Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 304: James Fadiman PhD & Jordan Gruber PhD (Psychedelic Specialists)

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Good tidings to you on this totally normal, prosaic Tuesday morning. PSYCHE. Today's anything but; cuz Andy's sharing with you a new song called "Try Not to Die" from his band- The U.N. And on the Interview Hour we have two masters in the field of psychedelic research, James Fadiman and Jordan Gruber! These guys have all the answers to questions you didn't even know you had. Why not learn a little something about yourself? And in the words of the inimitable Bill Hicks: "SQUEEGEE YOUR THIRD EYE" Call, leave a message, and tell us a mushroom story: [phone]  Check out our new album!, L'Optimist on all platforms Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For more information on Andy Frasco, the band and/or the blog, go to: AndyFrasco.com Produced by Andy Frasco, Nick Gerlach, Joe Angelhow, & Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Mara Davis The U.N.

Hey guys, it's Andy. How you doing out there? We kick an ass. Oh, it's just fucking crushing life, dude We got it. You got a got a real love every day even when she gets a little kooky You got to wake up and just be blessed that You get to see another day because you never know when it's your turn to leave the party or you never know when it's your Turn to not release another record, baby. It's go time Because you're the podcast fans, we're gonna give you the new single, Try Not To Die, a couple days early.

First single release out of many that are coming out. We're really excited this record. We won't tell you when the record comes out, but pre-save Try Not To Die, but I'm really proud of this song. I wrote it with Chris Galbuta You know on another existential crisis and I'm just Really proud of it. So ladies and gentlemen Chris play play the flute, baby

It's go time ladies gentlemen a world premiere from the world same podcasts me my Me, my band, Andy Frask on the U.N. Newest single, Try Not To Die. Enjoy. I'm just another nobody, running in the human race On a pale blue dot, spending on a sunbeam, spinning through outer space Even with all this gravity, there's other things pulling us down We should be living on Mars by now, but we're all running around We worry about salaries, payments and statements Living in our basement, procrastination Left wing, right, what should I wear tonight?

Ain't it insane how we all make it so difficult So complicated, none of it matters It's just a crazy ride You pay all your bills, stay off the pills Try not to die Time is a handsome devil Dance with it if you dare But one of these days we'll be pushing up daisies

Under the dirt somewhere Try not to overthink it That'll just make it worse. Enjoy what you got, forget what you're not, remember that love comes first. Not those salaries, payments, and statements living in our basement. Procrastination, left-wing, right, what should I wear tonight? We're in the middle of nowhere tonight Yeah, ain't it insane how we all make it so difficult, so complicated None of it matters, it's time to simplify So pay all your bills, stay off the pills, try not to die I'm just another nobody, running in the human race And I ain't gonna let another one second of my life go to waste

Worry about salaries, payments and statements, living in a basement, procrastination, left wing right, what should I wear tonight? Yeah, ain't it insane how we all make it so difficult, so complicated, none of it matters, it's just a crazy ride. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die.

Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the bills, try not to die. Pay all your bills, stay off the pills, try not to die I'm going to get you down. That's what I'm talking about. We're on our first acoustic tour. I'm in Dallas, Texas right now. We're going to talk more about how awesome this is. It's been such an amazing experience. We've been standing ovations. Just giving us the confidence that our songs, we don't have to do all that crazy shit to

get the word out. It was such an amazing experience. Thank you, JJ Gray. And like I said, when I see Nick next week, we'll talk about it more in depth about how awesome this experience was. But I want to do a little intro. Volume.com, shout out to volume.com,

best livestream company in the business, and our new subscription model is finally up and running. Only Frasco. Head to volume.com slash Andy Frasco. Subscribe to the monthly. We got extended. We have the non-cut versions of our podcast coming.

We have, you can hear, you can watch the music video of try not to die early for everyone else And we're gonna be doing unique live stream experiences once a month from live shows from wherever we are in the country to Weird live podcast stuff, so I don't forget to sign up for that But like I said, we've got this is we're going we're going to school today people. We got PhDs in microdosing psychedelics on the show. Yes, these guys. I mean, Jim has worked with Tim Leary. I mean, Jordan,

they've they understand microdosing, they understand psychedelics, so I said, fuck it, let's bring them on the show. They wrote the book about it. Might as well get the podcast fans more hip about what's going on in the world of psychedelics. So, you're going to love this interview. And like I said, I'll catch you on the tail end. I'll catch you next week.

