Rick Strassman | Is Consciousness Biologically Mystical?

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There's a Yale study a couple of years ago where
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they used it in people with treatment resistant depression just
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you know, gave a big dose of DMT. It didn't
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provide on any formal psychotherapy and people got better. There's
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a group in the UK Small Pharma, which is looking
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at you DMT.
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You know.
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One of the problems with DMT as a psychotherapeutic aid
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is usually you have to either smoke it or inject it,
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and the onset of effects is quite strong, quite powerful,
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quite intense, and it can be somewhat disorienting, especially if
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you're not used to those kinds of states.
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What if there's a naturally occurring chemical in your brain
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that could completely change how you experience reality. In this episode,
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I sit down with doctor Rick Strassman, the pioneer behind
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DMT research, to explore consciousness, mystical experiences, and the surprising
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ways psychedelics and the mind intersect. We get into science,
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spirituality and what it really means to understand these states
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and how they could impact healing and personal growth. My
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name is doctor Fleet Mall your co host for this session,
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and I'm really happy to be here today with doctor
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Rick Strassman. Welcome, doctor Strassman.
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Thank you, doctor maul So.
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I'm really happy to have you on our summit today
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and you can call me Fleet for the rest of
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our interview here. Your research on DMT has had an
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impact on our understanding about consciousness, and I wonder if
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you might explain this idea of how DMT might be
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involved in naturally occurring mystical experiences, which I sill means
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DMT has a correlate, naturally existing neural chemical in the
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brain of some sort. So I wonder if you could
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talk about that.
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Yeah, that ties into what led me to this line
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of work in the first place. In college, I was
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struck by the similarities between certain meditative states and those
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brought on by psychedelic drugs, and I thought there must
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be some common biological denominator that was activated when you
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meditated and you took psychedelic drugs to the extent that
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the experiences overlapped. So I began looking for it. Endogenous
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or naturally made substance which might be stimulated, let's say,
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when you meditate and you get psychedelic visions. So I
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began looking at melatonin, which is a pineal hormone, and
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there were some medical data suggesting it was perhaps psychedelic,
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and there was a long esoteric physiology history of the
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value of the pineal gland. You know, the Hindus were
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pinpointing the location on the top of the head, which
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corresponded to some of the highest spiritual experiences. So I
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began my clinical research career looking at melatonin. In the
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early eighties, we discovered it was only sedating, which everybody
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knows now. In the meantime, though, I learned about DMT,
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which is I guess chemical cousin of malatonin, and it
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was known to be made within the body and had
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been studied as a very powerful psychedelic drug previously in
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the fifties the sixties, so I switched my focus to
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d MT. My theory was that if giving d MT
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as an injection or administering it, if it produced effects
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similar to those that occurred in non drug altered states
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of all sorts, not necessarily spiritual ones, so psychosis, near
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death experiences, mystical experiences, any number of non drug altered states.
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So if d MT replicated some of those, some of
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those features that would support a role for endogenous d
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MT mediating those effects. So, for example, if you gave
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d MT and it caused a syndrome like the near
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death state. You could then have anthesized that naturally occurring
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DMT is released during the near death state.
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So you reference how your research began, do you mind?
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My asking was that personal experience with meditation and psycholics
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as were just your research clinical interest, looking what studies
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were doing being done with meditators and people using psychatics
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at the time.
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Well as a combination. College, I experimented seriously with psychedelic drugs.
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I also learned a form of meditation, transcendental meditation, which
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the effects were rather subtle. In the meantime, though I
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had discovered Buddhism and some of the meditative texts and
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the descriptions of some of those states resulting from particular
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meditation practices were quite psychedelic.
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Especially I think in the Tibetan tradition and all the Bardo.
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And right the visualizations and whatnot.
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So you're a psychiatrist since so I know your interest
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was what can we learn here and how can we
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apply that to helping human beings with mental health challenges?
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So what do you see as a role of I
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know there's some current research going on in the UK
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probably some other places with DMT. It's probably a long
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way from being rescheduled. But what do you see about
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the possible therapeutic applications to treat things like depression anxieties
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or PTSD and so forth. And is there a way
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to increase indogenous DMT without actually consuming DMT, whether it's
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you know, there's synthetic DMT. There's DMT as part of ayahuasca,
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although it's activated in a very different way. And then
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there's a five MEODMT that has got a lot of
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attention these days.
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So yeah, well, you know, compared to other there's psychedelics
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like psilocybin and like LSD. So far there's not been
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correspondingly strong interest in studying DMT for mental health problems,
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although that is slowly changing. There is a Yale study
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a couple of years ago. They used it in people
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with treatment resistant depression just you know, gave a big
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dose of DMT. It didn't provide any formal psychotherapy and
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people got better. There's a group in the UK, small Pharma,
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which is looking at DMT. You know, one of the
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problems with d MT as a psychotherapeutic aid is usually
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you have to either smoke it or inject it, and
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the onset of effects is quite strong, quite powerful, quite intense,
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and it can be somewhat disorienting, especially if you're not
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used to those kinds of states.
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You know.
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So one of the focuses of interest is to formulate
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a preparation of DMT which is slower on set, you know,
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the duration is longer, you know, so you can work
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with it psychotherapeutically.
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You know.
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There's a couple of approaches which are being taken. One
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is the development of a continuous infusion of d MT,
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you know, keeping people in the DMT state for thirty
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sixty or ninety minutes. What's very cool about that model
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is you can ty trate the state in real time
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just about You can increase the infusion rate and increase
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the level of intoxication. You could decrease the infusion rate
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even people completely out of the state. You know, if
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you're doing psychotherapy with a person and they want to
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go deeper or they want to go lighter, you have
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talk or not talk. I think they're also working on
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bucle formulations of d MT. You put in your cheek,
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it absorbs more slowly. You know. You could you can
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place the d MT as a psychotherapeutic agent within the
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class of compounds which you're being your studied as, Yes,
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psychotherapeutic agents. You know. Well, so MDMA is like a
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quasi psychedelic and that's been used for PTSD treatment. That's
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been kind of slowed down by the FDA, you know,
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but you will see how that goes. Yes, psilocybin has
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been used for depression, anxiety, end of life to spare
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substance abuse. They're using more LSD now and studies anxiety disorder,
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existential distress from a terminal illness, you know. So, I
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think one of the things we need to do before
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these drugs are ready for prime time is number one,
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you know, figure out how they work. We're just kind
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of throwing them at everything, and you know, they say
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seem to be helpful in you know, the proper situations
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for a vast number of conditions, and you know, they're
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almost they're almost like panaceas. And I think, you know,
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that's a very interesting finding, you know, like how is
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a drug or a category of drugs a panacea? You know.
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So I think once we understand, you know, how psychedelics work,
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we'll be able to determine which conditions are the most amenable.
