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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of my Heart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as

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Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not

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Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show

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Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use

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Speaker 1: any type of throat. Hello, Psychoactive listeners, Today you're in

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Speaker 1: for a real treat. My guest is one of the

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Speaker 1: outstanding psychedelic pioneers. Her name is Lady Amanda Fielding. If

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Speaker 1: you've already heard of her, it's probably because she founded

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Speaker 1: and directs the Beck Foundation, which has been Britain's leading

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Speaker 1: research and advocacy institute focused on psychedelics since the late

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. But that was not the start of Amanda's

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Speaker 1: work in this area. Indeed, her experimentation and advocacy date

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Speaker 1: back to the sixties, when she first started speaking about

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Speaker 1: the benefits of psychedelics. She's played a key role in

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Speaker 1: legitimizing this issue in Britain and even globally. And not

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Speaker 1: long ago, Amanda teamed up with her son Cosmo to

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Speaker 1: create a for profits psychedelics company called Beckley psy Tech.

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Speaker 1: She has led a truly fascinating life, which is mostly

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Speaker 1: what I want to talk about with her today, and

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Speaker 1: she's still going full steam ahead. So Amanda, thank you

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Speaker 1: ever so much for joining me on Psychoactives. It's a

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Speaker 1: great pleasure. So listen, I have to tell you. When

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Speaker 1: I prepare for this, I'm remembering back it's I had

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Speaker 1: started the Lindi Smith Center, wasn't even called Drug Policy

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Speaker 1: Alliance at this point, and you know, I get a

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Speaker 1: call from you. I don't even know if I knew

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Speaker 1: who you were back then, and you're in New York

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Speaker 1: and we land up having dinner and you're talking about

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Speaker 1: all this stuff you want to do on psychedelics and

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Speaker 1: da da da da da, And I'm thinking, who is

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Speaker 1: this lady? I mean, who is this crazy British aristocratic

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Speaker 1: lady who thinks she's going to change the world. But

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Speaker 1: the truth is you've been doing it, and you've done it.

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Speaker 1: So I want to start off by saying congratulations for

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Speaker 1: whatever initial skepticism I had about you, you know that's

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Speaker 1: my bad, and you've been having a tremendous impact. So

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you, first of all, what is

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Speaker 1: it you're most proud about that you've accomplished over these

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Speaker 1: last few decades. I suppose it in from a sort

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Speaker 1: of way, my dream has come true because my passion

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Speaker 1: was always mysticism, the study of mysticism from a very

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Speaker 1: small child, because I had a very kind of isolated

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Speaker 1: up bringing, nothing much else to do except kind of

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Speaker 1: dream and have mystical experiences. And then I studied all

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Speaker 1: the states of consciousness from a young age. When I

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Speaker 1: was sixteen, I was introduced to cannabis, and then when

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Speaker 1: I was twenty one, I think it was I was

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Speaker 1: introduced to LSD. And then most importantly, when I was

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Speaker 1: twenty three, I met a Dutch scientist doctor who was,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion, the only genius I've met who had

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Speaker 1: two hypothesis about what is the underlying mechanisms which alter

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Speaker 1: consciousness in taking psychedelics but also natural ways of exercise, fasting, meditation,

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Speaker 1: all of those sort of things. So I suddenly got

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Speaker 1: a grip on how you could use psychedelics which are

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Speaker 1: tools to alter consciousness and actually control how you perform

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Speaker 1: with them, you know. So it was a satin getting

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Speaker 1: into control of the tools when used. And for me

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Speaker 1: that was a magical change because before that I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: psychedelics absolutely wonderful, but you can't live on right. And

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Speaker 1: then with this knowledge, I've realized my goodness. Men, So

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Speaker 1: I as you mentioned this Dutch lover who has such

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Speaker 1: a great influence on you, Bar, but there were two

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Speaker 1: other men or males I should say, who I understand

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Speaker 1: had a major impact on you. One of them I

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Speaker 1: think was your father. Can you just say a little

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Speaker 1: something about him. Yeah, he was a very kind of

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Speaker 1: eccentric and charming man. I mean we lived on the

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Speaker 1: edge of a fen in an old Anglo Saxon fortress

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Speaker 1: which was rebuilt in two times with three modes, and

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Speaker 1: we had no heating or petrol or anything like that,

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Speaker 1: so new one came near us the whole winter. It

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Speaker 1: was a very isolated in the sense of Alice in Wonderland. Life,

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Speaker 1: quite tough farming. And my father was a big influence

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Speaker 1: because he was very intelligent and he was very anti authority.

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Speaker 1: I remember he said to me, whatever the government tells

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Speaker 1: you always do the opposite, and I always thought that

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Speaker 1: was a very wise bit of advice. And he came

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Speaker 1: back from the board that diabetic and I was free.

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Speaker 1: And I became his kind of his pet dog, his Cara,

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Speaker 1: who stopped him falling into ditches and passing out. And

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Speaker 1: you were like the youngest four kids. And as I

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Speaker 1: understand that your family was kind of the impoverished aristocracy.

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Speaker 1: They had the land but no money. And your dad

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Speaker 1: was an alternative, contrarian thinker, And so I guess that

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Speaker 1: sort of opens you up. He was not somebody to

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Speaker 1: rebel against, but maybe somebody who opens you up into

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Speaker 1: the ways of thinking and more absolutely ways He used

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Speaker 1: to drive over the center of roundabouts instance, he couldn't

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Speaker 1: be bothered to go around and say that said. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know he was. He was crazy. But he never

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Speaker 1: did psychede Alex himself as far as you know, or

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Speaker 1: did he No, he would have loved it. He loved

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Speaker 1: people on psychedelics. He felt completely at home with them.

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Speaker 1: But because if his bad diabetes, I always felt nervous

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Speaker 1: of providing them for him in case it had a

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Speaker 1: bad effect. Might know what to do. I mean, he

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Speaker 1: was on on the edge of hyperglycemia all the time

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Speaker 1: because he kept his sugar very locally. Didn't want to

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Speaker 1: go blind, as he was an artist, and so he

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Speaker 1: went in and out of kind of control of consciousness.

