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So welcome back to the deep Dive everyone. Today, our
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mission is to unpack something that is just a totally
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fascinating cultural artifact.
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Oh it really is. It's a complete collision of worlds.
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Yeah, exactly. I mean we're looking at a massive conversation
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that dropped on September twenty sixth, twenty twenty five. Specifically,
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we're talking about broadcast number twenty three eighty five of
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the Joe Rogan.
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Experience, right, featuring doctor Rick Strassman.
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Yes, and we'll get into his background a second because
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it is heavy, but just to set the stage for you,
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the listener, we are looking at a three hour and
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fourteen minute, explicit rated, completely unedited.
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Conversation and it was broadcast literally across the globe, right,
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And you know.
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Let's just unpack this because we live in an era
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where sure, sitting down for a three hour show is
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basically the standard commute for half the population.
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Now, yeah, the length itself isn't necessarily the shocking part.
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Exactly. What is just on inspiring here is the contrast.
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You have this deeply entrenched institutional academic, I mean, a
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guy with a serious pedigree. Oh absolutely, and he is
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willingly submitting to an unedited, unscripted, one hundred and ninety
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four minute interrogation in basically the wild West of modern media. Yeah,
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it's incredibly rare to see someone like that step into
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this kind of spotlight.
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It really is. And I think if we connect this
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to the bigger picture, the contrast is the whole story.
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We aren't just looking at who is speaking, right, We're
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looking at what his presence on this specific platform actually
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implies about modern learning, right, and.
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About psychiatry and you know, the mainstreaming of psychedelics exactly.
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But to really grasp the stakes of this, you have
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to understand the institutional weight this guy carrier.
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Oh, for sure, let's drill down into that, because the
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source gives us his exact background. Right, he is a
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medical doctor an MD, and a clinical associate professor of
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psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
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Right, he operates at the absolute dead center of traditional
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institutional medicine.
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It's kind of like I was thinking about this earlier.
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It's like driving a classical concert violinist into a heavy
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metal festival.
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That is a perfect analogy, actually.
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Because you have this highly regulated, peer reviewed world of
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a university medical school, and then you have this explicit rated,
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long form, completely unfiltered broadcast.
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Yeah. And let's look at that word clinical for a second,
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because in the medical world, being a clinical associate professor,
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that's a massive dividing.
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Line, right, It's the difference between just theory and like
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actual reality.
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Exactly. A researcher in a purely academic role, they might
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spend their entire career in a lab, you know, studying
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receptor binding profiles and rodents.
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Or something, writing papers, going to conferences, right, but.
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They don't necessarily have to look a suffering human being
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in the eye. Every single day. A clinical professor is
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patient facing. Their theoretical models are tested against the really messy,
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complex reality of human trauma and.
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Psychiatric illness, which is notoriously difficult to treat.
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Yeah, I mean, think about the baseline managed model of
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modern psychiatry. It is highly regulated by.
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The FDA, heavily monitored by hospital boards.
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Strictly enforced by insurance billing codes. And Strassman comes from
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the exact center of that heavily scrutinized framework.
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He knows all the rules well, and historically he's the
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guy who fied the hardest to bring psychedelics into that
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rigorous environment in the first place.
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Yes, with his groundbreaking DMT studies back in the nineties, right.
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So, which makes his presence on this broadcast so deeply
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fascinating because when a clinical professor of that stature engages
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in a three hour public dialogue, it just signals this
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massive shift in how knowledge is distributed.
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Oh totally, Because if he makes claims about psychedelics on
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a massive public platform, he has to have undeniable empirical backing.
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Otherwise he risks everything, right, his medical license, his tenure,
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his reputation, exactly.
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But his clinical background actually shields him here because he
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isn't speaking from someplace of you know, philosophical speculation, speaking
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from decades of recorded, quantified patient outcomes.
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Right, He's an empiricist.
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Yes, when he talks about altered states, he's not acting
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as a guru. He's acting as a doctor who has
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observed things that the current medical paradigm just can't explain away.
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So that brings up a really crucial question, why would
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a clinical psychiatrist step out of that university setting and
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onto this global stage.
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Well to understand that, you have to look directly at
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the themes of his twenty twenty four work. It marks
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a distinctly personal evolution for him.
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Okay, let's get into the book, because the title alone
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is I mean, it's a triad of transformation.