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Another thing we need to figure out is the role
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of psychotherapy, and if the psycho therapy is necessary, then
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what kind. There's a couple of reasons I think that
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your psychotherapy is a crucial component. You know, One is
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that you'll increase the benefit or you know, the potential benefit,
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because if you're completely in an altered state and you're
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ab re acting and crying and or joyful and ecstatic
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or confused or all kinds of things, you want somebody
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to talk about that with. And if somebody is just
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sitting there, you're reading the newspaper, that's not going to
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quite be the same. And I think also it will
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reduce the frequency of adverse effects because there's support. You're
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working with a person, you know them, they know you,
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there's respect, there's trust, and they help you through the state,
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and you have them to discuss things with, you know,
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once the session is over, so you can integrate it
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a lot more carefully successfully as opposed to just this
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big experience and you're left with a bunch of loose ends.
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You raised two really important areas there, And maybe we'll
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start with what you just talked about move backwards a
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little bit, but certainly in general for me anyway, I mean,
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combining psychotherapy with psychoic medicine seems like a no brainer
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for the reasons you describe. Certainly for quality preparation, even
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if there was no psychotherapy happening during the session, certainly
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for preparation and integration seems really important. I guess the
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only reason it would come up at some point is
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issues of scale and economy and so forth. There is
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some ketemine infusion clinics where they don't offer psychotherapy and
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people are benefiting to some degree on that with depression,
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and I think that's still an open question, but it
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seems like if one is able to integrate the two,
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that seems to be ideal. And you mentioned we don't
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really understand you know, that these psycholic medicines seem to
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be a panacea in many ways, and we don't really
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understand how it's working at I wonder if you could
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elaborate a little more on that. I mean, there is
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some notion of and this parkins back to some of
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the similarities with meditative experience and says there may be
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some suppression of the activity of the deplotment network there's
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some speculation around that and a commonality there. There's the
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idea that there's increased neuroplasticity. There's Robin Carhart Harris's notion
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of the entropic brain. And did some of these psychiatics
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get us into a sort of a sweet spot or
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a Goldilocks zone between rigidity and chaos and the function
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of the brain where change is more possible, which I
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guess is another way of talking about neuroplasticity. But I
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wonder if I asked a number of researches these questions.
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I had a conversation with Besselvanicle for our summer last
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year and he said, well, you know we used to
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talk cyberbaut Well, now there's neurobabble. The truth is we
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don't really know what's going on yet, and I'm curious
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about your thoughts about that and what directions and research
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we need to do so we can figure out what
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the therapeutic mechanisms are of these medicines.
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Well, I think you can dispass with both your neurobabbel
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and psychobabble if you think about a set and setting.
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You know, that's been a theme that's run through any
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discussion of psychedelic rug effects since the sixties. You know,
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the set is you know who you are at the
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time you take the drug. It's your physical health, your
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mental health, your spiritual health, and it involves what you
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think about and how you occupy yourself. What are your goals,
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your priorities, what's important to you, what questions do you have?
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What's your intention of taking a psychedelic drug. And the
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setting is the environment in which the experience takes place, friends, family,
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by yourself outside inside all those extra your personal factors,
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so to speak. You know, so, if you are a
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spiritually oriented person and you study spiritual texts and you pray,
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and you meditate and belong to a religious community, and
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you take a psychedelic drug because you want to enhance
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your practice or increase your commitment to the path, I
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could guarantee just about that that will be the kind
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of experience that you have. It might be pleasant, might
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be unpleasant, but you know, those are the things which
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are going to provide the content of the experience itself,
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the visions, the voices, the ideas and the feelings. If,
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on the other hand, you're Charles Manson and you want
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to recruit vulnerable people and feed them these weird ideas
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and make them like almost imprint upon you in an
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attachment kind of manner, and you find people who want
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that kind of experience. They're lost and they feel hard
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done by and they feel you know, societies have to
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get them. You can solidify, make more true and meaningful
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those kinds of ideas, you know, those kinds of feelings.
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So that's like in a non pathological set of circumstances.
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If though, for example, you have depression and you're depressed,
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you want to feel better, you haven't responded to normal
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treatments or you know, to treatments. The placebo response and
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antidepressant trials is enormous, Like you're forty percent of people
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get better on placebo as opposed to sixty or seventy
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percent on antidepressant. The placebo response is powerful. It's a
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biological response. There's functional brain imaging, changes in endocrine and
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immune function, inflammatory effects of placebo. You know. So if
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you're steering your experience towards the relief of depression, and
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you're told, you know, this is a drug which provides
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a certain experience which then leads to a less depressed state,
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the chances are that will, you know, occur more often
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than not anyway. So when you're talking about placebo response
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with you know, the psychedelics, there's a couple of factors
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which you come into play.
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You know.
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One is, you know, the neurological or neurobiological factors that
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you were alluding to, the default mode network and increase
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functional connectivity and tropic brain you know. So those just
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may be the pharmacological effects of the drug. On the
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other hand, you know, there's the subjective experience, which at
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the very least is intense, you know, convincing, meaningful. It
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might be mystical and might be psychoto mignetic, it might
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be ego dissolving, but what have you. It's intense as
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convincing and you're there, you know, more in a way,
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more present than one's every day consciousness, you know. So
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what's the correspondence then, between the acute subjective effects and
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the biological effects. Is there like a threshold of intensity
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of the subjective experience which is necessary to activate the
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neuroplasticity or the default mode network, you know. So I
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think it's a really interesting interplay between the subjective experience
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and the biological effects. You know, they're developing these non
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psychedelic psychedelics now that just stimulate neuroplasticity, and at at
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least in lower animals. You know, there aren't any data
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for humans yet, and you know, the thinking goes that
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you can stimulate, you know, neuroplasticity, change the functional connectivity
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in the brain without like imposing a psychedelic experience on
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the person. You know, most people only want to be
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less depressed. They don't necessarily want to have a huge
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psychedelic experience. I think those drugs will you probably turn
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out to be like super antidepressants, and they'll be helpful
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for a lot of people, and they won't be burdened
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with a lot of side effects. Most likely. On the
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other hand, for those individuals who don't respond to non
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psychedelic psychedelics, you may want to turn to a psychedelic
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and you have a big subjective effect which may prove
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more beneficial, but at the same time would be more
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liable to adverse effects.
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What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently but feeling differently.
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Science shows us that true change happens when we align
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00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:17.160
not just our minds, but also the neural networks in
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our hearts and guts. This heart mind connection is the
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key to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness. That's why
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the link to learn more and start your journey today. So,
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from what I hear you saying, sounds like even if
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we get greater clarity about the actual neurobiological mechanisms that
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play with these various psycholic medicines, and they're not all
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the same, but we get more greater clarity, and if
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that won't necessarily tell the whole story for the more
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transformational experiences people have when it is a subjective psychological
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experience with ideal set and setting and so forth, So
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the neurobiological plax may only tell part of the story.
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And if we focus too much on that, that could
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be then same kind of reductionistic science that kind of
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led to our focus on so the antidepressions and so forth.
