September 27, 2019 • 54 mins
Evidence indicates human beings have been using psychedelics since ancient times, and a recent paradigm shift has launched a new renaissance in psychedelic research. Over the years psychedelics (and psilocybin specifically) have been the subject of both extremely positive and severely negative claims -- so what's the truth? In this episode, special guest Robert Lamb, host of Stuff To Blow Your Mind and Invention, joins the guys to explore the fact, fiction and future of psychedelics.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Nol. They called me Ben. We are joined as
always with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled dec and
most importantly, you are you. You are here and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today
we're we We've got to welcome you back. Nol. You've
been on some trips recently. You have not been tripping necessarily,
(00:49):
I don't. I just said necessarily necessarily means I'm not
saying I was in San Francisco for for a little while.
I would have been a good opportunity to do that,
but it did not cross my path. And today's episode,
for anyone who didn't bother to read the title, you
were so excited you just jumped in. Today's episode is
about tripping. It's about UH psychedelics, hallucinogens one in particular,
(01:15):
and UH. In the past, we've talked a little more
broadly about hallucinogens and psychedelics. In our episodes, avid listeners
would remember did hallucinogens create religion? Or can hallucinogens cure addiction?
But today we're drilling down into one specific substance, and
we've brought someone along with us to help. That's right,
we are not uh diving into this rabbit hole alone.
(01:39):
Please welcome to the show our good friend, co host
of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, co host of Invention,
Mr Robert Lamb. Hey, thanks for having me. We're very
excited that you're here. Robert. We we very much are
looking to you as an expert because you you not
long ago come leaded a I believe, five part series
(02:02):
on this very substance on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Yeah,
me and my my co host Joe McCormick, we did
five part look at psilocybin, uh, psychedelics in general, but
with a very much of a focus on psilocybin. It's
an interesting time for that, especially because I think the
tide is sort of turning in terms of not only
public opinion, but even just the laws surrounding it is
(02:23):
getting loosened up in a lot of places, and there's
legitimate research being done using psilocybin to treat things like
depression or anxiety or what have you. Yeah, I think
the research area is is perhaps the most exciting uh
area area to look at, because there was a lot
of progress made, uh, you know, back in the fifties
and sixties and uh, and then of course things died
(02:44):
down almost you know, to a trickle to a crawl
for decades. And now we're living in a in a
true renaissance of psychedelic research. Uh, you know, where researchers
have picked up where others left off and are you know,
continuing to to really explore the healing potential of these substances.
And a lot of this has to do with the
social moraise, right, the way substances and certain drugs have
(03:08):
been viewed over the course of history. Right. But before
we get too deep into this, let's talk about what
we're talking about. What is psilocybin? Okay, Well, psilocybin, for starters,
is a psychedelic um and you know, the term itself
is from the Greek words for soul or mind and manifesting.
But in particular, psilocybin is a trip to mind psychedelic
(03:30):
It naturally occurs in some two hundred different varieties of mushroom,
and the primary compounds responsible for its psychedelic effects are
psilocybin and psilocin, which ultimately amount to pretty much the
same thing. Since psilocybin breaks down into pilicon inside the body.
Uh and you know, compared to almost you know, all
other known drugs, psilocybin has an exceptionally low potential for
(03:52):
abuse and uh, exceptionally few known physiological risks. Right right.
It turns out that men any of the urban legends
people have heard about, people about folks taking magic mushrooms
and then going completely insane for the rest of their
lives are just that urban legends. There also, I believe,
no proven fatalities due to this substance. Well, it's I
(04:16):
guess two things are worth worth pointing out. Like for starters, um,
a certain segment of the population can't experience psychological ramifications.
So people with a predisposition for say, schizophrenia, um and
uh and that's that's a something that everyone should always
keep in mind. On the other hand, I mean, they
(04:38):
are powerful substances. They're not you know, it's not bubblegum. Uh.
Set and setting are extremely important the mental state that
that one has going into using these substances is extremely important,
and so there therefore it's you know, it's very possible
for especially as you know, a young person who hasn't
put a lot of thought into what is going to happen,
it's very possible for them to have a a challenging time.
(05:01):
I guess the day of clarifying here is while all
of that is true, there has also been this persistent
this this persistent public image of psilocybin or hallucinogens in
general as something that someone would ingest one at one
(05:23):
point in their lives and then for the rest of
the natural span of their of their life they would
be functionally insane or unwell or unable to uh perform
as a as a regular member of society. And I
think that's fake. That's propaganda, right, that's negative PR in
the War on drugs, And speaking of PR, just really quickly,
(05:45):
we're not as we do with any ideas we discussed,
not saying you should believe this or this is something
you should go out and do, or saying you should
go out and micro dose and take psilocybin today it'll
improve your life. We're just going through some of the
effects some of the history and some of the current
research and the news behind it. And speaking of that,
there was a study that just came out from Global
Drug Survey, to your point, band that pulled close to
(06:07):
a hundred and twenty thousand people in fifty different countries
about their drug and alcohol consumption, and uh, twelve thousand
people in that survey said they did mushrooms in twenty sixteen,
and only point two percent of them said they needed
emergency medical care afterward, as opposed to that was five
or six times lower than LSD, cocaine, m D m
A and alcohol, and three times lower than than marijuana. So,
(06:31):
and there's also something to be said here about combination
of substances when when you do those there's always a
danger there. Um, someone could died being in an unsafe setting,
uh or a situation. Right, Yes, they caused them to
behave uh erratically. Oh. Absolutely. And And just to kind
of harp one last time on this, this point that
(06:51):
both that everybody's kind of making here. The there is
a small segment of the population that should never likely
should never try so let ivan, but for the overwhelming majority,
it is not something that's going to cause deliterious effects right, Yeah,
one more statistic here. It looks like about eight per
cent of the US population people counting people over twenty
(07:16):
six eight percent of people over twenty six years old
have at least self reported using some sort of hallucinogen.
Is that number higher? And actuality maybe, but not that much.
So so again, this uh, this war on drugs mentality
doesn't really track. It is not as if one out
(07:37):
of three people on the street are tripping their balls
off or something, you know what I mean. And it's
and to Robert's point, it's not something well, historically US
psychedelics played a more formal role in human experience, or
a more spiritual role, rather than a recreational role. And
(07:59):
that's I think in terms of the tide turning, it's
starting to be seen more like that instead of just
some thing that you pop for jollys at a concert
or something like that. You know, this, this is something
that fastening me about your discussion on stuff to blow
your mind, Robert. When we get to the nuts and
bolts of psilocybin specifically, how much do we know about
(08:22):
how it actually works in the human brain. Yeah, well,
we we still don't know for sure the exact neurochemical mechanism.
But classic psychedelics appear to bind to a specific subclass
of serotonin receptor, the seras serotonin two A receptor, and
these receptors are found concentrated in the human cortex, which
is the outer layer of the cerebellum, which is associated
(08:43):
with a lot of the hot, lot of higher brain functions,
you know, sensation, speech, of course, language, voluntary action. Uh.
You know, So when you take a psychedelic like LSD
or psilocybin mushrooms, the active ingredient, the active compounds make
their way into the brain and a sort of act
as act as serotonin binding to these receptors. Um. But yeah,
(09:05):
there there are a lot of a lot of questions
to still remain of, you know, about exactly how it works.
So a lot of a lot of questions remain exactly
and regarding how serotonin really works in our minds. Well,
there are a lot of stories that are a little
more anecdotal about or I guess, let's say, tales of
what psilocybin actually is and how it functions within the
body outside of the medical research, right about it being
(09:32):
conscious in some way. I mean, they are all kinds
of things we can get into it later. And here,
I mean there are stories that you will find across
the internet and perhaps here from acquaintances of yours um
that go and go a little deeper into the strangeness.
But let's imagine that there was like a big pharma
type commercial for psilocybin, and let's let's think about what
(09:53):
would be rattled off at the end, the things that
could be caused, things like nazis, diary and muscle relaxation.
We just in twitches, dawning, drowsing, dis is, lightheadedness and
lack of coordination, people dilation, tearing, dry mouth and facial flushing,
increased heart rate, blood pressure and body temperatures, wedding followed
by shells and shivering, none of the tongue, lips or mouth,
feeling of physical heaviness or lightness, and feeling of floating. Yeah.
(10:13):
And I was just reading the other day about how
how DARPA is interested in and basically harnessing all of
this about the mind altering aspects just to weaponize it essentially, right, Uh,
DARPA our our eternal fourth co host, you know, So
there's there's another thing here when we're when we're dwelling
on the anecdotal stuff. We do have to say that
(10:36):
this very quickly gets us into some of the more
out there or fringe concepts, beliefs authors and before we
before we get to those ideas which are grand and
many are as beautiful as they are unprovable, but they're
all based on not so much the physical sensations people encounter,
(11:01):
but the psychological uh situations they encounter. And this I
think Matt is directly tying into some of the anecdotes
you've mentioned. Everybody has sort of a lot of people
rather who try hallucin gens have this kind of hero's
journey tail, right, And then sometimes it's full of young
yean arc types. Uh. Sometimes it's just full of strange
(11:24):
perceptions of time and space or even synesthesia, things much
less easy to quantify in a rattled off list at
rapid fire at the end of a television commercial. Yeah,
I mean, the the ineffable aspect of it is is
always a key factor. Um. Michael Paulan has an excellent
book that came out this year about psychedelics called How
to Change Your Mind, which which I recommend to everybody.
(11:44):
Just just a wonderful read. But In an interview with
Terry Gross, he mentioned that William James once said that
the mystical experience of psychedelics is ineffable, yet we try
very hard to effit. Yeah, so so, Yeah's I think
it's a big thing to keep in mind with the
subjective experiences of psychedelics. It's that, first of all, set
(12:06):
in it's highly susceptible to set and setting, it's highly
susceptible to your mindset going into it. Therefore, it's also
highly susceptible to stories you've heard about the use of psychedelics,
be it inspiring tales from you know, various you know, psychonauts,
or the scare tactics of the moral panic and the
(12:27):
war on drugs that you know, they popped up in
the wake of the counterculture. And then after we've had
those experiences, we of course have memories of those experience,
and memories are highly susceptible to us then tinkering with
them as we turn them into narrative. That's I'm sorry
for anyone who who can't see because this is an
audio podcast. When you said that, Robert, that's I had
(12:49):
the point across the table, because yes, memory is a
treacherous territory. Right, it's a it's a domain where you
cannot really trust the geography you encounter. Uh. I wouldn't
go back to hallucinogens in general. I think growing up,
at least here in the West, many many children, when
(13:10):
they encounter the idea of hallucinogens, they encounter a very
fictionalized representation of this. Right, somebody ingest something, Maybe Alice
in Wonderland would be a good example. Uh, somebody, somebody
ingests something, and then their concept of time and space
changes right or size right, and then they begin to
(13:35):
see visibly strange creatures, right, the white rabbits and so on.
