Episode 4 - Rick Doblin - A Psychedelic Revolution

In this conversation, Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), discusses the origins of MAPS, the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, and the importance of education and harm reduction in the context of psychedelic use. He emphasizes the need for a shift in consciousness to address global trauma and the role of psychedelics in revitalizing spirituality and personal healing. Rick Doblin discusses the historical and cultural significance of psychedelics, the importance of harm reduction at festivals, and the evolving landscape of psychedelic research and therapy. He emphasizes the need for community support, education, and responsible use of psychedelics, while also addressing the challenges posed by regulatory bodies like the FDA. The conversation highlights the global trauma crisis and the potential for psychedelics to facilitate healing and connection among individuals.

Takeaways

• MAPS was founded in response to the criminalization of MDMA.
• Psychedelics can facilitate healing from trauma and PTSD.
• Education about psychedelics should focus on harm reduction and integration.
• Difficult experiences during psychedelic use can lead to growth.
• Psychedelics are tools that can be used for connection and healing.
• The current generation faces unique global traumas that need addressing.
• Parental guidance in educating children about psychedelics is crucial.
• Destigmatizing psychedelics can lead to safer use and understanding.
• Psychedelics have a long history of use in various cultures.
• Changing consciousness is essential for addressing modern challenges.
• Psychedelics have been used for thousands of years.
• Responsible use and education are crucial for safe experiences.
• Modern music festivals create safe spaces for exploration.
• Harm reduction initiatives are essential at events.
• Psychedelic Science 2023 showcased a growing community.
• The FDA's stance on psychedelics is evolving but faces challenges.
• Global access to psychedelic therapy is a priority.
• PTSD is a significant global health crisis.
• Diverse perspectives enhance our understanding of psychedelics.
• Collaboration and community are key to advancing psychedelic research.

Thank you to our Visionary Collaborators on Patreon!  
Thank you to Dylalien and Flintwick for the music! 

Transcript

Welcome back everybody to Divergent States, the unofficial r/Psychonaut podcast. I'm Elite, your host, founder and moderator for r/Psychonaut. And back again tonight is Bryan. 

Hey, what's up, man? 

What's up? How you been? 

Oh, I'm doing pretty good. How about you? 

Not bad. You know, just working away. I've been getting some new clips and stuff set up. Yeah. I got the new, got the Patreon set up. Um, yeah, I've been working on the Patreon, got some new tiers set up. We got some new people that came in. Yeah, thank you guys. Um, got some of the three on the one of the higher tier. So thank you guys. I messaged you on there. Um, I'll give you call outs individually. I just don't want to dox you. So, um, tonight we've got Rick Doblin. He's the CEO and, um, founder of the multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies, also known as maps. Um, he's been running that since 1985. He's a real fun guy. He's been, I'm not gonna say that. A real fun guy. Yeah, it's real clever. Yeah, you know. It was a good interview. It was a lot of fun. I mean, I don't know what else I could say about it. You know, just. Gotcha. Yeah, we're gonna sit down, have a talk with him and we'll be back after. Yeah, sounds great. Let's do it. 

Hey everybody, welcome back to Divergent States, the unofficial Psychonaut podcast. I'm Elite, your host. Unfortunately, Brian couldn't be with us today, but instead I've got today Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. He established it in 1986 to develop medical, legal, and cultural context for the responsible use of psychedelics, transferred from executive director to president in 2023, focusing on advocacy and public education. Welcome, Rick. 

Thank you. It's great to be here with you today. 

Thank you. It's great to have you. So for those unfamiliar with your work, could you share your journey into founding maps and kind of what inspired you to focus on psychedelic research? 

Yeah, well. MAPS was started in 1986. MDMA was criminalized in 1985. And I had started a nonprofit before MAPS in 1984 with Lisa Agar and Debbie Harlow. And this was an organization that we were using in anticipation of the DEA wanting to criminalize MDMA. When I learned about MDMA in 82, it had already been used for about five or six years as a therapy drug. but it had started to escape out to becoming a party drug under the name ecstasy. So it was pretty clear that under Nancy Reagan and Just Say No and Ronald Reagan and escalation of the drug war, MDMA was gonna be criminalized as ecstasy. And we had this advantage in that we knew that the ecstasy was attracting public attention, but it didn't seem that the DEA knew about the therapeutic use of MDMA under the code name ADDM. So we were able to prepare ahead of time and bring MDMA when it was still legal to all sorts of people that would be willing to try it and then potentially stand up in court to talk about the value of it because they wouldn't be acknowledging a crime. So anyway, we won the hearing and the DEA ignored the recommendations of the judge and criminalized MDMA anyway. So I started MAPS realizing we have to go through the FDA. That was the only avenue. at the moment. And I felt that MDMA is the most gentle of all the psychedelics and we needed the sympathetic patients and MDMA for PTSD became the priority, the strategic priority. But to answer your other part of your question, why did I even want to do this kind of stuff, that really began 52 years ago, 52 and a half years ago when I was 18. Now I'm 71. And It was 1972. I was a Vietnam War draft resister, studying Gandhi and nonviolent resistance, planning to go to jail to drain the system, the war machine of resources, instead of going. I identified as a counterculture drug-using criminal. But my inspiration... for psychedelics, I bought all the propaganda as I was growing up in high school. And particularly, I thought if you did five or six times LSD, you were certifiably insane. That's what we were taught. 

Yeah, we were taught something similar along that. Or you'd take a couple hits and think you were an orange, what was it, a glass of orange juice or something. 

Yeah, did you get this thing about your chromosomes are going to be damaged and you'll have deformed babies? 

