

1085
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:50,919
Speaker 1: doing doesn't reflect your values. Like I can't relate to

1086
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 1: the experience of you know, of grown up uh in

1087
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:57,200
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. Uh. You know, you know, a middle

1088
01:00:57,240 --> 01:00:59,760
Speaker 1: aged person looking at the young generations and things and

1089
01:00:59,760 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: ask what are they doing with psychedelics? Uh? But like

1090
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:05,480
Speaker 1: maybe on some level, I I understand that in regards

1091
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:07,400
Speaker 1: to Pokemon, you know where I'm like, oh I I

1092
01:01:07,440 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 1: had this was not part of my childhood, and yet

1093
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:13,040
Speaker 1: it's highly influential for for for these kids. What am

1094
01:01:13,080 --> 01:01:14,920
Speaker 1: I missing and why should I and to what extent

1095
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 1: should I be afraid of it? Wait? Were you one

1096
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:19,160
Speaker 1: of those preachers going on TV during the Pokemon craze

1097
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:22,360
Speaker 1: saying it was causing devil worship? No? No, but but

1098
01:01:22,520 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 1: I do love that kind of I love the sort

1099
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:28,800
Speaker 1: of mild moral panics like that that there arise out

1100
01:01:28,840 --> 01:01:31,200
Speaker 1: of any new thing, be a Pokemon or Harry Potter.

1101
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:35,960
Speaker 1: I think there was one for Teletubbies. Teletubbies. Yeah, yeah,

1102
01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:38,280
Speaker 1: so so yeah. The fact that there's kind of a

1103
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:40,880
Speaker 1: generational divide and a and a and a moral panic

1104
01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 1: popping up around something like that in and of itself,

1105
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:44,800
Speaker 1: I think just is always going to be the case,

1106
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 1: and we see shades with that. I mean, certainly, I

1107
01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 1: think we have it was we've discussed, we've discussed in

1108
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 1: the show before and will in the future. You know,

1109
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:56,200
Speaker 1: we certainly have some issues with with mobile technology and

1110
01:01:56,200 --> 01:02:01,400
Speaker 1: with social media and the effects that though uh technologies

1111
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 1: are having on culture, and certainly, you know, it can

1112
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:08,440
Speaker 1: lean into some sort of you know, crankiness where we

1113
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 1: look at younger generations and say, oh, they don't even

1114
01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:13,360
Speaker 1: know what it's like without social media. That's our grumpy

1115
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 1: old men issue. Yes, it's the tech. Yeah, uh, but

1116
01:02:17,240 --> 01:02:21,040
Speaker 1: we'll have to come back to that. But but but yeah,

1117
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: the the the older generation looked at the younger generation,

1118
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 1: and they didn't see their values necessarily reflected their values

1119
01:02:29,040 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 1: that had just carried them through a World war and

1120
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:33,800
Speaker 1: of course threatened to carry into one final World war

1121
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:37,640
Speaker 1: as well. And so it makes sense that these typical

1122
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 1: generational concerns would be exasperated by the introduction of something new,

1123
01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 1: or at least new from a Western perspective. There was

1124
01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:49,840
Speaker 1: not only consciousness changing, but but also foreign. And remember

1125
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:53,080
Speaker 1: remember that most anti drug messaging in America has depended

1126
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:57,040
Speaker 1: on xenophobic and or racist messaging. An association was also

1127
01:02:57,080 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: made between uh, psychedelics and radical leftist ideologies, so I

1128
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: think that was very much a factor as well. Well.

1129
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:06,960
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that's interesting, I remember from reading

1130
01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 1: the individual testimonials of the people who were involved in

1131
01:03:09,960 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 1: the marsh Chapel experiment. This is anecdotal, so this is

1132
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:15,160
Speaker 1: only just you know, the happen things they happen to report.

1133
01:03:15,240 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: But I think multiple members of the marsh Chapel experiments

1134
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 1: said that, you know, they had their psilocybin experience and

1135
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 1: it prompted them to go get involved in the civil

1136
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:28,040
Speaker 1: rights movement. Uh so you know which, of course, by

1137
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:31,479
Speaker 1: the you know, the conservative authoritarian, uh you know, white

1138
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:33,800
Speaker 1: ruling class impulse at the time would have probably they

1139
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:37,080
Speaker 1: would have seen that as a political threat. Speaking of

1140
01:03:37,080 --> 01:03:40,280
Speaker 1: political threats, let's get back to Richard Nixon. Okay, So

1141
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon famously considered Timothy Leary quote the most dangerous

1142
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:47,520
Speaker 1: man in America. Okay, and uh and and he apparently

1143
01:03:47,560 --> 01:03:50,960
Speaker 1: his handlers were even concerned at different times that leftists

1144
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 1: might try and slip Nixon lsd Uh. I'm sure somebody

1145
01:03:55,400 --> 01:03:57,880
Speaker 1: was working on a plan there, one of those sixties pranksters.