But is that nonsense? Is that true when people take psilocybin?
Is are they seeing visual entities? It seems like there's
a lot of Uh, there's a lot of malarkey about
(13:56):
hallucination out there. So what's the fact? What's the fiction? Well,
I mean, I think a lot of the malarkey does
come from media representations of it um And part of
that is that it's it's difficult to capture the psychedelic
experience and of a fictional medium, be at a book,
certainly in a movie. Uh. And then so a lot
of the examples we have, they're gonna they're gonna be
(14:16):
more like a dream sequence. They're going to um, you
know that they might not be that well executed, and
they are also probably gonna play into something that's more dramatic, right,
maybe even something more horrific as a means of dis
advancing whatever story they're telling. Do you guys remember the
book Go Ask Alice? Uh No? So it was a
(14:37):
one fictional book for young adults written by written anonymously,
and at the time, like when I was a kid,
it was a required book we had to read. And
it's basically the story of this young girl who starts
taking drugs and ultimately takes psychedelics and ends up like
throwing herself off a building and like done. And it's
(14:59):
it's it's now looked at as utter propaganda, but I
was forced to read it. And it was in the
era of Dare where they come through the school with
like a giant suitcase full of every drug and pointed
out and tell you all about it, all of these
horror stories. But I gotta say, the giant suitcase of drugs.
Just as a kid, I'm like, oh, I want to
try that. One, and that one and that one. What
makes you think of Thompson of course, which which, of
(15:20):
course the book and of certainly the movie are I
think for a lot of people are kind of like
their first or at least an early introduction into what
like the psychedelic experience might consist of. And yet at
the same time that movie is completely ridiculous depiction of things,
you know, like, I mean, it's wonderful, but it is
it's a highly uh, it highly depends on the depictions
(15:43):
of hallucination. I'll write visual hallucination the Las Vegas movie
in that country. Yeah, just so. And this this is
interesting though, especially the point about Hunter S. Thompson, because
while that is still very much gonz O right, very
much his genre, there are true events there that that
(16:05):
formed the kernel of this. So we are reading, uh,
what do they always say, you know, a made for
TV movie is more or less bs when that little
card comes up at the front of the show and
it says inspired by true events, inspired by actual events.
So we can say then that a lot of a
(16:26):
lot of Hunter S. Thompson's work was inspired by true events,
if not, you know, with a lot of poetic license,
but there's still a factual account. And if we look
back through the canon, you know Hunter S. Thompson go
ask Alice various shamanic experiences, we see the people have
been writing about this stuff for a very very long
(16:48):
time and have been doing it since before we figured
out how to write things right. Yeah. I mean really,
you look at so many ancient cultures and it's it's
it's difficult to find an example of one where there's
not a case or a definite strong case or a
definite case to be made for hallucinogenics playing the psychedelics
(17:08):
playing some sort of role, uh in their society. I
mean it was, it was part of shamanistic practices and
still remains a part of shamanistic practices in certain parts
of the world. I'd just like to jump back really
fast to the Maryland Center um physiological effects of ingesting psilocybin,
because I think there are a couple in here that
(17:28):
speak directly to what we're talking about that are the
reason that this type of substance is used in shamanistic
practices and has been for so long. UM. Just very
very specifically, the heightened sensory perceptions that that can occur
and that's probably the one Darpest most interested in. Oh yeah, exactly. Um,
the time and space being altered, like the feelings of
(17:52):
time and space being altered, right, as well as the
detachment from the self from the body basically the third
person ing that can occur with these substances, and it
is it's those three combined become such a potent um
avenue to explore I guess, your own consciousness or the
(18:12):
feelings that you're having within that moment, and and the
single person's connection to the greater universe or nature or
the spirit whatever is being worshiped. You know, you can
really see it as a potent tool. And it's not
as it doesn't have to be even that lofty. It
could be something as simple as your connection to something
like television, the concept of like watching television and what
(18:34):
that means and how you interact with something like that,
and don't even think about what it is. Under the
influence something like this, you might see it completely different.
In question how much time you spend with this box
watching other people doing things on TV and your relationship
That might seem very normal. Otherwise, all of a sudden
you start to question and be like why why am
I doing this? Why am I putting so much emphasis
(18:55):
on this experience? I like to you mention that because
there are some studies that indicate, if not necessarily, psilocybin,
some hallucinogens are very helpful with people who are struggling
with habits or addictions, right, anything from uh, smoking too.
I imagine I haven't seen a study on it, but
(19:15):
I imagine what if there's someone who watches too much
TV and they're like, drop this, now, watch this marathon?
Is Seinfeld. It's just associations in general. Right, the idea,
Let's say I'm addicted to cigarettes. In my mind, this
is a steadfast part of who I am. Under the
influence of psychedelics, you might be able to take a
step back and see it as something that you can
just be very easily cast off or take or leave.
(19:36):
You know. So there's a high level look at the
nuts and bolts of psilocybin and specific some of the history,
some of the current research, and you know, I think
a pretty accurate look at the controversy and the mechanics
of the experience. Right, But what if there is more
(19:58):
to the story, What if there is something beyond the
psychological effects that compels our species and has compelled it
for thousands of years to to pursue these hallucinogenic experiences.
(20:20):
Here's where it gets crazy. There's this author named Terrence McKenna.
Terrence mckennall was born in nineteen six And if you
are familiar with characters such as Timothy Leary. Uh, if
you're familiar with the the revolution of hallucinogens right through
(20:44):
through the sixties into the seventies and so on, then
you have heard this name before. You may have read
books like Food of the Gods, The Search for the
Original Tree of Knowledge, and uh, shout out to my
friend Henry if you're listening, because this this is the
part of the episode that I think you will find
(21:04):
incredibly fascinating. This this guy's a friend of ours. Will
sometimes write to me and try to get us to
do another psychedelic episode. So you're you're helping us very much, Robert. Uh,
because you've read some Terrence McKenna, right, yeah, yeah, I've
been on something of a Terence McKenna kick recently, and
uh yeah, I McKenna is a fascinating individual, wonderful writer,
(21:28):
a wonderful speaker too. There's no shortage of YouTube streams
and whatnot available out there, you can you can listen
to him present his ideas to people. Um he uh,
you know, I think it's it's fair to compare him
to Timothy Leary in in a sense, like in kind
of a way, he was kind of feeling that the void, uh,
(21:49):
you know, feeling that the place for a you know,
spokesperson for the psychedelic experience in the counter country culture,
especially during the nineteen nineties. Um. But he also I
think in many respects it's more it feels felt more
authentic than Leary. H. Leary was also a fascinating individual
(22:10):
who certainly said some profound things and and played a
powerful role in the counterculture. At the same time, had
plenty of faults to go around as well. Um. And
uh definitely like leaned into the sort of guru nature
that was you know, that was given to him. But
McKinnon's fascinating from a number of standpoints. Uh. Certainly his
(22:31):
his commentary on psychedelics, but he also wrote and spoke
about the various aspects of the human experience. This name
may be unfamiliar to some of us listening today, but
you may have already encountered some of his ideas, right,
Because when we talk about a hallucinogenic psychedelic experience, we
(22:56):
we're humans, right. Our brains are built to kind of
categorize and group things, and so it's no surprise that
similar to reports of near death experiences, some hallucinogens and
some people's experience using them appear to have trends. And
that's when you'll hear people tell you with complete conviction
(23:16):
that they have not only uh gone to a new
realm of consciousness, but they encountered something there when they
took the substance. Right. And then the big question for
me here when we're discussing something like this is if
you are going to go down that route of there
is a shared experience in some way when using these substances.
(23:36):
Is it a shared thing with the humans and our
biological systems and out the history of our biological systems,
or is it something with the substance itself that is
either unlocking something within us or is imparting something, which
is always an interesting sort of the idea of like
a collective unconsciousness that people are tapping unconscious people are
(23:56):
tapping into kind of or yeah, and I think A
big part of it comes back to what we we
do believe that psychedelics are doing basic well. In one
of the analogies I love is the shaking of the
snow globe, shaking things up, changing your perspective, putting you
in a mindset that could enable you to overcome various addictions. Again,
that's one of the areas where we see some some
(24:17):
wonderful you know, research results. But uh, and again it's
not the psychedelic substances themselves that that are are treating
or could be used to treat addictions, but it is
the state that they invoke, the psychedelic experience itself. And
and so if you're you know, if you're put in
(24:38):
a state where suddenly you're seeing everything from new perspectives, um,
you can certainly put you in a state where you
can you can have some rather uh you know, almost
alien interpretations of what's going on inside your your brain
and what's going on inside of a reality. And really quick,
as far as the research, do you know, we can
look this up if if no one does, are is
(24:59):
there any st that goes into like does it change
your brain on a physiological level or about yeah, or
is it more about you remembering the experience and applying
that to your life in terms of using it as
treatment or in terms of the lasting impact of an
experience like this. Unless I'm forgetting a key study, I
don't don't believe there are any any studies that point
(25:20):
to like fixed changes and you know the structure of
the brain. I wouldn't have thought so either. To me,
it seems more like I'm learning, I'm having a session
where I'm experiencing something that I'm remembering that it almost
it doesn't require you to repeat the experience over and
over again. You can just do it a handful of times,
in the same way you can go to therapy. You
don't have to be in therapy seven. You go occasionally
(25:40):
and you learn from that and you take your experiences
and apply them to your life. Yeah, it's change behavior,
not going to change your DNA, which I think there
were something stories about that back in the day. But yeah,
I think it's it's it comes back to the idea
that they are physiologically rather beyond but psychologically powerful, and
that's where the impact I did see. I did see
(26:02):
a study about some hallucinogen I think it was those
the psychedelic drugs LSD and ecstasy, not mushrooms. And now
technically m D m A is not a psychedelic right
right that I think they they grouped it specifically LSD,
and then they also studied ecstasy or m D m
(26:23):
A and they found that there can be some physical
alteration of the brain. But to these researchers, let's see
who was this. This is David Olson, who's an assistant
professor of chemistry and molecular medicine at u C. Davis.
