Science

031: Dr. Julie Holland /  by Joe

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is June 6, 2016, and we are talking with Dr. Julie Holland, psychopharmacologist, psychiatrist, and best-selling author of several books.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

Topics:

  • Julie’s origin story: how did she get interested in this area of research

  • Julie took MDMA with Rick Doblin on the last day it was legal: June 30th, 1985

  • “Cancer of Yang” – Jeremy Wolff’s phrase (Julie’s husband)

  • Vaginal administration of cannabis to avoid the liver from edible ingestion, 11-OH-THC

  • Edibles: Julie emphasizes the need to wait two hours before re-evaluating dosage

  • Overmedication of society

    • “Do you ever overeat and then feel bad about it?” Big pharma’s answer: strong, long-lasting amphetamine daily.

  • Medical and Recreational Entheogens

    • “Recreation is therapeutic”

  • THC, CBD and Terpenes

  • Some people don’t want to get high from their medicine.

  • Munchies mitigation tip: don’t start eating.

  • Punishment doesn’t work with addiction

  • Pornography and the “new normal”: no pubic hair vs. “very bushy” 70’s

Julie’s Books:

030: The Neuroscience of Partying with Caitlin Thompson of Entheozen /  by Joe

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is April 24, 2016, and we are discussing the Neuroscience of Partying with Caitlin Thompson of Entheozen.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

Topics:

  • Caitlin’s Burning Man talk, “The Neuroscience of Partying”
  • Nutrition
  • Leaky gut syndrome
  • Mood disorders
  • Neurotransmitters
  • Serotonin in the gut
  • Are entheogens a food? Some supplements turn into neurotransmitters downstream. Where’s the line?
  • 5-HTP, L-Tryptophan -> Serotonin/Melatonin/DMT
  • Importance of co-factors – vitamins, minerals, e.g. B vitamins
  • General function of entheogens in the body

029: Build Entheon with Alex and Allyson Grey /  by Joe

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is May 24 2016, and we are discussing Building Entheon with Alex and Allyson Grey.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

Topics:

  • Entheon is a place to discover the divine within
  • Why build a psychedelic temple?
  • BuildEntheon.com – Almost to the stretch goal of $200K
  • Entheon is a 12,000 sq ft building, three floors including a gallery of international visionary art
  • Prehistoric artifacts document early cultures who made art and had a relationship with entheogens
  • “It’s important for our psychedelic sacramental culture to have evidence that in our generation there were people who valued love, unity, spirituality, and peace over commerce and war.” - Allyson Grey
  • LSD is derived from ergot fungus, which shares similar characteristics with psilocybin mushrooms.
  • Allyson recommends Robert Barnhart’s movie, A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin. (We have interviewed the producer and discussed the film on Entheogen.)
  • Visit BuildEntheon.com to support the campaign! Check out the amazing original works of art and other rewards.

025: Psychedelic Medicine Trials with Participant Kirk Rutter /  by Joe

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is February 28, 2016, and we are discussing Psychedelic Medicine Trials with a participant in a recent psilocybin study, Kirk Rutter.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

Special thanks to our guest on today’s show, Kirk Rutter, who offers listeners a rare glimpse of what it’s like to participate in a psychedelic medicine trial. Kirk worked with Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, David Erritzoe (who sat in on the sessions), Prof. David Nutt (who oversaw the project), and Mark Bolstridge at the Imperial College of London, studying the impact of psilocybin on depression.

Topics:

  • Kirk shares a bit of background about why he sought out this study

  • The screening process

  • Kirk’s prior experience (none) and opinion of psychedelics before the study

  • No interaction with the other participants during the trials, meeting these automatic allies after the conclusion of the trials.

  • The benefit of the “dry run” of set and setting a week ahead of time. Compare this protocol to the DMT studies by Strassman – demonstrates the importance of a comfortable setting.

  • Kirk offers the term “psychedelic turbulence”, and the analogy of taking off in a plane: passing through the clouds, there may be some turbulence, and then once you reach a certain height it becomes calm.

  • Sanskrit text flashing in the darkness, faint geometrics, jewels, golden structures…

  • Describing the session room: niceties like ambient laser lights, aroma machine, candles, fresh flowers.

  • The music in the room. The care given to the playlist. The importance of the playlist as part of the protocol.

  • Psychedelic lacrymation.

  • The “psychedelic yawn”.

  • We all share our deep cries.

  • Using music to help embed the experience.

  • The roles of David, Robin, and Mark and how they factored into the experience.

  • Robin: “one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

  • We all don’t like the zoo. (E.g. “Meerkats basking under sunlamps.”)

  • Kirk’s experience of seeing “an Indian god ‘look in on me’ like a parent looking over a baby's crib”

  • Kevin’s experience seeing the same deity as Kirk: Ganesh, the "remover of obstacles", the "God of wisdom, knowledge and new beginnings". He sounds like a good totem to have through the 25mg experience”

  • Chanting, meditating

Check out Kirk’s blog for a first person description of what it’s like to participate in modern psychedelic research, including videos from your accommodations at the Imperial College campus in London.

022: Response to A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin /  by Joe

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is January 7, 2016, and we are discussing A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

We discussed this film and interviewed its producer, Robert Barnhart back in August 2015 before the film’s release. Since then, the film has been released and you can rent or buy it on online. We’ve all had a chance to watch it again and we wanted to reflect on our impressions of the film.

We’ll start with a quote from Alex Grey:

"A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin puts an original face on psychedelics. Not the typical faces in the media of delusional drop-outs associated with drugs, but the faces of normal Americans, some suffering from the final stages of terminal cancer. After one dose of psilocybin the face of joy, relief and peace is nothing short of miraculous. A medical mystical miracle is in our midst, and this film beautifully describes the facts! Bravo to Robert Barnhart and all the production team, the courageous chemists, doctors and patients who are helping our society re-evaluate Psilocybin as a medicine for the Soul." ~Alex Grey

Hofmann discovered LSD, creating the modern psychedelic movement; not many people know he also isolated and synthesized psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms.

Shutting down of research. Schedule 1. “No medicinal value, addictive”

Kevin purports that Maria Sabina had given Albert Hofmann an “academic boner” over his successful synthesis of the active alkaloid in her magic mushrooms, psilocybin.

“Throughout history, people have been able to have this mystical experience. The drug is a reliable way of getting one, but it's not about the drug, it's about the experience.” - Anthony Bossis

Ann Levy’s son’s eulogy for her

How does the experience help you confront death?

“We’re all star stuff.” - Carl Sagan

Bill Richards: 6 basic categories of a "core religious experience":
1. Unity
2. Transcendence of time and space
3. Noetic / intuitive knowledge
4. Sense of sacredness / awesomeness
5. Deeply felt positive mood / joy / peace / love
6. Ineffability / paradoxicality (difficult to put into words)

Psilocybin and LSD as aphrodisiacs

Why not? Why can’t we provide the relief these treatments offer?

Brad: “word.”

Wikipedia: List of Schedule I drugs and Schedule II drugs

Rent or buy the film on Vimeo

When you rent you can also watch DMT The Spirit Molecule

The film’s website has a convenient “who’s who” of psychedelic researchers on the participants tab, with names, titles and photos, and a short bio when clicked