Psychedelics Today

Download During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your host Joe Moore interviews Brian Normand of Psymposia and coordinator of the Cryptopsychedelic Conference. Banks are devaluing currency by charging high fees. With block chain, you've got to think in the long-term. There's so much going on with crypto, you can't keep up. What blockchain developer wants to go work for Facebook? Show Notes Joe and Brian discuss the CryptoPsychedelic Conference the took place in Tulum, Mexico. What is blockchain? A next-gen decentralized ledger. A peer-to-peer border-less, institution-less payment system. Money will be one of the first users of blockchain. Banks are devaluing currency by charging high fees. The whole concept of money will transform, it will be a border-less thing. When Napster came out, peer to peer transfer became a very popular technology. When the record companies worried about being irrelevant, they sued. There could be something like Spotify that pays artists more fairly than Spotify currently does. Social media could be rebuilt. We could no longer be the product being sold, but get paid for our contributions. Could crypto be used to trace the history and purity of substances? Yes, that's a definite use case. The first voting on a block chain happened in Sierra Leone. You've got to think in the long term. What were some of the more interesting things that came out of the CryptoPsychedelic conference? Some of the new relationships and seeing the potential collaboration between the two communities. Projects in this space need to be taken on. It was a time to question, not really a time for answers. Watch the movie 2001 a Space Odyssey in one sitting. Every time you watch it you come away with a new experience. Cryptocurrencies are border-less, some have minimal fees, and it's instant. Decentralized systems Information is easier to access, it doesn't have to climb up a ladder. The DAO is the Decentralized Autonomous Organization – there is no hierarchy. Government could eventually be run via blockchain. How could we use the internet to further the message of psychedelics? Before the internet, the only way you were exposed to information was top down. Networks, authority institutions. Because of the internet, information is moving more horizontally. How do you change incentive structures in the drug war? Could it be these new technologies? The rate of innovation now is way faster than it was when the internet was first coming out. You cannot keep up with what's going on, there's too much going on. Look at money as a tool or form of energy. Crypto will change everyone's concept of paying taxes. Air BnB cut the cities completely out of the picture. Taxes and healthcare or both extremely important and impossible for people to understand. Internet privacy is a big deal in crypto and psychedelics alike. Brian doesn't think that Facebook will ultimately make it. Developers want to build new tools to take down the giants like Facebook. Recently, Facebook announced a decline in users. What can you do to reverse becoming "uncool"? Reddit's price per impression is much lower. Steemit has a fascinating model. It would be cool if you could be compensated for putting helpful content online. We assume that the way the internet is now is how it's always going to be. How can we use the tool to help the people whose lives aren't privileged like ours? In a lot of refugee camps, you can't have cash, so crypto is huge for them. What happens when people who are impoverished around the world can now crowdfund? Resources Mentioned Psymposia CryptoPsychedelic Brian Normand Viveros Brian Normand is CoFounder of Psymposia, entrepreneur, and advocate of psychedelic science, therapy, and drug reform. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst and holds a B.S. in Plant, Soil, and Insect Science, Magna Cum Laude.

