WEBVTT - From the Vault: Timothy Leary, Part 1 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.960 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.840 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In It's Saturday. 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.400 Time to go into the old vault, this time for 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.680 an episode that you and Christian did back. I think 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:21.239 this was published originally in September of that's right. Since 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.000 we're doing this series on psychedelics, I thought it'd be 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.080 good to revisit these older episodes that Christian I did 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.720 on Timothy Leary. Looking at Timothy Leary, his biography and 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.440 the role he played in the the history of psychedelics, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.160 which is kind of a you know, a double edged 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.400 sword here, I guess you know. It's on one hand, 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.199 he he was at the forefront of the counterculture movement, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.640 but he undoubtedly did a lot of damage to the 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:52.240 reputation of psychedelics. Interesting that he has a controversial legacy, 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.120 not just among people who were opposed to psychedelics, but 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.200 among a lot of psychedelic supporters, people who are involved 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.280 in psychedelic rely search there there's a lot of I 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:06.520 don't know if you'd say anger, but even in contemporary accounts, 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.160 you read about people who are who just kind of 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.840 hang their head and they're like man, Timothy really really 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.679 made things difficult for us. Yeah. Indeed, and we discussed 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.399 some of that in the Psychedelics episodes that that are 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.880 publishing right now. So let's go ahead and jump into 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.319 this one, part one of a two thousand seventeen look 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:31.679 at Timothy Leary. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:40.880 from how Stuffwork dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.039 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:47.640 Christian Seger. And this week we're talking about Timothy Leary. 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.040 Now we're not just gonna talk about Timothy Leary. We're 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.120 also going to talk about science of LSD, the history 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.760 of LSD, the use of LSD and psilocybin in various 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.600 UH research projects, what these substance is actually due to 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.800 the mind to the brain. But we're going to use 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.080 Timothy Learry as kind of, you know, sort of a 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.480 guiding principle, I guess for this episode. And if you're 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:12.600 if you're out there and you're thinking, well, I love 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.359 Timothy Larry, Well, then strap in. If you're out there 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.600 and you're you're thinking yourself, well, I don't know that 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.800 I like this Timothy Learry guy, well, strap in as well. Yeah, 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.520 I think we've got something for everybody here. We were 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.480 basically sheltered during a hurricane this week, and so Robert 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.240 and I just binge read about Timothy Leary for four 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.600 days straight. We've got a lot to share with you. 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.480 My eyes are bleeding a little, but I think you're 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.120 going to be interested in this so much so that 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.440 we're going to do this as a two parter, yes now, 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:44.880 just to refresh anybody out there, and to and to 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.200 inform anyone who just who doesn't know who Timothy Learry is. Well. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.160 Timothy Leary was an American psychologist, author, and a key 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.400 figure of the nineteen sixties counterculture and psychedelics you know 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:01.760 movement in general. You live and he managed to run 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.280 a foul of pretty much every organization he was a 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.360 part of. Uh. He was arrested u enough times that 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.880 he supposedly saw the inside of thirty six different prisons. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.679 He he earned the ire of many Americans, even as 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.679 he was able to submit a reputation as also kind 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.440 of a you know, a counterculture leader uh his and 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.680 I think the reason is because he has this message 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.840 of inner exploration of anti establishment thinking and this this 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.680 resonated with folks and continues to resonate his writings, his soothing, 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.720 sage like voice on numerous audio recordings. His his his 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:42.080 irresistible celebrity allure. It all made him just impossible to ignore, 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.400 love him or hate him. Plus he was not the 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.000 sort of guy to let the limelight go away new 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.920 and well and we'll get into all that he uh, yeah, 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.760 he he clung to it and people gravitated to him 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.360 as well. He was more than willing to rub elbows 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:01.400 with scientists like Carl Sagan, artists like h Geeger, performers 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.560 like John Lennon. Uh, and you know such show luminaries 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:09.400 as Alan Ginsburg, Al Just Huxley, William Burrows, Jack Kara Whack, 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.600 and Kim Ksy. He even kept the company of former 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.160 enemies when it benefited him, such as Watergate Burglar and 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.640 later conservative radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy. Yeah, 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:26.279 so this guy has been widely influential. He was. I 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.279 have a derogatory saying that I say sometimes about about 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.960 people like Leary, although I think Leary was doing this 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.760 before this guy. He was the Cato Kalin of his time. 