Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist, we have an exciting collaborative classic for
Speaker 1: you this evening. We're big, big fans of a show
Speaker 1: called Stuff to Blow Your Mind, featuring our good friends
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick. We gotta tell you, they
Speaker 1: class up the show every time they drop by. Do
Speaker 1: you guys remember this one?
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I feel like time kind of
Speaker 2: stood still while we were making this, and I could
Speaker 2: see the matrix a.
Speaker 1: Little little flash forward.
Speaker 3: Whatever. The opposite of deja.
Speaker 4: Vu is some really good sushi recipes in them, in
Speaker 4: them lines of code.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, wait, maybe it was the shrooms.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was.
Speaker 1: We know that there is a renaissance in recent years
Speaker 1: with psychedelic research, especially in processing trauma or PTSD, and
Speaker 1: back in twenty nineteen, we had Robert over to explore
Speaker 1: kind of the smoke and mirrors, the hype versus the
Speaker 1: fact versus the fiction of psychedelics, and this was just
Speaker 1: such a rewarding and bizarre conversation.
Speaker 4: Indeed, let's jump right into said rewarding conversation about psil
Speaker 4: A Simon and psychedelic experiences.
Speaker 3: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 3: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 3: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 3: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: her name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined as always with our super producer Paul,
Speaker 1: Mission control deck, and most.
Speaker 3: Importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. Today we've got to welcome you back. Noel,
Speaker 1: you've been on some trips recently. You have not been
Speaker 1: tripping necessarily.
Speaker 5: You don't know that.
Speaker 3: I don't. I just said necessarily necessarily means I'm not
Speaker 3: saying Norge.
Speaker 5: And I was in San Francisco for for a little while.
Speaker 6: That would have been a good opportunity to do that,
Speaker 6: but it did not cross my path.
Speaker 1: And in today's episode, for anyone who didn't bother to
Speaker 1: read the title, you were so excited you just jumped in.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is about tripping. It's about.
Speaker 3: Psychedelics, hallucinogens, so.
Speaker 2: One in particular, and in the past we've talked a
Speaker 2: little more broadly about hallucinogens and psychedelics in our episodes.
Speaker 2: Avid listeners would remember, did hallucinogens create religion? Or can
Speaker 2: hallucinogen's cure addiction? But today we're drilling down into one
Speaker 2: specific substance, and we've brought someone away along with us
Speaker 2: to help.
Speaker 1: That's right, We are not diving into this rabbit hole alone.
Speaker 1: Please welcome to the show our good friend, co host
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, co host of Invention,
Speaker 1: mister Robert Lamb.
Speaker 7: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: We're very excited that you're here. Robert. We very much
Speaker 2: are looking to you as an expert, well because you
Speaker 2: not long ago completed a I believe five part series
Speaker 2: on this very substance on Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 7: Yeah, me and my co host Joe McCormick, we did
Speaker 7: five part look at psilocybin, psychedelics in general, but with
Speaker 7: very much a focus on psilocybin.
Speaker 6: It's an interesting time for that, especially because I think
Speaker 6: the tide is sort of turning in terms of not
Speaker 6: only public opinion, but even just the laws surrounding. It's
Speaker 6: getting loosened up in a lot of places, and there's
Speaker 6: legitimate research being done using psilocybin to treat things like
Speaker 6: depression or anxiety or what have you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that the research area is perhaps the
Speaker 7: most exciting area to look at because there's a lot
Speaker 7: of progress made, you know, back in the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 7: and then of course things died down almost you know,
Speaker 7: to a trickle to a crawl for decades, and now
Speaker 7: we're living in a true renaissance of psychedelic research, you know,
Speaker 7: where researchers have picked up where others left off and
Speaker 7: are you know, continuing to really explore the healing potential
Speaker 7: of these substances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And a lot of this has to do with
Speaker 2: the social morase, right, the way substances and certain drugs
Speaker 2: have been viewed over the course of history.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But before we get too deep into this, let's talk
Speaker 2: about what we're talking about. What is psilocybin?
Speaker 7: Okay, Well, psilocybin, for charters, is a psychedelic and you know,
Speaker 7: the term itself is from the Greek words for soul
Speaker 7: or mind and manifesting, but in particular, psilocybin is a
Speaker 7: trip to mind psychedelic. It naturally occurs in some two
Speaker 7: hundred different varieties of mushroom, and the primary compounds responsible
Speaker 7: for its psychedelic effects are psilocybin and silosine, which ultimately
Speaker 7: amount to pretty much the same thing, since psilocybin breaks
Speaker 7: down into silicon inside the body, and you know, compared
Speaker 7: to almost all other known drugs, psilocybin has an exceptionally
Speaker 7: low potential for abuse and exceptionally few known physiological risks.
Speaker 1: Right right, It turns out that many of the urban
Speaker 1: legends people have heard about people about folks taking magic
Speaker 1: mushrooms and then going completely insane for the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives are just that urban legends. They're also I believe,
Speaker 1: no proven fatalities due to this substance.
Speaker 7: Well, it's I guess two things are worth worth pointing out.
Speaker 7: Like for starters, a certain segment of the population can
Speaker 7: experience psychological ramification, so people with a predisposition for say, schizophrenia,
Speaker 7: and that's a something that everyone should always keep in mind.
Speaker 7: On the other hand, I mean, they are powerful substances.
Speaker 7: They're not you know, it's not bubblegum. Set and setting
Speaker 7: are extremely important. The mental state that that one has
Speaker 7: going into using these substances is extremely important, and so
Speaker 7: there therefore it's you know, it's very possible for especially
Speaker 7: as you know, a young person who hasn't, you know, say,
Speaker 7: put a lot of thought into what is going to happen.
Speaker 7: It's very possible for them to have a challenging time.
Speaker 1: I guess the thing I'm clarifying here is while all
Speaker 1: of that is true, there has also been this persistent
Speaker 1: this this persistent public image of psilocybin or hallucinogens in
Speaker 1: general as something that someone would ingest one at one
Speaker 1: point in their lives and then for the rest of
Speaker 1: the natural span of their of their life they would
Speaker 1: be functionally insane or unwell or unable to perform as
Speaker 1: a regular member of society. And I think that's fake.
Speaker 1: That's propaganda, right, that's negative PR and the War on drugs.
Speaker 6: And speaking of PR, just really quickly, we're not, as
Speaker 6: we do with any ideas we discuss, not saying you
Speaker 6: should believe this or this is something you should go
Speaker 6: out and do, or saying you should go out and
Speaker 6: microdose and take psilocybin today it'll improve your life. We're
Speaker 6: just going through some of the effects, some of the
Speaker 6: history and some of the current research and the news
Speaker 6: behind it. And speaking of that, there was a study
Speaker 6: that just came out from Global Drug Survey to your point.