Download Introduction During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your hosts Kyle Buller and Joe Moore talk to Zach Leary host of the MAPS podcast and It's All Happening. We have an incredible time talking to Zach and his worldview, experiences, opinions and much more. It was a very fun time recording with Zach and we hope it can happen again in the near future. Show Notes Joe and Kyle discuss Zach's connections with Ram Dass Zach Leary calls himself a futurist and we discuss what a futurist is. A natural way to continue the narrative of our physical evolution and our spiritual development. Cyberspace is an invention as a result of our human condition. The way and the reason we invented it is that we found a need to create another dimension. Futurism and transhumanism and embracing the way technology is augmenting the human experience is a great place to be. Do you see any major problems in psychedelia? Overall, it's a great time to be into psychedelics. There's so much research and data available to the end-user and the discussion is improving. Many people are starting to be more open about their beneficial relationship with psychedelics. It's important to get people in the mainstream aware of their beneficial properties. The Ayahuasca fad going on in the U.S. has many people calling themselves shamans, which raised a red flag to Zach. It used to be that going to the medicine man was a common occurrence in any culture. Mysticism didn't go away, it just got turned into a more doctrinal practice. The part of the church that bothers Zach is the authoritarian aspect, that there is only one god. There's an element of fanaticism when someone says there's only one drug that's worth taking. April 19 is the 75th anniversary of the first intentional use of LSD (Bicycle Day). We have to start re-thinking about what "natural" means. The human imagination and what it creates is a by-product of nature. There's no stopping the technological march, the train has left the station. A return to nature can include biodiverse rooftop gardens in New York. It's very hard to get off the grid. What do we have that's readily available and sustainable? Mushrooms LSD Other synthetic compounds that don't bother the rainforest, etc. Drugs that may not be sustainable: Ayahuasca, Peyote, 5-MeO (Sonoran Desert Toad - Bufo Alvarius toad venom) Some people are playing fast and loose with 5-MeO There are people who give do things to "patients" that are non-consensual while they are under the effect of the drug. Psychedelics are often highly individualistic. It's nice to be able to jump in with a shaman, but to what extent? There is some cultural appropriation here when you take ancient practices and move them into new environments. It's best not to ignore the roots and traditions of these practices but honor them as best as you can. How do we not make mistakes in psychedelics? There's so much data, examples and role models now. There are best practices based on data now. Zach would like to see less consumption of MDMA. People over-consume MDMA. More of a concern about bodily harm. 2-3 times a year is probably enough. There are parallel paths going on and if the parallel path of computers and humanity are going on, what does that look like eventually? What are some of your major influences in the psychedelic world? Terence McKenna, Jim Fadiman, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Dennis McKenna How would you like to see the future of psychedelics evolve? We're seeing the rumblings of what's to come. There's going to be a firmly legitimate place in the psychiatric world for the psychedelic therapy. Hopefully, it carries over into recreational use and cognitive therapy. Links ZachLeary.com The MAPS Podcast Psychedelicstoday.teachable.com Bluebird Botanicals About Zach Leary Zach is the host of both the "It's All Happening with Zach Leary" podcast and "The MAPS Podcast." They have helped to cement him as one of the most thought provoking podcasters in the cultural philosophy genre of podcasting. He's also a blogger/writer, a futurist, spiritualist, a technology consultant and socio-cultural theorist. In all of Zach's work he blends his roles as a spiritual aspirant and a futurist into a unique identity all his own. His spiritual background has it's roots in being a practitioner of bhakti yoga as taught through many of the vedantic systems of Northern India, in particular Neem Karoli Baba as taught by Ram Dass. Through the practice of bhakti yoga he has found keys that unlock doorways that allow the soul to experience it's true nature of being eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. In addition to bhakti yoga, Zach is influenced by many different methods and traditions of consciousness exploration ranging from trans-humanism to buddhism and clinical psychology. Zach is also a frequent pundit on the political systems that are fueling todays economic and cultural structures. At the core of all of Zach's work is the belief that we have been fused together by the collective practice of using technology to expand our species imagination with spirituality and mysticism to define the very nature of who we are. Check out our online store /**/ /**/ /**/