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That's fascinating. So I'm curious your book The Spirit Monocle
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Moleculen't I really want to read that. I feel bad
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I haven't read it because it's become kind of a
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classic in the field, and I'm looking forward to reading it.
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But just the title seems to point in the direction
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of the notion within various plant medicine traditions of these
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substances having their own spirits or allies or but also
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even in Western science points to consciousness. And of course
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in reductionistic question, highly materialistic, you know, consciousness is still like,
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you know, the difficult question how does it arise? But
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in more kind of open minded Western science as well
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as Eastern science. I think consciousness is certainly looked at.
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So I'm wondering what has your research around DMT and
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what is this all telling us about consciousness, the relation
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between consciousness between the mind, the brain, and these different factors,
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and maybe how that might be of interest you as
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a healer and a psychiatrist.
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Well, I think one of the most interesting things about
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d MT in particular, obviously a topic near and dear
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to my heart. There was a study in twenty nineteen
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which was looking at the brain production of DMT in
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the rodent and they determined there was a group at
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the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, you know, John
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Dean was the first author. He's now at UC San Diego.
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They discovered that concentrations of DMT in the road and
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brain are comparable to those of serotonin and of dopamine.
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So we're kind of closing in on the notion of
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a DMT neurotransmitter system, which, you know, and if there
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were a DMT neurotransmitter system, you'd really wonder what was immediating,
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what's they're responsible for, you know, So you can deduce
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the role of a neurotransmitter by giving medications or drugs
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that modify that neurotransmitter and you're seeing what happens. Yeah,
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So for example, you give SSRIs and people are less
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depressed and usually less anxious. So you could say to
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your well, your serotonin then is involved with the functions
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of mood and anxiety.
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You know.
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The amphetamines, you know, they are stimulating, they help you focus,
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they keep you from falling asleep, and you know those
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are medications that interact with a dopamine system, you know.
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So you can then assume that you know, dopamine is
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involved in alertness and focus.
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You know.
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So what's the hallmark of giving d MT, Well, it's
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the conviction that what you're experiencing is more real than real.
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It's a state of consciousness that completely replaces ongoing mental experience,
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you know. So if you're giving a you know, drug
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that you know, you know, simplistically, you know, thinking like
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stimulates you d MT receptors, and one feels themselves completely
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transported to a different reality which feels more real than
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this one. You know. One might then speculate that perhaps
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the role of d MT nurture fascinator system is to
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mediate our sense of reality. So if there's higher levels
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things are hyper real and meaningful and important and convincing,
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and they stick with you if your lower levels might
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be accompanied by things of you know, flatness or you know,
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lack of energy or lack of excitement or interest, you know,
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less meaningful, you know. So I think, you know, that's
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one way in which you d MT in particular, you know,
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ties into the idea of consciousness. I was, you know,
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joking around at some point, you know, thinking of you
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d MT as the endo matrix. It's the naturally occurring
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compound in the brain that you know, regulates our sense
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of reality, you know. So one can venture down some
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pretty interesting rabbit holes along those lines.
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Yeah, that's a particularly interesting one. So certainly we know
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that the consensual reality that we all experience, and of
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course that can be influenced by mood and all kinds
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of things. But still that basic consensual rally is a
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curated experience delivered to us by the brain. And in fact,
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there may be a two way street the way the
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brain's influencing that and the way that influences the brain.
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So we think of if DMT and other psychiatics give
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us access to a completely different experience. We generally think
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of that as altered or not, you know, different than
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real or you know, some departure from the real. But
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it may just be a different curated experience of a
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greater field of consciousness. So that's a fascinating area to explore.
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Yeah, it might be a greater sphere. Well, but you know,
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by your greater sphere of consciousness, do you mean within
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the person or to the external to the person.
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I was thinking external to the person. That it may
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open us up to a larger field of consciousness the
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one that our brain currently curates for us.
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Yeah. Well, you know, one of the interesting things about
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your d MT as well, is, you know, why is
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there so much d MT in the natural world. It's
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in every mammal that's been studied. It's in hundreds, if
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not thousands, of you know. So it is you're attempting
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to think of your d MT as some kind of
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spiritual esperanto, as shared language which might across different species.
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As it were, you mentioned before the placebo effect, and
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I think often in the general public delay on is
402
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they may they have been kind of educated to think
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the polacebo effect means something doesn't work, it's not real,
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it's just and in fact, the placebo effect is a
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really important phenomenon to understand the human brain, the innate
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healing possibilities within the whole human body. And so you
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mentioned that, and my understanding is that in some of
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the clinical trials, you know, the one of the criticisms
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from the Advisory Committee to the FDA that has put
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off rescheduling of MDMA for now was, you know, the
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difficulty in doing truly double blind or truly blind clinical trials.
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And you know, generally once someone knows pretty quickly whether
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they've received the placebo pill or the real psychalic medicine.
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But at the same time, during some of the clinical trials,
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because the person is receiving some preparation, they're put in
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a place in a nice setting, they have the eyemask on,
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they have nice music, there's some nice people sitting with
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them in a really reassuring way. They end up having
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some very positive experiences and in some cases actually did
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feel didn't realize they'd received the placebo and in fact
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had some positive results from the session. So again the
422
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power of set and setting, and it seems like even
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you know, understanding the really deep mysteries of our biology
424
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and the deep mysteries even of our immune system and
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really the profound intelligence within it and the way it
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works and what we know so little about it. On
427
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some level, it seems like the placebo effect is one
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of the things we should be most researching. I'm curious
429
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about your thoughts on that.
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Yeah, well, you know, there's a couple of relevant points
431
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with regard to placebo in you know, current studies. You know,
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one is, you know, the FDA's assistance on placebo you know,
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double blind, you know, placebo controlled studies, And as you mentioned,
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you know, if you get a substance that has no
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psychological effects, the chances are that you won't you have
436
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as great a response, although you may have some. There's
437
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been a lot of hand ringing and hair pulling about
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what's the proper placebo you know condition If you're going
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to do a double blind, placebo controlled study, is it
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a low dose of drug? Well not really, because that
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stimulates neuroplasticity and some people are quite sensitive you know,
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subjective response as well. You give ben a drill, well,
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you know Benner drill, it gives you an altered state.
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You're sit dated, You've got anti colon energic antihistamin energic
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things going on in the brain your THHC. Well, that's
446
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another trip for another you're comparing your two trips with
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each other. You know, there's a notion out there, the
448
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open label placebo trial. It was I'm not sure if
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you've gone at the Harvard Placebo Research Center. There's a
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you follow their named Kapchuk who's been working on the
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open label placebo idea, and he has found out that
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if you tell people that they're getting placebo and that
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placebo has a high rate of response, there you have it.
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You know, there's your placebo condition. So I think you
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know that would cut through you know, the Gordian not
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of what's the proper placebo. Your proper placebo is a placebo,
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and you tell them that, so it is no longer
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double blind, but you have a good comparator group because
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people do know that they get the psychedelic they're never
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double blind because it's obvious.