Speaker 6: Band that pulled close to one hundred and twenty thousand
Speaker 6: people in fifty different countries about their drug and alcohol consumption,
Speaker 6: and twelve thousand people in that survey said they did
Speaker 6: mushrooms in twenty sixteen, and only zero point two percent
Speaker 6: of them said they needed emergency medical care afterward, as
Speaker 6: opposed to that was five or six times lower than LSD, cocaine, MDMA,
Speaker 6: and alcohol, and three times lower than marijuana.
Speaker 2: So well, and there's also something to be said here
Speaker 2: about combination of substance. When you do those, there's always
Speaker 2: a danger there.
Speaker 3: If someone could die being in an unsafe setting or
Speaker 3: a situation. Right, Yeah, they caused them to behave erratically.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And just to kind of harp one last
Speaker 2: time on this point both that everybody's kind of making here.
Speaker 2: There is a small segment of the population that should
Speaker 2: never likely should never try psilocybin, but for the overwhelming majority,
Speaker 2: it is not something that's going to cause deleterious effects, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one more statistic here. It looks like about eight
Speaker 1: percent of the US population people counting people over twenty
Speaker 1: six eight percent of people over twenty six years old
Speaker 1: have at least self reported using some sort of hallucinogen.
Speaker 1: Is that number higher in actuality maybe, but not that much.
Speaker 1: So again, this war on drugs meantality doesn't really track.
Speaker 1: It is not as if one out of three people
Speaker 1: on the street are tripping their balls off or something,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And to Robert's point, it's
Speaker 1: not something Well, historically psychedelics played a more formal role
Speaker 1: in human experience, or a more spiritual role, rather than
Speaker 1: a recreational role.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent.
Speaker 6: And that's I think in terms of the tide turning.
Speaker 6: It's starting to be seen more like that instead of
Speaker 6: just some thing that you pop for Jolly's at a
Speaker 6: concert or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, this is something that fascinating me about your
Speaker 1: discussion on stuff to blow your mind, Robert. When we
Speaker 1: get to the nuts and bolts of psilocybin specifically, how
Speaker 1: much do we know about how it actually works in
Speaker 1: the human brain.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, we still don't know for sure the exact
Speaker 7: neurochemical mechanism, but classic psychedelics appear to bind to a
Speaker 7: specific subclass of serotonin receptor, the serotonin serotonin two A receptor,
Speaker 7: and these receptors are found concentrated in the human cortex,
Speaker 7: which is the outer layer of the cerebellum, which is
Speaker 7: associated with a lot of the lot of higher brain functions,
Speaker 7: you know, sensation, speech, of course, language, voluntary action. You know.
Speaker 7: So when you take a psychedelic like LSD or psilocybin mushrooms,
Speaker 7: the active ingredient, the active compounds make their way into
Speaker 7: the brain and sort of act as act as serotonin
Speaker 7: binding to these receptors. But yeah, there are a lot
Speaker 7: of a lot of questions to still remain about exactly
Speaker 7: how it works. So a lot of questions remain exactly
Speaker 7: regarding how serotonin really works in our minds.
Speaker 2: Well, there are a lot of stories that are a
Speaker 2: little more anecdotal about or I guess, let's say, tales
Speaker 2: of what psilocybin actually is and how it functions within
Speaker 2: the body outside of the medical research right about it
Speaker 2: being conscious way, I mean, there are all kinds of
Speaker 2: things we can get into later in here. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are stories that you will find across the internet
Speaker 2: and perhaps hear from acquaintances of yours that go and
Speaker 2: go a little deeper into the strangeness.
Speaker 6: But let's imagine that there was like a big pharma
Speaker 6: type commercial for psilocybin. And let's let's think about what
Speaker 6: would be rattled off at the end, the things that
Speaker 6: could be caused, things like nazi obomitaing, abominal crams and
Speaker 6: diary and muscle relaxation, weak dis in, twitches, yawning, drowsiness, dizziness,
Speaker 6: light headedness, and lack of coordination, people dilation, tearing, dry
Speaker 6: mouth and facial flushing, increased heart rate, blood pressure and
Speaker 6: body temperature, sweating followed by shells and shivering, none us
Speaker 6: of tongue, lips or mouth, feeling of physical heaviness or lightness,
Speaker 6: and feeling of floating.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I was just reading the other day about
Speaker 7: how how DARPA is interested in in basically harnessing all
Speaker 7: of this without the mind altering aspect.
Speaker 1: Just to weaponize it essentially, U DARPA our our eternal
Speaker 1: fourth co host.
Speaker 3: You know. So there's there's another thing here.
Speaker 1: When we're when we're dwelling on the anecdotal stuff, we
Speaker 1: do have to say that this very quickly gets us
Speaker 1: into some of the more out there or fringe concepts, beliefs,
Speaker 1: authors and before we get to those ideas which are
Speaker 1: grand and many are as beautiful as they are unprovable,
Speaker 1: but they're all based on not so much the physical
Speaker 1: sensations people encounter, but the psychological situations they encounter. And
Speaker 1: this I think Matt is directly tying into some of
Speaker 1: the anecdotes you've mentioned. Everybody has sort of a lot
Speaker 1: of people rather who try hallucinogens have this kind of
Speaker 1: hero's journey tail, right, And sometimes it's full of young
Speaker 1: yn archetypes. Sometimes it's just full of strange perceptions of
Speaker 1: time and space or even senasthesia.
Speaker 6: Things much less easy to quantify in a rattled off
Speaker 6: list at rapid fire at the end of a television commercial.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, the the ineffable aspect of it is
Speaker 7: is always a key factor. Michael Polin has an excellent
Speaker 7: book that came out this year about psychedelics's called How
Speaker 7: to Change Your Mind, which which I recommend to everybody,
Speaker 7: just just a wonderful read. But in an interview with
Speaker 7: Terry Gross, he mentioned that William James once said that
Speaker 7: the mystical experience of psychedelics is ineffable, yet we try
Speaker 7: very hard to ef it. So yeah, so I think
Speaker 7: that's a big thing to keep in mind with the
Speaker 7: subjective experiences of psychedelics is that, first of all, it's
Speaker 7: highly susceptible to set in setting, it's highly susceptible to
Speaker 7: your mindset going into it. Therefore, it's also highly susceptible
Speaker 7: to stories you've heard about the use of psychedelics, be
Speaker 7: it inspiring tales from you know, various you know, psychonauts,
Speaker 7: or the scare tactics of the moral panic and the
Speaker 7: war on drugs that you know that popped up in
Speaker 7: the wake of the counterculture. And then after we had
Speaker 7: those experiences, we of course have memories of those experiences,
Speaker 7: and memories are highly susceptible to us then tinkering the narrative.