Download During this episode of Psychedelics Today, your hosts Kyle and Joe Moore talk to Dr. Matt Segall, a philosopher with a Ph.D. working at CIIS as an administrator and adjunct lecturer. In this episode, we explore psychedelics through the lens of philosophy and Alfred North Whitehead. Show Notes: Philosophy is really important when talking about psychedelics. This movement is working on a lot of different levels. Looking to get accepted into academia therefore it's important to be precise. About Dr. Matt Segall Strong interest in Alfred North Whitehead 12 levels of abstraction away from Plato. Ropes in all of western philosophy and science into a cohesive system that seems to reenchant the world a bit. Extended state DMT research Use an IV pump to keep a steady stream of DMT in the bloodstream for an undetermined amount of time. The initial phase of the study is 10-20 minutes. Not just for medical research, it's for the community. Join the class at psychedelicstoday.teachable.com. How did Matt Segall stumble his way into the Whitehead world? Philosophy came first, but not by much. He had a teacher who introduced him to some psychedelic teachers. His first experience with psychedelics was when he was 19 years old with mushrooms. He realized that there were many other worlds running in parallel with this one. These substances open up our perceptions of other worlds and other facets of the same world. We need to incorporate the experience induces by these substances. Western philosophy is rooted in the psychedelic experience. Plato's encounter with the ideal forms that led him out of the cave proves that the origins of philosophy include psychedelics. There is chemical evidence that the rituals in Athens were psychedelic in nature. When ancient Greeks refer to wine, they're talking about something that was way more mind altering. What drew you into Whitehead? In college, he listened to a McKenna lecture and he mentioned Whitehead a lot. McKenna introduced him to Whitehead. He waited until he started graduate school, so he could take a course on him and study him alongside other graduate students. Whitehead incorporated 20th century physics and a version of Darwin's understanding of evolution expanded to a cosmological level. Combining advanced science with an enchanted view of the universe. The modern era has alienated human beings from the rest of the natural world. The industrial revolution made this alienation even more profound. There has been a gradual isolation of the human being from the rest of life and the universe. Human beings have come to think of the rest of life and just robots seeking to reproduce. Value has to be assigned to anything non-human by humans. This thinking is highly destructive. Our idea has not fit the reality and it's destroying the reality. Whitehead helps us re-inhabit the planet as one of the many species. When human beings come to recognize that value is not just made up in our human society but it's an intrinsic cosmic value, they can act accordingly. Whitehead's process is called a process-relational process. We've traditionally been thought to have a soul or mind that's independent of others. Whitehead proposes that our soul or mind is in relation to others. So that what it means to be me is that I'm not unique, but my uniqueness comes from my unique perspective and works with the other souls in the environment. This attempts to move us away from thinking of ourselves as isolated minds. The biggest challenge is to get people to not shut down when they see Whitehead's terminology. Philosophy can serve to help us develop a language that actually serves to represent our experience. It's well worth it to learn the dictionary that Whitehead provides. Whitehead's understanding of perception is welcoming more indigenous ways of knowing back into the realm of philosophy. Whitehead helps us make sense of indigenous experience. All of human culture stems from these shamanistic practices. We don't yet have the words to explain yet what these psychedelic journeys are doing to us. A downside to being in the west is that we don't have relationship with psychedelic substances. The plants that are a part of the ayahuasca brew told the indigenous people how to brew them. People talk about nature deficit disorder, kids being raised indoors being told the outdoors is dirty. The problem is not one of trying to reinvent the wheel, we have to stop beating this capacity out of children. When we talk about the human nervous system in the context of symbiotic relationships with our ecosystem: It doesn't make sense to consider the human brain and nervous system as enclosed within the skull. The human nervous system is actually a lot more ecological in its extent than most physiologists would let on. The chemical metabolism of our brain extends out into the environment. Richard Doyle wrote a book called Darwin's Pharmacy where he coins the term "ecodelic" which challenges the idea of an autonomous individual. The idea is we're actually permeated by the chemicals flowing through our environment. Our consciousness is shaped any time we eat anything. Some drugs are not thought of as drugs: sugar, caffeine, tobacco. These are accepted psychedelic substances. The fact that cannabis and other psychedelics are becoming more mainstream again shows that we in late-stage capitalism. Is there anything in particular you've been excited about in psychedelics lately? The research on MDMA for PTSD in veterans coming back from Iraq and the success rate they're achieving. The FDA may be forced by the sheer weight of the evidence to approve MDMA. The hope is that we can use MDMA to treat "pre-traumatic stress disorder." Enhance the empathic capacity of those who handle a great deal of conflict. Within a year or two the FDA is going to be approving MDMA, which is unbelievable. Joe and Matt talk about how credentials are often forced as a barrier to entry into certain fields. Matt is all for a standardized approach to mainstream these things. He wants to go in all directions to get the therapy out. The plants used in psychedelics are so much safer than any drug that's on the market right now. Some lawmakers are trying to pass a law to allow the death penalty for drug dealers, including those who sell cannabis. Do you have any places you'd like to send people to re-engage with philosophy? Study the history of philosophy. Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas. Story of Philosophy by Will Durant Matt teaches an online course on Whitehead, the next one begins in January 2019. Philosophy is not an abstract linguistic analysis. He approaches philosophy as a spiritual practice. Philosophy is learning to die. We're embodied creatures and philosophy is a way to come to terms with that. Psychedelics help you experience ego death, but we're still conscious. Tweetable Quotes Psychedelics are not just theoretically interesting, they have profound practical implications for how we organize our lives. Whitehead's terminology is an attempt to return us to our concrete experience. Philosophy is learning to die. Resources Mentioned Psychedelicstoday.teachable.com Bluebird Botanicals Footnotes2plato.com Pharmakon – book by Michael Rinella Passion of the Western Mind – book by Richard Tarnas Story of Philosophy – book by Will Durant Introduction to Process Relationship Philosophy – book by Robert Mesle 0thouartthat0 – Matt's Youtube Channel About Matthew Segall, Ph.D. Matthew T. Segall, PhD, received his doctoral degree in 2016 from the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. His dissertation was titled Cosmotheanthropic Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. It grapples with the limits to knowledge of reality imposed by Kant's transcendental form of philosophy and argues that Schelling and Whitehead's process-oriented approach (described in his dissertation as a "descendental" form of philosophy) shows the way across the Kantian threshold to renewed experiential contact with reality. He teaches courses on German Idealism and process philosophy for the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. He blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com.