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:41.000 Like he was famous for being famous. He was. Yeah, Um, 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.679 it wasn't because of a very specific thing he did, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.040 and we learned this through the research. But I have 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.200 to be honest that, like my experience with him was 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.600 basically thinking, oh, this was an academic who had done 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.440 some studies and then sort of became a guru like figure, 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.479 much like Sasha Shulgin when we talked about him during 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.640 our two parter on M M A. Now, Sasha Shulgin 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.880 was a practicing chemist who is in his laboratory up 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:09.680 until he died, right, Uh, Leary was not. He did 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.720 do some interesting studies in the fifties and sixties, and 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.640 we're gonna get into all of that stuff, but first 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.600 I think we should probably talk about his influence on music. Yeah. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:22.960 I have to say that before I knew anything about 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.479 Timothy Leary, I knew the Moody blues song Legend of 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.200 the Mind. Okay, this is the has the chorus Timothy 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.680 Learies Dead you know and so forth. Wonderful, wonderful track. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.640 I listened to it several times while researching this episode. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.840 Other fan music fans out there might recognize the the 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:44.760 the sampling of his voice in various recordings, probably most 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.360 notably a live version of Tools Third Eye, where they 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.200 have the bit to think for yourself, question authority. Um. 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:54.960 And then you'll find numerous other musical projects that make 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.599 use of his soothing voice, and in fact, he was 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.320 involved in several of these product as well. Uh, there's 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:07.000 an ambient instrumental like Situr distortion album the titled turn 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.480 onto an End Dropout, which was one of his catch phrases. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.640 And that's actually like really good listening. I fired up 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:14.280 every now and then you just kind of, you know, 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.440 chill out and and you know, don't think about what's 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:22.240 being said too much. But um, the interesting thing is 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.760 we've alluded to is that there is this kind of 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:30.239 surface level pop culture idea of Leary, and it doesn't 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.360 it doesn't necessarily hold up when you start going into 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.279 the details of who he was, the sorts of research 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.920 projects he was involved in. Um. Like, I really wanted 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.440 him to be more in line with with another counterculture 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.159 controversial character that we've talked about, John C. Lily, But 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.560 there's not really a lot to compare the two besides 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.920 the LSD connection, right, And that's actually kind of what's 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.320 happening with this episode is we're getting a convergence of 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.359 two types of episodes that we normally do. We have 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.839 history of doing these two parters on specific psychedelics and 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.440 looking at their scientific and medical applications. But then we 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.520 also have a history of doing episodes like the John C. 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.000 Lily one or the Sasha Shulgin one. We call them 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:19.160 our psychedelic Avengers. And we thought, oh, we're gonna emerge 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:23.280 Tim Leary in this l s D psilocybin research together 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:25.960 and it will be really interesting. It turns out that 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.320 that he wasn't actually contributing to the research, but I 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.720 think it does come together in a really interesting way 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.920 thematically when we get to the whole piece of this, 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.840 and in that I think he was a barometer for 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:44.400 America's acceptance of the idea of researching acid as being 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.000 a medical tool. Yeah, it's interesting how he was is 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.520 this will just discuss he was, you know, a spokesperson 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.440 for this. He represented that the supposedly a a learned 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.080 academic who was who was advocating LSD A is this 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:00.920 this powerful tool? And yet at the same time he 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.720 also was such um an inflammatory individual as part of 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.400 the counterculture heat Uh. A lot of people point to 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.280 the harm he did as one of one of the 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.360 key figures, um more so than John C. Lily Uh 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.440 who who vilified the counterculture and vilified the use of 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.400 psychedelics and one of the reasons that psychedelics were not 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.720 studied for for decades. Yeah, there are multiple researchers in 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:28.520 the notes here that we'll talk about throughout the course 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.920 of these two episodes who point to Leary as being 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.599 the reason why we haven't been able to use l 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.439 s D in medically approved studies for going on thirty 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.080 plus years now. Longer than that, I think even it was. 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:45.880 It's in the notes here somewhere, but it was in 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.240 the mid sixties when it was banned. So, yeah, strap in, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.240 because that's the other thing. We're going to get into 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.480 a real basic primer for you on what LSD is, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.240 what's the difference between LSD and psilocybin, and then will 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:05.240 roll into the Leary experience. Okay, So to go back 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.160 to the very beginning here, let's just go to the 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.240 the the origins of l s D itself, since that's 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:15.040 the main substance that we're gonna be discussing here. So 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.199 Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman synthesized l s D and a 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:24.840 sandas pharmaceutical lab on November six, uh Sanders was working 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.440 on a research project involving a parasitic fungus called ergot 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.360 that grows on rye. Now you may remember that Joe 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:35.960 and I recorded an episode titled The Psychedelic Nightmare of 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:40.120 