1146
01:03:57,920 --> 01:04:02,280
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, Actually allegedly Jefferson airplane lead singer Grace

1147
01:04:02,360 --> 01:04:06,800
Speaker 1: Slick uh plan to slip LSD into Nixon's tea at

1148
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: a White House tea party because apparently she attended uh

1149
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: the same college as Nixon's daughter, and there was going

1150
01:04:12,400 --> 01:04:14,200
Speaker 1: to be an event there at the White House. But

1151
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 1: if the event turned out to be an all female event,

1152
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:20,080
Speaker 1: so Nixon wasn't actually there, and I think she got

1153
01:04:20,120 --> 01:04:23,200
Speaker 1: kind of she got scared off by the security and left. Anyway,

1154
01:04:23,200 --> 01:04:28,440
Speaker 1: she didn't try to give any to Pat apparently not uh,

1155
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:30,320
Speaker 1: well she had they didn't quite make I think she

1156
01:04:30,440 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 1: was accompanied by Abby Hoffman, who was this sounds like

1157
01:04:34,200 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 1: an Abby Hoffman's Yeah, so it didn't the the scheme

1158
01:04:37,840 --> 01:04:39,680
Speaker 1: didn't actually make it through the front door, so they

1159
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:42,840
Speaker 1: didn't actually get to that level of of decision making.

1160
01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 1: But this all does lead to an interesting question that

1161
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 1: comes up from time to time, sometimes flippantly and other

1162
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:53,440
Speaker 1: times quite seriously. If certain world leaders could be tricked

1163
01:04:53,440 --> 01:04:57,000
Speaker 1: into having a psychedelic experience, could we change them? Could

1164
01:04:57,000 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: there be like a Scrooge moment? Right? Would they see

1165
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:02,960
Speaker 1: themselves subjectively, would they connect with others or connect with

1166
01:05:03,040 --> 01:05:06,040
Speaker 1: nature in a meaningful and life changing way. I've heard

1167
01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:08,040
Speaker 1: people say this. In fact, I remember a lot of

1168
01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 1: teenage stoners sings like this, like if you just get

1169
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:14,840
Speaker 1: all these dictators and you know, we'd stop all the wars,

1170
01:05:14,920 --> 01:05:17,120
Speaker 1: if we could just get people to take acid, or

1171
01:05:17,400 --> 01:05:19,880
Speaker 1: I think they'd even just say like smoke weed or something.

1172
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:25,040
Speaker 1: I'm I mean again, I'm I'm very open to and

1173
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:28,280
Speaker 1: and interested in the many of the reported positive effects

1174
01:05:28,280 --> 01:05:31,240
Speaker 1: of psychedelic experiences, But I do not believe it is

1175
01:05:31,280 --> 01:05:33,880
Speaker 1: a miracle drug in that way, right, that it can't

1176
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:37,640
Speaker 1: just in and of itself cure human nastiness, especially because

1177
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:39,760
Speaker 1: set and setting are so important. I mean, what if

1178
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:42,440
Speaker 1: you take a drug and the setting is the Nixon

1179
01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:45,320
Speaker 1: White House, Right, if you have a psychedelic experience where

1180
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:47,920
Speaker 1: you're just like all revved up on the idea of

1181
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:50,720
Speaker 1: slaughtering your enemies and stuff that I don't know, I

1182
01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:55,360
Speaker 1: don't I'm not sure that would make things better. Yeah. Like,

1183
01:05:55,480 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 1: one specific version of this question that I've kind of

1184
01:05:57,600 --> 01:05:59,400
Speaker 1: tossed around in my own head from time to time

1185
01:05:59,720 --> 01:06:01,840
Speaker 1: is not so much you know, what have we um,

1186
01:06:01,880 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 1: you know, what if Hitler took acid? Kind of a thing.

1187
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:07,840
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, if we look at when l

1188
01:06:07,960 --> 01:06:10,919
Speaker 1: s d uh came into being. It was first synthesized

1189
01:06:10,960 --> 01:06:13,880
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight in Switzerland, m D m A

1190
01:06:14,040 --> 01:06:17,080
Speaker 1: was first created in Germany in nineteen twelve, and in

1191
01:06:17,120 --> 01:06:20,080
Speaker 1: both cases no one realized what they discovered. You know,

1192
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:21,960
Speaker 1: it wasn' until later that they took him off the

1193
01:06:21,960 --> 01:06:24,520
Speaker 1: shelf and looked at him again. But what if these

1194
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 1: substances are leaked out into Europe, especially Germany before World