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It really is.
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So the book, published in twenty twenty four, is called
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My Altered States, A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Trauma, psychedelics
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and Spiritual Growth.
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Just that title alone is a structural rebellion against like
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the last one hundred years of medical literature.
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Totally. Let's start with the very first word my just.
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My, yeah, the personal pronoun.
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In the medical community. That has to be a deliberate provocation, right,
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because this is this in some abstract clinical textbook. It's
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a first hand personal narrative.
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Absolutely, the foundational rule of clinical writing going all the
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way back to the early twentieth century is the passive voice.
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Right, the observer has to be entirely removed exactly.
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A doctor writes the patient was administered the compound you know,
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or the subject presented with elevated heart rate.
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It creates this illusion of total scientific.
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Detachment, right, it implies the doctor is this flawless objective lens.
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But by titling the book my altered states. He's completely
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collapsing that wall.
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He's inserting his own vulnerability into the process.
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Yeah, he's not just the guy in the white coat
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taking notes anymore. He's admitting that exploring these states actually
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changed the observer, and that.
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Just a position. And the rest of the title is
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wild too. A Doctor's Extraordinary Account.
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It's a really fascinating balancing act because the word doctor
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gives you the objective, empirical authority. You know, it's grounded
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in sciences, neurochemistry, all of that.
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Right, But then extraordinary account has this subjective, almost mystical
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weight to it, like that's what an explorer says when
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they come back from the Amazon or something.
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Or someone describing a near death experience exactly.
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But I have to push back here for a second.
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So what does this all mean for his career? I mean,
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is it professionally dangerous for a clinical professor of psychiatry
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to put the phrase spiritual growth right next to psychedelics
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and trauma on a book cover?
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Well, it certainly would have been ten years ago. But
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what's fascinating here is how he breaks down those three
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pillars drama, psychedelics, and spiritual growth.
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Right Because traditional science deals in measurable things blood pressure,
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brain waves. How do you measure spiritual growth?
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That is the exact friction point of modern psychedelic science.
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How do you quantify the unquantifiable? And the way researchers
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like Strassman have tackled this is through incredibly rigorous psychometric tools.
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They take this spiritual ex experience and break it down
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into observable psychological dimensions.
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If they basically turn the mystical into a data set,
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they have to.
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But that sequence in his subtitle, it isn't just a
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random list of topics. It implies a narrative arc of healing.
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Okay, let's walk through that arc. Let's break down the mechanism,
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starting with the first pillar, trauma the wound.
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Right, So, trauma is the psychological and neurological injury. And
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to understand how this triad works, we need to look
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at what trauma actually does to the brain mechanically.
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Because it's not just bad memories, right, Yeah, physically changes
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the brain.
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Exactly when a person experiences severe trauma, the brain creates
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these highly rigid, hypervigilant neural pathways and the default mode network,
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which is the part of the brain responsible for your ego,
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your sense of self, your internal narrative. It becomes incredibly hyperactive.
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It's just constantly scanning for threats, right.
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It's constantly reinforcing this narrative of fear and isolation.
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Okay, So think of the traumatized brain like a skize.
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Over years of dealing with this pain, the sleds have
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gone down the exact same paths so many times that
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they've carved these deep, icy, inescapable grooves into the mountain.
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That is a brilliant analogy.
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And if you try to step out of that groove,
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you just crash right back into it. Yeah, your thoughts
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are literally trapped in those entrenched pathways.
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Yes, And traditional pharmaceuticals, like your daily SSRIs, they don't
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fill in those grooves.
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They just act like shock absorbers.
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Exactly. You are still riding in that icy rut of trauma,
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but it maybe doesn't hurt quite as much. The sled
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just moves a little slower.
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Which brings us to the second pillar of the subtitle, psychedelics,
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the clinical tool.
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Precisely, pharmacologically speaking, psychedelics are profound disruptors compounds like psilocybin
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dmt LSD. They act primarily on the serotonin two A receptors.
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And when those receptors are flooded, something incredible happens. Right. Yeah,
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the default mode network temporarily shuts.
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Down, the ego basically dissolves.
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So, going back to our mountain analogy, administering a psychedelic
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in a clinical setting is like a massive sudden blizzard
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of fresh powder. I love that it completely fills in
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all the icy, entrenched ruts and for a brief window
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of time, the sled can go anywhere on the mountain.