We're just been so busy this week that I didn't get an opening segment, but I want you to like really dive into this The knowledge that we're about to learn from Jim and Jordan and you know, let's try to heal ourselves All right guys, enjoy Jim and Jordan. I'll catch on the tail end And we are you know, yes we talk about all this, you know. We talk about all this, you know, we talk about a lot of mushrooms. We talk about my own versions of psychedelics. I realize there's so much you could say until you're bullshitting yourself. So we brought some experts in here to talk about microdosing, psychedelics.

James, Jordan, how are we doing today? James Dixon We're doing good. Jordan, are we doing good? Jordan Cieci Yeah, we're doing good. All the animals are taking care of and we're online. And, you know, everything is good. I'm excited to be here. I spent some time listening to some of your music last night, Andy, and I really enjoyed La Optimist. I'm gonna be listening to it again. So thank you for your contributions. Wow, maybe they are experts.

Wow, wow, this is amazing. Thank you, Jordan. I wanna talk about this. I write all my records. I've been microdosing for about, I don't know, eight years now, and it got me through depression. And I wanna know the scientific reasoning why microdosing is so important for the brain. Well, how about we start with why it's important for depression?

Yeah, let's do that. I'd love it. Even better. We don't know. Thanks, folks. It's been a great interview. And thank you very much for the interview. There's a lot of science out there, but it's a lot more theory than it is truth. What we do know is that your brain works more loosely. It connects to more parts of itself when you're microdosing. And that itself is relieving to the brain. See, the problem when I say

depression is nobody knows what depression is. You know, here we have the condition that is the most mental, you know, kind of most popular mental illness on the planet, and popular isn't quite the right word. If you say well to your medical, physiological people, how do you measure it? They say we say to people, are you depressed? That's literally it. I mean, there's long questionnaires and so forth, but the only element in all the questionnaires is the question, are you sad?

So we're dealing with something that nobody quite knows what it is or how it's caused, but what we do know is when your brain is working more efficiently and more effectively, depression just seems to go away. This is totally different from the way SSRIs work. What about anxiety? Same answer, pretty much. I mean, let's stick with depression for just a little bit. So the thing about microdosing is it's doing what big doses of psychedelics do,

but at a much lower level. That we have a few different scientific studies that show that it's the same signature, but a much lower amplitude. What we know about microdosing, and one of the reasons depression is called out as one of the six things we really think that is, or in the lead that people wanna know about,

is that you have more neuroplasticity, which means that your brain can rewire. That's not really what's going on, of course, but there's an ability for populations of neurons to communicate with each other differently. We also know that microdosing produces an anti-inflammatory effect. We also know that it generally tends to bring people

back to homeostasis, so they feel better. So if your brain is a little bit more flexible and the inflammation is not as bad and you're starting to feel better, then you're setting the stage for depression to lift without having to take a big dose of whatever it is and have a big experience. So what's the difference between like people like macro dosing? Let's talk about like that

got like the four grams of mushrooms. We'll talk about LSD. We'll talk about, we'll talk about what MDMA as well. So what's the difference? No, we don't really think you can micro doseose MDMA, but that's a different discussion. Okay. When you're doing a book like this, you have to kind of set some lines and draw some boundaries. And so, you know, just as a very quick background, modern microdosing started happening when Jim in around 2010 started asking questions and people would give him responses and then there were articles and then interviews.

So a lot of that that information has built up over time and I just lost my train of thought. I'll take it over which is... Please. It isn't the same as a little bit of a high dose. Right. It's important. little bit of a high dose. Right. It's important. So there are different universes, high doses, you know, you get to become one with God or you become God, you discover generational trauma,

you understand the truth about all of reality, which you don't remember, and you are aware that your own ego is a really small part of a very small thing. None of that happens with microdosing. Microdosing is fundamentally because of, literally physiologically, neuroplasticity and less inflammation, you feel better. And when you feel better, your whole system feels better. And that's why depression and another 10 or 20 or 30 things we can talk about all show improvements

because the body is working better. What other improvements do you see through microdosing besides calming your nervous system down to like kind of heal. So generally there's two big swaths of differences. One is physical and mental medical conditions get better and the other is people see enhanced performance and flow and that's in everything from sports to music, writing or playing to lovemaking, a lot of things get better. So microdosing makes bad things less bad and good things better. And there's something about, you know, the idea is always less is more in microdosing. So one of the reasons

we're having this conversation is Jim's conservative protocol. We are on day one and then you're off day two and then you're off day three and then you're on day four. So every third day and you're taking this dose that we used to call subperceptual, but let's say it's below the threshold of a psychedelic trip. You're not seeing any visuals, you're not having strange ideations, you don't have any trouble having your ordinary day.