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Speaker 1: So it was rather like being with someone on edesty. Actually,

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Speaker 1: And your mother was was also a free thinker, not

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Speaker 1: so free, but she was. She was the daughter of

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Speaker 1: a First World War hero, so she had certain noble

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Speaker 1: attitude to life, and she kept the show of the road,

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Speaker 1: which I can't pretend to my father, I think. And

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Speaker 1: there was another figure I was going to say, but really,

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Speaker 1: another male figure in your life who I think you

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Speaker 1: say you learned something about the Lepazy from and who

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Speaker 1: was was your other love of your life in your

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Speaker 1: early years. I'm thinking about Birdie. Oh Birdie, Oh Birdie.

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Speaker 1: Sorry I produced wrong, but yes, tell us about Birdie.

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Speaker 1: Birdie was a great love of my life. I found

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Speaker 1: him when his mother died on the window sill of

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Speaker 1: flat in London, overlooking the river, and I brought him

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Speaker 1: in and he was a day old. He had no feathers,

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Speaker 1: and I fed him on a paintbrush with warm wheat

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Speaker 1: a box and anyway he totally fed in love with

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Speaker 1: me and I with him, and he literally became a

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Speaker 1: kind of holy spirit, a superior spirit. He was always

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Speaker 1: the boss. And when he grew up, my partner said,

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Speaker 1: come on, we're going to be landed with his pigeon

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Speaker 1: for the rest of our lives. Let's put him out

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Speaker 1: and let him fly. And I put him out, and

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Speaker 1: then I thought, no, I'm not going to put him out.

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Speaker 1: He won't survive. So I took him in and he

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Speaker 1: was with us for the next fifteen years. Sir never

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Speaker 1: in a cage. He was always free, and in the

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Speaker 1: flat in London, we had the windows open so he

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Speaker 1: could go out and fly and find himself a mate.

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Speaker 1: But I was his mate. So all the other pigeons

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Speaker 1: came in because he was a little rich boy of

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood and lived in our apartment, but he was

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Speaker 1: by mate. And what did you learn from this relationship?

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Speaker 1: A lot? I really learned a lot. He was my teacher.

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Speaker 1: He was a very kind of dominant figure. Um there

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Speaker 1: was no doubt he was a kind of leader, and

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Speaker 1: he was an amazing personality. And I had very very

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Speaker 1: strong telepathy with him. I always knew when he was

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Speaker 1: in danger and sadly, I always had the feeling that

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Speaker 1: he was going to rather be sacrificed like Jesus Christ,

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Speaker 1: that someone was going to kill him, And so I

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Speaker 1: was always anxious for him because it was a kind

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Speaker 1: of artificial life in the sense that he was a

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Speaker 1: wild bird but living with me. So he lived in

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Speaker 1: London and flew out of the window over the river

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Speaker 1: and flew around London. And then on one occasion we

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Speaker 1: took him camping with us and lost him. He was

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Speaker 1: terribly jealous and lost him for ten days. So then

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Speaker 1: I put adverts in the Times. I then went on

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Speaker 1: the BBC News appealing to the nature to find him

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Speaker 1: and returned him. And the television was blocked with thousands

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Speaker 1: of people seeing him and saying he was held there.

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Speaker 1: And we went all over long England trying to find him.

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Speaker 1: And then the only telephone out of thousands of the

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Speaker 1: telephone cause which got through was the one with Birdie.

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Speaker 1: Because the man didn't have a telephone, he had sent

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Speaker 1: his son to the police station, and because it was

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Speaker 1: the police station ringing up, the call was transferred to me.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever dose Burly with any with any elicty

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Speaker 1: or anything? He used to dose himself. He loved cannabis,

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Speaker 1: and actually we had might source cannabis and they were

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Speaker 1: They played with the flower arrangement and at the cannabis

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Speaker 1: and then kind of jumped up the flowers and jumped

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Speaker 1: off and it was very sweet. And I also had

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Speaker 1: two toads who lived with us for many many years

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Speaker 1: free in the house, and a hedgehog. It was a

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Speaker 1: very nice household, and I had a very long suffering

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Speaker 1: partner to put up with these rivals. You know, most

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Speaker 1: people when they talk people, especially in this field, oftentimes

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Speaker 1: they describe their first psychedelics experience as um, you know,

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Speaker 1: oftentimes a glorious one. But I think in your case,

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Speaker 1: it was a horrific one. It was a very very

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Speaker 1: damaging experience. But it was impressive because many people would

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Speaker 1: be traumatized by an experience like that, and you know,

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Speaker 1: if this hurts you for months and just say enough

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Speaker 1: with that. I've seen this horrible thing. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to go back there. But you came back, sort of

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Speaker 1: like the person who falls off a horse and says

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Speaker 1: get right back on or something exactly, or the person

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Speaker 1: who is allergic to the sea and ends up falling

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Speaker 1: in love with someone who wants to go across that

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Speaker 1: plantic on the raft. So that was me when it happened.

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Speaker 1: I retired to back clear the house I grew up

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Speaker 1: in into a hut here in the woods lovely, and

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Speaker 1: after about three months someone came and say, come on,

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Speaker 1: you must come a lovely party in London with Ravishanka playing.

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Speaker 1: It will be fun. So I went and there I

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Speaker 1: met this Dutch scientist, bart Uguez, who had arrived that

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Speaker 1: evening at the invitation of someone called Joe Mellen and

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Speaker 1: it would just love at first sight. So he actually

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Speaker 1: had made the LSD. He was the scientist. He was

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Speaker 1: the top favorite pupil in Amsterdam, and all the professors

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Speaker 1: wanted him. And then he had suddenly realized the wonder

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Speaker 1: of psychedelics. And he was absolutely a dream come true

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Speaker 1: to me because he had this fantastic knowledge of natural

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Speaker 1: science to a level that I hadn't known. You know,

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Speaker 1: my my family was artistic and culture and blah blah blah,

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Speaker 1: all of that. But he was a um an encyclopedia

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Speaker 1: of knowledge of the natural scientists. He came from family

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Speaker 1: of natural past doctors, so he'd grown up in a

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Speaker 1: household with two bars and you had a hot bath

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Speaker 1: and a teasing code bar every day. So he'd grown

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Speaker 1: in that sort of world, and his mother had died.