What they found seemed to be potentially beneficial rather than
(26:45):
something damaging. They thought it could have benefits for people
with certain mood disorders. But I haven't I haven't seen
a ton of the a ton of the research that
would indicate, you know, what you're talking about in old
some kind of massive, system wide physical change in the brain.
And I think part of that is because our research
(27:06):
was stymied for so long, right due to some of
the social concerns and taboos mentioned earlier. And that's why
that's why some of these concepts that are still so
very very out there. You know, the idea that accidental
ingestion and then later purposeful ingestion of hallucinogenic materials lead
(27:29):
to religion, right or what's the uh, what's the other one.
That's the Terrence McKenna talked about the stoned ape that yeah,
that one, Yeah, they ape hypothesis, which is which is
a fabulous, very entertaining hypothesis. And his book Food of
the Gods is is really I found it really rewarding.
Read tell us a bit about that because this goes
(27:50):
into those uh, the heightened sensory percents that we talked to.
That's one of the that's one of the keys. So
he makes this argument that that human consciousness emerges in
large part due to the consumption of psychedelics by our
you know, our prehistoric ancestors. And he made the case
he makes is you know, incomplete. It's um. You know,
(28:10):
there's no way to prove it and maybe no way
to really disprove it. But he points to heightened perception,
which I believe there's been a recent study with with
canines or or um canines are wolves, I forget which
that that that showed like similar situation like enhancing their
ability to uh in the case of dogs, you know,
(28:32):
to to define their food. In the case of hunter,
gatherers it could have had an effect there. McKinnon also
made an argument for like enhancing the libido, leading to, um,
you the more breeding and then just sort of a
you know, an evolution of thought and the the rise
of language and so forth. Um. And then he plays
a lot too with like looking at like where this
(28:53):
would have occurred, and how it would have occurred, what
substances might have occurred. Well, at the same time acknowledging
that it was written during the dark age of psychedelic research,
that there were still a lot of questions remaining and uh,
and certain archaeological finds he said, would need to be
made to like fully support his case. And that's you know,
(29:13):
that's one thing that gives him a ton of street
cred in my opinion, is being able to say, Okay,
also we have to, you know, wait for proof. I
think this is possible, but let's wait till we see
we see the bones. One of the biggest walkaways I
have whenever I read some McKenna stuff is I'll say,
(29:33):
all right, this is very this is very far away
from what maybe the mainstream thinks, right. Uh, certainly it's
far away from what the US federal government officially thinks
about psychedelics. However, you know, you read stuff like that
and you go back to medieval text that some really
(29:54):
probably intoxicated monks have been working on, and then you
see the strange art and you think, you know, okay,
it's plausible. Maybe more people were using psychedelics than we thought, right,
And the symbolism right in Mesoamerica, right, And I think
we mentioned to various different manuscripts seemed to have what
(30:14):
appears to be uh mushrooms of some sort playing these
incredibly important, significant symbolic roles, really quick diversion, I think
the supplies. So I've been reading this book called Sapiens
by 'vall Noah Harari, and it's the idea of the
evolution of man, and I didn't realize that a lot
of pre um Homo sapien species existed on the planet
(30:35):
at the same time. You have this sense of there
being this like this graph of like the you know,
the slumped over pre man developing into the upright man.
But apparently all of these kind of developed at the
same time, and it was Homo sapiens ability to develop
language and be able to tell stories and almost create
these sort of belief systems that led to us becoming
(30:56):
the top of the food chain. That's sort of the
hypothesis in this book, and it makes a lot sense.
And to me, you know, maybe the ape that ate
the psychedelic mushroom and kind of had his perception change
would have been the one that started to develop language
or create these more abstract ideas of storytelling. And it's
something as simple as me telling you a sort of
fictional tale about some animals interacting to inventing something like
(31:20):
an LLC, like a corporation, or like the idea of money.
That's all just kind of fictions that we believe and
we accept. But that's what separates us from other species
that can only say the dog is over there, But
they can't say, you know, the dog talk to the
cat and create this narrative surrounding that whatever the dog
is over there, because that is the way to access
(31:42):
the afterlife exactly, you guys. It's because they accessed the overmind.
They got down into the my celial connections. They figured out, oh,
it's all one big thing, you guys, and we're just
a part of it. And I get the stone dp
thing is very unprovable, but I think I'm on the
same page with the Robbert that it's fascina, and I
can kind of see how that could be a leg up. Yeah,
(32:04):
Like I'm I'm not I'm not really into saying like
it's the thing, but I think there you can certainly
make a case that any substance or event or experience
that causes a person to sort of step outside of
their normal way of thinking. Um, and that can be anything.
It could be It could be so assignment, it could
be trauma, it could be a sickness. Uh, you know,
(32:28):
they're there are numerous things that can bring on these
states like those would undoubtedly have effects on the course
of human culture over time, just because they would be
moments where people would stop and say, why are we
doing it this way? Why am I thinking about the
world this way? What if we did it like this instead?
Is in tradition just pure pressure from dead people. Come on, guys,
(32:49):
the sun will rise whether or not we sacrifice somewhat.
That's be very glib there. I do want to point out, though,
while Harari is an excellent writer, uh Sapiens, towards the
end feels a lot more speculative, and it feels like
his more of his opinions and his beliefs. And that's
something we run into with McKenna. Both of these authors, however,
(33:13):
I believe or careful to you know, are carefully couch
things as their beliefs. Right, Like you said, They're not
necessarily saying this is the way, this is the consistent
experience people have. But we do see some trends, and
some of those trends are inarguable and they are easily proven,
(33:35):
such as the spiritual use of these substances two sometimes
unite communities. Right, somebody goes maybe sometimes to change someone's
place in a society. Right, you have you have undergone this, right,
this ritual. Therefore you are a holy person or maybe
(33:56):
you are now an adult something like that. And then
also there's this connection to the concept of the other world,
the dream world, right, and we um, I wonder how
that translates to the modern day. We know that there's
still some traditional use of hallucinogens like ayahuasca, right, is
(34:18):
still traditionally used by several different communities. Uh, but are
there are there other things? Are there modern analogs? I mean?
Is I guess part of the question is when people
go to burning man right, and they and they take
hallucin genic substance. Are they are they doing something similar
(34:42):
to the shamanistic quest or is it is it just recreational?
I don't know. That's also a very personal question, like
how has our use of these substances changed? Well, you know,
I think, you know, I Canno would have certainly agreed
that like Burning Man is part of like this bohemian
thread that he called it, this thing that's you know,
(35:04):
moving us towards an archaic revival return to especially in
Western civilization to a uh, it's just sort of almost
a neolithic state of not necessarily not really technology or
a culture about our connection with each other, in our
connection with nature. Um. That being said, yeah, there, I'm
sure there there are people at Burning Man who are
(35:25):
just taking substances without a lot of forethought and doing
it just for you know, entertainment purposes, if you will.
And then there are you know, people who are having
profound experiences and and setting out to have profound experiences.
Another big psychonaut and I guess who is still very
much active to the is Alex Gray. I know you're
a you're a fan of He's an incredible ye, he
(35:45):
was that burning Man. Yeah, he's a visual artist. He
does these I don't know how you describe them. They're
almost these mandala asked kind of where this flesh is
stripped away of figures. A lot of times they're sort
of mother and child kind of imagery. And it's very
much this idea of us as being soul and we
haven't they talked about that aspect of the psychedelic experience.
But what I'd like to but he Um has been
associated with the band Tool for years doing art for them,
(36:08):
and they did like a listening party for this new
Tool record that came out on this giant dragon like
mad Max looking dragon boat truck thing. I don't know
what you call it. But he's a guy who it's
so funny, like Terence McKenna, very funny sounding guy. His voice,
the way he speaks Alex Gray sounds very similar. I
wonder if that there's something about the fact that they've
(36:30):
been using these substances so frequently that causes them to
almost become a certain way. It's very interesting that well,
I don't know. We we really can know, though, I mean,
we won't know until there's an opportunity to do a
longitudinal study. Absolutely, and I'm not making fun or light
at all. They just both have a very similar way
that they speak, in a way that they kind of
(36:52):
carry themselves. And I don't know. I only just heard
Alex Gray speak like the other day and I was like,
he sounds just like Terence McKenna. Well, well maybe to
certain materians that definitely had a real knack for speaking
in a way of of stressing certain words would come
out of his mouth like he he had a wonderful cadence. Um. Again,
(37:16):
he's all over YouTube, so you can find six he's
on a tool song. I believe the Third Eye isn't
there isn't there a sample of stuff? Uh, But but
he he does show up in some I've heard some
electronic tracks. There's a there's actually an artist by the
name of h We Plants Are Happy Plants, and they
have an album that has an extended sample from mckennady.
(37:37):
It's really cool, and I think that artists also did
a like a full length sort of documentary. Uh. That's uh,
that's available just for free on YouTube. DJ's love sample
and Terris McKenny, because again, he has such this vast
catalog of recorded recorded speeches and monologues. And also I
(37:59):
meant in the longitudinal study, uh, not to not to
whoosh on a joke, but to return to one of
the things you said at the very top of the
show today, Robert. Uh, you talked about this renaissance, right,
which in which we are currently living. We're recording this
during a renaissance of research into psychedelics, into psilocybin. But
(38:26):
we can't have a renaissance unless it is preceded by
some sorts of dark age. And and that's why we
call these things a renaissance. So we know that during
the seventies and eighties there was intense and and to
the nineties as well, there was an intense push by
Uncle Sam to make sure people were aware of at
(38:51):
least the US legal opinion of psychedelics, which was that
they were up to any dare kid can tell you
they were up there with heroin, with crack and things
like that. Yeah, there's Schedule one still in most places.
And uh, it's it's funny that they call it schedule one,
you know what I mean, Like when does the train leave?
I don't know, that's confusing when you're a child. Oh yeah,
(39:11):
I mean it's a completely nonsense obviously. I mean, schedule
one means that there's is supposed to have no like
medicals um properties at all. But and yet so you have,
you know, psilocybin schedule one, marijuana schedule one, cocaine schedule too.
I feel like that's cocaine. Yeah, I feel like that
that says something about the people who made the list.
(39:33):
And so I was like, I don't know, man, you know,
if I've I've had, if I if I need a
little extra kick before the meeting, Yeah, it's cocaine's schedule
to it's it's as it's as flawed as the food pyramid, honestly.