Yeah, I remember something like that. Gosh, there was, there was probably one of the most harmful, like, they're like, oh, here's all these fun drugs. Here's what they do. Now don't go find them. Probably one of the worst, you know, or things around programs around drug, drugs, abstinence that you can possibly come with. But I would hopefully in this day and age, you know, we'd be moving beyond abstinence only education everywhere as we can see it, you know, I'm sorry focusing maybe on harm reduction. 

That's, you know. Yeah. And I would say beyond that is what we're sort of trying to do is benefit enhancement, not just harm reduction, but how do you basically, how do you educate people honestly? Um, but, but I'll just say, so when I was 18, I bought all this propaganda. Um, or when I was almost 18, I was in my last year of high school and I read this book and the book was phenomenal. And. The friend of mine who loaned it to me after I gave it back to him said the author wrote some of this while he was under the influence of LSD. And I said, that's impossible. You know, LSD doesn't do anything good. You can't create magnificent pieces of literature influenced by LSD. It just doesn't work. And they said, oh, check it out. Well, it turned out it was Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And that's what broke the spell for me. I thought, this is phenomenal. The fact that he could write some of this under LSD and that he did LSD and wrote the rest of it and that he had this, it just was mind boggling to me. I see you're wearing a Dead and Company shirt. 

Yeah, I've, gosh, I've seen them at least every year since, oh gosh, I went to the Santa Clara shows in 2016. And yeah, I was just a fan. Ever since I was like, Oh, because I, I first became a fan of the dead in 95, I think. So like it was spring of 95. I remember because I remember there was, there was all the stuff going on with a, oh, was it a Deer Creek in Indiana? But they were talking about the next year going on a Europe tour. And I was, I was, so I was like, okay, they go on Europe. They'll come back. I'm going to go on tour with the dead. This will be great. And then summer, late summer, 95, Jerry passed. And it's just like, well, yeah. So I still was into that. And I ended up, I think, going to Rainbow Gatherings and stuff like that. And spent a lot of times in the woods just meeting people there and exploring that way. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun, really. And this, I started r/Psychonaut. Oh gosh, I started this, my daughter was I think a couple years old or something. And when I was 18, 17, 18, I, you know, do psychedelics with a friend and we would, we'd go walk around town and just, you know, we talk about energy and everybody I think gets that kind of, I think that messianic idea in their head at some point that LSD or, you know, psilocybin or whatever it is can save the world somehow. And so, you know, we'd start talking about that and those ideas and everything. And after I had a family and settled down and everything, I kind of just missed those conversations. I started the subreddit and kind of just gone from there. So, and I felt like this was kind of a natural kind of progression of that. 

Well, I think the thing that I'd like to talk about now is how did you get this messianic idea? How did I get this messianic idea? How come so many people do? And so that's what happened to me at 18. Once I realized that LSD was not this demon thing that I had been educated, I started trying it, but I tried it without the full understanding, really, that you have to focus on integration. I just kept doing it, doing it, doing it and getting more and more confused. I went to the guidance counselor at school and he gave me a book to read. It was Stan Grof's Realms of the Human Unconscious, Observations from LSD Research. And that's really what made me focus my life on psychedelics. But the thing about it was that it was science looking at what happens during your biography, during your history, things that influence you. Also birth trauma, which happens to all of us. And then... He's talking more of this spiritual Jungian phase he talked about. But I think the messianic thing comes from is that under psychedelics, and people can realize this in other ways, we realize how we're all connected. I mean, I just saw this other thing about a movie, but it was what the kid was talking about how he's realizing that underneath in a forest, all the trees are connected through these fungal networks, that we're all connected, part of one thing. And the hope is, and it's billions of years and it's magnificent. But the hope is once you realize that we fundamentally have more in common than we do separating us, that we can use that as a way to build bridges with people and appreciate differences that on the one hand, we're all connected, but on the other hand, we're all individuals. And that both of those are true at the same time, that we can be even more ourselves uniquely as we also recognize how we're more connected. And then this was happening to me. right after the time that, and during this time of going to the moon. And then we get the astronauts coming, looking at the earth from space and saying how that changes them and they see the earth as one thing. And so I think that this messianic thing is that if we just stop focusing on what we're separate and then divide ourselves and be frightened about people that are different and realize our commonalities. That's one part of it. The other part is psychedelic psychotherapy and how we can help work through our traumas and work through the ways that we filter information from the world based on both our own individual history but also genetically. We've learned now that there's what's called epigenetics. It's what turns on the genes and off. You can have multi-generational trauma. And it's looking like, not confirmed, but preliminary evidence suggesting that if you have PTSD, you will... you have the potential to pass on this epigenetic sort of set points for anxiety and depression and fear to the next generations, either the mother or the father. But if you go through successful therapy, and it doesn't mean only psychedelic therapy, it seems like we can change these epigenetic mechanisms so that you don't have to transfer trauma down from one generation to the next. And so... That's sort of this other aspect of psychedelics, both this understanding of our commonality and then the refinement of our emotions, our spirituality, the filters that we use, cleaning, the doors of perception, that was from Aldous Huxley, that's where we got The Doors, the band came from the, so I think that's what really got me into psychedelics. 