Download In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Kyle and Joe speak to Dennis McKenna (of Dennis McKenna fame) and Mark Plotkin founder of the Amazon Conservation Team. We discuss a broad range of subjects. One of the most interesting was a project that Dennis and many others have been working on for over a year at the time of recording this, titled Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs, which was a conference in the UK in 2017. It was a 50 year follow up to the initial event (and later seminal book) that Richard Evan Schultes, Ph.D helped coordinate and host. This link will take you to a page where you can see all of the talks that were given at ESPD50. https://vimeo.com/album/4766647 We really think you'll enjoy the show. Please let us know what you think and if you can, pre-order the ESPD 50 to save some money on the post release price. About Mark Plotkin, Ph.D Dr. Plotkin has led ACT and guided its vision since 1996, when he co-founded the organization with his fellow conservationist, Liliana Madrigal. He is a renowned ethnobotanist who has spent almost three decades studying traditional plant use with traditional healers of tropical America. Dr. Plotkin has previously served as Research Associate in Ethnobotanical Conservation at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University; Director of Plant Conservation at the World Wildlife Fund; Vice President of Conservation International; and Research Associate at the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution. Among his many influential writings, Dr. Plotkin may be best known for his popular work Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice (1994), which has been printed continuously and has been published in multiple languages. Other works include the critically acclaimed children's book The Shaman's Apprentice - A Tale of the Amazon Rainforest, illustrated by Lynne Cherry, and Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets. His most recent book, The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria, coauthored with Michael Shnayerson, was selected as a Discover Magazine book of the year. In 1998, he played a leading role in the Academy Award-nominated IMAX film Amazon. Dr. Plotkin's work also has been featured in a PBS Nova documentary, in an Emmy-winning Fox TV documentary, on the NBC Nightly News and Today Show, CBS' 48 Hours and in Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, Elle, People, The New York Times, along with appearances on National Public Radio. Time magazine called him an "Environmental Hero for the Planet" (2001) and Smithsonian magazine hailed him as one of "35 Who Made a Difference" (2005), along with Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, and fellow New Orleanian Wynton Marsalis. Dr. Plotkin has received the San Diego Zoo Gold Medal for Conservation; the Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Award; an International Conservation Leadership award from the Jane Goodall Institute; and, with Liliana Madrigal, the Skoll Foundation's Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2010, he received the honorary degree of "Doctor of Humane Letters" from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Plotkin was educated at Harvard, Yale and Tufts University. About the Amazon Conservation Team The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving South American rainforests. This small but robust outfit occupies a unique niche among other environmental non-profits working in the tropics: ACT works hand in hand with local indigenous communities to devise and implement its conservation strategies. About Dennis McKenna Dennis Jon McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacognosist, lecturer and author. He is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines. McKenna received his Master's degree in botany at the University of Hawaii in 1979. He received his doctorate in botanical sciences in 1984 from the University of British Columbia,[2] where he wrote a dissertation entitled Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in Amazonian hallucinogenic plants: ethnobotanical, phytochemical, and pharmacological investigations. McKenna then received post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health, and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine. Dennis McKenna Links Dennis on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dennisjonmckenna/ Dennis's Recent book - Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss Symbio Life Sciences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKiKfAmysrI Links https://www.ted.com/talks/mark_plotkin_what_the_people_of_the_amazon_know_that_you_don_t

Download Joe had the opportunity to interview an old friend Tarif Ahmed while visiting Long Island, New York recently. They had the opportunity to record about all sorts of things from diversity, privilege, open source experimentation with different psychedelic regimens, bringing psychedelics safely into Islam and much more. If you enjoy the episode, please let us know what you think by leaving an iTunes review!