But now we see these indications that we've been sort
of foreshadowing and talking about during the length of today's show,
(39:56):
which our research forays or pushes in two things. It
is like treating addiction PTSD. Right, could you could you
tell us a little bit about They don't want to
enter into speculation, but if you tell us a little
bit about what possibilities people are seeing out there for
the you know, the future of humanities relationship to psychedelics,
(40:20):
as well as uh, the potential findings research trends, we
might see in the future. Well, i'd say the big
research trends are, of course the treatment of various addictions
and and a lot of that's going back. Like one
of the real precursors of that was like pre um
p nineteen seventies studies that looked at it's usefulness to
treat alcoholism specifically, they were using LSD because that's what
(40:42):
was available back then. And now most of the studies
are using psilocybin because it is more readily available. It
is less um tap made taboo by you know, the
nineteen sixties, also less long act. Yeah, yeah, you can.
You can do it without the doctors having to babyset
people for an extended period time. People can go home
in the evening. But yeah, we're seeing a lot of
(41:04):
a lot of advancements in the treatment of various addictions,
but also the treatment of end of life anxiety and
cancer depression. That that to me is it's huge because
if if we can imagine long term in the world
using a substance like this to make people just almost
if it's just a thing that occurs from some point
(41:26):
moving forward where people are just okay, satisfied with the
life that they've lived no matter you know what, good
or terrible things have occurred within that life, but they're
satisfied that the end is coming, and it is, you know,
either not the end, uh, you know, not fully the
end because of the way this substance is making me feel,
or that I'm going to be recombined in some way
(41:48):
with the universe. Just having those positive feelings towards the
end of life for everyone could be an incredible thing
for I think a humanity. I think it just again,
it's all about reframing an experience. It's it's less about oh,
(42:11):
everything's gonna be okay because I see a beautiful light
and I'm going to quote unquote heaven or some kind
of beyond or universe connective thing to me. It's like,
in the same way that psychedelis could reframe you're thinking
about smoking cigarettes, it could also reframe your thinking about death.
And I think that's that's the important part, and it's
something we didn't already touch on earlier, but it's very important,
(42:32):
I think, to make make it clear that there is
this whole dichotomy of like bad trip, good trip is
kind of nonsense. Like essentially, any report you look at,
any any serious study that people are going to have
a mix, they're going to um, they're going to have
challenging moments, and they're going to have rewarding moments. And
that is part of shaking up the snow globe, is
(42:54):
that it's going to put things in a new context
and may put your fear in a new context, but
it also may put some of the things you hold
very dear in a new context and force you to
re analyze them. I think at it's at its most powerful,
one of the one of the analogs anecdotally for this
kind of experience, at least the more positive end of
it is the revelation that many astronauts or cosmonauts report
(43:20):
when they see the planet by itself for the first
time and they they returned back to Earth hopefully safely,
and they're, you know, nothing has physiologically changed in their brain, right,
nothing is nothing other than the clearly traumatic experience of
having to exist in space. Nothing other than has changed them.
(43:42):
They literally just saw something and they had this moment
that psychologically sent them to a different place and that's
where they've stayed. And so when we see people having
you know, tremendously powerful whether for the good or the
ill experiences on hallucinogens. We have to understand that even
(44:05):
if the brain cells don't stay, and even if memory
does consistently erode and shift every time you're not looking
directly at it, that there there is a value to that.
And I have to wonder, you know, when did the
needle begin to swing away from you know, this stuff
being forbidden into this stuff being I wouldn't say accepted
(44:28):
because numbers of usage statistics are still really low, but
I would say it's increasingly going to the mainstream. Especially
you know, we've got a lot of Silicon Valley elites
who are very much on board with hallucinogen. It's not
just a burning man, right, and I think we see
these people as successful individuals in these are modern days.
(44:53):
So now there seems to be this logical I don't know,
I'm tracing into silicon value, but that's very uh cocktail
a Napkin math, you know. Uh. Now there seems to
be the psychological association that says one can be successful
and use psychedelics. Think about this, like, what if you
combined use of psilocybin with a therapist who is very
(45:15):
versed in that in the same way you might have
a shaman or somebody in a ritualistic experience guiding you,
you know, um through this experience. What if you could
combine you know, we haven't even talked about micro dosing,
the idea of taking small amounts of hallucinogens that can
have less of a hallucinogenic effect and more of just
a changing your base level kind of effect. But I
(45:37):
love the potential for pushing this into the mainstream even more,
you know, like going to a therapist who is very
well versed in hallucinogenic experiences and can you can dose
and then have your session where they may be in
the same as a guided meditation or a dream you know,
reversion or whatever whatever what have you. You know, I
think there's a lot of potential for that we haven't
(45:58):
seen yet. Yeah, I know, there's a lot of that
go on in the underground, uh you know, you know,
due to the legality, and that's that's where it is.
Michael Pollan talks about this in his book A little bit,
actually shops around for the right people to go to
to have this experience because he wants an experience on
par with the sort of the clinical therapeutic experiences that
(46:18):
are taking place in these studies, and uh, you know,
he finds some people that look maybe seemed a little shifty. Uh,
but then I found some people that seemed that seemed
like they would be very promising and uh and and
had a profound experience. But yeah, I would I would
love to see that that sort of thing coming. I mean,
that's coming back into the world, but coming into Western
(46:39):
civilization really for the first time. Well, and you may
be in luck, Robert, because there's this guy named Christian
auger Meyer I believe is anger Meyer. Yeah. He Uh,
he's a very wealthy individual and he's got some very
powerful friends who are also extremely wealthy. I always trust
people like that. That's that's the main thing. Well, he
(47:01):
he has means right, and he has an idea because
he had a personal experience with psychedelics that he says,
quote was the single most meaningful thing I've ever done
or experienced in my life. Uh, nothing has ever come
close to it. He wants to or at least he's
expressed that he wants to commercialize in some way or
(47:21):
at least mainstream psychedelics and in particular psilocybin. Uh, in
some way maybe like you're talking about maybe just more
of products, who knows, but it looks as though he's
on the route to make those things happen. As the legality, now,
I don't think we said this. It was just made
legal in Colorado. It was decriminalized, right, Maybe it was
(47:45):
it was recreationally passed somewhere. Okay, I know it's decriminalized
in uh in Colorado. It's I think Oakland, California, like
the single place of Oakland, California. There there are some
very strict laws were still placed all over the country.
I mean even when you get down to the plant itself,
(48:06):
I mean plants themselves, but in this case, the fungus itself,
the spores are particularly highly illegal in California and in
Georgia where we're recording this, because they're easy to transport to, right,
So it's not like you're hauling around a huge marijuana plant, right,
it's much easier. And But not to make the most
(48:26):
like obvious, like hippie statement ever, but just how ridiculous
is it that that certain plants are outlawed by the
descented apes that have you know, destroyed most of the planet.
It's true, It's true. Used them to gain their prominence
over the planet, and perhaps making them illegal is actually
preventing them from being a victim of this great extinction
(48:50):
in which we live. I'm spitballing there now in Colorado,
just in case anybody's outside of Denver and thinking, oh great, uh,
we do have to we do have to let you know.
Mushrooms of this sort are decriminalized in Denver. There's still
illegal in Colorado, and there's still illegal in Denver, and
(49:14):
they're still illegal in the United States. Pretty if you
were listening to this podcast, chances are you're somewhere where
mushrooms where psilocybin mushrooms are quite illegal. And if you're
if you're somewhere where they're legal, you know, let us know.
What are you doing this week? Do you wanna do
you want to hang out? Um? Speaking of hanging out, Robert,
(49:34):
thank you so much for taking this journey with us today.
A lot of our listeners right now are going but
you didn't get to this, You didn't get to this.
What else is there? We have some good news because,
as as the co host of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
(49:55):
you and you and Joe McCormick, who appeared earlier in
an episode of stuff that I want you to know,
have done a deep dive into psychedelics. Where can people
find this five part series? So we did if Yeah,
the five part series on psychedelics. You can find it.
It's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com or just
wherever you get your podcasts. You just look up stuff
to Blow your Mind and there it is. I do
(50:17):
have to say, you know, even though we took a
deep dive, you know, we were not able to explore everything.
Either it is you could, you could do an entire
series on psychedelics, on even particular psychedelics, and there's still
against so much that we don't know and our figuring out.
And it's a story that changes day to day too
with that, especially now that the doors have been kind
of blown open with this renaissance as you describe it,
(50:37):
with this research. Um, the sky's kind of the limit,
and it does feel like the tide is turning, if
a little bit slowly, as things tend to do in
the law. Yeah, I mean right now, the research is
very promising. Hopefully we'll see rescheduling in the future. I've
heard that there are some serious uh there a serious
possibility that to M. D. M A will be rescheduled
(50:57):
in the near future due to therapeutic advancements that were
being made with it. And in terms of the future
with psychedelics, Yeah, I mean, there's of course so many
questions like who who controls it been? Is it Silicon
Valley Bros. Is it the pharmaceutical industry? Uh? Does it
remain kind of an essential part of the underground? Of
course it won't be that. I mean, someone's gonna co
(51:21):
modify at somewhat, you know what I mean that is?
I don't know. I hate to be negative, but but
I will say I was reading one of these articles
about some of the studies. Another drug that has been
associated with sort of club culture, UM ketamine is being
used in very very high level clinical trials for treating
treatment resistant depression, also very controlled. A friend of mine
(51:46):
in New York City, UH is participating and you get
a drip of ketamine that is a very very um,
you know, um, purposeful dose and you were monitored and
he said, it's working like crazy. So it's interesting to
see some of these things we've associated with, you know,
unfairly even maligned substances that are starting to be kind
(52:08):
of like taking a little more seriously, Well, I think
it comes back to the idea of change, that like,
these are substances that, when used properly, can induce positive
change in individuals, and if they can make those changes
in individuals, then perhaps they can make those changes in
the culture as well. I mean, that's one of the
reasons that people have to have such hope for then
(52:29):
that's one of the reasons that the establishment was so
fearful of them. Uh. And hopefully our future will be
defined more by hope than fear. Uh. That's that's what
I'm hoping for. Well said, Well said, And we want
to hear from you off the record or on what
is your take? What is your perspective on hallucinogenic substances, psychedelics,
(52:52):
psilocybin and specific do you feel that your opinion has
changed over time? And so in which direction you can
let us know. We're we're all over the internet. We
want to make it easy for you to speak with us.
If you don't feel like the social needs and Facebook,
(53:13):
Instagram and Twitter or not your particular bag of badgers,
you can call us directly. We have a phone number,
yes one eight three three st d W y t
K and If you want to access our overmind our
over mind, you can go to Here's where it Gets Crazy.