Yeah, that's great. I think you're, I mean really, you're saying you're kind of how it breaks down those doors of perception to me. That's to me the beauty of psychedelics there is that it brings people together with this commonality that's usually not found. I think it, because it really, it puts us kind of in that headspace of awe and just feeling of small. And I was reading an article, I think just came out yesterday in Salon. They were talking about how some people, you know, will do psychedelics and, and it'll kill the ego and make you more humble. And, and, you know, like the, with the, with, you know, we just share this and sit with everyone, it'll save the world. But there's also that other, I guess, the other side where there's, there's this small cabal, I guess, of people who get it and they become more egotistical and giant narcissists. And so, but I think that's, that's. really one of those things that can be lessened or even kind of eliminated by teaching stuff like set, setting, guides and integration, you know, by trying to do it in proper context or even with a mental health counselor after to help with integration. All of these things together, but, you know, using them properly as tools that way instead of, you know. setting people apart and inflating the ego instead of pulling it out. 

Well, I think you hit on it exactly with this idea that they're tools. And I think that people sometimes make the mistake that the thing itself is good or bad and that what happens, you know, so certain bad drugs, certain good drugs. But when you talk about them as tools, it's how they're used. The most obvious example for me, at least, is this idea of the knife, the surgeon's knife. it really can be healing or it can be destructive. And so it's not the case that everybody that does psychedelics automatically gets inspired and enlightened and understands our connection and then more peace and love. It doesn't, it's not about the thing, it's about the relationship and the context in which we do things and I think that's really what we need to do. So it's not just like, you know, putting LSD in the water so that everybody has it, it's creating the context where people can be supported. and they have these experiences. And then often they're difficult. One of the things that we say is that difficult is not the same as bad, but what moves something from difficult to bad is resistance. So they're saying what resists persists. We have to open ourselves up to all these things. And there's a lot of fearful things in society and we need to process them instead of run away from them and try to respond in a healthy way. And so I think there's many, many different ways to do that. But I think what you're saying about this concept of psychedelics as tools, it also moves you away from this idea that the only way you get these experiences is by psychedelics. That was a big part of the sixties too. Those people that took psychedelics knew more than everybody that didn't. And therefore they're superior and you know, one dose and you're enlightened and all of this. And so I think there was this, Too much hope that, oh yeah, just take an experience and you're fine. But think of them as tools, I think is the smartest way to do it. 

Right, I agree. I think as you were saying that it takes that reflection and it takes, it's not, what is it? Everything's a hammer when everything looks like a nail or something. Yeah, when you only have a hammer, everything's a nail. Right. And so yeah, if you're, if you're only using the hammer, then that's all you're going to do. But if you're, you know, you actually use meditation or an integration and, you know, it's like a therapy or whatever it is, you know, for you that you need, then, you know, hopefully things, and, you know, you were saying something about the resistance and pushing back. Um, that's what I found when I was early on, you know, we talked kind of touch briefly on it early on. That's, I kind of had the same experience where I would I would start taking them and then at a higher dosage, and then I would start having more difficult experiences. And just, and so much so that it turned me away for a number of years. And what I finally figured out, I think, from it is, it was that cognitive dissonance between my actions and what I actually believed. And so once I could, I guess, kind of soothe those differences, you know? get those together, then I didn't have any issues. I had several, several high doses that I'd walking around and just had fun and like it should have been before. But so yeah, it is really cool that, you know, with, and that's, I think that's part of the best thing. 

One of the biggest things that's come out of this, the whole psychedelic renaissance as they're calling it, is taking them and using them as tools and just not hammers. you know, not just beating everything. Yeah. I have kind of a challenging question for you, if you don't mind. 

Oh, go ahead. 

Well, you mentioned your daughter. And so how do you think about educating your own children about psychedelics? 

Well for me, I would probably approach it the same way that I do with almost anything else as kind of, you know, I understand. I brought her to her first Grateful Dead concert, or the Dead & Company concert with me. And so, yeah, I explained to her, I think she was 16. And so we took the day and went up to the arena and say, you know, it was a lot of fun. But I explained to her on the way. I said, you know, you're going to hear a lot of stuff on Lot. You're going to hear people saying, you know, I've got drugs and I've got this. Just ignore them. You'll see tanks of people, you know, doing nitrous. Just ignore, just keep going. And you'll be fine. And she told me later, she's like, I didn't really think there were people doing that. Wow. And I was like, yeah, told you. It is what it is. And you just keep going, and everything will be cool. And so I thought it was a real valuable life lesson, anyway, to bring her and see the world at large and how it would be. Yeah. I kind of approach it that way, the harm reduction. Look, I understand. But you should make sure you know what you're getting. Be safe about it. Do your set and setting. And that includes who you're around, who you're with. Make sure you're safe with whoever you're with. But have fun. But you have to remember that these, there's things can come up which might be difficult, but you can get through them. You buy the ticket, you take the ride, but it only lasts for a few hours. So once you're done, you'll be fine, you know? And just kind of come at it from that kind of, just as much of harm reduction as I can. 

Wow. Well, that is so much better than the abstinence model that people, because then when you have to say abstinence, you end up having to make all these stories up of why it's so bad that you should never ever try it. And then people realize that's not true either. 

Well, yeah, I think it was the Netherlands that said how they got young people to stop using cannabis was they made it boring. And so kids are like, oh, it's an old person's drug. We don't want to try that. And so that's kind of how they did it. And then I kind of see that model would be that would work great. I think it just normalize it, destigmatize it. then you would see what actual numbers of people who would try to abuse this stuff. I think, you know, what is the forbidden fruit is always the sweetest. 