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Yes, and that fresh powder is what neuroscientists call neuroplasticity.
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The brain is suddenly capable of forming new connections. It
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can bypass those rigid pathways dictated by the trauma. But
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and this is the crucial part, the chemical disruption alone
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isn't what heals the patient.
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And that is where the third pillar comes in spiritual
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growth the outcome exactly.
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The clinical data strongly suggests that the patients who experience
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the most profound, lasting relief from trauma are the ones
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who report a deeply meaningful, often mystical experience during their session.
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Wow. So the chemical just creates the window, right.
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The neuroplasticity is the window. But the spiritual realization, that
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feeling of interconnectedness, the release of the ego that is
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what actually wires.
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The brain, that completely shifts the entire paradigm of medicine.
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He's arguing that it moves beyond just traditional symptom management.
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Right. The goal shouldn't just be returning a patient to
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a baseline of not suffering. The ultimate clinical tool requires
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facilitating an authentic spiritual transformation, which.
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Is just wild to hear from a university psychiatrist. And
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having established these profound, really heavy, spiritually focused themes of
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his twenty twenty four book, we have to look at
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the fascinating, almost jarring context in which this twenty twenty
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five conversations is actually delivered to the listener.
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I'm a meta context is amazing, right.
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Because here's where it gets really interesting. If you want
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to understand how knowledge moves today, you have to look
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at the immediate commercial wrapper of the September twenty sixth broadcast.
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The promotional tie ins.
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Yes, the source specifically notes the ads running during this show,
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and the incredible almost comedic dissonance here is staggering.
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It really is. On one hand, you have this three
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hour exploration of psyche theatric trauma and altered states of consciousness.
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But on the other hand, you have a promo code
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for a buy one, get one free trucker hat from
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a brand called Happy Dad using code.
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Rogan right, a frat culture hard saltzer brand.
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And if that's not enough, there's a deal for twenty
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percent off for life plus fifteen dollars off your first
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box from Wild Pastures Mail Order meat.
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It's just so surreal.
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Imagine going to the psychiatric waying of a major hospital,
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right and right before the world renowned doctor gives a
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lecture on healing the human soul, some guy in a
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backward hat hands you a hard seltzer and is like, hey, man,
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you want a discount on some grass fed ground beef.
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It sounds absurd on the surface, but if we dive
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into what this dichotomy actually says about the modern consumption
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of information, it is deeply revealing. Yeah, how so, well,
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think about how this kind of high level discourse used
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to be funded. It would be a PBS special funded
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by university grants, right, or the MacArthur Foundation, right.
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Very sterile, polite philanthropic funding exactly.
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But this isn't that. This is high level academic and
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spiritual discourse funded by everyday consumer lifestyle brands.
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Which completely democratizes the information.
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Yes, it proves that deep intellectual curiosity isn't restricted to
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academic circles anymore. It belongs to the exact same demographic
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that is buying trucker hats and health foods.
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That is such a good point. And for you listening
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right now, I want you to consider how you yourself
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consume information today. Do you find your most profound like
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aha moment sandwiched right between everyday consumer reality.
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Most people do? Now you're driving to work, stressing about
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a meeting and simultaneously listening to a clinical psychiatrist explain
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how consciousness can detach from the physical body.
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Right, the sacred and the mundane are completely intermingled. And
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this democratized method of information delivery isn't just a local,
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domestic phenomenon at all. The data shows it is a
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coordinated global event. Let's look at the sheer scale of
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this global classroom for altered states.
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The district US data is exhaustive.
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Yeah, the source references this massive list of regions where
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this specific broadcast is distributed by Apple Podcasts. We're talking
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from Algeria to Vietnam.
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From the United Arab Emirates to Vanawatu.
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Across Africa, the Asia, Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America,
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it is everywhere.
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This raises a really important question about scale. You have
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a professor from the University of New Mexico lecturing on
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psychedelics and trauma, completely unfiltered to practically every nation on
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Earth simultaneously.
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Which is a technological marvel in itself. A three hour
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and fourteen minute file is instantly accessible across these borders.
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Right, It completely bypasses traditional academic gatekeeping.
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And regional medical censorship exactly.
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But think about the cultural interpretation of all this. How
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does a concept like spiritual growth or even trauma translate
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across these borders.