That's our Facebook group. That place, in particular, you'll be
able to have a conversation with other conspiracy realists and
(53:36):
listeners slide in there some from time to time as well,
knowing that's correct. If you don't want to do any
of that stuff, just send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Y Stuff
(54:05):
They Don't Want You to Know is a production of
I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Nol. They called me Ben. We are joined as
always with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled dec and
most importantly, you are you. You are here and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today
we're we We've got to welcome you back. Nol. You've
been on some trips recently. You have not been tripping necessarily,
(00:49):
I don't. I just said necessarily necessarily means I'm not
saying I was in San Francisco for for a little while.
I would have been a good opportunity to do that,
but it did not cross my path. And today's episode,
for anyone who didn't bother to read the title, you
were so excited you just jumped in. Today's episode is
about tripping. It's about UH psychedelics, hallucinogens one in particular,
(01:15):
and UH. In the past, we've talked a little more
broadly about hallucinogens and psychedelics. In our episodes, avid listeners
would remember did hallucinogens create religion? Or can hallucinogens cure addiction?
But today we're drilling down into one specific substance, and
we've brought someone along with us to help. That's right,
we are not uh diving into this rabbit hole alone.
(01:39):
Please welcome to the show our good friend, co host
of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, co host of Invention,
Mr Robert Lamb. Hey, thanks for having me. We're very
excited that you're here. Robert. We we very much are
looking to you as an expert because you you not
long ago come leaded a I believe, five part series
(02:02):
on this very substance on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Yeah,
me and my my co host Joe McCormick, we did
five part look at psilocybin, uh, psychedelics in general, but
with a very much of a focus on psilocybin. It's
an interesting time for that, especially because I think the
tide is sort of turning in terms of not only
public opinion, but even just the laws surrounding it is
(02:23):
getting loosened up in a lot of places, and there's
legitimate research being done using psilocybin to treat things like
depression or anxiety or what have you. Yeah, I think
the research area is is perhaps the most exciting uh
area area to look at, because there was a lot
of progress made, uh, you know, back in the fifties
and sixties and uh, and then of course things died
(02:44):
down almost you know, to a trickle to a crawl
for decades. And now we're living in a in a
true renaissance of psychedelic research. Uh, you know, where researchers
have picked up where others left off and are you know,
continuing to to really explore the healing potential of these substances.
And a lot of this has to do with the
social moraise, right, the way substances and certain drugs have
(03:08):
been viewed over the course of history. Right. But before
we get too deep into this, let's talk about what
we're talking about. What is psilocybin? Okay, Well, psilocybin, for starters,
is a psychedelic um and you know, the term itself
is from the Greek words for soul or mind and manifesting.
But in particular, psilocybin is a trip to mind psychedelic
(03:30):
It naturally occurs in some two hundred different varieties of mushroom,
and the primary compounds responsible for its psychedelic effects are
psilocybin and psilocin, which ultimately amount to pretty much the
same thing. Since psilocybin breaks down into pilicon inside the body.
Uh and you know, compared to almost you know, all
other known drugs, psilocybin has an exceptionally low potential for
(03:52):
abuse and uh, exceptionally few known physiological risks. Right right.
It turns out that men any of the urban legends
people have heard about, people about folks taking magic mushrooms
and then going completely insane for the rest of their
lives are just that urban legends. There also, I believe,
no proven fatalities due to this substance. Well, it's I
(04:16):
guess two things are worth worth pointing out. Like for starters, um,
a certain segment of the population can't experience psychological ramifications.
So people with a predisposition for say, schizophrenia, um and
uh and that's that's a something that everyone should always
keep in mind. On the other hand, I mean, they
(04:38):
are powerful substances. They're not you know, it's not bubblegum. Uh.
Set and setting are extremely important the mental state that
that one has going into using these substances is extremely important,
and so there therefore it's you know, it's very possible
for especially as you know, a young person who hasn't
put a lot of thought into what is going to happen,
it's very possible for them to have a a challenging time.
(05:01):
I guess the day of clarifying here is while all
of that is true, there has also been this persistent
this this persistent public image of psilocybin or hallucinogens in
general as something that someone would ingest one at one
(05:23):
point in their lives and then for the rest of
the natural span of their of their life they would
be functionally insane or unwell or unable to uh perform
as a as a regular member of society. And I
think that's fake. That's propaganda, right, that's negative PR in
the War on drugs, And speaking of PR, just really quickly,
(05:45):
we're not as we do with any ideas we discussed,
not saying you should believe this or this is something
you should go out and do, or saying you should
go out and micro dose and take psilocybin today it'll
improve your life. We're just going through some of the
effects some of the history and some of the current
research and the news behind it. And speaking of that,
there was a study that just came out from Global
Drug Survey, to your point, band that pulled close to
(06:07):
a hundred and twenty thousand people in fifty different countries
about their drug and alcohol consumption, and uh, twelve thousand
people in that survey said they did mushrooms in twenty sixteen,
and only point two percent of them said they needed
emergency medical care afterward, as opposed to that was five
or six times lower than LSD, cocaine, m D m
A and alcohol, and three times lower than than marijuana. So,
(06:31):
and there's also something to be said here about combination
of substances when when you do those there's always a
danger there. Um, someone could died being in an unsafe setting,
uh or a situation. Right, Yes, they caused them to
behave uh erratically. Oh. Absolutely. And And just to kind
of harp one last time on this, this point that
(06:51):
both that everybody's kind of making here. The there is
a small segment of the population that should never likely
should never try so let ivan, but for the overwhelming majority,
it is not something that's going to cause deliterious effects right, Yeah,
one more statistic here. It looks like about eight per
cent of the US population people counting people over twenty
(07:16):
six eight percent of people over twenty six years old
have at least self reported using some sort of hallucinogen.
Is that number higher? And actuality maybe, but not that much.
So so again, this uh, this war on drugs mentality
doesn't really track. It is not as if one out
(07:37):
of three people on the street are tripping their balls
off or something, you know what I mean. And it's
and to Robert's point, it's not something well, historically US
psychedelics played a more formal role in human experience, or
a more spiritual role, rather than a recreational role. And
(07:59):
that's I think in terms of the tide turning, it's
starting to be seen more like that instead of just
some thing that you pop for jollys at a concert
or something like that. You know, this, this is something
that fastening me about your discussion on stuff to blow
your mind, Robert. When we get to the nuts and
bolts of psilocybin specifically, how much do we know about
(08:22):
how it actually works in the human brain. Yeah, well,
we we still don't know for sure the exact neurochemical mechanism.
But classic psychedelics appear to bind to a specific subclass
of serotonin receptor, the seras serotonin two A receptor, and
these receptors are found concentrated in the human cortex, which
is the outer layer of the cerebellum, which is associated
(08:43):
with a lot of the hot, lot of higher brain functions,
you know, sensation, speech, of course, language, voluntary action. Uh.
You know, So when you take a psychedelic like LSD
or psilocybin mushrooms, the active ingredient, the active compounds make
their way into the brain and a sort of act
as act as serotonin binding to these receptors. Um. But yeah,
(09:05):
there there are a lot of a lot of questions
to still remain of, you know, about exactly how it works.
So a lot of a lot of questions remain exactly
and regarding how serotonin really works in our minds. Well,
there are a lot of stories that are a little
more anecdotal about or I guess, let's say, tales of
what psilocybin actually is and how it functions within the
body outside of the medical research, right about it being
(09:32):
conscious in some way. I mean, they are all kinds
of things we can get into it later. And here,
I mean there are stories that you will find across
the internet and perhaps here from acquaintances of yours um
that go and go a little deeper into the strangeness.
But let's imagine that there was like a big pharma
type commercial for psilocybin, and let's let's think about what
(09:53):
would be rattled off at the end, the things that
could be caused, things like nazis, diary and muscle relaxation.
We just in twitches, dawning, drowsing, dis is, lightheadedness and
lack of coordination, people dilation, tearing, dry mouth and facial flushing,
increased heart rate, blood pressure and body temperatures, wedding followed
by shells and shivering, none of the tongue, lips or mouth,
feeling of physical heaviness or lightness, and feeling of floating. Yeah.
(10:13):
And I was just reading the other day about how
how DARPA is interested in and basically harnessing all of
this about the mind altering aspects just to weaponize it essentially, right, Uh,
DARPA our our eternal fourth co host, you know, So
there's there's another thing here when we're when we're dwelling
on the anecdotal stuff. We do have to say that
(10:36):
this very quickly gets us into some of the more
out there or fringe concepts, beliefs authors and before we
before we get to those ideas which are grand and
many are as beautiful as they are unprovable, but they're
all based on not so much the physical sensations people encounter,
(11:01):
but the psychological uh situations they encounter. And this I
think Matt is directly tying into some of the anecdotes
you've mentioned. Everybody has sort of a lot of people
rather who try hallucin gens have this kind of hero's
journey tail, right, And then sometimes it's full of young
yean arc types. Uh. Sometimes it's just full of strange
(11:24):
perceptions of time and space or even synesthesia, things much
less easy to quantify in a rattled off list at
rapid fire at the end of a television commercial. Yeah,
I mean, the the ineffable aspect of it is is
always a key factor. Um. Michael Paulan has an excellent
book that came out this year about psychedelics called How
to Change Your Mind, which which I recommend to everybody.
(11:44):
Just just a wonderful read. But In an interview with
Terry Gross, he mentioned that William James once said that
the mystical experience of psychedelics is ineffable, yet we try
very hard to effit. Yeah, so so, Yeah's I think
it's a big thing to keep in mind with the
subjective experiences of psychedelics. It's that, first of all, set
(12:06):
in it's highly susceptible to set and setting, it's highly
susceptible to your mindset going into it. Therefore, it's also
highly susceptible to stories you've heard about the use of psychedelics,
be it inspiring tales from you know, various you know, psychonauts,
or the scare tactics of the moral panic and the
(12:27):
war on drugs that you know, they popped up in
the wake of the counterculture. And then after we've had
those experiences, we of course have memories of those experience,
and memories are highly susceptible to us then tinkering with
them as we turn them into narrative. That's I'm sorry
for anyone who who can't see because this is an
audio podcast. When you said that, Robert, that's I had
(12:49):
the point across the table, because yes, memory is a
treacherous territory. Right, it's a it's a domain where you
cannot really trust the geography you encounter. Uh. I wouldn't
go back to hallucinogens in general. I think growing up,
at least here in the West, many many children, when
(13:10):
they encounter the idea of hallucinogens, they encounter a very
fictionalized representation of this. Right, somebody ingest something, Maybe Alice
in Wonderland would be a good example. Uh, somebody, somebody
ingests something, and then their concept of time and space
changes right or size right, and then they begin to
(13:35):
see visibly strange creatures, right, the white rabbits and so on.