Yeah, the reason I asked about your attitude towards how you educated your daughter is that my wife and I have three kids. And I remember being terribly, terribly disappointed by my bar mitzvah when I turned 13. because I'm the oldest of four kids, I thought that something was gonna change in me, that this ritual that's been thousands of years, something spiritual is gonna happen. Something's gonna kind of change on the internal level and nothing did. It was an external thing, but not an internal thing. And I just left feeling very empty. And when I first started taking psychedelics, I thought, aha, this is helping me figure out where I fit in the universe. Who am I? It takes courage to not resist, to open up. And so when each of our three kids were 13, my wife and I went to them and said, if you'd like marijuana or MDMA, we think you're old enough. Um, if you want to come to us and we'll give it to you and we can do it together. And they all three said, we're not ready. Don't give it to us. It was incredible. 

Yeah, that's, um, That's kind of like the same thing with my kid. I've told her, I said, you know, if you ever want marijuana or anything, don't go and get it off the street or anything. I'll get, I'll have better weed than anybody's going to get. So get it from me. We can, well, you know, you can smoke it here and try it. I know you'll be safe, but you know, and, and she's just always been no thanks. I'm okay. And same with alcohol. I've kind of treated that in the same way. I'm like. You can have a drink or beer where I'm at. It's legal for as long as a parent gives consent. So I was like, yeah, you can have a beer. You can have a glass of wine if you want to try it. And she'll sniff it and be like, no, that's all right. I'm just done now. I'm like, okay, that's fine. And I think that's really the best way that we've shown them that it keeps them from like, really like, you know, it's not forbidden. I don't have to kind of sneak around about it. So there's no issue with it. So yeah, I really, that to me has been. I think it would work out great with everyone and more people would just open up a little bit about that. 

I think you're right. But I think you said this one thing that I want to highlight, which is there are 23 states in the United States where parents can legally give alcohol to their children. And that is the way I think drug policy should be, is that we don't have the state saying it's illegal under X of an age. I mean, we do, we should have that, but I think that there should be a parental override. So that you're basically saying that we're pro-families. We think that families should be able to educate their children how they want about psychedelics, about alcohol, about anything, about marijuana, and that these age limits, they end up making it forbidden fruit. And then when people do address it, they don't get support from adults, and then they often get contaminated things. And they do it in... relatively less safe contexts. And so I think the fact that you could feel comfortable that in the state that you live in, that you can give alcohol to your daughter and it's not against the law, that's incredibly important. 

Yeah, and that's, I think, part of, yeah, the whole goal with, you know, even us just talking about like psychedelics and that stuff. So we can, you know, de-stigmatize that and normalize that and be like, you know. you know, maybe something happened or maybe there is some trauma or something that they, you know, God forbid, but if that's something like that, then maybe we, you know, that could help and it should be between, you know, the parent and the doctor and your child and not the state. 

Yeah, exactly. But I would say, you know, you said, God forbid, there should be some trauma. I think that kids these days are experiencing massive trauma. not in their own life necessarily, but looking at the world, looking at climate change, looking at mass extinctions, the melting of the glaciers, the whole change that people are worrying about. There's a whole greater sense about younger people these days that many of them don't have children. They're so worried about the world. And so I think that there is this need for young people and for old people to process trauma, even if it's not like we've been beat up or... raped or anything like that, just the trauma of seeing what's happening with the world, of the challenge that the world is going through and of the need for us to work through all these divisions that we're in, the cruelty and killing each other, that there is just inherent trauma in the world that young people pick up on and they really need tools. There's more depression, more anxiety, more young people committing suicide, more young people saying they never want to have kids. It's really a challenging time for everybody. 

Right. That's very true. It touches on, you know, that's a little bit, you know, that's kind of in the psychedelics with the psilocybin. That's one thing that I really seem to love about the psilocybin mushrooms is to me, that's a very grounding, very just grounding. Like I feel more connected back to the earth and where we come from. It's very almost tribalistic in that sense. And I, you know, that's and I think that's one of those important things that that you even could bring to people who, you know, this younger generation, and they feel more disconnected, I feel like, because, you know, we're always on our phones and everyone's just a thumb tap away. You don't get out and go camp in the woods for, you know, where you don't have anybody for a couple of miles around and can't don't have a phone. And so then some kids now, they just wouldn't know what to do without. 

You know, just as one thing, you talked, we talked about the Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. And you just sort of talked about, you know, young people potentially, these rites of passage, also with psychedelics. But there's another book that I want to mention, which is Island by Aldous Huxley. It was the last book that he wrote before he died. And it was about a utopian society with psychedelics woven into it and rites of passage for kids with psychedelics. It's a beautiful book, but the way he ended up um, thinking about the book as he was writing it, it ended up like the movie Avatar, which many people have seen, is that this idyllic society on this island, which psychedelics woven through it, is ending up destroyed by the oil companies. They come because there's ways that they could, you know, get resources from there and they have to kind of destroy the culture and take over. And that was the movie Avatar, you know, this beautiful society living in harmony with nature. And then, you know, these people come for the... minerals that are under this world tree that they have. 

Which is just kind of Disney's Pocahontas too, by the way. 

Yeah, yeah, very much. So I think that this idea for me is that... that we need to go to the heart of the system, the heart of the beast to write a change from inside out. And that's the work that I've been trying to do at MAPS is trying to go into the systems, the Medical Psychedelic, do drug policy reform, that in this increasingly interconnected age, there's nowhere to run anymore. When you think about climate change, that's everywhere. There's an estimate that there could be a billion climate refugees by 2050. So... we really have to change consciousness. I think the problem is that, well, E.O. Wilson is an incredible professor at Harvard. And what he said is the real problem with humanity is that we have paleolithic emotions with medieval institutions with God-like technologies. That sums it up pretty well. Yeah, and so that for me was like, okay, well, what do we need to do? The brilliance of our minds is such that everybody in the world, even eight billion people, could have enough food, enough shelter, if we were to equitably distribute resources. You know, this idea of divergent states, everybody could have their own way that they want it to be. And there's enough for everybody. If we were to share, if we were to pay attention, our minds are brilliant. But we don't have the emotional and spiritual maturity to really do that. And that's where for me, psychedelics and other things as well come in. I'd say that the challenge of the age that we're in now, every age has its own challenge. I'd say the challenge of our age is with this increasing globalization, with artificial intelligence, with this brilliant breakthroughs, even with us moving into space in different ways, that we need to really change our consciousness. So instead of killing each other and destroying the planet that we can work together and collaborate. And that's, I think, the... the mission that we have and psychedelics are just one of many tools that can help with that, but they happen to be tools that have been used for thousands of years, have incredible ability to help if we can put them in the right context. 