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Speaker 1: He said, to be a genius, you need your mother

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Speaker 1: to die eighteen months or whenever his mother's side, and

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Speaker 1: he was kind of obsessive really basically as a kind

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Speaker 1: of substitute for losing his beloved mother. And as opposed

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Speaker 1: to most people who take it LSD and think how interesting,

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Speaker 1: He thought, now, how is it having its effect? And

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Speaker 1: he came up with a very convincing and clever hypothesis

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Speaker 1: that the underlying effect was more blood in the brain

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Speaker 1: is so suddenly you had billions more brain cells combusting

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Speaker 1: glucas and oxygen, and so you had much greater connectivity

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Speaker 1: in the brain. And then you suffered from glucose lack

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Speaker 1: because the brain cells use so much in high level cognition.

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Speaker 1: So basically I fell in love with this hypothesis. That

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Speaker 1: was because I found that I control my level of consciousness.

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Speaker 1: I could take their LSD. In those days, we took

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Speaker 1: big doses. Two and fifty micrograms was a normal trip

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Speaker 1: in the sixties. So we took that every day more

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Speaker 1: less and they would have a gap and take them off.

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Speaker 1: But I found that with the knowledge I had got

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Speaker 1: of how it worked, by increasing the capillary volume of brains,

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Speaker 1: I found one could keep one's concentration and work at

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Speaker 1: a higher level. Because we were kind of obsessively interested

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Speaker 1: in the human animal would upright talking, we become how

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Speaker 1: we are, why we did to complete Nightmare, as well

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Speaker 1: as being so clever, what makes humans specifically human? And

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Speaker 1: so that was a passion and it was just a

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Speaker 1: very very exciting period. We'll be talking more after we

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Speaker 1: hear this. Add One of the things I remember you

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Speaker 1: telling me when earlier we met was that you were

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Speaker 1: in that that you had a daily practice of micro dosing,

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Speaker 1: and that you were micro dos you know, every day

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Speaker 1: or most days of the week, for years at a time.

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Speaker 1: And I've also you talked about taking higher doses and

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Speaker 1: describing that sometimes when you take the higher doses repeatedly,

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Speaker 1: you develop a tolerance such that taking the higher doses

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Speaker 1: repeatedly almost becomes like micro dosing. That's exactly so I

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Speaker 1: wonder if you could just say a little more about

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Speaker 1: your own practice, both in the past and more recently,

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Speaker 1: and the macro dozing versus the micro dosing and the similarities, etcetera. Well, well,

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you about my old habits, because modern habits

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Speaker 1: you're not allowed to talk about. In the old habits, Um,

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Speaker 1: it was pre pre criminalization. Well, well, actually, a man,

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Speaker 1: let me just say that. You know, I think you

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Speaker 1: know some of that fears about talking about the present

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Speaker 1: time are fading. So I want you to know that,

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Speaker 1: in your honor, I took a little micro dose right

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Speaker 1: before this session here, so so you know, I am

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Speaker 1: in the moment under a very small dose, and I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of curious to see if my producers noticed any difference.

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Speaker 1: But tell me about your old patterns and then you

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Speaker 1: can share about the contemporary ones if you like. Well,

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Speaker 1: I too took a little microtion on on a meeting,

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Speaker 1: and um, in the old Dave when pre criminalization, we

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Speaker 1: used to take two fifty normal big doses, but we

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Speaker 1: took it more or less every day. I think it

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Speaker 1: still has effect, but you get familiar with it. It's

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Speaker 1: like hungry cows in the clover field. When you let

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Speaker 1: them into the clover field, they all eat the clover

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Speaker 1: and get rather ill, But once they've been in there

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Speaker 1: for a few days, they kind of settled down, and

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Speaker 1: I think getting high it is rather like that. It's

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Speaker 1: still changes you, but not nearly as much. So, I

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Speaker 1: having suffered my trauma of being given this whatever four

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Speaker 1: thousand trips when I didn't ask for it, I didn't

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Speaker 1: really like sudden, big trips, and I found that the

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Speaker 1: when you've got there and got more used to it

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Speaker 1: and balanced and could feel that one was high and

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Speaker 1: enhanced cognition, but at the same time, one wasn't in

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Speaker 1: any sense out of control. And that was a state

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Speaker 1: I liked very much, and we liked it so much

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Speaker 1: we never really wanted to have many days without it,

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Speaker 1: because one didn't get a hangover when months stopped, but

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Speaker 1: one came slightly down. And if you're in a beautiful

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Speaker 1: place like Egypt or whatever, you know, having a good conversation,

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Speaker 1: why why come down? So were you? Were you actually dosing?

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Speaker 1: Then at the micro rim level for most days over

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Speaker 1: many years back then, No, that was early on it

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Speaker 1: was at a big dost dost But for how long

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Speaker 1: a period was that over months or years or well,

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Speaker 1: no one would do it for whatever, a couple of

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Speaker 1: weeks and then have a break. One of the things

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Speaker 1: we were doing with psychoanalyzing ourselves, and if you do

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Speaker 1: it on LSD, you can actually be patient and doctor. Alternatively,

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Speaker 1: if you want to be the doctor, if you want

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Speaker 1: to read the Freud or the Reich or whoever you're studying,

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Speaker 1: you'd keep your sugar level normal, and if you wanted

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Speaker 1: to dig deep into underground psychology, you'd let your sugar

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Speaker 1: level drop, and then you go into a deep state

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Speaker 1: of breaking through the levels of protection. And we did

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Speaker 1: that for several years. It was very interesting with Birdie

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Speaker 1: around us, and it was a very interesting period of

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Speaker 1: breakthrough and learning about and what's been your practice in

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Speaker 1: more recent decades there Around this, I'm much more delicate

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Speaker 1: on myself that I should say, well, let me let

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Speaker 1: me ask you this. I've said there's sometimes at the

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Speaker 1: speeches of the Drum Parlicy Alliance in years pas that

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Speaker 1: that that I regarded psychedelics in a way. I've thought

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Speaker 1: about them as something that is some almost like wasted

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Speaker 1: on the young, and it's something that one should make

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Speaker 1: a commitment to doing as one grows older. That there's

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Speaker 1: a way in which a strong psycholic experience can kind

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Speaker 1: of stir up the emotional intellectual sediment in one's life

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Speaker 1: and that that's a good thing. And I wanted to

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Speaker 1: ask you your thoughts about what's the relationship between psycholic

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Speaker 1: use and healthy aging. I actually think psychedelics and I

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Speaker 1: actually have a particular love of LSD because of its purity.