But is that nonsense? Is that true when people take psilocybin?
Is are they seeing visual entities? It seems like there's
a lot of Uh, there's a lot of malarkey about
(13:56):
hallucination out there. So what's the fact? What's the fiction? Well,
I mean, I think a lot of the malarkey does
come from media representations of it um And part of
that is that it's it's difficult to capture the psychedelic
experience and of a fictional medium, be at a book,
certainly in a movie. Uh. And then so a lot
of the examples we have, they're gonna they're gonna be
(14:16):
more like a dream sequence. They're going to um, you
know that they might not be that well executed, and
they are also probably gonna play into something that's more dramatic, right,
maybe even something more horrific as a means of dis
advancing whatever story they're telling. Do you guys remember the
book Go Ask Alice? Uh No? So it was a
(14:37):
one fictional book for young adults written by written anonymously,
and at the time, like when I was a kid,
it was a required book we had to read. And
it's basically the story of this young girl who starts
taking drugs and ultimately takes psychedelics and ends up like
throwing herself off a building and like done. And it's
(14:59):
it's it's now looked at as utter propaganda, but I
was forced to read it. And it was in the
era of Dare where they come through the school with
like a giant suitcase full of every drug and pointed
out and tell you all about it, all of these
horror stories. But I gotta say, the giant suitcase of drugs.
Just as a kid, I'm like, oh, I want to
try that. One, and that one and that one. What
makes you think of Thompson of course, which which, of
(15:20):
course the book and of certainly the movie are I
think for a lot of people are kind of like
their first or at least an early introduction into what
like the psychedelic experience might consist of. And yet at
the same time that movie is completely ridiculous depiction of things,
you know, like, I mean, it's wonderful, but it is
it's a highly uh, it highly depends on the depictions
(15:43):
of hallucination. I'll write visual hallucination the Las Vegas movie
in that country. Yeah, just so. And this this is
interesting though, especially the point about Hunter S. Thompson, because
while that is still very much gonz O right, very
much his genre, there are true events there that that
(16:05):
formed the kernel of this. So we are reading, uh,
what do they always say, you know, a made for
TV movie is more or less bs when that little
card comes up at the front of the show and
it says inspired by true events, inspired by actual events.
So we can say then that a lot of a
(16:26):
lot of Hunter S. Thompson's work was inspired by true events,
if not, you know, with a lot of poetic license,
but there's still a factual account. And if we look
back through the canon, you know Hunter S. Thompson go
ask Alice various shamanic experiences, we see the people have
been writing about this stuff for a very very long
(16:48):
time and have been doing it since before we figured
out how to write things right. Yeah. I mean really,
you look at so many ancient cultures and it's it's
it's difficult to find an example of one where there's
not a case or a definite strong case or a
definite case to be made for hallucinogenics playing the psychedelics
(17:08):
playing some sort of role, uh in their society. I
mean it was, it was part of shamanistic practices and
still remains a part of shamanistic practices in certain parts
of the world. I'd just like to jump back really
fast to the Maryland Center um physiological effects of ingesting psilocybin,
because I think there are a couple in here that
(17:28):
speak directly to what we're talking about that are the
reason that this type of substance is used in shamanistic
practices and has been for so long. UM. Just very
very specifically, the heightened sensory perceptions that that can occur
and that's probably the one Darpest most interested in. Oh yeah, exactly. Um,
the time and space being altered, like the feelings of
(17:52):
time and space being altered, right, as well as the
detachment from the self from the body basically the third
person ing that can occur with these substances, and it
is it's those three combined become such a potent um
avenue to explore I guess, your own consciousness or the
(18:12):
feelings that you're having within that moment, and and the
single person's connection to the greater universe or nature or
the spirit whatever is being worshiped. You know, you can
really see it as a potent tool. And it's not
as it doesn't have to be even that lofty. It
could be something as simple as your connection to something
like television, the concept of like watching television and what
(18:34):
that means and how you interact with something like that,
and don't even think about what it is. Under the
influence something like this, you might see it completely different.
In question how much time you spend with this box
watching other people doing things on TV and your relationship
That might seem very normal. Otherwise, all of a sudden
you start to question and be like why why am
I doing this? Why am I putting so much emphasis
(18:55):
on this experience? I like to you mention that because
there are some studies that indicate, if not necessarily, psilocybin,
some hallucinogens are very helpful with people who are struggling
with habits or addictions, right, anything from uh, smoking too.
I imagine I haven't seen a study on it, but
(19:15):
I imagine what if there's someone who watches too much
TV and they're like, drop this, now, watch this marathon?
Is Seinfeld. It's just associations in general. Right, the idea,
Let's say I'm addicted to cigarettes. In my mind, this
is a steadfast part of who I am. Under the
influence of psychedelics, you might be able to take a
step back and see it as something that you can
just be very easily cast off or take or leave.
(19:36):
You know. So there's a high level look at the
nuts and bolts of psilocybin and specific some of the history,
some of the current research, and you know, I think
a pretty accurate look at the controversy and the mechanics
of the experience. Right, But what if there is more
(19:58):
to the story, What if there is something beyond the
psychological effects that compels our species and has compelled it
for thousands of years to to pursue these hallucinogenic experiences.
(20:20):
Here's where it gets crazy. There's this author named Terrence McKenna.
Terrence mckennall was born in nineteen six And if you
are familiar with characters such as Timothy Leary. Uh, if
you're familiar with the the revolution of hallucinogens right through
(20:44):
through the sixties into the seventies and so on, then
you have heard this name before. You may have read
books like Food of the Gods, The Search for the
Original Tree of Knowledge, and uh, shout out to my
friend Henry if you're listening, because this this is the
part of the episode that I think you will find
(21:04):
incredibly fascinating. This this guy's a friend of ours. Will
sometimes write to me and try to get us to
do another psychedelic episode. So you're you're helping us very much, Robert. Uh,
because you've read some Terrence McKenna, right, yeah, yeah, I've
been on something of a Terence McKenna kick recently, and
uh yeah, I McKenna is a fascinating individual, wonderful writer,
(21:28):
a wonderful speaker too. There's no shortage of YouTube streams
and whatnot available out there, you can you can listen
to him present his ideas to people. Um he uh,
you know, I think it's it's fair to compare him
to Timothy Leary in in a sense, like in kind
of a way, he was kind of feeling that the void, uh,
(21:49):
you know, feeling that the place for a you know,
spokesperson for the psychedelic experience in the counter country culture,
especially during the nineteen nineties. Um. But he also I
think in many respects it's more it feels felt more
authentic than Leary. H. Leary was also a fascinating individual
(22:10):
who certainly said some profound things and and played a
powerful role in the counterculture. At the same time, had
plenty of faults to go around as well. Um. And
uh definitely like leaned into the sort of guru nature
that was you know, that was given to him. But
McKinnon's fascinating from a number of standpoints. Uh. Certainly his
(22:31):
his commentary on psychedelics, but he also wrote and spoke
about the various aspects of the human experience. This name
may be unfamiliar to some of us listening today, but
you may have already encountered some of his ideas, right,
Because when we talk about a hallucinogenic psychedelic experience, we
(22:56):
we're humans, right. Our brains are built to kind of
categorize and group things, and so it's no surprise that
similar to reports of near death experiences, some hallucinogens and
some people's experience using them appear to have trends. And
that's when you'll hear people tell you with complete conviction
(23:16):
that they have not only uh gone to a new
realm of consciousness, but they encountered something there when they
took the substance. Right. And then the big question for
me here when we're discussing something like this is if
you are going to go down that route of there
is a shared experience in some way when using these substances.
(23:36):
Is it a shared thing with the humans and our
biological systems and out the history of our biological systems,
or is it something with the substance itself that is
either unlocking something within us or is imparting something, which
is always an interesting sort of the idea of like
a collective unconsciousness that people are tapping unconscious people are
(23:56):
tapping into kind of or yeah, and I think A
big part of it comes back to what we we
do believe that psychedelics are doing basic well. In one
of the analogies I love is the shaking of the
snow globe, shaking things up, changing your perspective, putting you
in a mindset that could enable you to overcome various addictions. Again,
that's one of the areas where we see some some
(24:17):
wonderful you know, research results. But uh, and again it's
not the psychedelic substances themselves that that are are treating
or could be used to treat addictions, but it is
the state that they invoke, the psychedelic experience itself. And
and so if you're you know, if you're put in
(24:38):
a state where suddenly you're seeing everything from new perspectives, um,
you can certainly put you in a state where you
can you can have some rather uh you know, almost
alien interpretations of what's going on inside your your brain
and what's going on inside of a reality. And really quick,
as far as the research, do you know, we can
look this up if if no one does, are is
(24:59):
there any st that goes into like does it change
your brain on a physiological level or about yeah, or
is it more about you remembering the experience and applying
that to your life in terms of using it as
treatment or in terms of the lasting impact of an
experience like this. Unless I'm forgetting a key study, I
don't don't believe there are any any studies that point
(25:20):
to like fixed changes and you know the structure of
the brain. I wouldn't have thought so either. To me,
it seems more like I'm learning, I'm having a session
where I'm experiencing something that I'm remembering that it almost
it doesn't require you to repeat the experience over and
over again. You can just do it a handful of times,
in the same way you can go to therapy. You
don't have to be in therapy seven. You go occasionally
(25:40):
and you learn from that and you take your experiences
and apply them to your life. Yeah, it's change behavior,
not going to change your DNA, which I think there
were something stories about that back in the day. But yeah,
I think it's it's it comes back to the idea
that they are physiologically rather beyond but psychologically powerful, and
that's where the impact I did see. I did see
(26:02):
a study about some hallucinogen I think it was those
the psychedelic drugs LSD and ecstasy, not mushrooms. And now
technically m D m A is not a psychedelic right
right that I think they they grouped it specifically LSD,
and then they also studied ecstasy or m D m
(26:23):
A and they found that there can be some physical
alteration of the brain. But to these researchers, let's see
who was this. This is David Olson, who's an assistant
professor of chemistry and molecular medicine at u C. Davis.
What they found seemed to be potentially beneficial rather than
(26:45):
something damaging. They thought it could have benefits for people
with certain mood disorders. But I haven't I haven't seen
a ton of the a ton of the research that
would indicate, you know, what you're talking about in old
some kind of massive, system wide physical change in the brain.