100%. They, I mean, yeah, they've been, like you said, used for thousands of years. It's just, they kind of fell off with, I guess, the modern medicine movement when they wanted to refine everything down. 

Well, let me go back one thing just to say when they really fell off in my mind, it was with domineering religious groups that wanted to be the link between you and spirituality and didn't want you to have your own direct way. So when we think about Western culture, we think about the Greeks. That's where democracy was developed. The Greeks had this ceremony called the Eleusis, this mystery ceremony of Eleusis from 1600 BC to almost 480. everybody that we know, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Socrates, all these people. And they would even let women and slaves do this also to show how enlightened they were, that they would have the psychedelic experience at Eleusis, and it would teach you the sort of cycles of death and rebirth, and now we're part of something much bigger. And it was wiped out by the Catholic Church. So there's a great book, Immortality Key, by Brian Muraresku, about the first couple hundred years of the Christian Church. where they overlapped with these mystery ceremonies. And there's starting to be some evidence, again, this is the brilliance of the mind, is people have figured out how to look at these chalices from thousands of years ago. And there's micro, micro amounts of things that were used in them that have absorbed into them. And they can now identify that some of these chalices from this period when Christianity overlapped with the Eleusis and these mystery ceremonies, that there were psychedelics. So he talks about spiked wine, Brian does. So I think what's been, when I think about the struggles that we have trying to integrate psychedelics back into culture, it really is more than 1600 years that there has been the suppression of psychedelics by the domineering kind of cultures that wanted to be the intermediary between you and spirituality. And so we shouldn't be surprised, I guess, about the resistance that we're facing or the, you know, the fact that psychedelics research and psychedelics really flourished during the 50s and 60s, and then it was wiped out for decades all over the world. This massive kind of reaction. So now we're trying to bring that back, but we're trying to do it in a way that revitalizes religious...people are less and less paying attention to traditional religions. They're losing credibility, the sexual abuse scandals of the church and all of them. So what we're trying to... collaborate in a way with to say that there's a way to revitalize spirituality and all the cultures that we've come from Doesn't mean one world religion or anything like that, but it just means a little bit less literal a less There's only one way there's like thousands of religions in the world and everyone not everyone But most of them say hey, we're the only one right one brought up that they'd they were testing recently with cups and found and 

There was an article the other day where they talked about, they were testing Egyptian, they found some Egyptian cups and were able to scrape it and check it. And there was, I think, the blue lotus and some other stuff in there. 

Yes, amazing. Yeah. So we know that they've been using these psychoactive substances for literally thousands of years. And I think that's what's really been one of the really important parts and even a huge part of that is the... the, you're doing it responsibly. And I think that was part of the issue at the sixties was it was, it was Timothy Leary, uh, selling enlightenment at three bucks a hit. So what did the Hunter Thompson said? Uh, but he, uh, yeah. And it's, it's too quick for just the masses. You have to, you know, you pull it and do it in a responsible way. And I think that's, that's really the best way you can do. And the only way you can really do that is education and advocacy correctly. Now, the other part, though, and to get back to how we began this, was noticing your Dead in Company sweatshirt, which is, I think that what has been so phenomenal about the Grateful Dead and Dead & Company, is that they have tried to recreate these rites of passage, but in a modern way with music, with electronic instruments, but what I think has made them that so many people are deadheads, so many people care about what they do, is that they've tried to create modern safe contexts. for people to have these kinds of experiences and their music, like a big part of their music is called space, you know, where you can, and it's sort of improvisational and you go wherever you go in your mind. And so I think that's this challenge of the age is to develop new rites of passage, culturally relevant to those of us in different parts of the world that have this kind of way where we feel connected, we feel connected with history and evolution and. And yet we feel like celebrating our own individual lives and move towards joy. 

Right, what was the old joke? You know how to find the real dead heads at a show? They don't go to the bathroom during Drums/Space. 

Exactly. 

Yeah, but yeah, and also I think outdoor music festivals are doing a real big good part of that too. A lot of the... You know, they like the Zendo project and, you know, fireside, and there's a bunch of people out there. They'll bring tents out, I think Dance Safe and Bunk Police. There's a bunch of organizations. 