1195
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:30,000
Speaker 1: War Two? And granted LSD would have only had like

1196
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:33,320
Speaker 1: a year to work its magic. But I'm not the

1197
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:36,200
Speaker 1: only one who's thought about this. For instance, Terence mckinnay

1198
01:06:36,200 --> 01:06:38,640
Speaker 1: and Food of the Gods wondered what would it have

1199
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:41,400
Speaker 1: been like if the Nazis had found out about LSD

1200
01:06:42,120 --> 01:06:44,960
Speaker 1: quote it is frightening to imagine some of the possible

1201
01:06:44,960 --> 01:06:48,560
Speaker 1: consequences had Hoffmann's discovery been recognized for what it was,

1202
01:06:48,640 --> 01:06:51,680
Speaker 1: even a moment earlier. So there, I mean, he's looking

1203
01:06:51,720 --> 01:06:54,240
Speaker 1: at it. It's not necessarily a good thing for everybody

1204
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 1: who takes it, but like that, it could be a

1205
01:06:56,720 --> 01:07:00,320
Speaker 1: facilitator of great evil. Yeah, yeah, I he may have

1206
01:07:00,360 --> 01:07:04,080
Speaker 1: gone into more detail on this in other works or lectures. Certainly,

1207
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:08,960
Speaker 1: Uh McKenna spoke a lot about these topics, but so

1208
01:07:09,000 --> 01:07:11,400
Speaker 1: but I am not aware of any additional thoughts he

1209
01:07:11,440 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: had on the matter. But I suspect that they would

1210
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:15,760
Speaker 1: have probably done much the same as the CIA did

1211
01:07:16,120 --> 01:07:19,600
Speaker 1: in their experiments with with the LSD, you know, searching

1212
01:07:19,600 --> 01:07:21,160
Speaker 1: for ways to use it as a weapon or a

1213
01:07:21,160 --> 01:07:24,600
Speaker 1: mind control substance and then ultimately find it wanting in

1214
01:07:24,600 --> 01:07:26,560
Speaker 1: that regard. Yeah, and then we've talked about this in

1215
01:07:26,600 --> 01:07:28,479
Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind in the past.

1216
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 1: But yeah, that seemed to be the primary focus of

1217
01:07:30,840 --> 01:07:33,920
Speaker 1: like defense based research on psychedelics in the nineteen fifties

1218
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:36,400
Speaker 1: is can we get it to make people do what

1219
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:39,720
Speaker 1: we want against their will or as a truth serum? Right,

1220
01:07:39,800 --> 01:07:41,960
Speaker 1: and and certainly this was the deal with the Third Right.

1221
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:43,960
Speaker 1: They were in a state of total war. They were

1222
01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:47,000
Speaker 1: interested in rockets, yes, but they weren't interested because of

1223
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:51,320
Speaker 1: any space exploration advantages. They it was about weapon delivery.

1224
01:07:51,600 --> 01:07:54,600
Speaker 1: It was about pursuing their own awful and uh and

1225
01:07:54,920 --> 01:08:00,160
Speaker 1: racist ideology um, this conquest mentality. Yeah, absolutely, But the

1226
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 1: other hand, Uh, you know, Hitler took a lot of drugs,

1227
01:08:04,520 --> 01:08:08,120
Speaker 1: especially after is apparently taking a lot of stimulants, a

1228
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:12,200
Speaker 1: lot of opioids, and so, you know, one you can't

1229
01:08:12,200 --> 01:08:15,280
Speaker 1: help but wonder, right, like, what what if out Off

1230
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:17,040
Speaker 1: Hitler had taken a bunch of M D M A

1231
01:08:17,080 --> 01:08:21,000
Speaker 1: and L S d UM in nineteen forty two would

1232
01:08:21,120 --> 01:08:23,920
Speaker 1: have had any effect. I'm suspicious that that it would

1233
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:26,559
Speaker 1: have any effect. Ultimately, Yeah, I don't. I don't think

1234
01:08:26,560 --> 01:08:29,160
Speaker 1: I buy the Soner line that, you know, just get

1235
01:08:29,200 --> 01:08:31,840
Speaker 1: the dictator to take a psychedelic and they will be cured.

1236
01:08:32,160 --> 01:08:35,320
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to know, but I'm I doubt it.

1237
01:08:35,360 --> 01:08:37,639
Speaker 1: I mean it would be interesting as an experiment, though, Yeah,

1238
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:40,080
Speaker 1: just just to poke one of them up out there. Well.