461
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You know.
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The other issue with placebo and the medical use of
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psychedelics is what conditions would they be most useful for?
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And I think that would be in conditions with a
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high placebo response in the first place, which are the
466
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mental health conditions for sure, maybe autoimmune diseases, allergic responses
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or allergic illnesses, your pain. You know, those conditions all
468
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respond to placebo fairly robustly. So if your psychedelics enhanced
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the placebo response, you would want to direct that enhancement
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towards the placebo response in the person, which you might
471
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be quite helpful in and of itself. On the flip
472
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side of that would be that psychedelic assistant therapy would
473
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not be useful for placebo non responsive conditions like, for example, cancer.
474
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Yeah, fascinating. I just want to fop on something you
475
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said in your previous response, because BMT is some seems
476
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to be so omnipresent in nature, you know, brings up
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some curiosity about it its role right and even as
478
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:47.880
you said, in some way modulating the notion of a
479
00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:51.559
matrix and consciousness and being throughout nature. It just reminded me.
480
00:28:51.640 --> 00:28:53.920
I've had We've had Paul Samon's on our summer a
481
00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:56.680
couple of times, and he's, you know, his whole world
482
00:28:56.720 --> 00:28:58.799
is out of fun guy and psilocybin and so forth,
483
00:28:58.839 --> 00:29:01.880
and he talks about, you know that fungi and humans
484
00:29:01.880 --> 00:29:03.920
have kind of co evolved together and the role of
485
00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:07.799
the myceelium in our whole world and our whole ecosystem,
486
00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:10.680
and that you know, I had similar ideas that psilocybin
487
00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:16.519
and fungi have this some kind of natural evolutionary symbiotic
488
00:29:16.680 --> 00:29:19.039
role with human consciousness.
489
00:29:19.079 --> 00:29:19.799
For what purpose?
490
00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:23.880
Then, yeah, well that's that's a deep question about why
491
00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:26.319
we're here all together, right, you know, back to the
492
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:29.119
research a little bit, and you know, the challenge with
493
00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:32.599
doing double blind studies that open placebo ideas certainly an
494
00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:36.000
interesting idea, you know, and this idea that psychiatics do
495
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:38.160
seem to be a bit of a panacea and where
496
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:42.079
you know, so many reports both from the clinical trials
497
00:29:42.119 --> 00:29:44.359
and from people who are you know, going outside the
498
00:29:44.359 --> 00:29:47.720
country to do various retreats with various plant medicines that
499
00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:50.440
you know, there are so many people who are relieving
500
00:29:50.599 --> 00:29:54.359
profound suffering at PTSD, a lot of veterans and so forth.
501
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:58.799
And in fact, Australia recently you know, approved the use
502
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:03.119
of psilocyberin more based on that you know, first person
503
00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:06.519
account and appeal by the people saying we need this,
504
00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:09.440
we want this, it's healing us, and they're also is
505
00:30:09.559 --> 00:30:12.839
so and there's a lot of enthusiasm around this field.
506
00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:14.960
There there could be a bit of hype. So I
507
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:18.359
wonder about doing research in that environment where you know,
508
00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:21.160
there's a citienory saying this is healing, we need this.
509
00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:24.400
There's a certain hype, there's a certain you know, commercialization,
510
00:30:24.680 --> 00:30:28.039
you know, the psychoic pharma arising wanting to you know,
511
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:30.079
so it's all this going on. So I wonder, how
512
00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:33.599
do we assure that we're on a good research track
513
00:30:33.720 --> 00:30:36.519
without keeping it so suppressed that we're actually going to
514
00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:39.359
you know, prevent people from accessing these things that could
515
00:30:39.359 --> 00:30:40.440
really be healing them.
516
00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:43.839
Well, you know, one part of your question has to
517
00:30:43.839 --> 00:30:47.279
do with public policy, and I'm not much of an
518
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:50.279
expert on that, you know, so I can speak to
519
00:30:50.839 --> 00:30:53.839
the research you needs, which should be you know, keep
520
00:30:53.880 --> 00:30:57.680
a level ahead, you know, don't succumb to funding or
521
00:30:58.160 --> 00:31:01.359
you know, sponsored studies or yeah, yeah, you have to
522
00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:04.880
keep your integrity. But when you're studying such controversial drugs,
523
00:31:05.359 --> 00:31:08.000
you don't want to become a zealot or a missionary
524
00:31:08.680 --> 00:31:12.759
or snake oil sales salesmen. These are very powerful drugs
525
00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:16.759
and you know, they can go to the researchers heads
526
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:21.039
in some respects. They start being convinced that, you know,
527
00:31:21.079 --> 00:31:25.839
there's some kind of you solivific tool which will cause utopia,
528
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:29.720
you know, to descend upon us. All you can contaminate,
529
00:31:29.759 --> 00:31:33.559
you know, the research agenda if you believe that. You know.
530
00:31:33.559 --> 00:31:36.920
One of the things which I learned from my d
531
00:31:37.079 --> 00:31:39.839
MT study, you know, was that d MT was not
532
00:31:39.880 --> 00:31:43.119
going to bring on a messianic era. I was kind
533
00:31:43.119 --> 00:31:44.799
of hoping it would, you Like, in the back of
534
00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:47.480
my mind, I was thinking, you know, these are great drugs,
535
00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:50.519
and everybody if you have an experience like this and
536
00:31:50.559 --> 00:31:54.799
get in touch with their deeper and more meaningful selves,
537
00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:58.640
and if just everybody had that experience, then it would
538
00:31:58.680 --> 00:32:02.279
be peace on earth. I kind of flashed on that
539
00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:05.000
when I was like twenty years old in college, but
540
00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:08.119
in a way I never let go of that, you know,
541
00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:11.039
that fantasy as it were. And I was interested, like,
542
00:32:11.079 --> 00:32:13.920
if you give enough DMT to people, is the drug
543
00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:19.279
inherently spiritual or is it going to invariably induce a
544
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:25.000
particular kind of be a tyfic mystical experience. And instead
545
00:32:25.079 --> 00:32:27.920
it was kind of a no brainer. It was set
546
00:32:27.960 --> 00:32:34.920
and setting. You know, people had absolutely individual experiences rather
547
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:40.480
than some uniform realization. I was very much dependent on,
548
00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:43.240
you know, the person rather than the drug. You know,
549
00:32:43.279 --> 00:32:46.920
the drug amplified things, but the things that amplified were
550
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.519
in that person, in their more or less conscious minds.
551
00:32:51.240 --> 00:32:54.200
So I were probably contemporaries or at least a year
552
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:55.960
or so. And I went through the whole kind of
553
00:32:55.960 --> 00:32:58.799
cultural experience in the sixties, And so we had that
554
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:00.960
enthusiasm back then if we could just you know, if
555
00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:03.759
everybody would just have such an experience, the world would change.