Well, Matt started the Zendo project, you know, so I started that back in our first one was 2001 was at a festival called Hook-A-Ville in Ohio. And Danny Wehrschafter was a friend and he was friends with the organizers and they brought us in there and we were integrated with their security and their medical. And then in 2002, we started it with the boom festival in Portugal. And then in 2003, we started at Burning Man. And it's this idea that, um, it goes back to the sense that, um, it's a fundamental human right to change your consciousness. And it doesn't need to be only within a religious context or within a medical context, we can create our own context like dead shows or festivals, outdoor festivals, things like that, but people will inevitably get in over their heads and it will become. difficult and they will sometimes shut down, resist and be worse off for very long periods of time. So the ideas in a harm reduction context, which you've talked about a bunch of times, one of the ways would be psychedelic support, peer support for people that, because we don't want people when it gets difficult to push it away, we want to help them process it. So that's where the Zendo Project is formed. And now last year in Burning Man, we had... hundreds and hundreds of volunteers to help 24-7 for seven days and we had about 500 people come for help and to talk about and integrate what they went through and that's what I think is a responsible way where it's free for people to access they know what they're getting is pure but if they need help there's ways in which the it's like at any festival if they didn't have medical staff they would be irresponsible you have to have medical staff if somebody gets hurt. But you should also have staff for people's emotional and spiritual processing of psychedelics or whatever else they do. Even if it's nothing, some of these festivals are so both inspiring but also kind of catalyzing that even people that don't do any, like when your daughter went to the Dead Show, it still impacts even if you don't do drugs at all. It's really powerful. 

Yeah, that's coming up in a couple of weeks. We're going to have Chelsea and Valerie from the Zendo project. 

Yeah, it's going to be a fun one. 

Yeah, that's- I'm so glad you're doing that. That is really great. Cause yeah. 

Yeah, no, thank you. 

It's going to be a good time, I think. They sound real excited and it's good to bring that awareness out there, you know, to just everybody. Because yeah, those are important too, because beyond just helping you, if you're having trouble during your peak, they can, you can come back and they can help you integrate the experiences. 

Yeah. Exactly. A lot of people just come in to talk about it. 

Right. Exactly. And kind of, I mean, kind of on that same subject, we've got the Psychedelic Science 2025 coming out soon. 

Thank you. Yes. I'd like to really invite everyone. Because what's so interesting about this idea of creating community spaces, psychedelic science 2023 in Denver in June, we had 12,400 people. It was just astonishing. I mean, we were blown away by how many people came, but it's because we've been underground and suppressed for a long time. And now that the Renaissance is really happening and things are changing and people could come together, it's just wonderful. And you learn so much. There's so much research going on. I just did an interview for somebody else at a festival I was at. And what I said was that it used to be that when I would go to a psychedelic conference, I would know everything that was being said because there wasn't... that much and we just pick from those people. But now there's so much going on. I just sit there and I just learn about stuff. I didn't even know what's happening. It's incredible. So we're, we're actually, um, we've had over nine, we had over 1500 applications for talks. You know, we have like tracks at the same time so much, but we're going to record it and make it all available for free for people to see the talks that they missed. But it's just, it's a community coming together. There's so much to learn. We have this area called Deep Space that is kind of like Burning Man where there's all these interactive things to do and wander through and music. It's not just listening to people talking or asking questions. So Psychedelic Science conference. We'd like to encourage people to check into it. And if you're interested, we would love to have you. I think there's just the, it's the community coming together and it's really, we're strength in numbers and we need to learn from each other. I think one of the problems of psychedelics has been that a lot of the people who are like the underground psychedelic therapists, who we owe great credit to, but a lot of them have had to be so isolated to stay safe that, um, you know, we need to learn from each other. So I think that's where this conference, we can learn so much from each other. 100% than another kind of. brought me back here. I was sorry, I'll do a different one. 

So there any new themes or focuses planned for the upcoming conference that you got? 

Well, this is what we're working on is Denver, you know, began this sort of drug policy reform with making mushrooms the lowest enforcement priority in the city of Denver. Over time, that led to the Oregon psilocybin initiative. And then that went back to Colorado past the goes into effect January 1, just right coming up. I'd say we've got Sam Chapman coming up too. One of the guys run that. He's scheduled as well. So yeah. Great. So we're wanting to arrange experiential opportunities for people to come in a state legal context before and after the conference. So that's it. And I think a lot of the themes, you know, we've had a major reversal, FDA rejected MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD. They didn't really say no. They just said not yet. And so there will be. There's still negotiations going on with FDA about what's necessary, but I think there'll be more of a reflection on how did that go wrong and what do we need to do to really mainstream this into society. And there'll be so much new research that's happening in the treatment of addiction, but also psychedelic churches have been proliferating around the United States and we'll have a lot of policy work. and policy discussions. So there's just, it's an embarrassment of riches, you could say, with all the different topics and things that will be discussed. There's also the Global Psychedelic Society. So they're gonna be having special workshops and seminars. And so there's, Psychedelic Society is all over the world now, it's just, there's a hunger for people. I mean, you talked about before about people being isolated on their screens and on their phones. There's a hunger for connection and also a hunger for direct experience. So I think that there's going to be a lot of discussions about that and about how do we further this mainstreaming. So there was also a defeat in Massachusetts. It was a natural plant initiative that was on the ballot in November to do what was happening in Colorado, which I said will be implemented as January 1, but it failed. it was only 43% said yes and 57% voted no. Different kind of fears were fanned. So I think it's, Second Olympics Science 2023 was this like optimistic era, people coming out of the underground, just celebrating being together. It was just incredibly joyous of a mood and optimistic. And now we've had some setbacks. So I think there'll be a little bit more reflection, kind of a sober reflection about, you know, this is harder than we thought and. there is more fears and resistance, and there is more difficulties that our people have. It's not as simple as some of us might have thought. And so it's gonna be more deep reflective, more talk about safety, more talk about indigenous work. I think it will be really the kind of meetings that the community really needs to, and it will also be bipartisan, and that's been the key. It's one of the few things we've been able to take out of the culture wars is, the renaissance and psychedelics. 

Kinda had a question kind of leading up to that. You're talking about the FDA and how that, you know, it talks with that. So how do you feel about the announcement of RFK Jr. as the head of the FDA and how that might assist or? 