Malin Vedøy Uthaug, a PhD candidate from Prague, joins Psychedelics Today to talk about her interest and research with ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT. Malin shares her experience how she got involved studying psychedelics and shares a little bit about her personal experiences with ayahuasca. Malin is currently working on an interesting research study examining the potential influence that the ritual and ceremony may have on the overall ayahuasca experience. More at https://psychedelicstoday.com

Download James Norwood, MA, joins Kyle and Michelle Hobart for a talk about spiritual emergence, madness, entheogens, and the Gnosis Retreat Center. Learn more about Gnosis: http://www.gnosisretreatcenter.org/ [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4-lJWwwRc8] A brief introduction to Gnosis Suppose you come to the end of your tether, can no longer cope, have a break-down, fall apart, go to pieces. To whom would you turn? Where would you go? What alternatives do you have when you desperately need help, but have little, if any, say in the kind of help available? When a person's suffering becomes insupportable, to him or herself and to others, and yet persists, that person is in a state of distress. Once you find yourself in distress you come to realize that you are at the mercy of other people. Which of those people are you willing to be at their mercy, for better or worse? To whom are you willing to entrust your life? If you don't happen to know anyone who comes to mind, then how will you go about finding someone you can trust? Do such persons exist? Gnosis Retreat Center aspires to be such a place, by providing a safe place to be, when you are alone and afraid, confused, bereft, and not sure whom to turn to for help. Gnosis is a household that is populated by others like yourself, a refuge for those who are lost, afraid, bewildered, or simply seeking a fresh start, who may, if they choose, get over their ordeal and see it through, without jeopardy. If you want to learn more about spiritual emergence(y) check out this online webinar: Spiritual Emergence or Psychosis? Links Gnosis Website: Gnosisretreatcenter.org Gnosis Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Gnosisretreatcenter/ Gnosis Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1MQyM14pcKhu96Zr5e2WA?view_as=subscriber Gnosis donations: https://www.youcaring.com/gnosisretreatcenter-752245 Gnosis Twitter: https://twitter.com/GnosisRetreatC Tickets for our upcoming event, Mad To Be Normal | The West Coast Premiere can be found here: madtobenormal.eventbrite.com Additional video link of interest to the viewers: This is the video of the talk on Why Radical Community is Vital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOI_qT0mDKs&t=15s About James Norwood, MA James Norwood, MA, is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California. Norwood is presently working as a clinical intern, researching MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in concert with the Multi-Disciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, and is on the board of directors of Free Association Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides alternatives to treatment for people with altered experiences of reality in the Bay Area. About Michelle Anne Hobart, MA Michelle Anne Hobart, MA: is a practitioner of energy medicine and holistic health educator. She holds a BS in Biology, and an MA in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. Currently, she is doing coursework in Integral Counseling Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies. Michelle is an advocate for the Neurodiversity movement and a certified Spiritual Emergence Coach. She supports sensitive, empathic people whose gifts and experiences have been judged or oppressed and who are in the process of reclaiming and recovering their self-care, power, and personal truth. Michelle offers workshops, retreats, support groups, and one-on-one sessions.

Matt Kay, Co-Founder of the East Coast Float Spa, joins Kyle on this episode of Psychedelics Today. This is another experiential episode where Kyle gets to float and report on his experience. Kyle and Matt also talk about the benefits of floating, the history, and how Matt got involved in the float business. We hope you enjoy this episode! Let us know what you think below in the comment section. Learn more at psychedelicstoday.com

Download Leoni Joubert a science writer, author, trainer and public speaker joins Kyle Buller and Joe Moore to discuss Psychedelic Policy in South Africa. We discuss the promising avenues of improving policy around mushrooms, iboga and more. We also learn about South Africa wanting to be more involved in the psychedelic movement including research, medicalization, and even talk about the possibility of Bio - Leoni Joubert Leonie uses different storytelling approaches to wander through the often unmapped terrain faced by all of us as we find ways to live together on an ever more tightly packed planet: climate, energy, environmental change, and hunger and malnutrition in the world of Big Food. Mostly, her stories try to give voice to a silenced environment, and the social injustices of a society where the divide between rich and poor has never been greater. She has spent the better part of 15 years exploring these topics through books, journalism, communication's support to academics and civil society organisations, and non-fiction creative writing. Bibliography Scorched: South Africa's Changing Climate Boiling Point: People in a Changing Climate Invaded: the Biological Invasion of South Africa The Hungry Season: Feeding Southern Africa's Cities Oranjezicht City Farm: Food, Community, Connection She has also contributed a few book chapters, including: Opinion Pieces by South African Thought Leaders, edited by Max du Preez (Penguin, 2011) Bending the Curve, edited by Robert Zipplies (Africa Geographic, 2008) Climate Governance in Africa - A Handbook for Journalists (IPS Africa and HBF, 2014), contributed an article. Links - South Africa Psychedelic Policy http://leoniejoubert.co.za/ https://psychonauts.co.za/ http://www.iboga.co.za/about-the-iboga-association-of-cape-town Enter to win a bunch of product from Bluebird Botanicals!!