Speaker 1: That's I'm sorry for anyone who who can't see because
Speaker 1: this is an audio podcast. When you said that, Robert,
Speaker 1: that's I had the point across the table, because yes,
Speaker 1: memory is a treacherous territory, right, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: domain where you cannot really trust the geography you encounter.
Speaker 1: And I want to go back to hallucinogens in general.
Speaker 1: I think, growing up, at least here in the West,
Speaker 1: many many children, when they encounter the idea of hallucinogens,
Speaker 1: they encounter a very fictionalized representation of this, right, somebody
Speaker 1: ingest something, maybe Alice in Wonderland would be a good example.
Speaker 1: Somebody ingests something and then their concept the time and
Speaker 1: space changes right or size right, and then they begin
Speaker 1: to see visibly strange creatures, right, the white rabbits and
Speaker 1: so on. But is that nonsense? Is that true when
Speaker 1: people take psilocybin? Is are they seeing visual entities?
Speaker 3: Or it seems like.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of Uh, there's a lot of malarkey
Speaker 1: about hallucination out there.
Speaker 3: So what's the fact. What's the fiction?
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I think a lot of the mallarchy
Speaker 7: does come from media representations of it. And part of
Speaker 7: that is that it's difficult to capture the psychoedepic experience
Speaker 7: in a fictional medium, be it a book, certainly in
Speaker 7: a movie. And then so a lot of the examples
Speaker 7: we have, they're gonna they're gonna be more like a
Speaker 7: dream sequence. They're going to you know, they might not
Speaker 7: be that well executed, and they are also probably going
Speaker 7: to play into something that's more dramatic, right, maybe even
Speaker 7: something more horrific as a means of just advancing whatever
Speaker 7: story they're telling.
Speaker 5: Do you guys remember the go ask Alice No. So
Speaker 5: it was a.
Speaker 6: Nineteen seventy one fictional book for young adults written by
Speaker 6: written anonymously, and at the time, like when I was
Speaker 6: a kid, it was a required book we had to read.
Speaker 6: And it's basically the story of this young girl who
Speaker 6: starts taking drugs and ultimately takes psychedelics and ends up
Speaker 6: like throwing herself off a building and like die. And
Speaker 6: it's now looked at as utter propaganda, but I was
Speaker 6: forced to read it, and it was in the era
Speaker 6: of Dare where they come through the school with like
Speaker 6: a giant suitcase full of every drug and point.
Speaker 5: It out and tell you all about it, all of
Speaker 5: these horror stories.
Speaker 6: But I gotta say, the giant suitcase of drugs, just
Speaker 6: as a kid, I'm like, oh, I want to try
Speaker 6: that one and that one and that one.
Speaker 7: Well, it makes you think of Hunter S. Thompson exactly,
Speaker 7: of course, which, of course the book and of certainly
Speaker 7: the movie are I think for a lot of people
Speaker 7: were kind of like their first or at least an
Speaker 7: early introduction into what the psychedelic experience might consist of.
Speaker 7: And yet at the same time that movie is completely ridiculous,
Speaker 7: course of course depiction of things, you know, like, I mean,
Speaker 7: it's wonderful, but it is. It's a highly uh it
Speaker 7: highly depends on depictions of hallucination, visual hallucination, the Las
Speaker 7: Vegas movie in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just so and this This is interesting though, especially
Speaker 1: the point about Hunter S. Thompson, because while that is
Speaker 1: still very much gonzo right, very much his genre, there
Speaker 1: are true events there that formed the kernel of this.
Speaker 1: So we are reading what do they always say, you know,
Speaker 1: a made for TV movie is more or less bs
Speaker 1: when that little card comes up at the front of
Speaker 1: the show and it says inspired by true events, inspired
Speaker 1: by actual events. So we can say then that a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of Hunter S. Thompson's work was
Speaker 1: inspired by true events, if not, you know, with a
Speaker 1: lot of poetic license, but there's still a factual account.
Speaker 3: And if we look.
Speaker 1: Back through the canon, you know, Hunter S. Thompson go
Speaker 1: ask Alice various shamanic experiences, we see that people have
Speaker 1: been writing about this stuff for a very very long time,
Speaker 1: and have been doing it since before we figured out
Speaker 1: how to write things right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I mean, really, you look at so many
Speaker 7: ancient cultures and it's difficult to find an example of
Speaker 7: one where there's not a case or a definite a
Speaker 7: strong case or a definite case to be made for
Speaker 7: leucinogenics playing psychedelics playing some sort of role in their society.
Speaker 7: I mean, it was part of shamanistic practices and still
Speaker 7: remains a part of shamanistic practices in certain parts of
Speaker 7: the world.
Speaker 2: I'd just like to jump back really fast to the
Speaker 2: Maryland Center physiological effects of ingesting psilocybin, because I think
Speaker 2: there are a couple in here that speak directly to
Speaker 2: what we're talking about that are the reason that this
Speaker 2: type of substance is used in shamanistic practices and has
Speaker 2: been for so long. Just very very specifically, the heightened
Speaker 2: sensory perceptions that can occur.
Speaker 7: That's probably when dark is most interested in.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, exactly, the time and space being altered, like
Speaker 2: the feelings of time and space being altered, right, as
Speaker 2: well as the detachment from the self from the body,
Speaker 2: basically the third personing that can occur with these substances,
Speaker 2: and it is it's those three combined becomes such a
Speaker 2: potent avenue to explore I guess, your own consciousness or
Speaker 2: the feelings that you're having within that moment and the
Speaker 2: single person's connection to the greater universe or nature or
Speaker 2: the spirit whatever is being worshiped. You know, you can
Speaker 2: really see it as a potent tool.
Speaker 6: And it's not as it doesn't have to be even
Speaker 6: that lofty. It could be something as simple as your
Speaker 6: connection to something like television, the concept of like watching
Speaker 6: television and what that means, and how you interact with
Speaker 6: something like that, and don't even think about what it is.
Speaker 6: Under the influence of something like this, you might see
Speaker 6: it completely different. In question how much time you spend
Speaker 6: with this box, watching other people doing things on TV
Speaker 6: and your relationship that might seem very normal. Otherwise, all
Speaker 6: of a sudden you start to question and be like,
Speaker 6: why am I doing this? Why am I putting so
Speaker 6: much emphasis on this experience.
Speaker 1: I like that you mentioned that because there are some
Speaker 1: studies that indicate, if not necessarily psilocybin, some hallucinogens are
Speaker 1: very helpful with people who are struggling with habits or addictions,
Speaker 1: right anything from smoking to I imagine, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: a study on it, but I imagine what if there's
Speaker 1: someone who watches too much TV and they're like, drop this,
Speaker 1: now watch this Marathon as Seinfeld.