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Oh, that's fascinating because the way we view trauma in
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the West is very individualized, right, It's about my childhood,
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my neurochemistry.
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Right, But how does a listener in a deeply community
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centric society, maybe in parts of Africa or Asia, interpret
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that hyper individualistic approach to healing.
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Or even the spiritual aspect in a highly secular country.
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Tying medicine to spirituality might seem unscientific, but in a
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deeply religious nation like in the Middle East or Latin America,
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introducing a pharmacological shortcut to a mystical experience.
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It could be seen as profoundly disruptive, no or heretical.
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Or conversely, in some indigenous cultures, it's just Tuesday. They've
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been doing it for thousands of years, and they're like, oh,
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the Western doctors finally figured it out and put a
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heart rate monitor on.
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It, exactly. And this platform allows all these wildly diverse
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global listeners to consume the exact same unedited data point
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at the exact same time.
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It's wild. It is the most decentralized classroom for altered
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states ever created.
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It really is.
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So bring this all together, let's summarize the key takeaways
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for you guys. We started with the authoritative background of
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doctor Rick Strassman, a.
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Clinical associate professor, stepping way outside the traditional matrix.
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Right, and we looked at the deeply personal, triad focused
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themes of his twenty twenty four book, moving from trauma
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through psychedelics to the ultimate outcome of spiritual growth.
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And then we have the staggering one hundred and ninety
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four minute length of this twenty twenty five conversation wrapped
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in wildly contrasting commercial ads and beamed to a global audience.
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It's a lot to process, but it forces us to
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ask a really big question. This is what we want
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to leave you with today, Something to mull over.
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Yeah.
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If a clinical psychiatry professor is now using the language
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of spiritual growth and sharing it on a global platform
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alongside trucker hat ads, are we witnessing the end of
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the traditional sterile medical paradigm.
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I think we have to be.
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So. Next time you face a piece of information that
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seems too dense or too academic, ask yourself, how might
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an altered state of perspective, or maybe just a longer
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una ed conversation change your understanding of it.
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The answers aren't just in the labs anymore.
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No, they're out in the wild. Thanks for joining us
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on this deep dive everyone, We'll catch you next time.
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So welcome back to the deep Dive everyone. Today, our
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mission is to unpack something that is just a totally
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fascinating cultural artifact.
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Oh it really is. It's a complete collision of worlds.
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Yeah, exactly. I mean we're looking at a massive conversation
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that dropped on September twenty sixth, twenty twenty five. Specifically,
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we're talking about broadcast number twenty three eighty five of
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the Joe Rogan.
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Experience, right, featuring doctor Rick Strassman.
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Yes, and we'll get into his background a second because
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it is heavy, but just to set the stage for you,
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the listener, we are looking at a three hour and
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fourteen minute, explicit rated, completely unedited.
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Conversation and it was broadcast literally across the globe, right,
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And you know.
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Let's just unpack this because we live in an era
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where sure, sitting down for a three hour show is
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basically the standard commute for half the population.
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Now, yeah, the length itself isn't necessarily the shocking part.
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Exactly. What is just on inspiring here is the contrast.
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You have this deeply entrenched institutional academic, I mean, a
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guy with a serious pedigree. Oh absolutely, and he is
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willingly submitting to an unedited, unscripted, one hundred and ninety
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four minute interrogation in basically the wild West of modern media. Yeah,
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it's incredibly rare to see someone like that step into
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this kind of spotlight.
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It really is. And I think if we connect this
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to the bigger picture, the contrast is the whole story.
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We aren't just looking at who is speaking, right, We're
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looking at what his presence on this specific platform actually
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implies about modern learning, right, and.
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About psychiatry and you know, the mainstreaming of psychedelics exactly.
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But to really grasp the stakes of this, you have
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to understand the institutional weight this guy carrier.
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Oh, for sure, let's drill down into that, because the
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source gives us his exact background. Right, he is a
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medical doctor an MD, and a clinical associate professor of
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psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
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Right, he operates at the absolute dead center of traditional
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institutional medicine.
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It's kind of like I was thinking about this earlier.
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It's like driving a classical concert violinist into a heavy
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metal festival.
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That is a perfect analogy, actually.
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Because you have this highly regulated, peer reviewed world of
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a university medical school, and then you have this explicit rated,
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long form, completely unfiltered broadcast.