And I think part of that is because our research
(27:06):
was stymied for so long, right due to some of
the social concerns and taboos mentioned earlier. And that's why
that's why some of these concepts that are still so
very very out there. You know, the idea that accidental
ingestion and then later purposeful ingestion of hallucinogenic materials lead
(27:29):
to religion, right or what's the uh, what's the other one.
That's the Terrence McKenna talked about the stoned ape that yeah,
that one, Yeah, they ape hypothesis, which is which is
a fabulous, very entertaining hypothesis. And his book Food of
the Gods is is really I found it really rewarding.
Read tell us a bit about that because this goes
(27:50):
into those uh, the heightened sensory percents that we talked to.
That's one of the that's one of the keys. So
he makes this argument that that human consciousness emerges in
large part due to the consumption of psychedelics by our
you know, our prehistoric ancestors. And he made the case
he makes is you know, incomplete. It's um. You know,
(28:10):
there's no way to prove it and maybe no way
to really disprove it. But he points to heightened perception,
which I believe there's been a recent study with with
canines or or um canines are wolves, I forget which
that that that showed like similar situation like enhancing their
ability to uh in the case of dogs, you know,
(28:32):
to to define their food. In the case of hunter,
gatherers it could have had an effect there. McKinnon also
made an argument for like enhancing the libido, leading to, um,
you the more breeding and then just sort of a
you know, an evolution of thought and the the rise
of language and so forth. Um. And then he plays
a lot too with like looking at like where this
(28:53):
would have occurred, and how it would have occurred, what
substances might have occurred. Well, at the same time acknowledging
that it was written during the dark age of psychedelic research,
that there were still a lot of questions remaining and uh,
and certain archaeological finds he said, would need to be
made to like fully support his case. And that's you know,
(29:13):
that's one thing that gives him a ton of street
cred in my opinion, is being able to say, Okay,
also we have to, you know, wait for proof. I
think this is possible, but let's wait till we see
we see the bones. One of the biggest walkaways I
have whenever I read some McKenna stuff is I'll say,
(29:33):
all right, this is very this is very far away
from what maybe the mainstream thinks, right. Uh, certainly it's
far away from what the US federal government officially thinks
about psychedelics. However, you know, you read stuff like that
and you go back to medieval text that some really
(29:54):
probably intoxicated monks have been working on, and then you
see the strange art and you think, you know, okay,
it's plausible. Maybe more people were using psychedelics than we thought, right,
And the symbolism right in Mesoamerica, right, And I think
we mentioned to various different manuscripts seemed to have what
(30:14):
appears to be uh mushrooms of some sort playing these
incredibly important, significant symbolic roles, really quick diversion, I think
the supplies. So I've been reading this book called Sapiens
by 'vall Noah Harari, and it's the idea of the
evolution of man, and I didn't realize that a lot
of pre um Homo sapien species existed on the planet
(30:35):
at the same time. You have this sense of there
being this like this graph of like the you know,
the slumped over pre man developing into the upright man.
But apparently all of these kind of developed at the
same time, and it was Homo sapiens ability to develop
language and be able to tell stories and almost create
these sort of belief systems that led to us becoming
(30:56):
the top of the food chain. That's sort of the
hypothesis in this book, and it makes a lot sense.
And to me, you know, maybe the ape that ate
the psychedelic mushroom and kind of had his perception change
would have been the one that started to develop language
or create these more abstract ideas of storytelling. And it's
something as simple as me telling you a sort of
fictional tale about some animals interacting to inventing something like
(31:20):
an LLC, like a corporation, or like the idea of money.
That's all just kind of fictions that we believe and
we accept. But that's what separates us from other species
that can only say the dog is over there, But
they can't say, you know, the dog talk to the
cat and create this narrative surrounding that whatever the dog
is over there, because that is the way to access
(31:42):
the afterlife exactly, you guys. It's because they accessed the overmind.
They got down into the my celial connections. They figured out, oh,
it's all one big thing, you guys, and we're just
a part of it. And I get the stone dp
thing is very unprovable, but I think I'm on the
same page with the Robbert that it's fascina, and I
can kind of see how that could be a leg up. Yeah,
(32:04):
Like I'm I'm not I'm not really into saying like
it's the thing, but I think there you can certainly
make a case that any substance or event or experience
that causes a person to sort of step outside of
their normal way of thinking. Um, and that can be anything.
It could be It could be so assignment, it could
be trauma, it could be a sickness. Uh, you know,
(32:28):
they're there are numerous things that can bring on these
states like those would undoubtedly have effects on the course
of human culture over time, just because they would be
moments where people would stop and say, why are we
doing it this way? Why am I thinking about the
world this way? What if we did it like this instead?
Is in tradition just pure pressure from dead people. Come on, guys,
(32:49):
the sun will rise whether or not we sacrifice somewhat.
That's be very glib there. I do want to point out, though,
while Harari is an excellent writer, uh Sapiens, towards the
end feels a lot more speculative, and it feels like
his more of his opinions and his beliefs. And that's
something we run into with McKenna. Both of these authors, however,
(33:13):
I believe or careful to you know, are carefully couch
things as their beliefs. Right, Like you said, They're not
necessarily saying this is the way, this is the consistent
experience people have. But we do see some trends, and
some of those trends are inarguable and they are easily proven,
(33:35):
such as the spiritual use of these substances two sometimes
unite communities. Right, somebody goes maybe sometimes to change someone's
place in a society. Right, you have you have undergone this, right,
this ritual. Therefore you are a holy person or maybe
(33:56):
you are now an adult something like that. And then
also there's this connection to the concept of the other world,
the dream world, right, and we um, I wonder how
that translates to the modern day. We know that there's
still some traditional use of hallucinogens like ayahuasca, right, is
(34:18):
still traditionally used by several different communities. Uh, but are
there are there other things? Are there modern analogs? I mean?
Is I guess part of the question is when people
go to burning man right, and they and they take
hallucin genic substance. Are they are they doing something similar
(34:42):
to the shamanistic quest or is it is it just recreational?
I don't know. That's also a very personal question, like
how has our use of these substances changed? Well, you know,
I think, you know, I Canno would have certainly agreed
that like Burning Man is part of like this bohemian
thread that he called it, this thing that's you know,
(35:04):
moving us towards an archaic revival return to especially in
Western civilization to a uh, it's just sort of almost
a neolithic state of not necessarily not really technology or
a culture about our connection with each other, in our
connection with nature. Um. That being said, yeah, there, I'm
sure there there are people at Burning Man who are
(35:25):
just taking substances without a lot of forethought and doing
it just for you know, entertainment purposes, if you will.
And then there are you know, people who are having
profound experiences and and setting out to have profound experiences.
Another big psychonaut and I guess who is still very
much active to the is Alex Gray. I know you're
a you're a fan of He's an incredible ye, he
(35:45):
was that burning Man. Yeah, he's a visual artist. He
does these I don't know how you describe them. They're
almost these mandala asked kind of where this flesh is
stripped away of figures. A lot of times they're sort
of mother and child kind of imagery. And it's very
much this idea of us as being soul and we
haven't they talked about that aspect of the psychedelic experience.
But what I'd like to but he Um has been
associated with the band Tool for years doing art for them,
(36:08):
and they did like a listening party for this new
Tool record that came out on this giant dragon like
mad Max looking dragon boat truck thing. I don't know
what you call it. But he's a guy who it's
so funny, like Terence McKenna, very funny sounding guy. His voice,
the way he speaks Alex Gray sounds very similar. I
wonder if that there's something about the fact that they've
(36:30):
been using these substances so frequently that causes them to
almost become a certain way. It's very interesting that well,
I don't know. We we really can know, though, I mean,
we won't know until there's an opportunity to do a
longitudinal study. Absolutely, and I'm not making fun or light
at all. They just both have a very similar way
that they speak, in a way that they kind of
(36:52):
carry themselves. And I don't know. I only just heard
Alex Gray speak like the other day and I was like,
he sounds just like Terence McKenna. Well, well maybe to
certain materians that definitely had a real knack for speaking
in a way of of stressing certain words would come
out of his mouth like he he had a wonderful cadence. Um. Again,
(37:16):
he's all over YouTube, so you can find six he's
on a tool song. I believe the Third Eye isn't
there isn't there a sample of stuff? Uh, But but
he he does show up in some I've heard some
electronic tracks. There's a there's actually an artist by the
name of h We Plants Are Happy Plants, and they
have an album that has an extended sample from mckennady.
(37:37):
It's really cool, and I think that artists also did
a like a full length sort of documentary. Uh. That's uh,
that's available just for free on YouTube. DJ's love sample
and Terris McKenny, because again, he has such this vast
catalog of recorded recorded speeches and monologues. And also I
(37:59):
meant in the longitudinal study, uh, not to not to
whoosh on a joke, but to return to one of
the things you said at the very top of the
show today, Robert. Uh, you talked about this renaissance, right,
which in which we are currently living. We're recording this
during a renaissance of research into psychedelics, into psilocybin. But
(38:26):
we can't have a renaissance unless it is preceded by
some sorts of dark age. And and that's why we
call these things a renaissance. So we know that during
the seventies and eighties there was intense and and to
the nineties as well, there was an intense push by
Uncle Sam to make sure people were aware of at
(38:51):
least the US legal opinion of psychedelics, which was that
they were up to any dare kid can tell you
they were up there with heroin, with crack and things
like that. Yeah, there's Schedule one still in most places.
And uh, it's it's funny that they call it schedule one,
you know what I mean, Like when does the train leave?
I don't know, that's confusing when you're a child. Oh yeah,
(39:11):
I mean it's a completely nonsense obviously. I mean, schedule
one means that there's is supposed to have no like
medicals um properties at all. But and yet so you have,
you know, psilocybin schedule one, marijuana schedule one, cocaine schedule too.
I feel like that's cocaine. Yeah, I feel like that
that says something about the people who made the list.
(39:33):
And so I was like, I don't know, man, you know,
if I've I've had, if I if I need a
little extra kick before the meeting, Yeah, it's cocaine's schedule
to it's it's as it's as flawed as the food pyramid, honestly.