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Speaker 1: I think in a way, it's the most cognitively um

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Speaker 1: stimulating and it's the least toxic. So you know, even

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Speaker 1: when you take it regularly for a while, when you

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Speaker 1: come off it, you don't have a hangover, you don't

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Speaker 1: have any craving. There's no aspect of addiction about it.

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Speaker 1: And actually one needs more discipline to take it than

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Speaker 1: not to take it. In a funny sort of way,

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Speaker 1: it needs discipline to take it and work with it.

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Speaker 1: And we used to, I mean we were kind of

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Speaker 1: rather passionate workers, and as recreation, we used to play

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Speaker 1: the game the Chinese game go you know go, which

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Speaker 1: is very much a game of skill. There's no luck,

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Speaker 1: and go you is pattern recognition, So it's intuitive thinking.

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Speaker 1: It's using your intuitive brain to see patterns. And Chinese

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Speaker 1: masters generals used to instead of fighting walls play it's

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Speaker 1: surrounding to opponent and capturing them. And and it's an

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Speaker 1: absolute compulsive game is like life. Every movement in life,

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Speaker 1: it is on the go board and we were very

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Speaker 1: addicted to it. And I found that if I was

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Speaker 1: on LSD and I kept my sugar level normal so

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Speaker 1: I wasn't hyper lycemic, I would win more games if

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Speaker 1: my opponent wasn't on LSD. And it was my first

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Speaker 1: real experiment on cognition using myself as the subject, and

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Speaker 1: it actually convinced me that it can not that it

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Speaker 1: always dots at all, but it can increase cognition. I

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Speaker 1: won more games if I was high. And when this

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Speaker 1: comes to the issue of healthy aging, it suggests you

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Speaker 1: think it can keep the brain more youthful and vibrant

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Speaker 1: as we get older. From sixty six onwards, my life

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Speaker 1: was doing experiments first on myself and then I set

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Speaker 1: up the bed To Foundation to do it out in

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Speaker 1: clinical trials and UM I was always interested in its

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Speaker 1: effect on kignition and quite recently doing research on micro docing.

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Speaker 1: We did a research on rats and you give them

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Speaker 1: a choice of old new toys. Rats, they prefer the

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Speaker 1: toys they know and familiar, but if you give them

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Speaker 1: an enhanced environment, then they love the new toys. Old

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Speaker 1: rats and if you give them L S D for

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Speaker 1: three days, don't play with the new toys they go.

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Speaker 1: So I think that that means that it definitely inspis neuroplacity,

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Speaker 1: a delight in new things exploring. Do you think in

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Speaker 1: human beings that micro dosing is going to be approved

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Speaker 1: to be more effective if people have previously had the

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Speaker 1: experience with a larger dose or are they really disconnected?

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Speaker 1: Can people have never done high dose get the same

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Speaker 1: benefit from the micro dose? I think they're disconnected. I'm

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Speaker 1: a great believer in the potential of micro doses to

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Speaker 1: enhance certain you know, physiological happenings and psychological I think

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Speaker 1: micro doss are wonderful in the sense that they are

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Speaker 1: doing what the food those stuff, but as as we know,

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Speaker 1: at a very much smaller and more easily manageable rate.

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Speaker 1: And I'm at the moment doing work on dementia more broadly,

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Speaker 1: but Alzheimer's particularly and indeed on Parkinson's with micro docing

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Speaker 1: psychedelics and actually having some very interesting results. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: should just tell our listeners. I mean, you know, literally,

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Speaker 1: Amanda and I are talking in mid April, and just

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Speaker 1: the day before our conversation here there's this news item

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Speaker 1: that's in the press, I mean, in New York Times,

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Speaker 1: all the media around the world about some new philocybin

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Speaker 1: study that was done in Imperial College and UCSF University, California,

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, with you know, Robin Carhart Harris, one of

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Speaker 1: your colleagues, and maybe in some respects proteges and basically

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Speaker 1: finding that you know, they had done. It's a small study,

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Speaker 1: they said, it raises more questions than it answers, but

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Speaker 1: showing the ways in which the brain is different under

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Speaker 1: the influence of a psychedelic in terms of addressing depression

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Speaker 1: as opposed to using the standard antidepressants. That the scan

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Speaker 1: shall flourish it of neural activity, right, and a sort

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Speaker 1: of liberating effect on the brain. So I guess people

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Speaker 1: are excited about this study because it's confirming some of

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Speaker 1: the hypotheses about how this may actually be working. But

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Speaker 1: that study we actually did the first one when I

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Speaker 1: used to set up um with Dave not I persuaded

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Speaker 1: him to join me in studying psychedelics, and I can't

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Speaker 1: remember when it was two thousand five or something, and

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Speaker 1: what we first had to do a lot of work

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Speaker 1: on cannabis to begin with, which was interesting. But I

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Speaker 1: wanted to do LSD, of course, because I love LST

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Speaker 1: the best um. But there's too much to boo. No

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Speaker 1: one wants to touch LLST. So we did psilocybin because

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Speaker 1: no one knows how to spell it what it is,

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Speaker 1: and it has very little to move value. So we

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Speaker 1: worked on psilocybin, and I wanted to do brain imaging too,

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Speaker 1: to look into my old hypothesis of the increase in

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Speaker 1: compilary volume. So we found, funny enough, not an increasing complority,

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Speaker 1: which surprised me. I think the technology was limited in

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Speaker 1: those days. But we found a decrease in the blood

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Speaker 1: supply to the default mode network. And that's the kind

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Speaker 1: of modern expression for the eager, as Freud used to talk,

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Speaker 1: called the ego mechanism. And it had been observed that

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Speaker 1: people with psychological disall is like depression, addiction, post traumatic

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00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: stress as orders had a hyperactive default mode network. So

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Speaker 1: we thought, well, maybe with psilocybin it will help treat depression.