Ergotism that dealt with the ergot and that that is 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.640 the same substance that we're discussing here. And you know, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.720 aside from a noteworthy and truly horrifying breakouts of ergot 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.280 poisoning in Europe, it has been linked to various supernatural 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:55.040 rights as well as as well as allegedly individual artist 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.960 and artistic traditions throughout history, though I think and sometimes 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.800 those are mere theories, right, Yeah, And so just to 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.560 be clear here, Sandaws was a pharmaceutical company that started 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.920 in eighteen eighties six, and they began researching for more 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.840 novel kind of drugs in nineteen seventeen. They were basically 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.520 looking for therapeutic leads based on natural products. So they 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.640 turned to ergot. Why well, they had an example that 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.800 they had already created called ergotamine. That was a drug 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.840 that they had created for treating migraine headaches. So Hoffman 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.680 came along and he started looking at ergot and he 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.760 saw the lisergic acid in it, and he thought, well, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.640 maybe this LSD that I can synthesize out of this 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.000 will be a good respiratory stimulants. So, for instance, make 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.800 maybe if you have asthma, you take some LSD and 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.719 it will help you breathe better. Yeah. So he ended 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:48.640 up deriving different compounds from lysergic acid, and he developed 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.600 several medicines, including drugs that lowered blood pressure and improved 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.960 brain function of the elderly. And in eight he derived 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.760 the twenty five in a series of these derivatives. It 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:02.520 was lysergic acid dithalamide, or LSD, and he thought that 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:07.800 LSD stimulate breathing circulation, but test didn't show anything special 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.520 and Sandaz abandoned further study. But then five years later, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.680 Hoffman's thoughts returned to LSD potential and he felt that 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.160 it hadn't been fully explored, so he took the perhaps 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.960 unusual step of synthesizing another batch further testing, and during 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.360 the process he began to feel strange. Um. The rest 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:32.320 is history. He discovered the properties of LSD, and I've 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.880 heard it described as his his problem child like it. 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.200 Basically the rest of his life he kept coming back 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.280 to LSD and and trying to figure out, like, you 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.400 know what what it can be used for and how 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.000 you know, what are the true properties of this. At 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:49.400 the same time, there's this kind of roller coaster of 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.400 of cultural awareness of it taking place in the background. Yeah. Yeah, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.280 And he has that infamous bicycle ride as well, right 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.280 after he takes it for the first time that has 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.000 been sort mythologized over the years. Yes. Now, l s D, 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.520 to be clear, is a psychedelic drug, meaning that it 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:10.040 alters perceptions of reality, the shape of thoughts, the connections 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.760 that one forms. I can't stress enough that one should 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:19.480 set aside any cinematic ideas of what acid trips consists of, 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:22.760 because it's it's rare to find a film that truly 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:24.840 feels trippy in a way that matches up with the 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.000 actual experience of LSD. You don't. You don't see imaginary 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.720 elves or anything. It's if you watch just films and TV, 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.480 you just assume that an LSD trip is a dream sequence, 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.000 and a dream sequence is just an LSD trip, that 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:44.840 these are in just interchangeable, uh altered states of reality. Right, Yeah, exactly. 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:49.000 I remember like growing up when kids would start talking 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:51.400 about l s D and it being available to us, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.920 just all the like various like bizarre urban myths that 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.240 people would tell, you know, like oh, there's this one 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.400 guy who took it and he thinks he's an orange 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.040 now and he doesn't know how stop being an orange, 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.240 or like another one was like this guy took it 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.880 and he saw a bunch of everybody looked like giant 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.600 white guerrillas to him, and he fought all these guerrillas. 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.520 And it's like these sort of spectacular stories. Well, it 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:21.280 does have hallucinogenic properties, there's they're mythologized. Yeah. I always 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.360 think back to an episode of Strangers with Candy where 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.560 there's a story of a girl who try took alics 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:27.360 D and tried to force herself through a key hole. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.040 You know. Now, that's not to say that nothing bad 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.079 can happen while while one is on LSD. We'll have 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.160 some examples of that as as we go on here. 