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Yeah. And let's look at that word clinical for a second,
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because in the medical world, being a clinical associate professor,
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that's a massive dividing.
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Line, right, It's the difference between just theory and like
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actual reality.
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Exactly. A researcher in a purely academic role, they might
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spend their entire career in a lab, you know, studying
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receptor binding profiles and rodents.
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Or something, writing papers, going to conferences, right, but.
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They don't necessarily have to look a suffering human being
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in the eye. Every single day. A clinical professor is
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patient facing. Their theoretical models are tested against the really messy,
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complex reality of human trauma and.
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Psychiatric illness, which is notoriously difficult to treat.
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Yeah, I mean, think about the baseline managed model of
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modern psychiatry. It is highly regulated by.
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The FDA, heavily monitored by hospital boards.
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Strictly enforced by insurance billing codes. And Strassman comes from
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the exact center of that heavily scrutinized framework.
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He knows all the rules well, and historically he's the
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guy who fied the hardest to bring psychedelics into that
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rigorous environment in the first place.
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Yes, with his groundbreaking DMT studies back in the nineties, right.
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So, which makes his presence on this broadcast so deeply
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fascinating because when a clinical professor of that stature engages
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in a three hour public dialogue, it just signals this
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massive shift in how knowledge is distributed.
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Oh totally, Because if he makes claims about psychedelics on
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a massive public platform, he has to have undeniable empirical backing.
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Otherwise he risks everything, right, his medical license, his tenure,
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his reputation, exactly.
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But his clinical background actually shields him here because he
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isn't speaking from someplace of you know, philosophical speculation, speaking
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from decades of recorded, quantified patient outcomes.
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Right, He's an empiricist.
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Yes, when he talks about altered states, he's not acting
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as a guru. He's acting as a doctor who has
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observed things that the current medical paradigm just can't explain away.
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So that brings up a really crucial question, why would
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a clinical psychiatrist step out of that university setting and
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onto this global stage.
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Well to understand that, you have to look directly at
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the themes of his twenty twenty four work. It marks
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a distinctly personal evolution for him.
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Okay, let's get into the book, because the title alone
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is I mean, it's a triad of transformation.
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It really is.
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So the book, published in twenty twenty four, is called
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My Altered States, A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Trauma, psychedelics
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and Spiritual Growth.
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Just that title alone is a structural rebellion against like
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the last one hundred years of medical literature.
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Totally. Let's start with the very first word my just.
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My, yeah, the personal pronoun.
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In the medical community. That has to be a deliberate provocation, right,
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because this is this in some abstract clinical textbook. It's
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a first hand personal narrative.
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Absolutely, the foundational rule of clinical writing going all the
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way back to the early twentieth century is the passive voice.
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Right, the observer has to be entirely removed exactly.
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A doctor writes the patient was administered the compound you know,
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or the subject presented with elevated heart rate.
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It creates this illusion of total scientific.
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Detachment, right, it implies the doctor is this flawless objective lens.
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But by titling the book my altered states. He's completely
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collapsing that wall.
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He's inserting his own vulnerability into the process.
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Yeah, he's not just the guy in the white coat
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taking notes anymore. He's admitting that exploring these states actually
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changed the observer, and that.
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Just a position. And the rest of the title is
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wild too. A Doctor's Extraordinary Account.
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It's a really fascinating balancing act because the word doctor
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gives you the objective, empirical authority. You know, it's grounded
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in sciences, neurochemistry, all of that.
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Right, But then extraordinary account has this subjective, almost mystical
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weight to it, like that's what an explorer says when
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they come back from the Amazon or something.
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Or someone describing a near death experience exactly.
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But I have to push back here for a second.
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So what does this all mean for his career? I mean,
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is it professionally dangerous for a clinical professor of psychiatry
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to put the phrase spiritual growth right next to psychedelics
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and trauma on a book cover?
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Well, it certainly would have been ten years ago. But
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what's fascinating here is how he breaks down those three
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pillars drama, psychedelics, and spiritual growth.
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Right Because traditional science deals in measurable things blood pressure,
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brain waves. How do you measure spiritual growth?
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That is the exact friction point of modern psychedelic science.
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How do you quantify the unquantifiable? And the way researchers
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like Strassman have tackled this is through incredibly rigorous psychometric tools.