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Speaker 1: So that was the first depression study we did at

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Speaker 1: the Battery Imperial Research Program, and Robin was actually I'd

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Speaker 1: sent him to study with Dave Nut and he'd become

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Speaker 1: our principal investigator. The three of us work together for

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Speaker 1: whatever fifteen years doing research. Well, for our listeners, we

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Speaker 1: should I should just explain that David Knut, who will

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Speaker 1: be a guest on Psychoactive at sometime in the near future,

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Speaker 1: is really one of Britain's leading scientists and a former

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Speaker 1: advisor to the government who got booted for speaking too

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Speaker 1: honestly about the reality of drugs and drug research. But

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm also curious in your past, right,

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Speaker 1: you had this period the sixties and seventies of the psycholics,

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Speaker 1: your initial experiences, your relationship with the Dutch great love

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Speaker 1: of your life as you've called them, bart Um, and

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Speaker 1: then you start Beckley Foundation, which really is played a

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Speaker 1: major role in sponsoring and instigating and psychedelic research but

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Speaker 1: also carrying out funder is not just instigator, it's also

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00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: carrying out and hands on and all of that. But

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Speaker 1: there's this period in your life. I mean, what happens

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Speaker 1: with you in the in the eighties and early nineties.

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Speaker 1: There's this kind of quiet period where you're not out there.

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Speaker 1: You haven't created Beckley Foundation, but you're not It wasn't

430
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: actually quite um. I was fully occupied trying to spread

431
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: the word of the wonder of psychedelics and in the

432
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 1: cannabis from sixty s onwards onwards. I was convinced of

433
00:28:54,480 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: the value potential value of these compounds for human civilization

434
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: and the possibility that they increase learning. I actually myself

435
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: gave up nicotine addiction by deciding, actually because Barth thought

436
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: it was a horrible habit, I decided to give it

437
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: up with a trip of LSD and decided, no, it's

438
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: a horrible habit. And I did that and never smoked

439
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: another cigarette. So the years later I suggested to Roland

440
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: really Um at Johns Hopkins when he suggested what should

441
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: we do with the five thousand, five thousand dollars I

442
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: had to donate at that point, And he said, what's

443
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: study might you like? And I said, well, why not

444
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: the study I did on myself back in the sixties

445
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: of overcoming nicotine. And so that study is turned into

446
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 1: a very successful Well sure, I mean you planted the

447
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: seeds for the first significant grant from the National Student

448
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: Drug Abuse for her to looking at psyche alex an

449
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: addiction that Matt John's in his colleagues at Johns Hopkins. God,

450
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: so you know, congratulations, congratulations, they're wonderful teams. And then

451
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: that was exciting. And then I do think I was

452
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: largely responsible or was getting Dave not involved in that,

453
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: and that then through that Robin involved by setting up

454
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: the Beckley Imperial Research Program, which went on for whatever

455
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: twenty years. So when you and I met back in

456
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: ninety in New York, I think that must have been

457
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: just about the time you were creating the Beckley Foundation,

458
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: or maybe you'd previously created under a different name or something.

459
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: But I guess you gathered that it's one thing to

460
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: be out there as an individual voice, you know, Lady Amanda,

461
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: and a different thing to be out there as a

462
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: foundation doing all the things that a foundation can do. Exactly.

463
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: I found sadly that as a voice, I couldn't break

464
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: the two boot. For thirty years I've been trying to

465
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: throw out, you know, I've been as active as I

466
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 1: could be in trying to bring about change, to get

467
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: scientists to do research, to persuade people of the potential

468
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: value of these compounds, and indeed to trying to stop

469
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: the terrible mistake of prohibition and then teach against it.

470
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: But I realized that it was a losing battle as

471
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: a female with no letters after my name, a deaf

472
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: school at sixteen, and no letters often my name, no money, children, etcetera, etcetera.

473
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't change global drug policy, and I

474
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: couldn't open the doors to the research. And so suddenly

475
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 1: I realized, well maybe it was. It was an artwork.

476
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: Really to become a foundation, it costs nothing. It costs

477
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: a thousand pounds or something to become a foundation. I

478
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: didn't realize foundations should have money. I just I called

479
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: myself a foundation. Well, first I was called the Foundation

480
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: to Further Consciousness, and then I thought that sounded a

481
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: bit maybe hippy. So I thought Batley, the name of

482
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: my house, sounded more like Berkeley or Bletchington or well Man.

483
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: I have to let me ask you a frank question, though.

484
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, right, you're dealing with the

485
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: burden being a woman in this field when there are

486
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: very few with any women, especially in the early years

487
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 1: of psychedelics, and not having the degrees, the advanced degrees.

488
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you are this kind of

489
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: minor royalty. You are Lady Amanda, and I'm curious the

490
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: one way to being part of this mill you sort

491
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: of do you think in what ways did it help

492
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: you to open up doors in England to get through

493
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: in some respect? I mean, I mean, just just frankly,

494
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think if you hadn't, what would

495
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: have been like without that? In what ways were there

496
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: some advantages? Funny enough, I actually didn't. I mean I

497
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: didn't have it. I married it. And it's just like

498
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: having a badge because I didn't have letters after my name,

499
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: and people, even nowadays, even women, I don't think that

500
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: one is capable of being creative scientifically unless you're got

501
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: a PhD. I mean, I luckily had the father I had,

502
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: who said, you know, I had no respect for professors

503
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:26,959
Speaker 1: or blah blah head people, or he never had that respect.