Speaker 6: It's just associations in general, right, the idea. Let's say
Speaker 6: I'm addicted to cigarettes. In my mind, this is a
Speaker 6: steadfast part of who I am under the influence of psychedelics.
Speaker 6: You might be able to take a step back and
Speaker 6: see it as something that you can just very easily
Speaker 6: cast off or take or leave, you know.
Speaker 1: So there's a high level look at the nuts and
Speaker 1: bolts of psilocybin in specific, some of the history, some
Speaker 1: of the current research, and I think a pretty accurate
Speaker 1: look at the controversy and the mechanics of the experience. Right,
Speaker 1: But what if there is more to the story. What
Speaker 1: if there is something beyond these psychological effects that compels
Speaker 1: our species and has compelled it for thousands of years
Speaker 1: to pursue these hallucinogenic experiences. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1: There's this author named Terrence McKenna. Terrence McKenna was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six. And if you are familiar with
Speaker 1: characters such as Timothy Leary, if you are familiar with
Speaker 1: the revolution of hallucinogens right through the sixties into the
Speaker 1: seventies and so on, then you have heard this name before.
Speaker 1: You may have read books like Food of the Gods,
Speaker 1: the Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, and shout
Speaker 1: out to my friend Henry if you are listening, because
Speaker 1: this is the part of the episode that I think
Speaker 1: you will find incredibly fascinating. This guy's a friend of ours.
Speaker 1: Will sometimes write to me and try to get us
Speaker 1: to do another psychedelic episode. So you're helping us very much, Robert,
Speaker 1: because you've read some Terrence McKenna, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I've been on something of a Terrence McKenna
Speaker 7: kick recently, And yeah, McKenna is a fascinating individual, wonderful writer,
Speaker 7: wonderful speaker too. There's no shortage of YouTube streams and
Speaker 7: whatnot available out there. You can you can listen to
Speaker 7: him present his ideas to people. He you know, I
Speaker 7: think it's it's fair to compare him to Timothy Leary
Speaker 7: in a sense, like in kind of a way, he
Speaker 7: was kind of feeling that the void, you know, feeling
Speaker 7: that the place for a you know, spokesperson for the
Speaker 7: psychedelic experience in the counter country culture, especially during the
Speaker 7: nineteen nineties. But he also, I think, in many respects,
Speaker 7: is more it feels felt more authentic than Leary. Leary
Speaker 7: was also a fascinating individual who certainly said some profound
Speaker 7: things and played a powerful role in the counterculture. At
Speaker 7: the same time, had plenty of faults to go around
Speaker 7: as well. Yes, and it definitely like leaned into the
Speaker 7: sort of guru nature that was you know, that was
Speaker 7: given to him. But McKinnon is fascinating from a number
Speaker 7: of standpoints. Certainly is his commentary on psychedelic but he
Speaker 7: also wrote and spoke about it's various aspects of the
Speaker 7: human experience.
Speaker 1: This name may be unfamiliar to some of us listening today,
Speaker 1: but you may have already encountered some of his ideas, right,
Speaker 1: because when we talk about a hallucinogenic psychedelic experience, we're humans, right.
Speaker 1: Our brains are built to kind of categorize and group things,
Speaker 1: and so it's no surprise that, similar to reports of
Speaker 1: near death experiences, some hallucinogens and some people's experience using
Speaker 1: them appear to have trends. And that's when you'll hear
Speaker 1: people tell you with complete conviction that they have not
Speaker 1: only gone to a new realm of consciousness, but they
Speaker 1: encountered something there when they took the substance.
Speaker 2: Right, and the big question for me here when we're
Speaker 2: discussing something like this is if you are going to
Speaker 2: go down that route, there is a shared experience in
Speaker 2: some way when using these substances. Is it a shared
Speaker 2: thing with the humans and our biological systems and the
Speaker 2: history of our biological systems, or is it something with
Speaker 2: the substance itself that is either unlocking something within us
Speaker 2: or is imparting something, Which is always an interesting sort.
Speaker 6: Of the idea of a collective unconsciousness that people are
Speaker 6: tapping unconscious people are tapping into kind.
Speaker 7: Of yeah, And I think a big part of it
Speaker 7: comes back to what we do believe that psychedelics are doing.
Speaker 7: Basic One of the analogies I love is the shaking
Speaker 7: of the snow globe, shaking things up, changing your perspective,
Speaker 7: putting you in a mindset that could enable you to
Speaker 7: overcome various addictions. Again, that's one of the area where
Speaker 7: we see some wonderful, you know, research results. But and again,
Speaker 7: it's not the psychedelic substances themselves that are treating or
Speaker 7: could be used to treat addictions, but it is the
Speaker 7: state that they invoke, the psychedelic experience itself. And and
Speaker 7: so if you're you know, if you're put in a
Speaker 7: state where suddenly you're seeing everything from new perspectives, it
Speaker 7: can certainly put you in a state where you can
Speaker 7: you can have some rather you know, almost alien interpretations
Speaker 7: of of what's going on inside your brain and what's
Speaker 7: going on inside reality.
Speaker 6: Really quick, as far as the research, do you know
Speaker 6: we can look this up if if no one does,
Speaker 6: is there any study that goes into like does it
Speaker 6: change your brain on a physiological level or level?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Or is it more about you remembering the experience and
Speaker 6: applying that to your life in terms of using it
Speaker 6: as treatment or in terms of the lasting impact of
Speaker 6: an experience like this.
Speaker 7: Unless I'm forgetting a key study, I don't don't believe
Speaker 7: there are any any studies that point to like fixed changes.
Speaker 7: And you know the structure of the brain.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have thought so either.
Speaker 6: To me, it seems more like I'm learning, I'm having
Speaker 6: a session where I'm experiencing something that I'm remembering that
Speaker 6: and almost it doesn't require you to repeat the experiences
Speaker 6: over and over again. You can just do it a
Speaker 6: handful of time, in the same way you can go
Speaker 6: to therapy. You don't have to be in therapy twenty
Speaker 6: four to seven. You go occasionally and you learn from
Speaker 6: that and take your experiences and apply them to your life.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's behavior, not going to change your DNA, which
Speaker 7: I think there were something some grand his stories about
Speaker 7: that back in the day. But yeah, I think it's
Speaker 7: it's it comes back to the idea that they are
Speaker 7: physiologically rather benign, but psychologically powerful and that's where the
Speaker 7: impact is.