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They take this spiritual ex experience and break it down
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into observable psychological dimensions.
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If they basically turn the mystical into a data set,
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they have to.
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But that sequence in his subtitle, it isn't just a
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random list of topics. It implies a narrative arc of healing.
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Okay, let's walk through that arc. Let's break down the mechanism,
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starting with the first pillar, trauma the wound.
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Right, So, trauma is the psychological and neurological injury. And
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to understand how this triad works, we need to look
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at what trauma actually does to the brain mechanically.
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Because it's not just bad memories, right, Yeah, physically changes
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the brain.
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Exactly when a person experiences severe trauma, the brain creates
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these highly rigid, hypervigilant neural pathways and the default mode network,
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which is the part of the brain responsible for your ego,
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your sense of self, your internal narrative. It becomes incredibly hyperactive.
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It's just constantly scanning for threats, right.
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It's constantly reinforcing this narrative of fear and isolation.
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Okay, So think of the traumatized brain like a skize.
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Over years of dealing with this pain, the sleds have
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gone down the exact same paths so many times that
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they've carved these deep, icy, inescapable grooves into the mountain.
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That is a brilliant analogy.
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And if you try to step out of that groove,
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you just crash right back into it. Yeah, your thoughts
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are literally trapped in those entrenched pathways.
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Yes, And traditional pharmaceuticals, like your daily SSRIs, they don't
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fill in those grooves.
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They just act like shock absorbers.
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Exactly. You are still riding in that icy rut of trauma,
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but it maybe doesn't hurt quite as much. The sled
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just moves a little slower.
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Which brings us to the second pillar of the subtitle, psychedelics,
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the clinical tool.
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Precisely, pharmacologically speaking, psychedelics are profound disruptors compounds like psilocybin
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dmt LSD. They act primarily on the serotonin two A receptors.
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And when those receptors are flooded, something incredible happens. Right. Yeah,
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the default mode network temporarily shuts.
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Down, the ego basically dissolves.
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So, going back to our mountain analogy, administering a psychedelic
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in a clinical setting is like a massive sudden blizzard
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of fresh powder. I love that it completely fills in
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all the icy, entrenched ruts and for a brief window
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of time, the sled can go anywhere on the mountain.
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Yes, and that fresh powder is what neuroscientists call neuroplasticity.
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The brain is suddenly capable of forming new connections. It
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can bypass those rigid pathways dictated by the trauma. But
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and this is the crucial part, the chemical disruption alone
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isn't what heals the patient.
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And that is where the third pillar comes in spiritual
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growth the outcome exactly.
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The clinical data strongly suggests that the patients who experience
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the most profound, lasting relief from trauma are the ones
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who report a deeply meaningful, often mystical experience during their session.
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Wow. So the chemical just creates the window, right.
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The neuroplasticity is the window. But the spiritual realization, that
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feeling of interconnectedness, the release of the ego that is
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what actually wires.
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The brain, that completely shifts the entire paradigm of medicine.
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He's arguing that it moves beyond just traditional symptom management.
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Right. The goal shouldn't just be returning a patient to
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a baseline of not suffering. The ultimate clinical tool requires
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facilitating an authentic spiritual transformation, which.
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Is just wild to hear from a university psychiatrist. And
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having established these profound, really heavy, spiritually focused themes of
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his twenty twenty four book, we have to look at
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the fascinating, almost jarring context in which this twenty twenty
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five conversations is actually delivered to the listener.
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I'm a meta context is amazing, right.
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Because here's where it gets really interesting. If you want
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to understand how knowledge moves today, you have to look
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at the immediate commercial wrapper of the September twenty sixth broadcast.
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The promotional tie ins.
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Yes, the source specifically notes the ads running during this show,
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and the incredible almost comedic dissonance here is staggering.
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It really is. On one hand, you have this three
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hour exploration of psyche theatric trauma and altered states of consciousness.
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But on the other hand, you have a promo code
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for a buy one, get one free trucker hat from
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a brand called Happy Dad using code.
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Rogan right, a frat culture hard saltzer brand.
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And if that's not enough, there's a deal for twenty
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percent off for life plus fifteen dollars off your first
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box from Wild Pastures Mail Order meat.
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It's just so surreal.