504
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: Rather like Birdie he in the war, he chose to

505
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: be a private and so I never kind of um,

506
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: I felt a need to get a PhD and spent

507
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: six years of my life doing that because I felt

508
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: that through knowledge of it, one could feel one's way.

509
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: So in many ways maybe it was a disadvantage, but

510
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: one does the way, it goes the way one can.

511
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: But the kind of misconception about me, funny enough, is

512
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: people always like to say I fund research. I never

513
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 1: had funding. I had to go out and beg on

514
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: the street corners. It was like being a prostitute trying

515
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:12,319
Speaker 1: to it still is. It's a part of I most

516
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 1: hate and it's and actually it's got more difficult now

517
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: there's billions floating around in the psychedelic world. In fact,

518
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: the study we started, the Depression study, the the company

519
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: which took over our study and never added anything scientifically,

520
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 1: is worth a billion you're talking about contest here, yeah, yeah,

521
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: but that hasn't benefited the poor little Beckley Foundation who

522
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: is struggling. I'm I've got wonderful sub studies at the moment,

523
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: a whole rare wonderful studies I'm doing, and it's almost

524
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,839
Speaker 1: impossible to find funding. But anyway, let's take a break

525
00:34:54,880 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: here and go to an ad. Now you've created so

526
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,399
Speaker 1: you and your son, Cosmo have created a company now though,

527
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: so just is that just based out of the frustration

528
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: of trying to raise money for a Beckley Foundation or

529
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: is it to seize these opportunities? What can you tell

530
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 1: us about that? That happened a few years ago when Cosmo,

531
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: my younger son, I said should we work together? To

532
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: do a for profit company, and so as it as

533
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: really raising the money is amazing. How little money in

534
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: my forty years doing what they've done I've had. I

535
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 1: should think probably it's two or three million or something.

536
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: I've never added it up, but I've had it up.

537
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 1: It's very very little. And everyone always thinks I have

538
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: vast sums of money because I have a title it whatever.

539
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: So creating a company not just a foundation here, what's

540
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: the reason for doing that? And how do you deal?

541
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: I mean, look, now there's all this criticism of people

542
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: creating companies, and you know, we probably share similar concerns

543
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 1: about the abuse of the pattern process and the greediness

544
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: that can corrupt things. I have to say, I am

545
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 1: a founding director, but Cosmo runs with The first company

546
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: we did was a cannabis company, and we did it

547
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: with the biggest cannabis company in the world, m called Cannopy,

548
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: and we had a joint venture, so there were two

549
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: of us and two of them on the board. We

550
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: had a fifty fifty relationship and it was a dream

551
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: from beginning to end. It went very very well, and

552
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: then they wanted to buy us, and we were delighted

553
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: and they bought us, and then we started a psychedelic company,

554
00:36:58,160 --> 00:36:59,879
Speaker 1: which is what I wanted to do all the time,

555
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: more than a cannabis company. And because he's running that

556
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: and with amazing skill and charm, I think he does it,

557
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping so far he's kept his ethics. I

558
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 1: do the exploratory work. That's what I'm good at, and

559
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 1: what I love is the seed the seed work. I

560
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: don't want to have to have kind of beavy of

561
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:32,720
Speaker 1: bankers on my back and have to raise hundreds of millions.

562
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: It's it's not something with treasure at all. I wouldn't

563
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: be good at it, and I didn't want to do it.

564
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: But I love the exploratory work. And so he's he's

565
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: doing that and he's doing it very well. And um,

566
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: we work. Yeah. I mean, let me ask you. I mean,

567
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know. I remember there was this time,

568
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 1: I think it was back in two thousand six and

569
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: I was up in Oxford giving a talk and I

570
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 1: realized you lived very close and I called you and

571
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 1: you said, oh, come on over, come on over, and

572
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: I go over to your place. I've never been there before,

573
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: and it turned out it was your birthday. Um, and

574
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 1: and it was basically it was just you and your husband, Jamie,

575
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: and your son's Cosmo and Rocky and their girl friends

576
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: and me, the seven of us having a wonderful time.

577
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:19,240
Speaker 1: And you know, I substantly would cross past with Cosmo

578
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 1: because then he got very involved with this documentary Breaking

579
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: the Taboo, which had been launched by President Cardoso and

580
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 1: a young filmmaker in Brazil or Fernando Grosstein Andrata, and

581
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: then and then your son Cosmo teamed up with Richard

582
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: Branson's son Sam to make this. So you know, I

583
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: saw him getting pulled in this area. So you obviously

584
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: had a very strong and positive influence on him. But

585
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: I'm curious to the extent you feel comfortable talking about it.

586
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,320
Speaker 1: You know, how did you bring up your two boys?

587
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: I mean, here they knew their mother was out there

588
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:51,279
Speaker 1: about cannabis and psychedelics and their kids, and so were

589
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: they doing these things? I mean, how did you feel

590
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: about they're using it? Find enough, they always view We

591
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: never ever hid anything from them. And yet they were

592
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: incredibly well balanced, and they both went to Oxford and

593
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: studied classics, got to double first in classics, and you know,

594
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: they're hardworking, charming, attractive, wonderful fathers, do you know what

595
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: I mean? But they grew up knowing what their parents did.

596
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: We never hid anything from and I think that's where

597
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: I'm a great believer in in that basically, so I

598
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: had a wonderful relationship, and now my other son have

599
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: also gotten to the family business. One could call it. Well,

600
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: you know, I actually know quite a number of people

601
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: for whom their children were introduced by such a psycholics

602
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: by the parents or and I have other friends who themselves,

603
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: when they were young, were introduced by their parents. And

604
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 1: in almost all those cases it may because of the

605
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 1: people I know and hang out with whose turned out

606
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: to be very positive relationships where the children have turned

607
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: out all are these ones? And what what was your

608
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:07,919
Speaker 1: experience around that. I've an amazingly positive relationship with both

609
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: my boys. We actually never had a quarrel, and they said, well,

610
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: they really were wasn't anything to fight about, you know,

611
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 1: they were they were free. The one thing I'm mind

612
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 1: it was good manners, firm on manners, and the rest

613
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 1: they just did by choice. You dabbled in politics in

614
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:31,840
Speaker 1: your younger years, right, didn't you try worrying for office

615
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 1: in the past? But I never loved it. I hated it.