556
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:07.440
And didn't quite work out that way at the same time, though,
557
00:33:08.079 --> 00:33:09.960
and I'd like to explore the whole question and out
558
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.319
for a bit about the whole intersection between science and
559
00:33:12.319 --> 00:33:16.200
spirituality and psychedelics role in that, and your research kind
560
00:33:16.200 --> 00:33:19.119
of began with that. You're noticing that the commonality between
561
00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:23.400
some of the meditative traditions and psychoic experiences. So from
562
00:33:23.400 --> 00:33:25.440
what you're saying, I mean, there's no guarantee that any
563
00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:29.079
these psychedelic medicines are going to create that importance of setting.
564
00:33:29.160 --> 00:33:32.000
You brought up the Charles Manson example before, who was
565
00:33:32.079 --> 00:33:36.160
using LSD and influencing the people to do some incredibly
566
00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:39.880
horrific things. But however, if you did combine good set
567
00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:43.559
and setting and psychedelic medicines. It seemed like that could
568
00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:47.359
be a program to change the world. If that was scalable. Well,
569
00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:52.160
you would have to be voluntary, dude. It's hard to
570
00:33:52.240 --> 00:33:55.319
do involuntary and good sentence setting, all right.
571
00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:58.079
You'd have to allow for people saying I'm not interested
572
00:33:58.119 --> 00:33:59.799
in that.
573
00:34:01.319 --> 00:34:04.799
So, you know, in terms of our human spiritual journey
574
00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:09.559
of you know, evolving psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and you know,
575
00:34:10.119 --> 00:34:14.480
all the different religious traditions have notions of liberation and
576
00:34:14.679 --> 00:34:17.239
of some form or another. I'm just curious about your
577
00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:19.880
thoughts of the role of psychotics and the role of
578
00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:23.239
psychoic consistent therapy in that, you know, this interpace between
579
00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:26.719
whatever people might pursue independently as part of their path.
580
00:34:27.079 --> 00:34:30.159
But also you know, there already is quite an overlap
581
00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:33.639
between people's spiritual pathts and meditation practitioners and the whole
582
00:34:33.639 --> 00:34:35.840
world of psychotherapy. There's a lot of people involved in
583
00:34:35.880 --> 00:34:39.840
all those Some of your more prominent Western Buddhist teachers
584
00:34:39.880 --> 00:34:43.320
of mindfulness, for example, are also psychotherapists. So there's already
585
00:34:43.320 --> 00:34:45.599
been a lot of overlap between the world of healing
586
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:49.199
and psychotherapy and the world of spiritual practice and spiritual
587
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:52.400
growth and evolution. So I'm curious about your thoughts on
588
00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:55.360
the role of psychatics and psychoic medicine and all that.
589
00:34:55.920 --> 00:35:00.320
Yeah. Well, speaking of the psychedelics and Buddhism, when I
590
00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:03.480
was in my early twenties, I went to his End
591
00:35:03.480 --> 00:35:07.440
monastery and most of you know, the postulance and junior
592
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:11.079
priests were around my age as well, and every chance
593
00:35:11.400 --> 00:35:14.199
that I got, I asked them if they had taken LSD,
594
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:18.440
and almost everyone said yes. And my follow up question
595
00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:21.599
was how important was your LSD experience and you're becoming
596
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:25.320
a monk, And almost everyone replied, if it weren't for LSD,
597
00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:27.880
I wouldn't be a monk, you know. So, yeah, there
598
00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:32.840
is a very interesting correspondence there. I think what occurs
599
00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:37.639
with psychedelics from the point of view of Buddhist belief
600
00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:41.840
is this notion of the flash of enlightenment Bodhi Chita.
601
00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:46.599
It's the first intimation that enlightenment is possible. You know
602
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:49.480
that there's another way of looking at and interacting with
603
00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:53.079
the world, And I think LSD other psychedelics are quite
604
00:35:53.119 --> 00:35:57.800
good at that. You providing a glimpse into an enlightened
605
00:35:57.880 --> 00:36:06.679
way of being. So thinking about spiritual experiences and psychedelics
606
00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:11.519
has to do with concerns yourself with Aristotle's division of
607
00:36:11.559 --> 00:36:15.519
the mind into the imagination and the intellect, And I
608
00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:19.840
think what occurs with psychedelics is they stimulate the imagination.
609
00:36:20.519 --> 00:36:26.559
The intellect is the location of ideas, concepts, notions, abstractions,
610
00:36:26.599 --> 00:36:29.639
those kinds of things, you know, that is the purview
611
00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:34.599
of the intellect on ideas. The role of the imagination
612
00:36:34.840 --> 00:36:40.000
is to contain everything else, sensation, perception, feeling, the body,
613
00:36:40.559 --> 00:36:43.880
even the feeling of reality, which I think is an
614
00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:47.599
intuition as opposed to know something that you deduce, you know.
615
00:36:47.639 --> 00:36:50.719
So if you divide the mind into the intellect and
616
00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:55.760
the imagination, you can conceive of your psychedelics as stimulating
617
00:36:55.760 --> 00:37:00.400
the imagination much more than they stimulate the intellect. People
618
00:37:00.519 --> 00:37:04.599
are able to describe the features of the psychedelic experience,
619
00:37:04.960 --> 00:37:09.639
but it's much more difficult for them to describe the
620
00:37:09.719 --> 00:37:13.639
meaning and the message of the experience. And if they do,
621
00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:18.559
it isn't anywhere near as a detailed a manner as
622
00:37:18.599 --> 00:37:22.239
the description of the imaginative contents. So that's, you know,
623
00:37:22.239 --> 00:37:25.920
the way I kind of start off thinking about spirituality
624
00:37:26.280 --> 00:37:30.480
and the metaphysics of the psychedelic state, or the prophetic state,
625
00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:34.800
or the enlightened state, many highly altered, many highly altered
626
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:38.440
state of consciousness, you know. So you can have the
627
00:37:38.519 --> 00:37:41.599
visions in the voices, you know, those are kind of invariant.
628
00:37:42.079 --> 00:37:46.079
You will have a certain phenomenology. There's beings and there's feelings,
629
00:37:46.119 --> 00:37:52.119
and there's a sense of importance, meaningfulness. But the meaning
630
00:37:52.360 --> 00:37:57.840
and the message is filtered through the intellect, which is,
631
00:37:58.079 --> 00:38:00.159
you know, what you think about, what you read, what
632
00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:02.960
you study, what you talk about. It's what you feed
633
00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:04.880
your mind with, you know, more or less. You know.