Yeah, he would be, he's been appointed head of Health and Human Services to the RFK reports. Right. I think that there's, he's very supportive of psychedelics, which is really good, there's a lot of things where he doesn't seem as committed to science as we would like. And so I think it's a mixed blessing. And yet I think that what we need to do, our challenge is to work with people with whom we have common ground, and then to build alliances that way, and then to use that common ground to maybe question some of these other ways where we've built friendships, we've built alliances, then maybe we can raise other issues on which we disagree. So I think that if RFK is appointed and passes the Senate as the head of HHS, which is really important is that the FDA is still seen as basing their decisions on science. And I do think that the FDA rejection of MDMA was not really based on the data. It was based on fears. It was based on criticism, some of which valid, some of which may be not so valid or not at all. but we encountered more fears than we anticipated. So I think that it's just really critical that we still trust in science. And I think the science was so strong and I think the FDA will come to that conclusion either now or a couple of years from now that MDMA- assisted psychotherapy will be approved, psilocybin will be approved, psychedelics, Ibogaine is on its way. And I think that there will be this. increasing amount of research being done, but We don't want to take the politics and force things through the system. We want to use whatever Political support there may be from RFK and others to say let's get the politics out of it So that we can just focus on the science and I think that's wrong enough for psychedelic therapies Yeah, that's a great point. I think that anybody interested in evidence-based therapies or anything such as that is going to be, yeah, they're going to be, you know, that's, and that's, like you said, we have to find that common ground for things like the MDMA for PTSD or psilocybin for, you know, treatment. So yeah, I'm excited. We've been, we've been actually talking to similar people about being able to come and do the conference with you guys. So that would be, that would be a lot of fun. Yeah, I would love that. I would love that. Actually, I've just started trying to invite RFK Jr. to speak at the conference. 

Oh, wow. That would be kind of fun. 

No, it would be good for him both to speak and to have a panel where somebody could, you know, ask questions. It's not like we're just platforming somebody to say whatever they want to say and not having any kind of dialogue. 

Right. That would be that. But I think that would be an important kind of side to that, I guess. So, yeah. 

Yeah, it sounds great. The Deep Space sounds really interesting, too. I'm really excited. I think out of all of it to me that would I'm like, oh, yeah, that Deep Space sounds like fun. Sounds really cool. 

It was great. It was a great place for people to meet each other and to do different interactive things. Yeah, it was a good compliment. Actually, the people that ran the Denver Convention Center said it was the best conference that they've ever seen. And that we also had the largest dinner that they've ever had in the entire history of the Denver Convention Center. It was to honor Rolla Griffiths. It was, you know, Johns Hopkins researcher. It was dying of cancer and is no longer sadly with us. But I think people there at the convention center talked about deep spaces. One of the unique kind of things that they hadn't seen at other conferences. 

That's awesome. 

The other thing I'll just add to people is that the maps.org website has enormous amount of information and videotapes from past conferences. And we're also looking to grow our base if anybody wanted to donate, become a member, you know, we'd appreciate that. 

Yeah, I was gonna say that was leading into the next or where could people learn more about maps or donate or stay updated? But that kind of answers that. What would you say would be next for maps in the near future? 

Well, one of the things that I'm really excited about is two things. One is MDMA for couples therapy. So we're trying to start a research for that. It's not monetizable in the sense that it's not clear you could make FDA approval for a COPA therapy. But that's where we're getting. The other is we're trying to do, and this gets to RFK and politics, is that we're trying to train Ukrainian therapists. There's so much PTSD in Ukraine. We're trying to train Ukrainian therapists, Polish therapists. There's 2 million Ukrainian refugees in Poland, many of them with PTSD. So we just did a project in Somaliland. where we've had MDMA from Canada sent to Somaliland to train therapists with their own MDMA experience. So we're trying to really globalize access. We're doing a lot of stuff in group therapy research. And we do have a lot of research in Israel, but we're also trying to start stuff in Lebanon. There's a hospital in East Jerusalem we're trying to work with to bring MDMA to the Palestinians. therapy, there's trauma everywhere and we're trying to be, if we can, both sides. So in a sense that we want to work with police officers and prisoners, both, you know, first responders and people who are exposed to some of the worst things. And usually they're just told, you know, just hold on, you know, real men don't cry, just, you know, don't let it affect you. And that leads to alcoholism and domestic violence. other substance abuse. So we're really trying to globalize access. And that's what I'm really excited about. 

Yeah, there's almost like a say it's almost a world health crisis of PTSD and trauma. Yeah, it's invisible crisis, world health crisis of trauma that we just we don't address it kind of hides. And I mean, that goes back, like you said, the men don't cry and that that's stoic. I mean, even beyond Boomer. When we were packed, like my parents were silent generation. And so they, it was the same kind of attitude. But that's the funny thing I always think though, by the way, is I'm like, man, if we've all had it better than our parents had it, how bad most of our grandparents had it. So it's kind of the, you know, we're, we're moving towards away from the, or away from that trauma, but it, you know, it takes tools and. It's good that we've known about these substances and started to refine them for almost 100 years. And just as find what the actual specific chemical that's doing this stuff, it's fairly recent. And we still don't understand all the ways they interact with all the brains and how things start interacting and connecting. It's an exciting time to really be looking into it with, you know, it's finally coming back open. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to share with the listeners and let them know anything coming up or? 