Speaker 1: I did see I did see a study about some
Speaker 1: hallucinogen I think it was those the psychedelic drugs LSD
Speaker 1: and ecstasy, not mushrooms.
Speaker 7: And now technically in DMA is not a psychedelic.
Speaker 1: Right right that I think they grouped it specifically LSD,
Speaker 1: and then they also studied ecstasy or in DMA, and
Speaker 1: they've found that there can be some physical alteration of
Speaker 1: the brain. But to these researchers, let's see who was this.
Speaker 1: This is de Olsen, who's an assistant professor of chemistry
Speaker 1: and molecular Medicine at UC Davis. What they found seemed
Speaker 1: to be potentially beneficial or rather than something damaging. They
Speaker 1: thought it could have benefits for people with certain mood disorders.
Speaker 1: But I haven't I haven't seen a ton of the
Speaker 1: a ton of the research that would indicate, you know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, in all some kind of massive
Speaker 1: system wide physical change in the brain. And I think
Speaker 1: part of that is because our research was stymied for
Speaker 1: so long, right, due to some of the social concerns
Speaker 1: and taboos mentioned earlier. And that's why, that's why some
Speaker 1: of these concepts that are still so very very out there.
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that accidental ingestion and then later
Speaker 1: purposeful ingestion of hallucinogenic materials led to religion, right or
Speaker 1: what's the The other one is the Terrence McKenna talked about.
Speaker 5: The stoned ape there, yeah, that, yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the stoned ape hypothesis, which is which is a fabulous,
Speaker 7: a very entertaining hypothesis. And his book Food to the
Speaker 7: Gods is is is really I found a really rewarding read.
Speaker 6: Tell us a bit about that, because this goes into
Speaker 6: those the heightened sensory perception that we talked to.
Speaker 7: That's one of the that's one of the key. So
Speaker 7: he makes this argument that that human consciousness emerges in
Speaker 7: large part due to the consumption of psychedelics by our
Speaker 7: our prehistoric ancestors, and he made the case he makes
Speaker 7: is you know, incomplete. It's you know, there's no way
Speaker 7: to prove it, and maybe no way to really disprove it.
Speaker 7: But yeah, he points to heightened perception, which I believe
Speaker 7: there's been a recent study with with canines or or
Speaker 7: canines or wolves, I forget which that that that showed
Speaker 7: a similar situation like enhancing their ability to uh in
Speaker 7: the case of dogs, you know, to to define their
Speaker 7: food in the case of hunter gatherers, it could have
Speaker 7: had an effect there. McKinnon also made an argument for
Speaker 7: like enhancing the libido leading to more breeding, and then
Speaker 7: just sort of a you know, an evolution of thought
Speaker 7: and the rise of language and so forth. And then
Speaker 7: he plays a lot too with like looking at like
Speaker 7: where this would have occurred and how it would have occurred,
Speaker 7: what substances might have occurred. Well, at the same time
Speaker 7: acknowledging that it was written during the dark age of
Speaker 7: psychedelic research, that there were still a lot of questions
Speaker 7: remaining and certain archaeological finds he said, would need to
Speaker 7: be made to like fully support his case.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's one thing that gives him
Speaker 1: a ton of street cred in my opinion, is being
Speaker 1: able to say, okay, also we have to, you know,
Speaker 1: wait for proof. Yeah, I think this is possible, but
Speaker 1: let's wait till we see we see the bones. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest walk aways I have whenever I read
Speaker 1: some of the kind of stuff is I'll say, all right,
Speaker 1: this is very this is very far away from what
Speaker 1: maybe the mainstream thinks.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Certainly, it's far away from what the US federal government
Speaker 1: officially thinks about psychedelics.
Speaker 3: However, you know, you read stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And you go back to medieval text that some really
Speaker 1: probably intoxicated monks have been working on, and then you
Speaker 1: see this strange art and you.
Speaker 3: Think, you know, okay, it's plausible.
Speaker 1: Maybe more people were using psychedelics than we thought. Right,
Speaker 1: And the symbolism right in meso America, and I think
Speaker 1: we mentioned two various different manuscripts seem to have what
Speaker 1: appears to be mushrooms of some sort playing these incredibly important,
Speaker 1: significant symbolic roles.
Speaker 5: Really quick diversion, I think the supplies though.
Speaker 6: I've been reading this book called Sapiens by you've all,
Speaker 6: Noah Harari, and it's the idea of the evolution of
Speaker 6: man and I didn't realize that a lot of pre
Speaker 6: Homo sapien species existed on the planet at the same time.
Speaker 6: You have this sense of there being this like this
Speaker 6: graph of like the you know, the slumped over pre
Speaker 6: man developing into the upright man. But apparently all of
Speaker 6: these kind of developed at the same time, and it
Speaker 6: was Homo sapien's ability to develop language and be able
Speaker 6: to tell stories and almost create these sort of belief
Speaker 6: systems that led to us becoming the top of the
Speaker 6: food chain. That's sort of the hypothesis in this book,
Speaker 6: and it makes a lot of sense. And to me,
Speaker 6: you know, maybe the ape that ate the psychedelic munth
Speaker 6: room and kind of had his perception change would have
Speaker 6: been the one that started to develop language or create
Speaker 6: these more abstract ideas of storytelling. And it's something as
Speaker 6: simple as me telling you a sort of fictional tale
Speaker 6: about some animals interacting to inventing something like an LLC
Speaker 6: like a corporation, or like the idea of money. That's
Speaker 6: all just kind of fictions that we believe and we accept.
Speaker 6: But that's what separates us from other species that can
Speaker 6: only say the dog is over there, but they can't say,
Speaker 6: you know, the dog talk to the cat and create
Speaker 6: this narrative surrounding them, what.
Speaker 1: The dog is over there, because that is the way
Speaker 1: to access the afterlife.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, guys. It's because they accessed the overmind. They
Speaker 2: got down into the my celial connections. They figured out, oh,
Speaker 2: it's all one big thing, you guys, and we're just
Speaker 2: a part of it.
Speaker 6: And I get the stone up thing is very unprovable,
Speaker 6: but I think I'm on the same page with you, Robert,
Speaker 6: that it's fascinating and I can kind of see how
Speaker 6: that could be a leg up.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Like I'm not I'm not really into saying like
Speaker 7: it's the thing, sure, but I think there you can
Speaker 7: certainly make a case that any substance or event or
Speaker 7: experience that causes a person to sort of step outside
Speaker 7: of their normal way of thinking, and that can be anything.
Speaker 7: It could be It could be still ascybment, it could
Speaker 7: be trauma, it could be a sickness. You know, there
Speaker 7: are numerous things that can bring on these states like
Speaker 7: those would undoubtedly have effects on the course of human
Speaker 7: culture over time, just because they would be moments where
Speaker 7: people would stop and say, why are we doing it?