634
00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:09.239
So if you're Buddhist and you have certain visions and
635
00:38:09.320 --> 00:38:12.920
voices on a psychedelic experience, you interpret them you through
636
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:18.199
that lens, you know. Plus the meaning enhancing effects of
637
00:38:18.440 --> 00:38:21.119
you know, the drugs, will you kind of increase one's
638
00:38:21.639 --> 00:38:26.039
dedication to the practice When it comes to naturally occurring
639
00:38:26.079 --> 00:38:31.280
spiritual experiences, you would naturally occurring psychedelics. And you're the
640
00:38:31.320 --> 00:38:35.159
only one which has been articulated or studied that carefully
641
00:38:35.239 --> 00:38:40.079
is d MT. So you can think of elevated endogenous
642
00:38:40.119 --> 00:38:44.599
d m T occurring in non drug spiritual experiences, which
643
00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:47.239
is then you mediating the you know, the visions and
644
00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:51.079
the voices, the content of the imagination, and you know,
645
00:38:51.119 --> 00:38:53.800
then you would use your intellect to extract the information
646
00:38:54.440 --> 00:38:59.920
which is condensed or represented in the imaginative contents. That's
647
00:39:00.039 --> 00:39:03.639
thirty I mentioned from from twenty nineteen where they found
648
00:39:03.719 --> 00:39:06.880
quite high levels of d MT and brain. Your concentration
649
00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:10.239
has increased at least five times in the dying brain,
650
00:39:10.880 --> 00:39:15.480
so it is possible that and especially in the visual cortex.
651
00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:21.360
You know, so if naturally occurring DMT increases in the
652
00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:25.559
dying brain, especially in the visual cortex, that's some pretty
653
00:39:25.559 --> 00:39:30.000
strong evidence that naturally occurring DMT is playing a role
654
00:39:30.039 --> 00:39:34.159
in certain aspects of the near death state, you know,
655
00:39:34.199 --> 00:39:38.119
the visual phenomenology, as far as you know what the
656
00:39:38.159 --> 00:39:40.960
meaning is, you know what you would get out of
657
00:39:41.159 --> 00:39:45.719
that stage, you know, that would depend on one's intellectual function.
658
00:39:46.199 --> 00:39:48.519
Well, that is a really interesting new window to look
659
00:39:48.519 --> 00:39:50.800
at the whole literature on your death experiences. And then
660
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:52.760
as well as in the TBT and Buddhist tradition of
661
00:39:52.840 --> 00:39:55.800
all the Bardow intermediate state and all the teachings around
662
00:39:55.840 --> 00:39:58.440
the whole progression of death and all the different levels
663
00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:00.920
we go through in terms of consciousness in a dying process.
664
00:40:00.920 --> 00:40:04.360
That's quite fascinating. So you mentioned early on the pineal
665
00:40:04.400 --> 00:40:07.760
gland and embedded traditions and other mystical traditions of pinnacle
666
00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:12.239
gland has often been associated with elevated consciousness experiences, liberation,
667
00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:15.159
enlightenment and different things. Do we know that is there
668
00:40:15.159 --> 00:40:17.559
a relationship between d MT and the pineal glands? We
669
00:40:17.639 --> 00:40:19.280
know that, yet scient typically.
670
00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:24.000
Well, yes and no. Two sets of data. You know,
671
00:40:24.039 --> 00:40:29.119
One is the circumstantial evidence for a roll of the
672
00:40:29.159 --> 00:40:32.599
pineal and making d MT. All the precursors are there
673
00:40:32.639 --> 00:40:35.719
in high quantities that you know the enzyme is responsible
674
00:40:35.800 --> 00:40:39.960
for conversion into d MT or their high levels as well,
675
00:40:40.559 --> 00:40:43.360
you know. So another part of you know that yes,
676
00:40:43.559 --> 00:40:45.880
is a twenty thirteen study that came out of the
677
00:40:46.039 --> 00:40:50.519
University of Michigan in ann Arbor as well, demonstrating that
678
00:40:50.639 --> 00:40:54.960
the fluid around the pineal gland contained d MT. The
679
00:40:55.079 --> 00:40:59.199
dialysate of the pineal glant in a living animal contained
680
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:03.280
your measure durable levels of d MT. So that was
681
00:41:03.400 --> 00:41:07.000
a supportive evidence. But the same research group went back
682
00:41:07.039 --> 00:41:11.000
in the twenty nineteen paper which it demonstrated high concentrations
683
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:14.960
and cortex, and they weren't able to demonstrate pineal d MT.
684
00:41:15.719 --> 00:41:19.440
And in retrospect they concluded, you know that earlier data
685
00:41:19.679 --> 00:41:23.920
was the result of the probe snagging your brain tissue
686
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:26.599
into and out of the pineal gland. You know, so
687
00:41:26.639 --> 00:41:29.760
the pineal may not make your d MT all the time,
688
00:41:29.920 --> 00:41:32.320
if it does at all. Yeah, so it's still is
689
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:35.519
kind of an open question. You know, the whole pineal
690
00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:38.480
gland thing isn't as important to me as I once was,
691
00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:42.199
because you know, the brain makes DMT, and you know
692
00:41:42.280 --> 00:41:45.519
that's an amazing thing. And you know, most people without
693
00:41:45.559 --> 00:41:48.639
pineal glands, you live normal lives. If you've had a
694
00:41:48.719 --> 00:41:53.320
pineal stroke or a sister tumor, most people you know
695
00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:56.639
live your fairly normal lives. They still dream, they still
696
00:41:56.639 --> 00:42:01.719
have an imagination. I think the the brain makes levels
697
00:42:01.719 --> 00:42:06.519
of DMT, you're comparable to a neurotransmitter. I think it
698
00:42:06.519 --> 00:42:11.679
elevates the discussion. You're much above just solely the DMT issue.
699
00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:17.880
Fascinating. So back to the relationship again between spirituality and science,
700
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:23.000
but also so whether we have a profound myscical experiences,
701
00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:25.880
ones that would qualify in the mystical experience scale, for example,
702
00:42:26.239 --> 00:42:29.280
whether we have them through a form of meditation, whether
703
00:42:29.320 --> 00:42:33.280
they happen spontaneously in the natural world somehow, or whether
704
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:36.119
we have them as a result of consuming a psychedelic
705
00:42:36.199 --> 00:42:39.920
medicine of some kind. They can be incredibly profound and meaningful,
706
00:42:39.960 --> 00:42:43.199
as you've discussed, and can really shift our world view
707
00:42:43.199 --> 00:42:46.679
in many ways. And yet it seems, certainly in my experience,
708
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:49.000
but I think in general that we still have our
709
00:42:49.039 --> 00:42:52.079
work to do. I mean, people can have profound so
710
00:42:52.199 --> 00:42:55.440
called enlightenment or awakening experiences as a result of intensive
711
00:42:55.440 --> 00:42:59.360
meditation and so forth, still find themselves, even though maybe
712
00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:01.920
they thought they were done, find themselves getting in trouble
713
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:04.960
with the challenges of the human life around sexuality and
714
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:07.559
money and relationship and the rest of it. And so
715
00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:11.719
for myself, early psychic experiences in the nineteen sixties and
716
00:43:11.760 --> 00:43:14.559
early seventies, some of them really did reorder my worldview,
717
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:18.599
and I never experienced the world the same again. And yet,
718
00:43:18.840 --> 00:43:21.000
you know, I certainly still had a lot of work
719
00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:23.400
to do and still do in terms of human maturation
720
00:43:23.519 --> 00:43:27.039
and psychological development, emotional development and maturity and all of this.