Well, I think the main thing we've touched on it is the Psychedelic Science 2025 is our big conference. I think, no, you know, this has been a pretty wide ranging discussion, even though it was pretty short period of time. So I just wanted to thank your listeners for having an open mind and You know many people like just to go back to Divergent States, many people have said that the psychedelic states are divergent states and therefore they're bad You know that it's only quote normal states that these Altered states that that's a word that we don't use as much altered states more non-ordinary states so I think that there's a way to appreciate divergent states because It's all part of this puzzle of how we see things. And different people have different perspectives, but fundamentally we're all people and we're all trying to learn how to communicate, learn how to love. And so just this idea of being willing to look at all these challenging concepts that in diversity is strength as long as we work together. 

Yeah, my whole idea of the play, the word divergent states was the, I'm neurodivergent. I guess they call it mild autism type one. And so I was neurodivergent and thinking, you know, we could get all of these divergent perspectives and try and, you know, bring them all together and kind of harmonize them into a, you know, into kind of a co- 

and again, I think that's, you know, that's one of the beautiful things about psychedelics is you have this intersection of science and mental health. culture and art and all of these things that just seem just they wouldn't go together anyway. They have that commonality behind them and that's one of the beautiful parts about it is how it can help bring us all together. 

Yeah, yeah, that's a wonderful Yeah, including that. 

Thank you so much for having me. 

Oh, thank you for being here. We'd love to have you again, especially when Brian can be back. Especially, yeah, we were planning, really said we're talking to your people about coming to the psychedelic conference 2025 psychedelic science 2025. And that would, I mean, that would just be amazing when we could, you know, we're talking, get interviews and go talk and shoot to presenters and get it was, it would be great. So yeah, we're real excited about that. 

Yeah, that's tremendous. It'd be awesome. So well, thank you very much for being with me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's, it's great. Great to have you. I'd love to have you back sometime. I would enjoy that. 

Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back, Brian. What'd you think? 

Honestly, dude, I'm really impressed. That was a great interview. I had a lot of fun listening to you guys. 

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. He's such a just natural just kind of speaker and just a lot of fun to talk to. He just quickly took me off script or my outline and we went down all kinds of rabbit holes. 

Well, dude, I think what's really sticking out to me right now is how, what a cool. student counselor. He had in high school that's like he just could go to him and be like, Hey, I've been taking a lot of LSD lately. And he's like, I've got a book for you. Right. Everybody needs that guidance counselor in high school. 

Right.

 He probably set him on the right path. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, without guidance like that, if you can't turn to somebody, I mean, where are you supposed to go? Like, how are you supposed to, you know, kind of come to I get it, we want to go with you with things. 

And I mean, yeah, that's, and I mean, that's, that was kind of, sorry, we kind of, no, we kind of touched on that within the conversation that, you know, we've got the, you know, those rites of passage, you know, from the Ellucian mysteries that he talked of to, you know, the dead concerts we talked about. 

Yeah, that was actually really cool. 

I like listening to you guys talk about that and your thoughts on that. And then also, of course, just making something not as cool anymore by just being like, yeah, look how cool it is. And then people are like, that's not cool now. Yeah, kind of Amsterdam or Holland, how they kind of, like they said, they made weed boring. 

Right. 

And so the kids are like, oh, it's an old person's drug. Why would we ever want to do that? And so- Yeah, very effective. Yeah, I think about myself as a parent and I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna try that more often. Right. I don't want it, like instead of demonizing the things I don't want her to do is make it seem boring. 

Right, because I mean, yeah, the forbidden fruit is always sweetest. 

When I was a kid, it was like, oh, you're not supposed to talk or touch or do anything around that. And heck, I want that, you know? Yeah, that's precisely what I wanna do. Why? Why is it like that? Yeah, I wanna find out for myself. So by saying, well, it's boring, you know? 

And talking about the conference coming up in June, that's gonna be amazing. Oh yes, that would be great. 

I mean, if we could get there, we could even do multiple parts, an episode for each day. That's what I'm thinking, like throw some like live interviews and just like daily reports on the Patreon afterwards. We'll throw all that together and maybe do an episode for everybody. But yeah, we being able to talk to everybody and like schedule even more interviews, even greater, the networking part would be amazing, but yeah, we're real excited about it. You guys sign up, patreon.com/DivergentStates. You can subscribe on our website to donate Hit us, you know, support us there. We can, we can keep this going. 

Hopefully we'll be able to be in Denver with these people. So yeah, it'd be real exciting to go out there. 
Um, psychedelic science conference, 2025 Denver, Colorado, June 16th through the 20th. So it'd be awesome. Um, it's one of the largest gatherings in the world of all these people. And to be a part of that would just be a huge blessing. Thank you guys, everybody out there who's already supported us. I don't wanna dox you, so if you wanna have a shout out on the podcast, send me your name, send me a link. On the Patreon, we'll get you on there. Yeah. Thank you everybody for joining us. I think our next interviewer was Wendy Tucker. That's right, okay, Wendy Tucker coming up next. Yeah, she kind of goes to like the secret history of psychedelic or MDMA. research and science and really cool just really cool conversation with her as well it's just I'm it's kind of blowing me way all these amazing people we get to talk to yeah it's been crazy I mean I came into this not knowing anything about psychedelics and now I feel like it's just kind of thrown in the deep end huh yeah so it's I mean it's crazy it's a lot of fun but yeah you guys support us for some patreon thank you so much for being here you guys keep exploring Oh, thank you to H, thank you to Brad, thank you Bryan. Thank you for the Patreon, everybody, we love you guys. Keep supporting us, keep exploring. Y

eah, well, and also thank you to DylAlien and Flintwick for the support with the music. Again, if you have music that you produce yourself out there that you'd like to have featured on the podcast, please send that our way. Absolutely, and we'll talk to you guys next time. Catch you later.