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.199 But in terms of just like what the experience of 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.040 of LSD, that basically, what is the psychedelic experience? Uh, 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.520 oddly enough, I'm I want to turn to some of 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.559 the words of Timothy Leary, because I thought that that 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.360 he actually managed to sum it up rather nicely here 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.160 and uh, and I'm gonna go ahead and read it 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.520 in my impersonation of Timothy Leary, because it's more fun 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.920 that way for me and hopefully for you. Of course, 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:07.480 the drug dose does not produce transcendent experience. It merely 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.920 acts as a chemical key. It opens the mind, frees 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.160 the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures. The 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.440 nature of the experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.200 Set denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality, structure, 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.600 and his mood. At the same time, setting is physical, 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:31.200 the weather, the room's atmosphere, social feelings of persons present 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.400 toward one another, and cultural prevailing views as to what 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.520 is real. It is for this reason that manuals are 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.240 guide books are necessary. Their purpose is to enable a 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.520 person to understand the new realities of the expanded consciousness, 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:50.760 to serve as roadmaps for new interior territories which modern 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.840 science has made accessible. So to give you an idea 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.960 of what LSD is like outside of the experience, outside 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.280 of getting turned on, as Leary would right, it starts 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.480 without about an hour of when you first take it, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.720 and it can last up to twelve hours. Uh. There's 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.760 a peak about halfway through that experience. And the effects 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:15.640 very widely, but biologically they include dilated pupils, increased blood pressure, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:20.520 high body temperature, dizziness, sweat, blurred vision, and tingly hands 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.360 and feet. The primary effects though, are visual, which is 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.400 more what Leary is describing there. You get stronger colors, 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.560 brighter lights, trails, halos, and patterns. Overall, people say it 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:36.520 provides a sense of happiness and euphoria. That's very emotional. However, though, 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.560 as we said, this can also lead to impulsive behavior 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.240 and poor judgment. When you're under the effects of this euphoria. Yeah, 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.520 you you feel your body as if it's something new, 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.560 something different. You smell and taste the world in a 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.960 different way. Visual stimulized, processed in a with new areas 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.440 of focus, new details, and and the same can be 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.720 said for cognition, and the same can be said for 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.960 the basic processing of time. And so indeed, that is 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.920 the that is the essential psychedelic experience, uh in a nutshell. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:06.840 And there's one thing I'd like to point out before 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.240 we go further here, which is that we don't actually 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.640 know how it affects the brain entirely. And why don't 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.200 we know that because there's never been any scientific research 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.680 on how it affects the brain, because it has been 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.240 banned largely in the United States and some other countries 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:24.800 for for the last couple of decades, as we mentioned, 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.400 So this is kind of a problem. We've got this 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.640 thing on our hands. Everybody knows about it, we have 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:34.240 a general understanding of it, but we haven't done the research. Yeah, 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:36.880 and we've touched on this. So when we've talked about marijuana, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.480 pslocybin as well as m D m A, you have 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.560 these substances that just became banned research into their properties, 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.920 right was it the very least professionally taboo for so long. 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:53.600 So Yeah, despite the fact that they clearly have powerful properties, 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.560 we don't necessarily understand them all that much. It's believed 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.160 that LSD works similar to sarah tonin and neurotraine. It's 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:05.080 made responsible for regulating moods, appetite, muscle control, sexuality, sleep 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.840 and since re perception and alice D seems to interfere 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.119 with the way the brain serotonin receptors work, so it 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:17.040 may inhibit neurotransmission, stimulated or both. It also affects the 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.960 way that the retinas process information and conduct that information 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.320 to the brain. So you might be listening to this 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.760 and saying, well, hold on, I've never taken any of 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.000 this stuff before, and you're just kind of throwing these 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:33.600 terms around. What's the difference between LSD and psilocybin? While 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.560 psilocybin is a fun guy, and that's classified by botanists 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.360 and my cologists, people who study mushrooms. While they were 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:45.160 used by the Aztecs in religious rituals, the American public 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.080 didn't really find out about psilocybin until nineteen fifty seven, 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.480 and this was when an article in Life magazine recounted 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.560 the adventures of a New York banker in Mexico where 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.440 he tried it. Huh yeah, LSD totally different. It is 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.880 color us odorless and tasteless and ingesting. Just twenty five 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.680 micrograms is enough to feel effects. Now, to give you 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.320 an idea of what twenty five micrograms is, that's less 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:13.080 than the weight of too salt grains is very quickly 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.920 metabolized by the human body. Now, as previously established, LSD 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.360 is a chemical that synthesized in a laboratory setting. Where 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.600 a psilocybin is a fungi that's grown in nat one 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.480 is natural one is created in a lapp. Several chemicals 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.520 that could go into l s D are currently sales 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.960 restricted here in America or are monitored by the Drug 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.920 Enforcement Agency, And there's all kinds of different recipes on 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.320 how to make it. Some start with lysergic acid that's 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:46.600 derived from morning glory seeds. Others use that ergot fungus 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:48.840 that we talked about earlier and how it was discovered. 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.240 They culture that and they extract ergot alkaloids from it. 