Speaker 5: This way.
Speaker 7: Why am I thinking about the world this way? What
Speaker 7: if we did it like this instead?
Speaker 1: Is in tradition just peer pressure from dead people. Come on, guys,
Speaker 1: the sun will rise whether or not we sacrifice someone.
Speaker 1: That's be very glib there. I do want to point out, though,
Speaker 1: while Harari is an excellent writer, Sapiens toward the end
Speaker 1: feels a lot more speculative, and it feels like more
Speaker 1: of his opinions and his beliefs. And that's something we
Speaker 1: run into with McKenna. Both of these authors. However, I
Speaker 1: believe we're careful to know are careful to couch things
Speaker 1: as their beliefs. Right, Like you said, they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: saying this is the way, this is the one hundred
Speaker 1: percent consistent experience people have. But we do see some trends,
Speaker 1: and some of those trends are inarguable and they are
Speaker 1: easily proven, such as the spiritual use of these substances
Speaker 1: to sometimes unite communities. Right, somebody goes maybe sometimes to
Speaker 1: change someone's place in a society. Right, you have you
Speaker 1: have undergone this right, this ritual. Therefore you are a
Speaker 1: holy person, or maybe you are now an adult something
Speaker 1: like that. And then also there's this connection to the
Speaker 1: concept of the other world, the dream world, right, and
Speaker 1: we I wonder how that translates to the modern day.
Speaker 1: We know that there's still some traditional use of hallucinogens
Speaker 1: like ayahuasca, right, is still traditionally used by several different communities.
Speaker 1: But are there are there other things? Are there modern analogues?
Speaker 1: I mean, is I guess part of the question is
Speaker 1: people go to Burning Man, right, and they and they
Speaker 1: take a hallucinogenic substance. Are they are they doing something
Speaker 1: similar to the shamanistic quest? Or is it is it
Speaker 1: just recreational?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's also a very personal question, like how has our
Speaker 1: use of these substances changed.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, I think you know, McKenna would have
Speaker 7: certainly agreed that Burning Man is part of like this
Speaker 7: bohemian thread that he called it, this thing that's you know,
Speaker 7: moving us towards an archaic revival return to especially in
Speaker 7: Western civilization, to to sort of almost a neolithic state
Speaker 7: of not necessarily not really technology or a culture, but
Speaker 7: our connection with each other and our connection with nature.
Speaker 7: That being said, yeah, I'm sure there are people at
Speaker 7: Burning Man who are just taking substances without a lot
Speaker 7: of forethought and doing it just for you know, entertainment purposes,
Speaker 7: if you will. And then there are people who are
Speaker 7: having profound experiences and setting out to have profound experiences.
Speaker 6: Another big psychonaut. I guess who is still very much active.
Speaker 6: Today's Alex Gray, who I know you're a fan of.
Speaker 6: He's an incredible Yeah, he's a visual artist. He does
Speaker 6: these I don't know how you describe them. They're almost
Speaker 6: these mandala esque kind of where this flesh is stripped
Speaker 6: away of figures. A lot of times there's sort of
Speaker 6: mother and child kind of imagery, and it's very much
Speaker 6: this idea.
Speaker 5: Of us as being soul.
Speaker 6: And we haven't really talked about that aspect of the
Speaker 6: psychedelic experience, but but i'd like to. But he has
Speaker 6: been associated with the band Tool for years, doing art
Speaker 6: for them, and they did like a listening party for
Speaker 6: this new Tool record that came out on this giant
Speaker 6: dragon like mad Max looking dragon boat truck thing. I
Speaker 6: don't know what you call it. But he's a guy
Speaker 6: who it's so funny like Terrence McKenna, very funny sounding guy.
Speaker 6: His voice, the way he speaks, Alex Gray sounds very similar.
Speaker 6: I wonder if that if there's something about the fact
Speaker 6: that they've been using these substances so frequently that causes
Speaker 6: them to almost become a certain way.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean we really can know, though, I mean, we
Speaker 1: won't know until there's an opportunity to do a longitudinal study.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and I'm not making fun or light at all.
Speaker 6: They just both have a very similar way that they speak,
Speaker 6: in a way that they kind of carry themselves.
Speaker 5: And I don't know.
Speaker 6: I only just heard Alex Gray speak like the other
Speaker 6: day and I was like, he sounds just like Terrence McKenna.
Speaker 7: Well, well maybe to a certain extent teriance that definitely
Speaker 7: had a real knack for speaking in a way of
Speaker 7: stressing certain words come out of his mouth like he
Speaker 7: had a wonderful cadence. Again, he's all over YouTube, so
Speaker 7: you can findious talks.
Speaker 5: He's on a tool song.
Speaker 6: I believe Third Eye isn't isn't there sample.
Speaker 7: But he does show up in some I've heard some
Speaker 7: electronic tracks. There's a there's actually an artist by the
Speaker 7: name of We Plants Are Happy Plants, and they have
Speaker 7: an album that has an extended sample from mckennada.
Speaker 3: It's really cool.
Speaker 7: And I think that artist also did a like a
Speaker 7: full length sort of documentary that's that's available just for
Speaker 7: free on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeh.
Speaker 1: DJs love sampling Terence McKinnon because again he has such
Speaker 1: this vast catalog of recorded recorded speeches and monologues. And
Speaker 1: also I mentioned the longitudinal study not to not to
Speaker 1: woosh on a joke, but to return to one of
Speaker 1: the things you said at the very top of the
Speaker 1: show today, Robert, you talked about this renaissance, right which
Speaker 1: in which we are currently living. We're recording this during
Speaker 1: a renaissance of research into psychedelics, into psilocybin. But we
Speaker 1: can't have a renaissance unless it is preceded by some
Speaker 1: sort of dark age, and and that's we call these
Speaker 1: things a renaissance. So we know that during the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties there was intense and to the nineties as well,
Speaker 1: there was an intense push by Uncle Sam to make
Speaker 1: sure people were aware of at least the US legal
Speaker 1: opinion of psychedelics, which was that they were up that
Speaker 1: any dare kid can tell you they were up there
Speaker 1: with heroin, with crack and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's Schedule one still in most places.
Speaker 1: And it's funny to call it schedule one, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, like when does the train leave?
Speaker 3: I don't know. That's confusing when you're a child.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I mean it's complete nonsense, obviously. I mean,
Speaker 7: schedule one means that there's this supposed to have no
Speaker 7: medical properties at all. But and yet so you have
Speaker 7: psilocybin schedule one, marijuana schedule one, cocaine schedule two.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like that's Dennis. They can Dennis use cocaine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like.