721
00:43:27.199 --> 00:43:30.239
And even now that I've been involved in deep the
722
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:33.679
Tibetan Buddhist tradition and other meditative traditions for over fifty years.
723
00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:36.440
Even still, if there's a real there may be these
724
00:43:36.480 --> 00:43:39.800
sudden experiences, but there's this real gradual work of the
725
00:43:39.920 --> 00:43:41.800
development and that they're really to be able to live
726
00:43:41.840 --> 00:43:44.440
your life from. Even if you've seen, if you've been
727
00:43:44.519 --> 00:43:47.159
up to the mountaintop and you've seen this greater view
728
00:43:47.199 --> 00:43:50.039
of human consciousness or reality, to be able to live
729
00:43:50.079 --> 00:43:52.760
your life from there is a different question. And so
730
00:43:53.039 --> 00:43:55.280
I'm wondering what that brings up for you in terms
731
00:43:55.280 --> 00:43:58.920
of again the role of psychedelics, role psychoicalist therapy, the
732
00:43:58.960 --> 00:44:03.119
relationship between healing and then higher levels of self actualization,
733
00:44:03.320 --> 00:44:05.960
human evolution and so forth. You know, I guess it's
734
00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:11.920
the role of mystical experiences, whether they happened through psychedelics,
735
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:16.800
through some kind of meditative work or spontaneously, and overall
736
00:44:17.239 --> 00:44:21.000
personal development and a human being towards higher levels of
737
00:44:21.039 --> 00:44:23.639
what we're capable of in terms of human sanity, human
738
00:44:23.960 --> 00:44:25.920
you know, positive evolution and so forth.
739
00:44:26.320 --> 00:44:28.960
Well, I think you know the emphasis. Well, you know,
740
00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:32.199
first of all, it would be helpful too or you know,
741
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:34.480
for me to describe, you know, what I think of
742
00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:40.320
as the two I guess categories of fully psychedelic states,
743
00:44:40.360 --> 00:44:43.440
and to the extent that they resemble spiritual ones. You know.
744
00:44:43.519 --> 00:44:47.039
One category is the mystical unitive, which is what's measured
745
00:44:47.079 --> 00:44:51.039
on the mEq. It's unitive. You're one with everything. There's
746
00:44:51.079 --> 00:44:54.800
no time or space, no personality, no sense of self,
747
00:44:54.840 --> 00:44:57.159
no content, you know. That's what I call the mystical
748
00:44:57.239 --> 00:45:01.480
unitive state. It's universal, at least it's posed as a universal,
749
00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:05.440
you know state that one you can attain, you know,
750
00:45:05.679 --> 00:45:08.880
if you take into account, you know, whatever mechanisms or
751
00:45:09.360 --> 00:45:10.280
whatever causes.
752
00:45:10.679 --> 00:45:10.840
You know.
753
00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:14.199
The other is what I call the interactive relational state,
754
00:45:14.599 --> 00:45:17.119
which is, you know, the typical one would be d MT.
755
00:45:17.480 --> 00:45:21.079
You maintain your personality, your sense of self, your volition
756
00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:24.920
is full of content with which you interact. Your time
757
00:45:24.960 --> 00:45:28.960
and space are you know, they're obviously altered, but they continue.
758
00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:32.960
You're in a non corporeal space, but it is space.
759
00:45:33.440 --> 00:45:36.320
Your time passes you interact with you know, the material.
760
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:38.719
There might be beings that you ask questions of, or
761
00:45:38.719 --> 00:45:41.360
they do things to you. You sorts of things. You know,
762
00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:45.199
So there's a mystical unitive state, and there's the interactive
763
00:45:45.239 --> 00:45:51.599
relational one. I think that people have prioritized the mystical experience,
764
00:45:52.079 --> 00:45:57.440
you know, because of its presumed universality and your ability
765
00:45:57.559 --> 00:46:00.280
to just call it whatever you want. After you come down.
766
00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:02.880
You could say it means that I should start a
767
00:46:02.920 --> 00:46:05.320
retreat center, or it means I ought to go to
768
00:46:05.360 --> 00:46:09.000
medical school, as opposed, you know, to the interactive relational state,
769
00:46:09.079 --> 00:46:12.079
which is full of content with which you interact. You
770
00:46:12.119 --> 00:46:16.400
get ideas, you get conviction, you think about things differently, like,
771
00:46:16.599 --> 00:46:18.639
for example, you know, the beings may speak to you
772
00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:22.679
specific words, you know, so it isn't like you can say, oh,
773
00:46:22.679 --> 00:46:25.400
it's all one. You can say, well, there's this thing
774
00:46:25.519 --> 00:46:28.480
that was saying certain stuff to me, and you know
775
00:46:28.559 --> 00:46:33.199
that gets your particularistic. One person may have a being
776
00:46:33.880 --> 00:46:36.639
tell him, you know, to vote for Trump, and another
777
00:46:36.760 --> 00:46:39.400
being may you tell somebody else, you know, to vote
778
00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:41.880
for Harris. You know, so you've got content, you've got
779
00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:45.679
your particularism, and there can be some conflict. I think
780
00:46:45.920 --> 00:46:50.559
that the mystical unitive school has gained such traction is
781
00:46:50.639 --> 00:46:56.440
because of an implicit theology that's being diffused through the
782
00:46:56.519 --> 00:47:01.719
research and the larger in public sectors to seek a
783
00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:05.280
universal religion, you know, the basis of which is the
784
00:47:05.679 --> 00:47:09.199
mystical unit of state, which has no content is a feeling.
785
00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:11.760
I think it's mostly just a feeling of awe and
786
00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:15.000
a reverence and a conviction. But you know, towards what
787
00:47:15.320 --> 00:47:18.079
is an open question? You know, so you like, I
788
00:47:18.159 --> 00:47:22.199
am more interested in the DMT like stage which led
789
00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:25.639
me to the Hebrew Bible and the prophetic experience, which
790
00:47:25.679 --> 00:47:29.559
is all interactive, relational. There's not one mystical unitive stage
791
00:47:29.559 --> 00:47:32.599
in the whole text all twenty two books, twenty four
792
00:47:32.639 --> 00:47:35.360
books I can never remember, you know. So it's it's
793
00:47:35.360 --> 00:47:39.000
an articulation of an interactive, relational spiritual state with a
794
00:47:39.039 --> 00:47:42.320
long history and a lot of information, loss of content,
795
00:47:42.679 --> 00:47:46.639
but you know the content is verbal, particularistic, which is
796
00:47:46.679 --> 00:47:50.039
going to ruffle a lot of feathers. What is you know,
797
00:47:50.079 --> 00:47:54.920
the message contained in an interactive relational spiritual tradition or
798
00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:55.840
spiritual text.