616
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not my natural place. I realized that

617
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:42,879
Speaker 1: I had to do it to change the policies say

618
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: that we could do the research, because in in the seventies, sixties, seventies,

619
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: scientists couldn't do didn't want to. It would have ruined

620
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: their career. So one couldn't find a scientist who was

621
00:40:56,040 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: willing to do research actually or a doctor. And so

622
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:04,279
Speaker 1: another of my pet loves was trepan nation. So that

623
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: was another by taboo area. Just explain what the ideas

624
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: I think many of our listeners won't know which reprenation is.

625
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 1: Tremp Nation is making a hole in the skull to

626
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: allow the vessels, the blood vessels in the brain to

627
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: pulsate fully on the heartbeat. That's an ancient operation which

628
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: has been done throughout history. Actually, I knew the person

629
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: who is in charge of the show The Caves, which

630
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 1: is kind of years old, and they found trepanned skull

631
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: and absolutely amazingly, I'm actually doing a study at the

632
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: moment at Yale with the latest brain imaging technology of optogenetics.

633
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 1: They're the first people to look at the effect of

634
00:41:53,160 --> 00:42:00,399
Speaker 1: sarahtonin LSD on the tone of the blood, vessels and beer,

635
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: collaborating together to look into my old love hypothesis of

636
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: the fact that underneath the changes we experience with psychedelics,

637
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 1: but also all the natural things meditation, etcetera, etcetera, deep

638
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: breathing is an increase of capillary volume. And say, we

639
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 1: were talking about the research they do and how they

640
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: create a window in the scalp of the mice in

641
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: order to be observed. What's happening with their special cameras

642
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: pick up these arrays. Is brand news only just being involved?

643
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: And I said, when when you tropan the scal do

644
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: you notice any change in cerebral circulation? And they said,

645
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: of course we do. It's a terrible problem as a

646
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: sudden burst of activity. So that happened last week, and

647
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: it shows old hypothesis if you've had since nine six,

648
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: that making a hole in the skull increases the pulsation. Well,

649
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: I'm proposed saying, and I'm reading about your theories about

650
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: about the importance of blood flow or capillary action, and

651
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: then I'm saying, you know people who we both highly respect,

652
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: and you know very well, David Nutt or Robin Carhart Harris,

653
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: and they're going, I don't know so much about the

654
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: blood flow hypothesis. I think they're saying it's more about

655
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: neural networks, more about electric impulses. But when Robin said

656
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: to me that when we did the research and it

657
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: showed um a decrease of blood to the default mode

658
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: network and not the increase, she said, Oh, man, don't

659
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: aren't you world have disappointed your your hypothesis being proved wrong.

660
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm disappointed, but I don't think it's

661
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 1: proved wrong. Wait and see. Let's just see if technology

662
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 1: will proved me right. And I think that's about to happen.

663
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,919
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I'm doing at the moment. I've

664
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 1: got a series of six breaking edge research projects, all

665
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 1: to do with this. Half of them are to do

666
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: with the full those looking into the mystical experience, and

667
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:25,160
Speaker 1: with that, I'm doing a study at Kings with wonderful

668
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:34,720
Speaker 1: collaborators looking at precision as fMRI with the highest tesla,

669
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: the highest power we've ever used, seven tesla, which has

670
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: never been used in psychedelics before. So we're looking at individuals.

671
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 1: You're looking at much more detail, much higher resolution, to

672
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: see what is happening in the brain. And that together

673
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 1: with looking at the microscopic level and then looking at

674
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 1: the different forms like pet and all the different meg

675
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:03,720
Speaker 1: all the different brain imaging technologies. I think i'd approve

676
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 1: myself how many studies involved giving micro docing and how

677
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: many are the more macro docing, and how many involve

678
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 1: any level of psychotherapy. Yeah, it's it's a two headed study,

679
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: a dub splity eagle like the Trust of the Beckley Foundation.

680
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: One half is looking at macro at full dose and

681
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: that's the study I'm doing um at the moment, I

682
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: was working on it today at Kinks. Is really exciting one.

683
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: And then to balance it, I'm going to do a

684
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: pet scan and all other sorts of stunds. Is that

685
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 1: there's a lot at different places. I'm working in Argentinea, Brazil, America,

686
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: all sorts of I set up collaborations where I find lovely.

687
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: What can you bring in Mastrick that involved psychelics and pain. Yeah,

688
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 1: that's an interesting one. That was micro docing and we

689
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 1: showed that a micro dose of LSD. Always I try

690
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 1: to work with LSD because I promised Elbert Hofton that

691
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,800
Speaker 1: I will bring it back into civilization and we showed

692
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 1: that it improved mood, cognitive functioning, neuroplasticity, and pain management.

693
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: So now we're doing more into the pain and since then,

694
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:32,439
Speaker 1: I'm discovering how microdocing and these compounds can potentially help

695
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: with neurodegenerative illnesses like Alzheimer's, dementia, parkinson because my Joe,

696
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: Mike's partner dot Parkinson's and the micro dose of actually

697
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: I again works on the dopamine production. Well, listen, last

698
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:53,800
Speaker 1: last question here. You know, it's about you've talked about,

699
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: you know, on the one hand, the importance of the

700
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,839
Speaker 1: mystical experience and obviously Rolling Griffiths and all his work

701
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: at Hartkins, he Folk it makes a big point of that,

702
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: you know, and and also at the same point ego

703
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 1: dissolution and the role of psychological and ego dissolution, And

704
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: how do you see that connection between the mystical experience

705
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: and the ego dissolution aspect of this? Yeah, I see

706
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: it really beautifully because science has killed off spirituality and

707
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: hence mankind is even more loss than they were before.