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Imagine going to the psychiatric waying of a major hospital,
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right and right before the world renowned doctor gives a
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lecture on healing the human soul, some guy in a
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backward hat hands you a hard seltzer and is like, hey, man,
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you want a discount on some grass fed ground beef.
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It sounds absurd on the surface, but if we dive
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into what this dichotomy actually says about the modern consumption
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of information, it is deeply revealing. Yeah, how so, well,
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think about how this kind of high level discourse used
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to be funded. It would be a PBS special funded
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by university grants, right, or the MacArthur Foundation, right.
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Very sterile, polite philanthropic funding exactly.
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But this isn't that. This is high level academic and
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spiritual discourse funded by everyday consumer lifestyle brands.
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Which completely democratizes the information.
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Yes, it proves that deep intellectual curiosity isn't restricted to
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academic circles anymore. It belongs to the exact same demographic
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that is buying trucker hats and health foods.
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That is such a good point. And for you listening
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right now, I want you to consider how you yourself
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consume information today. Do you find your most profound like
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aha moment sandwiched right between everyday consumer reality.
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Most people do? Now you're driving to work, stressing about
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a meeting and simultaneously listening to a clinical psychiatrist explain
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how consciousness can detach from the physical body.
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Right, the sacred and the mundane are completely intermingled. And
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this democratized method of information delivery isn't just a local,
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domestic phenomenon at all. The data shows it is a
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coordinated global event. Let's look at the sheer scale of
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this global classroom for altered states.
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The district US data is exhaustive.
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Yeah, the source references this massive list of regions where
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this specific broadcast is distributed by Apple Podcasts. We're talking
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from Algeria to Vietnam.
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From the United Arab Emirates to Vanawatu.
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Across Africa, the Asia, Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America,
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it is everywhere.
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This raises a really important question about scale. You have
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a professor from the University of New Mexico lecturing on
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psychedelics and trauma, completely unfiltered to practically every nation on
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Earth simultaneously.
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Which is a technological marvel in itself. A three hour
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and fourteen minute file is instantly accessible across these borders.
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Right, It completely bypasses traditional academic gatekeeping.
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And regional medical censorship exactly.
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But think about the cultural interpretation of all this. How
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does a concept like spiritual growth or even trauma translate
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across these borders.
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Oh, that's fascinating because the way we view trauma in
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the West is very individualized, right, It's about my childhood,
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my neurochemistry.
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Right, But how does a listener in a deeply community
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centric society, maybe in parts of Africa or Asia, interpret
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that hyper individualistic approach to healing.
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Or even the spiritual aspect in a highly secular country.
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Tying medicine to spirituality might seem unscientific, but in a
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deeply religious nation like in the Middle East or Latin America,
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introducing a pharmacological shortcut to a mystical experience.
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It could be seen as profoundly disruptive, no or heretical.
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Or conversely, in some indigenous cultures, it's just Tuesday. They've
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been doing it for thousands of years, and they're like, oh,
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the Western doctors finally figured it out and put a
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heart rate monitor on.
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It, exactly. And this platform allows all these wildly diverse
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global listeners to consume the exact same unedited data point
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at the exact same time.
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It's wild. It is the most decentralized classroom for altered
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states ever created.
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It really is.
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So bring this all together, let's summarize the key takeaways
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for you guys. We started with the authoritative background of
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doctor Rick Strassman, a.
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Clinical associate professor, stepping way outside the traditional matrix.
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Right, and we looked at the deeply personal, triad focused
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themes of his twenty twenty four book, moving from trauma
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through psychedelics to the ultimate outcome of spiritual growth.
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And then we have the staggering one hundred and ninety
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four minute length of this twenty twenty five conversation wrapped
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in wildly contrasting commercial ads and beamed to a global audience.
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It's a lot to process, but it forces us to
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ask a really big question. This is what we want
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to leave you with today, Something to mull over.
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Yeah.
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If a clinical psychiatry professor is now using the language
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of spiritual growth and sharing it on a global platform
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alongside trucker hat ads, are we witnessing the end of
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the traditional sterile medical paradigm.
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I think we have to be.
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So. Next time you face a piece of information that
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seems too dense or too academic, ask yourself, how might
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an altered state of perspective, or maybe just a longer
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una ed conversation change your understanding of it.
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The answers aren't just in the labs anymore.
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No, they're out in the wild. Thanks for joining us
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on this deep dive everyone, We'll catch you next time.