799
00:47:56.199 --> 00:47:56.320
You know.
800
00:47:56.440 --> 00:47:59.599
So you know, there is a tendency to want to
801
00:47:59.639 --> 00:48:03.719
just make all one, and this universal religion, which is
802
00:48:04.119 --> 00:48:10.039
based on this imputative universal mystical experience, is one way
803
00:48:10.079 --> 00:48:11.880
of that taking place.
804
00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:12.639
You know.
805
00:48:12.679 --> 00:48:16.079
Also, when you read about the prophetic experiences in the
806
00:48:16.119 --> 00:48:20.800
Hebrew Bible. In most cases it's very difficult. People don't
807
00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:23.920
seek out to be profits, they're chosen to be profits,
808
00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:28.480
and their experiences are anything but beatific and ecstatic. They're
809
00:48:28.559 --> 00:48:32.440
quite difficult. They're being called to chastise the public and
810
00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:36.599
the royalty and they're just harangued and abused and put
811
00:48:36.679 --> 00:48:37.119
in jail.
812
00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:37.960
You know.
813
00:48:38.039 --> 00:48:42.360
So the spiritual experience of that text, that tradition has
814
00:48:42.360 --> 00:48:47.000
got a completely different series of goals than enlightenment, world peace,
815
00:48:47.760 --> 00:48:48.719
and self contentment.
816
00:48:49.239 --> 00:48:51.800
It's really fascinating. One thing that brought it from me,
817
00:48:51.960 --> 00:48:55.360
my zen teacher in creating kind of a formulation of
818
00:48:55.400 --> 00:48:58.840
the traditional Buddhist refuge, but the notion of both won
819
00:48:58.920 --> 00:49:01.840
this and diversity and to have the balance of that
820
00:49:01.840 --> 00:49:04.880
that if you go completely to diversity end up with chaos,
821
00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:06.840
and if you go completely to one this you can
822
00:49:06.920 --> 00:49:09.639
end up with some kind of hotel tarism. And so
823
00:49:09.840 --> 00:49:11.559
we always need this balance of the one that's in
824
00:49:11.599 --> 00:49:14.199
the diversity. So it seems like those two ex fronting
825
00:49:14.199 --> 00:49:15.599
at those Yeah.
826
00:49:15.639 --> 00:49:19.639
Well yeah, my teacher put it that all is one
827
00:49:19.880 --> 00:49:20.800
and all is different.
828
00:49:22.039 --> 00:49:24.800
Yeah. Well, this has been really illuminating and passing, I
829
00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:27.800
had one final question for you. You know, as we know,
830
00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:30.199
and I think a lot of us are somewhat sad
831
00:49:30.239 --> 00:49:32.800
and a little maybe sometimes a little confused about this,
832
00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:35.320
but maybe it's all good in the end. The recent
833
00:49:35.360 --> 00:49:39.679
decision by the FDA not to currently reschedule MDMA, and
834
00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.159
especially the influence of that advisory committee that didn't seem
835
00:49:44.239 --> 00:49:46.280
when you look at who the members were to be
836
00:49:46.320 --> 00:49:48.639
the best body to be giving that advice in the
837
00:49:48.639 --> 00:49:51.920
first place, and some of their criticism seemed a little nonsensical.
838
00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:55.400
But nonetheless, you know it's going to cause those involved
839
00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:57.440
to do more work to get it right. So, but
840
00:49:57.679 --> 00:50:00.599
if you are, you know, working with maps, who work withcos,
841
00:50:00.679 --> 00:50:03.039
are working with the FDA, what do you think the
842
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:06.760
important next steps are to get over that hurdle of
843
00:50:06.760 --> 00:50:11.880
rescheduling the first psychedelic medicine effectively and sanely, so that
844
00:50:11.920 --> 00:50:15.840
we can begin the slow march towards the potential these
845
00:50:15.840 --> 00:50:19.159
psychaelic medicines have for transforming the field of psychiatry and
846
00:50:19.239 --> 00:50:21.440
for really reducing human suffering.
847
00:50:21.719 --> 00:50:25.960
Well, I think that the lycos may want to ask
848
00:50:26.199 --> 00:50:30.199
the FDA to monitor everything they do and if they
849
00:50:30.239 --> 00:50:33.719
are swerving to the left arm or to their right.
850
00:50:33.840 --> 00:50:36.719
You know that FDA would be there this time around
851
00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:39.159
you to correct them or you know, to get things
852
00:50:39.199 --> 00:50:44.599
along the you know, the FDA desired trajectory. You know,
853
00:50:44.639 --> 00:50:48.039
I just don't think they did great science. Their quality
854
00:50:48.119 --> 00:50:52.079
control could have been better, you know, so they could
855
00:50:52.159 --> 00:50:54.360
do good science in the future, you know, but it
856
00:50:54.400 --> 00:50:57.599
needs to be vetted every step of the way by
857
00:50:57.639 --> 00:50:58.400
the FDA.
858
00:50:58.480 --> 00:51:00.800
Well, it's interesting evident of the FDA was involved in
859
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:04.360
developing some of the protocols in partnership with Likelsen masks.
860
00:51:04.400 --> 00:51:07.400
But yeah, nonetheless, there's an issue you brought up that
861
00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:09.920
open place ea wid idea. I mean, it seems like
862
00:51:09.960 --> 00:51:12.400
that's one of the real questions is I mean, there
863
00:51:12.519 --> 00:51:15.920
was you know, some issues they weren't keeping track of
864
00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:19.920
the negative experiences robustly enough and there's some controversies around that,
865
00:51:19.960 --> 00:51:23.280
but different versions of what happened there. But this whole
866
00:51:23.280 --> 00:51:26.440
issue of the double blind standard in you know, in
867
00:51:26.719 --> 00:51:30.639
Western science, especially for proving new drugs, it seems like
868
00:51:30.920 --> 00:51:34.079
that goryan not does have to be solved somehow, and
869
00:51:34.280 --> 00:51:37.519
what you were pointing to maybe part of the answer, it.
870
00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:40.280
Just cuts through it. Yes, say you forget about an
871
00:51:40.320 --> 00:51:44.400
inner placebo. You're giving a placebo that might produce a
872
00:51:44.440 --> 00:51:46.199
lot of beneficial effects.
873
00:51:47.039 --> 00:51:49.559
Well, thank you very much, doctor Straussman. This has been
874
00:51:49.599 --> 00:51:52.960
illuminating and fascinating, I'm sure a wonderful contribution to our
875
00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:55.480
overall conversational Thank you so much, and thank you for
876
00:51:55.519 --> 00:51:58.679
the work you're doing well. Thank you be well thinking.
877
00:51:58.760 --> 00:52:02.760
Radical responsibility Our lives means taking action, and today you
878
00:52:02.800 --> 00:52:05.800
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885
00:52:29.480 --> 00:52:33.280
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886
00:52:33.400 --> 00:52:35.920
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887
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:39.400
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890
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