But now we see these indications that we've been sort
of foreshadowing and talking about during the length of today's show,
(39:56):
which our research forays or pushes in two things. It
is like treating addiction PTSD. Right, could you could you
tell us a little bit about They don't want to
enter into speculation, but if you tell us a little
bit about what possibilities people are seeing out there for
the you know, the future of humanities relationship to psychedelics,
(40:20):
as well as uh, the potential findings research trends, we
might see in the future. Well, i'd say the big
research trends are, of course the treatment of various addictions
and and a lot of that's going back. Like one
of the real precursors of that was like pre um
p nineteen seventies studies that looked at it's usefulness to
treat alcoholism specifically, they were using LSD because that's what
(40:42):
was available back then. And now most of the studies
are using psilocybin because it is more readily available. It
is less um tap made taboo by you know, the
nineteen sixties, also less long act. Yeah, yeah, you can.
You can do it without the doctors having to babyset
people for an extended period time. People can go home
in the evening. But yeah, we're seeing a lot of
(41:04):
a lot of advancements in the treatment of various addictions,
but also the treatment of end of life anxiety and
cancer depression. That that to me is it's huge because
if if we can imagine long term in the world
using a substance like this to make people just almost
if it's just a thing that occurs from some point
(41:26):
moving forward where people are just okay, satisfied with the
life that they've lived no matter you know what, good
or terrible things have occurred within that life, but they're
satisfied that the end is coming, and it is, you know,
either not the end, uh, you know, not fully the
end because of the way this substance is making me feel,
or that I'm going to be recombined in some way
(41:48):
with the universe. Just having those positive feelings towards the
end of life for everyone could be an incredible thing
for I think a humanity. I think it just again,
it's all about reframing an experience. It's it's less about oh,
(42:11):
everything's gonna be okay because I see a beautiful light
and I'm going to quote unquote heaven or some kind
of beyond or universe connective thing to me. It's like,
in the same way that psychedelis could reframe you're thinking
about smoking cigarettes, it could also reframe your thinking about death.
And I think that's that's the important part, and it's
something we didn't already touch on earlier, but it's very important,
(42:32):
I think, to make make it clear that there is
this whole dichotomy of like bad trip, good trip is
kind of nonsense. Like essentially, any report you look at,
any any serious study that people are going to have
a mix, they're going to um, they're going to have
challenging moments, and they're going to have rewarding moments. And
that is part of shaking up the snow globe, is
(42:54):
that it's going to put things in a new context
and may put your fear in a new context, but
it also may put some of the things you hold
very dear in a new context and force you to
re analyze them. I think at it's at its most powerful,
one of the one of the analogs anecdotally for this
kind of experience, at least the more positive end of
it is the revelation that many astronauts or cosmonauts report
(43:20):
when they see the planet by itself for the first
time and they they returned back to Earth hopefully safely,
and they're, you know, nothing has physiologically changed in their brain, right,
nothing is nothing other than the clearly traumatic experience of
having to exist in space. Nothing other than has changed them.
(43:42):
They literally just saw something and they had this moment
that psychologically sent them to a different place and that's
where they've stayed. And so when we see people having
you know, tremendously powerful whether for the good or the
ill experiences on hallucinogens. We have to understand that even
(44:05):
if the brain cells don't stay, and even if memory
does consistently erode and shift every time you're not looking
directly at it, that there there is a value to that.
And I have to wonder, you know, when did the
needle begin to swing away from you know, this stuff
being forbidden into this stuff being I wouldn't say accepted
(44:28):
because numbers of usage statistics are still really low, but
I would say it's increasingly going to the mainstream. Especially
you know, we've got a lot of Silicon Valley elites
who are very much on board with hallucinogen. It's not
just a burning man, right, and I think we see
these people as successful individuals in these are modern days.
(44:53):
So now there seems to be this logical I don't know,
I'm tracing into silicon value, but that's very uh cocktail
a Napkin math, you know. Uh. Now there seems to
be the psychological association that says one can be successful
and use psychedelics. Think about this, like, what if you
combined use of psilocybin with a therapist who is very
(45:15):
versed in that in the same way you might have
a shaman or somebody in a ritualistic experience guiding you,
you know, um through this experience. What if you could
combine you know, we haven't even talked about micro dosing,
the idea of taking small amounts of hallucinogens that can
have less of a hallucinogenic effect and more of just
a changing your base level kind of effect. But I
(45:37):
love the potential for pushing this into the mainstream even more,
you know, like going to a therapist who is very
well versed in hallucinogenic experiences and can you can dose
and then have your session where they may be in
the same as a guided meditation or a dream you know,
reversion or whatever whatever what have you. You know, I
think there's a lot of potential for that we haven't
(45:58):
seen yet. Yeah, I know, there's a lot of that
go on in the underground, uh you know, you know,
due to the legality, and that's that's where it is.
Michael Pollan talks about this in his book A little bit,
actually shops around for the right people to go to
to have this experience because he wants an experience on
par with the sort of the clinical therapeutic experiences that
(46:18):
are taking place in these studies, and uh, you know,
he finds some people that look maybe seemed a little shifty. Uh,
but then I found some people that seemed that seemed
like they would be very promising and uh and and
had a profound experience. But yeah, I would I would
love to see that that sort of thing coming. I mean,
that's coming back into the world, but coming into Western
(46:39):
civilization really for the first time. Well, and you may
be in luck, Robert, because there's this guy named Christian
auger Meyer I believe is anger Meyer. Yeah. He Uh,
he's a very wealthy individual and he's got some very
powerful friends who are also extremely wealthy. I always trust
people like that. That's that's the main thing. Well, he
(47:01):
he has means right, and he has an idea because
he had a personal experience with psychedelics that he says,
quote was the single most meaningful thing I've ever done
or experienced in my life. Uh, nothing has ever come
close to it. He wants to or at least he's
expressed that he wants to commercialize in some way or
(47:21):
at least mainstream psychedelics and in particular psilocybin. Uh, in
some way maybe like you're talking about maybe just more
of products, who knows, but it looks as though he's
on the route to make those things happen. As the legality, now,
I don't think we said this. It was just made
legal in Colorado. It was decriminalized, right, Maybe it was
(47:45):
it was recreationally passed somewhere. Okay, I know it's decriminalized
in uh in Colorado. It's I think Oakland, California, like
the single place of Oakland, California. There there are some
very strict laws were still placed all over the country.
I mean even when you get down to the plant itself,
(48:06):
I mean plants themselves, but in this case, the fungus itself,
the spores are particularly highly illegal in California and in
Georgia where we're recording this, because they're easy to transport to, right,
So it's not like you're hauling around a huge marijuana plant, right,
it's much easier. And But not to make the most
(48:26):
like obvious, like hippie statement ever, but just how ridiculous
is it that that certain plants are outlawed by the
descented apes that have you know, destroyed most of the planet.
It's true, It's true. Used them to gain their prominence
over the planet, and perhaps making them illegal is actually
preventing them from being a victim of this great extinction
(48:50):
in which we live. I'm spitballing there now in Colorado,
just in case anybody's outside of Denver and thinking, oh great, uh,
we do have to we do have to let you know.
Mushrooms of this sort are decriminalized in Denver. There's still
illegal in Colorado, and there's still illegal in Denver, and
(49:14):
they're still illegal in the United States. Pretty if you
were listening to this podcast, chances are you're somewhere where
mushrooms where psilocybin mushrooms are quite illegal. And if you're
if you're somewhere where they're legal, you know, let us know.
What are you doing this week? Do you wanna do
you want to hang out? Um? Speaking of hanging out, Robert,
(49:34):
thank you so much for taking this journey with us today.
A lot of our listeners right now are going but
you didn't get to this, You didn't get to this.
What else is there? We have some good news because,
as as the co host of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
(49:55):
you and you and Joe McCormick, who appeared earlier in
an episode of stuff that I want you to know,
have done a deep dive into psychedelics. Where can people
find this five part series? So we did if Yeah,
the five part series on psychedelics. You can find it.
It's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com or just
wherever you get your podcasts. You just look up stuff
to Blow your Mind and there it is. I do
(50:17):
have to say, you know, even though we took a
deep dive, you know, we were not able to explore everything.
Either it is you could, you could do an entire
series on psychedelics, on even particular psychedelics, and there's still
against so much that we don't know and our figuring out.
And it's a story that changes day to day too
with that, especially now that the doors have been kind
of blown open with this renaissance as you describe it,
(50:37):
with this research. Um, the sky's kind of the limit,
and it does feel like the tide is turning, if
a little bit slowly, as things tend to do in
the law. Yeah, I mean right now, the research is
very promising. Hopefully we'll see rescheduling in the future. I've
heard that there are some serious uh there a serious
possibility that to M. D. M A will be rescheduled
(50:57):
in the near future due to therapeutic advancements that were
being made with it. And in terms of the future
with psychedelics, Yeah, I mean, there's of course so many
questions like who who controls it been? Is it Silicon
Valley Bros. Is it the pharmaceutical industry? Uh? Does it
remain kind of an essential part of the underground? Of
course it won't be that. I mean, someone's gonna co
(51:21):
modify at somewhat, you know what I mean that is?
I don't know. I hate to be negative, but but
I will say I was reading one of these articles
about some of the studies. Another drug that has been
associated with sort of club culture, UM ketamine is being
used in very very high level clinical trials for treating
treatment resistant depression, also very controlled. A friend of mine
(51:46):
in New York City, UH is participating and you get
a drip of ketamine that is a very very um,
you know, um, purposeful dose and you were monitored and
he said, it's working like crazy. So it's interesting to
see some of these things we've associated with, you know,
unfairly even maligned substances that are starting to be kind
(52:08):
of like taking a little more seriously, Well, I think
it comes back to the idea of change, that like,
these are substances that, when used properly, can induce positive
change in individuals, and if they can make those changes
in individuals, then perhaps they can make those changes in
the culture as well. I mean, that's one of the
reasons that people have to have such hope for then
(52:29):
that's one of the reasons that the establishment was so
fearful of them. Uh. And hopefully our future will be
defined more by hope than fear. Uh. That's that's what
I'm hoping for. Well said, Well said, And we want
to hear from you off the record or on what
is your take? What is your perspective on hallucinogenic substances, psychedelics,
(52:52):
psilocybin and specific do you feel that your opinion has
changed over time? And so in which direction you can
let us know. We're we're all over the internet. We
want to make it easy for you to speak with us.
If you don't feel like the social needs and Facebook,
(53:13):
Instagram and Twitter or not your particular bag of badgers,
you can call us directly. We have a phone number,
yes one eight three three st d W y t
K and If you want to access our overmind our
over mind, you can go to Here's where it Gets Crazy.
That's our Facebook group. That place, in particular, you'll be
able to have a conversation with other conspiracy realists and
(53:36):
listeners slide in there some from time to time as well,
knowing that's correct. If you don't want to do any
of that stuff, just send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Y Stuff
(54:05):
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