Speaker 1: That that says something about the people who made the list.
Speaker 1: And someone was like, I don't know, man, you know,
Speaker 1: if i've uh, if I've had if I if I
Speaker 1: need a little extra kick before the meeting. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: cocaine as schedule too. It's it's as it's as flawed
Speaker 1: as the food pyramid, honestly. But now we see these
Speaker 1: indications that we've been sort of foreshadowing and talking about
Speaker 1: during the length of today's show, which are research forays
Speaker 1: or pushes into things like treating addiction PTSD.
Speaker 3: Right, could you could you.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about I don't want to
Speaker 1: enter into speculation, but if you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about what possibilities people are seeing out there for
Speaker 1: the you know, the future of humanity's relationship to psychedelics,
Speaker 1: as well as the potential findings research trends we might
Speaker 1: see in the future.
Speaker 7: Well, I'd say the big research trends are of course
Speaker 7: the treatment of various addictions and and a lot of
Speaker 7: that's going back. Like one of the real precursors to
Speaker 7: that was like pre nineteen seventies studies that looked at
Speaker 7: its usefulness to treat alcoholism specifically, they were using LSD
Speaker 7: because that's what was available back then, And now most
Speaker 7: of the studies are using psilocybin because it is more
Speaker 7: readily available, it is less made taboo by the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 5: Also a less long act.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, you can do it without the doctors having
Speaker 7: to babysit right people for an extended period time. People
Speaker 7: can go home in the evening. But yeah, we're seeing
Speaker 7: a lot of advancements in the treatment of various addictions,
Speaker 7: but also the treatment of end of life anxiety and
Speaker 7: cancer depression.
Speaker 2: That to me is its huge because if we can
Speaker 2: imagine long term in the world using a substance like
Speaker 2: this to make people just almost if it's just a
Speaker 2: thing that occurs from some point moving forward where people
Speaker 2: are just okay, satisfied with the life that they've lived,
Speaker 2: no matter what good or terrible things have occurred within
Speaker 2: that life, but they are satisfied that the end is
Speaker 2: coming and it is, you know, either not the end,
Speaker 2: you know, not fully the end because of the way
Speaker 2: this substance is making me feel, or that I'm going
Speaker 2: to be recombined in some way with the universe. Just
Speaker 2: having those positive feelings towards the ends of life for
Speaker 2: everyone could be an incredible thing for I think humanity.
Speaker 6: I think it just again, it's all about reframing an experience.
Speaker 6: It's less about oh, everything's gonna be okay because I
Speaker 6: see a beautiful light and I'm going to quote unquote
Speaker 6: heaven or some kind of beyond or universe connective thing.
Speaker 5: To me.
Speaker 6: It's like, in the same way that psychedelis could reframe
Speaker 6: your thinking about smoking cigarettes, it could also reframe your
Speaker 6: thinking about death.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think that's the important part.
Speaker 7: And it's something we didn't already touched on earlier, but
Speaker 7: it's very important, I think, to make make it clear
Speaker 7: that there is this whole dichotomy of like bad trip,
Speaker 7: good trip is kind of nonsense. Like essentially any report
Speaker 7: you look at, any any serious study, that people are
Speaker 7: going to have a mix. They're going to have challenging
Speaker 7: moments and they're going to have rewarding moments. And that
Speaker 7: is part of shaking up the snow glow, is that
Speaker 7: it's going to put things in a new context. It
Speaker 7: may put your fear in a new context, but it
Speaker 7: also may put some of the things you hold very
Speaker 7: dear in a new context and force you to reanalyze them.
Speaker 1: I think, at it at its most powerful, one of
Speaker 1: the one of the analogs anecdotally for this kind of experience,
Speaker 1: at least the more positive end of it, is the
Speaker 1: revelation that many astronauts or cosmonauts report when they see
Speaker 1: the planet by itself for the first time and they
Speaker 1: return back to Earth hopefully safely, and they're you know,
Speaker 1: nothing has physiologically changed in their brain, right, nothing is
Speaker 1: nothing other than the clearly dramatic experience of having to
Speaker 1: exist in space. Nothing other than has changed them. They
Speaker 1: literally just saw something and they had this moment that
Speaker 1: psychologically sent them to a different place, and that's where
Speaker 1: they've stayed. And so when we see people having, you know,
Speaker 1: tremendously powerful whether for the good or the ill, experiences
Speaker 1: on hallucinogens, we have to understand that even if the
Speaker 1: brain cells don't stay, and even if memory does consistently
Speaker 1: erode and shift every time you're not looking directly at it,
Speaker 1: that there is a value to that. And I have
Speaker 1: to wonder, you know, when did the needle begin to
Speaker 1: swing away from you know, this stuff being forbidden into
Speaker 1: this stuff being I wouldn't say accepted, because numbers of
Speaker 1: usage statistics are still really low, but I would say
Speaker 1: it's increasingly going to the mainstream. Especially you know, we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of Silicon Valley elites who are very
Speaker 1: much on board with hallucinogen. It's not just a burning man, right,
Speaker 1: And I think we see these people as successful individuals
Speaker 1: in these are modern days. So now there seems to
Speaker 1: be this logical I don't know, I'm tracing it too
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, but that's very cocktail napkin math.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Now there seems to be the psychological association that says
Speaker 1: one can be successful and use psychedelics.
Speaker 6: We think about this like, what if you combined use
Speaker 6: of psilocybin with a therapist who is very versed in that.
Speaker 6: In the same way you might have a shaman or
Speaker 6: somebody in a ritualistic experience guiding you, you know, through
Speaker 6: this experience. What if you could combine and we haven't
Speaker 6: even talked about microdosing, the idea of taking small amounts
Speaker 6: of hallucinogens that can have less of a lucinogenic effect
Speaker 6: and more of just a changing your base.
Speaker 5: Level kind of effect.
Speaker 6: But I love the potential for pushing this into the
Speaker 6: mainstream even more, you know, like going to a therapist
Speaker 6: who is very well versed in hallucinogenic experiences and can
Speaker 6: you can dose and then have your session where they
Speaker 6: may be in the same as a guided meditation or
Speaker 6: a dream you know, reversion or whatever whatever what have you.
Speaker 5: You know, I think there's a lot of potential for
Speaker 5: that we haven't seen yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: No, there's a lot of that going on in the underground,
Speaker 7: you know, you know, due to the legality that's that's
Speaker 7: where it is. Michael Pollan talks about this in his
Speaker 7: book A little Bit, where actually shops around for the
Speaker 7: right people to go to to have this experience because
Speaker 7: he wants an experience on par with the sort of
Speaker 7: the clinical therapeutic experiences that are taking place in these studies.