708
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 1: And now right at the very center of the new

709
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:37,240
Speaker 1: sounds is mysticism. Because funnily enough, we and other players

710
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: have noticed that those who have a mystical experience in

711
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:50,399
Speaker 1: their therapy of overcoming and terrible problem are the most successful.

712
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:56,800
Speaker 1: They most successfully overcome there whatever it is depression or addiction,

713
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 1: or or fear of dying. And that is, I think,

714
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 1: because what we've seen, the underlying factors in what's happening

715
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: is the whole brain. And this I think is because

716
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: underneath there's much more blood supply. The whole brain is

717
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: flooded with connectivity and the controlling, repressive part which humanity

718
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: has has learned through conditioning to repress parts of the

719
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,320
Speaker 1: brain so it can squeeze for limited blood supply to

720
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: where it's most needed to survive. That's what we animals

721
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: be human upright talking it learned to do, and that

722
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 1: was the kind of trick which enabled us to become

723
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: the rulers of the universe in vert commerce, but also

724
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:56,120
Speaker 1: the neurotic psychotic species we are because it's a grip

725
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: which takes control of us and we aren't control of it.

726
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: And I think the experience of a psychedelic can in

727
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: the right setting let loose the repressive grip of the

728
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 1: eager and make the whole brain more neuroplastic. So the

729
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 1: person can take over a new outlook. Like I decided

730
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:25,840
Speaker 1: a smoking nicotine is actually disgusting. I don't want to

731
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: do it anymore. And it's so deep the change in

732
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:32,800
Speaker 1: one that one actually doesn't want to do it anymore.

733
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:36,879
Speaker 1: And I think, do you see what I mean? Well, listen,

734
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:39,399
Speaker 1: here's my real last question. Here's my real last question,

735
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 1: which is, on the one hand, we see all this

736
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: emphasis now on the importance of integrating psychedelics with psychotherapy

737
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: and the ways in which psychotherapy can both improve the

738
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: positive effect of the psychedelic and also minimize the chances

739
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: they go go in the other direction. On the other hand,

740
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: the vast majority of psychedelic use is happening outside that context.

741
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:00,760
Speaker 1: And I remember you and I you know, we crossed

742
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: passive burning Man back about fifteen years ago, and here

743
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,919
Speaker 1: where this amazing burning Man environment, you know, where people

744
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 1: are all using it without really therapy. And so how

745
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:14,839
Speaker 1: do you reconcile those two things that the broader use. Well,

746
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: I grew up in my psychedelic experience, not with it therapy.

747
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,839
Speaker 1: I mean, we were very serious people and looking at

748
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 1: why why are we the way we are? And how

749
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: do we curious and how do we heal ourselves and

750
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 1: all of that. But we never took it with a therapist.

751
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't just in what we did. We

752
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:41,759
Speaker 1: were looked after ourselves. But I think if you've got

753
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: bad traumas to overcome, the psychedelic setting of therapy can

754
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: be very, very healing and therefore very valuable. I'm not

755
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 1: against it, but I didn't think it's essential for everyone,

756
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: And I think it's terrible mistake to criminalize it if

757
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: it isn't in a medical setting, because in my opinion,

758
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 1: what you do with your own consciousness, if you don't

759
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: do anything which damages other people, is totally your private affair.

760
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,760
Speaker 1: It really doesn't have anything to do with the state

761
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: or anyone else. Well, thank you very much for bringing

762
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: it back to the core principle that we're all fighting war.

763
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: So Amanda, thank you so much for joining me. Then

764
00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:30,120
Speaker 1: your work is amazing. Good luck with the rest of

765
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: the foundation and your own research and uh and with

766
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: a company and all of that, and best wishes to

767
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 1: your family as well. I'll leave you, love you, Indivi

768
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: you and hope to see you really too. Okay, if

769
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: you're enjoying psychoactive, please tell your friends about it, or

770
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:52,920
Speaker 1: you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts or

771
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,799
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear from

772
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:58,720
Speaker 1: our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories,

773
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 1: comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one

774
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 1: eight three three seven seven nine six that's eight three

775
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:12,239
Speaker 1: three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive

776
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,399
Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com, or find me on Twitter at

777
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: Ethan Natalman. You can also find contact information in our

778
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:22,800
Speaker 1: show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio

779
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 1: and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's

780
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 1: produced by Noam Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers

781
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:35,440
Speaker 1: are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronotsky

782
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from my

783
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by

784
00:52:42,719 --> 00:52:46,320
Speaker 1: Ari Blucien and a special thanks to a Brio s

785
00:52:46,440 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: f Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Deep. Next week, I'll be

786
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: talking with Garth Mullet's the host of an award winning

787
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 1: podcast called Crackdown that he co produces with his fellow

788
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 1: drug users and drug user organizers and activists in Vancouver

789
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 1: on Monday, though, We're going to first play you an

790
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 1: episode of his Crackdown podcast, and then on Thursday, he'll

791
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 1: be my guest on Psychoactive. Listen to this clip for

792
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: a sense of what's ahead. I'm an old school dope fan,

793
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:30,439
Speaker 1: you know. That's the story of my life is I've

794
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: been on some kind of opioid pretty much every day

795
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:36,400
Speaker 1: of my adult life. For most of them, and for

796
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: a long time that was heroin, and for a while

797
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 1: now it's been methadone and uh, everything in between. And

798
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:48,799
Speaker 1: I came to understand our struggle just through my own

799
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: personal experience with police. People get it all twisted here.

800
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: They say it's an opioid crisis, it's an addiction crisis.

801
00:53:56,520 --> 00:53:59,360
Speaker 1: It's not for me. It's a death crisis. It's a

802
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: toxic rug supply crisis. You know, whether it's someone being

803
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:05,359
Speaker 1: wired to a substance or someone dying. And these are

804
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 1: completely different things that require different solutions. Subscribe to Cycleactive now,

805
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: see it, don't miss it.