1239
01:08:40,080 --> 01:08:44,120
Speaker 1: Another interesting question is instead of like these individuals say,

1240
01:08:44,160 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 1: like dose the dictator cases, if psychedelics and psychedelic culture

1241
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:53,840
Speaker 1: were more widespread in general throughout the world, you know,

1242
01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:57,600
Speaker 1: and throughout industrialized society is going way back. Yeah, I

1243
01:08:57,640 --> 01:08:59,920
Speaker 1: do wonder then, like if the you know, the calm

1244
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:04,760
Speaker 1: and if the common drug of choice among industrialized societies

1245
01:09:04,800 --> 01:09:08,640
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth and nineteenth century had not been alcohol

1246
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:12,400
Speaker 1: but had been psilocybin or something. Yeah, and I think

1247
01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:15,160
Speaker 1: that's ultimately the more interesting question is not what if

1248
01:09:15,200 --> 01:09:17,760
Speaker 1: Hitler had taken analysis D OR or M D M A,

1249
01:09:18,080 --> 01:09:19,960
Speaker 1: but what if they what if they had been at

1250
01:09:20,040 --> 01:09:24,000
Speaker 1: large in UM in German culture of preceding the war

1251
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:27,439
Speaker 1: UM And you know, ultimately, like the counter argument to

1252
01:09:27,479 --> 01:09:30,320
Speaker 1: that would be, well, there already was a strong bohemian

1253
01:09:30,400 --> 01:09:33,960
Speaker 1: vibe in pre war Germany, and it it was not

1254
01:09:34,320 --> 01:09:37,320
Speaker 1: sufficient to prevent the horrors of the Second World War

1255
01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:39,840
Speaker 1: and beyond. But yeah, I think ultimately, when you see

1256
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:43,280
Speaker 1: people like Terence McKenna arguing for an archaic revival, for

1257
01:09:43,360 --> 01:09:46,799
Speaker 1: some sort of like return and the psychedelically assisted return

1258
01:09:47,200 --> 01:09:50,479
Speaker 1: to nature and interconnectedness, like they are talking about a

1259
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:55,559
Speaker 1: cultural movement, they're not talking about strategic doses, dosing of

1260
01:09:55,560 --> 01:09:58,679
Speaker 1: of of key individuals. Yeah. If only were that easy.

1261
01:09:58,760 --> 01:10:00,439
Speaker 1: All Right, we've been going a while. Think we got

1262
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:01,840
Speaker 1: to wrap it up for this one, but we we

1263
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:03,960
Speaker 1: gotta come back in the next. We were originally going

1264
01:10:04,000 --> 01:10:07,559
Speaker 1: to do just three episodes, but psychedelics took hold, and

1265
01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:09,920
Speaker 1: now we've been going for three and we still haven't

1266
01:10:09,920 --> 01:10:13,240
Speaker 1: gotten to the twenty one century revival In psychedelic research,

1267
01:10:13,280 --> 01:10:15,479
Speaker 1: which we will focus on next time as right, So

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Speaker 1: join us for part four of our psychedelic series here

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01:10:19,760 --> 01:10:21,639
Speaker 1: on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. And I mean, who

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Speaker 1: knows there might be a part five. We just we

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Speaker 1: have no idea, We have no idea when this is

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01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:27,080
Speaker 1: gonna end, all right. In the meantime, if you want

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01:10:27,080 --> 01:10:28,800
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,

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01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:30,439
Speaker 1: head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: That's the mothership, that's what we'll find it all Uh,

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01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:36,240
Speaker 1: you'll find links out to various social media accounts. You'll

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01:10:36,280 --> 01:10:39,040
Speaker 1: find our t shirt store. Also, if you want to

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01:10:39,040 --> 01:10:41,800
Speaker 1: interact with us, and more importantly, interact with other folks

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01:10:41,840 --> 01:10:43,800
Speaker 1: who listen to the show and have insightful things to

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01:10:43,840 --> 01:10:46,880
Speaker 1: share about it and related topics, head out on over

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01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:49,840
Speaker 1: to Facebook. They have the discussion group they're called we

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01:10:49,880 --> 01:10:51,559
Speaker 1: call it the Discussion module and Stuff to Blow your

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01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:55,479
Speaker 1: Mind Discussion Module. You can apply, join and discuss there.

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01:10:55,680 --> 01:10:58,679
Speaker 1: It's the only good thing on Facebook pretty much anyway.

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01:10:58,720 --> 01:11:02,400
Speaker 1: Big thanks as always to are excellent audio producer Maya Cole.

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01:11:02,720 --> 01:11:04,519
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

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01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:07,160
Speaker 1: with feedback about this episode or any other to suggest

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01:11:07,200 --> 01:11:09,360
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.

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01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:12,639
Speaker 1: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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01:11:12,720 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

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01:11:24,160 --> 01:11:26,479
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more

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01:11:26,520 --> 01:11:28,920
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

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01:11:29,080 --> 01:12:20,920
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.