Speaker 7: And you know, he finds some people that look maybe
Speaker 7: seemed a little shifty, but then found some people that
Speaker 7: seemed that seemed like they would be very promising and
Speaker 7: had a profound experience. But yeah, I would I would
Speaker 7: love to see that that sort of thing coming. I mean,
Speaker 7: it's coming back into the world, but coming into Western
Speaker 7: civilization really for the first time.
Speaker 2: Well, and you may be in luck, Robert, because there's
Speaker 2: this guy named Christian Augermeyer I believe is anger Meyer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he is a very wealthy individual, and he's got some
Speaker 2: very powerful friends who are also extremely wealthy.
Speaker 7: And I always trust people like that.
Speaker 2: Well, he he has means right, and he has an
Speaker 2: idea because he had a personal experience with psychedelics that
Speaker 2: he says, quote was the single most meaningful thing I've
Speaker 2: ever done or experienced in my life. Nothing has ever
Speaker 2: come close to it. He wants to or at least
Speaker 2: he's expressed that he wants to commercialize in some way
Speaker 2: or at least mainstream psychedelics and in particular psilocybin in
Speaker 2: some way. Maybe like you're talking about maybe just more
Speaker 2: of products. Who knows, but it looks as though he's
Speaker 2: on the route to make those things happen, as the
Speaker 2: legality route.
Speaker 5: Now, one of we said this, it was just made
Speaker 5: legal in Colorado. It was decriminalized, right, decriminalized. Are you
Speaker 5: sure it was recreationally passed somewhere?
Speaker 2: Okay, I know it's decriminalized in in Colorado. It's I
Speaker 2: think Oakland, California, like the single place of Oakland, California.
Speaker 7: They are still I mean there there are some very
Speaker 7: strict laws. Yeah, we're still placed all over the country.
Speaker 7: I mean even when you get down to the plant itself,
Speaker 7: I mean plants themselves been in this case, the fungus itself.
Speaker 7: The spores are particularly highly illegal in California and in Georgia.
Speaker 7: We're recording this.
Speaker 1: Because they're easy to transport too, right, So it's not
Speaker 1: like you're hauling around a huge marijuana plant. It's much easier.
Speaker 7: Yes, But not to make the most obvious, like hippie
Speaker 7: statement ever, but just how ridiculous is it that that
Speaker 7: certain plants are out by the scented apes that have
Speaker 7: destroyed most of the planet.
Speaker 3: It's true, it's true they use.
Speaker 2: Them to gain their prominence over their.
Speaker 1: Planet, and perhaps making them illegal is actually preventing them
Speaker 1: from being a victim of this great extinction in which
Speaker 1: we live. I'm spitballing there now in Colorado just in
Speaker 1: case anybody's outside of Denver and thinking.
Speaker 3: Oh great, we do have to We do have to.
Speaker 3: Let you know.
Speaker 1: Mushrooms of this sort are decriminalized in Denver, right, They're
Speaker 1: still illegal in Colorado, and they're still illegal in Denver.
Speaker 2: And they're still legal in the United States.
Speaker 7: If you are listening to this podcast, chances are you're
Speaker 7: somewhere where mushrooms where psilocybin mushrooms are quite illegal.
Speaker 1: If you're somewhere where they're legal, you know, let us know.
Speaker 3: What are you doing this week?
Speaker 4: Do you want to do?
Speaker 3: You want to hang out?
Speaker 1: Speaking of hanging out out, Robert, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking this journey with us today. A lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners right now are going but you didn't get
Speaker 1: to this, You didn't get to this. Wait, what else
Speaker 1: is there? We have some good news because, as as
Speaker 1: the co host of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you
Speaker 1: and you and Joe McCormick, who appeared earlier in an
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff that I want you to know, have
Speaker 1: done a deep dive into psychedelics. Where can people find
Speaker 1: this five part series?
Speaker 7: So we did. Yeah, the five part series on psychedelics.
Speaker 7: You can find it's stuff to Blow your Mind dot
Speaker 7: com or just wherever you get your podcasts. You just
Speaker 7: look up stuff to Blow your mind and there it is.
Speaker 7: I do have to say, you know, even though we
Speaker 7: took a deep dive, you know, we were not able
Speaker 7: to explore everything either it is you could, you could
Speaker 7: do an entire series on psychedelics, on even particular psychedelics,
Speaker 7: and there's still again, so much that we don't know
Speaker 7: and are figuring out.
Speaker 6: And it's a story that changes data to that, especially
Speaker 6: now that the doors have been kind of blown open
Speaker 6: with this renaissance, as you describe it, with this research,
Speaker 6: the sky's kind of the limit, and it does feel
Speaker 6: like the tide is turning, if a little bit slowly,
Speaker 6: as things tend to do in the law.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean right now, the research is very promising.
Speaker 7: Hopefully we'll see rescheduling in the future. I've heard that
Speaker 7: there are some serious a serious possibility that MDMA will
Speaker 7: be rescheduled in the near future due to therapeutic advancements
Speaker 7: that are being made with it, and in terms of
Speaker 7: the future with psychedelics. Yeah, I mean, there are, of
Speaker 7: course so many questions like who who controls it?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 7: Is it Silicon Valley Bros. Is it the pharmaceutical industry?
Speaker 7: Does it remain kind of an essential part of the underground.
Speaker 5: Of course it won't be that. I mean, someone's gonna
Speaker 5: commodify it at someone, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I hate to be negative, but I will say I
Speaker 6: was reading in one of these articles about some of
Speaker 6: the studies. Another drug that has been associated with sort
Speaker 6: of club culture, ketamine, is being used in very very
Speaker 6: high level clinical trials for treating treatment resistant depression.
Speaker 3: Also very controlled.
Speaker 6: A friend of mine in New York City is participating
Speaker 6: and you get a drip of ketamine that is a
Speaker 6: very very you know, purposeful dose and you are monitored
Speaker 6: and he said, it's working like crazy. So it's interesting
Speaker 6: to see some of these things we've associated with, you know,
Speaker 6: unfairly even maligned substances that are starting to be kind
Speaker 6: of like taking a little more seriously.
Speaker 7: Well, I think it comes back to the idea of
Speaker 7: change that like, these are substances that when used properly,
Speaker 7: can induce positive change in individuals. And if they can
Speaker 7: make those changes in individuals, then perhaps they can make
Speaker 7: those changes in the culture as well. And then that's
Speaker 7: one of the reasons that people have to have such
Speaker 7: hope for. Then that's one of the reasons that the
Speaker 7: establishment was so fearful of them. And hopefully our future
Speaker 7: will be defined more by hope than fear' that's what
Speaker 7: I'm hoping for.
Speaker 3: Well said and well said.
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts.
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