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.880 This fungus and LSD itself can break down when exposed 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.119 to light, and that's important to note as well. In 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.800 this ergot recipe, the solvent and reagents involved are also 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:07.359 very dangerous. They're poisonous, carcinogenic, and explosive. So it's fun. 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.280 I would imagine marking on this stuff, like if you've 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.160 got your little laboratory, you've got to be really careful. 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.560 You know, this is like uh um, some Jesse and 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.040 Walter White stuff where you've got to be really careful 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.040 about what kind of stuff you're concocting and what you're 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.560 breathing in, and whether you're not, you blow up your trailer. Yeah, 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.000 this is straight up chemistry. And that's the other different 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.880 psilocybin is uh is ultimately Uh, it's it's about I guess, 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:36.240 scavenging or or growing naturally occurring organism. Uh. This is chemistry. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.560 So the way you do it is you synthesize the 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.920 ergot alkaloid into a life surgic acid compound, and you 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.520 do this by adding chemicals and applying heat. Afterward, you 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:50.199 isomerize the compounds so that the atoms in its molecules rearrange. 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.600 This involves some cooling, mixing it with an acid, an 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.639 actual acid, not the term acid, also a base, and 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.240 then evaporating it. The remnants are i as lysergic dithalamide, 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.560 which is then isomerized again and that produces what's called 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:12.240 active LSD. So finally you purify it, you crystallize it. Afterward, 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:14.760 LSD can be made into tablets, or it's dissolved into 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.720 liquid or made into gelatine squares. Most often it's dissolved 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.600 into ethanol, and then that ethanol is added to sheets 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.200 of blotting paper that are then dried, cut up into 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.119 little pieces, and people get tabs. Yeah, it looks just 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.360 like the candy that you can buy. I'm not really 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:31.800 sure on the history of that. Can you know the 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.120 one where it basically looks like blots? Yeah? Like which 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.480 came first? That's a good question. This is this like 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.840 candy cigarettes or is it just a happy coincidence that 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.520 this terrible candy looks like acid? Yeah, that is curious. 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:48.000 If any listeners, no, please let us in on the 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.880 secret there A lot of you have probably also heard 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.480 about bad trips. We mentioned them earlier. Well, it's not 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.679 really clear what causes these bad trips, but they result 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:01.160 in fear and paranoia, and treatment usually requires basically going 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.159 to a quiet space so that the user can just 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.800 come down, but sometimes you have to administer anti anxiety 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:11.600 medication or tranquilizers, so that that's important to remember as well. Yeah, 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.280 this makes me think of a lot of the research 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:19.159 involving psilocybin um that really ultimately kind of backs up 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:21.440 some of what Leary said in that that bit that 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:23.920 I read in that a lot of it comes down 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:28.440 to priming, preparing the individual for what the trip is 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.000 going to consist of and then of course personal medical 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.880 and personal psychiatric history is going to play into that scenario. Yeah. Absolutely. 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:38.879 Now you've also probably heard of flashbacks, right, this is 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:40.960 the other thing, Like when when I was in high school, 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.120 like all the legends, it was like, Oh, he's gonna 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.680 see those white guerillas every year for the rest of 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:48.640 his life, right like something like that. Oh yeah, it's 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:51.639 this is something that is that pops up in films 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:53.840 and TV from time to time, and it's either just 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.320 completely ridiculous, like the White Guerillas, or even when it 0:21:57.480 --> 0:21:59.760 is a lot cooler and more believable, say with the 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.840 season of True Detective, there's still a lot a lot 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.320 of doubts from some individuals to to what extent this 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.280 is a thing or or a realistic depiction of it 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.040 if it is. Yeah, here's the deal with flashbacks. There's 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.760 no evidence to support the idea that LSD remains in 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.679 your body forever in amounts inside your brain or spinal fluid. 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:21.879 People say that, but we don't have any evidence on it. 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.480 Why because we really haven't been able to study it. Right. Uh. 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:29.680 Some people think though that this is what causes flashbacks. 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:34.439 The majority of users, the report never having had flashbacks, 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.640 and of those who have reported it, many are mentally ill, 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.919 and some doctors believe that what they're perceiving is actually 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.680 a form of psychosis that emerged due to the l 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:48.800 s D use. There's actually a medically recognized disorder called 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.600 hallucinogen persisting perceptive disorder, and this is for people who 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:58.639 constantly experience visual hallucinations after they take LSD. This is 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:01.239 a little different than the idea of halashbacks, right, I mean, 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.240 it's also worth noting that the visual hallucinations can occur 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:08.200 for a number of reasons. Um So it's it's entirely 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.320 possible that one could could could take l s D 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.160 and then what a year later they experienced some sort 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:16.560 of visual hallucination. And one of the main ways they 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.399