When you take that kind of a small dose, but you're taking it every third day for six or eight weeks before you take a break for a week or two, that really gives you the chance to notice what you're experiencing and to see a little bit on the second day. And a lot of people like the second day best. The third day is just a complete reset. And then you're back in on day four. So you're really not getting high.

You're just, you might feel a little something, but a lot of people who micro dose forget that they're micro dosing at all They just have a really good day and they go. Oh, yeah, it was a micro dosing day. Yeah, it's interesting Jim what about the different types of psilocybin is are there different psilocybin that give you different effects? Okay, not not really because psilocybin is a molecule. Right. Okay. There are different levels of kind of power of mushrooms. One mushroom, one species of mushroom may have four or five times the amount of psilocybin. So then we're just talking about, you know, helping the dose. But psilocybin and the other,

what are called classic psychedelics, LSD and mescaline. And some tea. So, I'm breaking up. All have the same basic effect. So people microdose with psilocybin, they microdose with LSD. That's about 95 to 97% of people who microdose. What about mescaline?

What are people microdosing mescaline? Most people aren't microdosing mescaline because mescaline's hard to get. Yeah, that's true. You can't get it in the ground. Also, it's a big chemical chore to make. And if you're using peyote or San Pedro, these are two cactuses that have mescaline in them You you're probably using it more in a high dose or a ritual way so

It's just not out there. What are the different side effects or? health benefits from micro dosing LSD versus micro dosing psilocybin Health benefits from micro dosing LSD versus micro dosing psilocybin Here's where here's where we kind of play science versus what we call the real world The science says there's no difference Except that psilocybin doesn't last as long right? Okay, and that's a very long expensive Studies to come to that conclusion. If you talk to the psychonauts of the world, they say, well, you know, if you're

looking at problems or issues or concerns that are a little bit more emotional about the heart, about your feelings, about relationships, psilocybin is nicer. If you're problems that are more thoughtful or intellectual or you're an inventor or you're a composer or your coder LSD seems to be better for the intellect. Now, when I say it seems to be, that's just because hundreds of people reported, but it's not yet science. Because it's really hard to measure what, you know, in a science world, it's really

hard to measure that stuff. So there are some differences that people point out in terms of LSD is more like a non-specific amplifier, and psilocybin seems to have some element of the mushrooms or the earth, and it will teach you things, at least on high doses. And another difference is really that psilocybin, if you're taking dried mushrooms, it's not just the psilocybin molecule which gets converted into psilocin in the body. There are other entourage chemicals that show up in mushrooms, and some people do think

that that's why some mushrooms are a bit different than others in addition to the fact that you get something like albino penis enthy and it's going to be three times as strong as golden teachers. The other thing to keep in mind is that LSD is pretty easy on the body because it's so incredibly small. We're talking in millions of a crayon. With mushrooms, even with microdosing, sometimes people have some gastric and stomach stuff. In fact, people who are healthier in their stomach and intestines might get a little bit higher on the same dose or need less of a microdose. So, you know, there are some differences between them and there are things you can do to change

the gastric problem like it's called lemon teching which is soaking any mushrooms going to use in lemon for 20-25 minutes and then it's a lot easier. So, you know, LSD is easier on the body and if you have actual LSD, it's easier to work with but psilocybin is, you know, getting more and more prevalent and it's easier than ever to grow your own and most people know how to find someone who has access to psilocybin but LSD is kind of trickier. Especially in Denver. Yeah, especially in Denver. It's legal here. Explain, explain lemon tech to people because I take lemon tech because I have a bad gut.

I've never heard of this. Explain what, why that, why the citrus or why that affects the mushroom to break it down better. that why the citrus or why that affects the mushroom to break it down? Yes, very simply it pre-digests it a little bit. So it's already a little bit closer to just the psilocybin and the other alkaloids. It breaks down something in the culture. If you make a tea out of it, you're obviously going to leave behind all of the physical gunk that also is a mushroom. Right. Okay.

Because it is a poison, right? It's being pre-digested a little, it comes on a little faster, and it may be a little stronger. So when you're microdosing a penis envy versus a normal one. Avalon, whatever, yeah. How small are the dosage when you're microdosing

penis envies versus the other strains? Well what we kind of have suggested is the the range for most people is a tenth of a gram to four tenths of a gram. Oh wow. Okay that's the that's the range for microdosing and again what people do is, again, this isn't you go to the store and it's all prepackaged and it's all the same size and there's no choices. Right. Decide how much feels right to you. And there are people who don't take a hundredth of a gram and have all the same effects. They're super sensitive.

Can you build up a tolerance over time the more you do it? The reason that all the people who come up with microdosing have what are called protocols, which is schedule, how often you take it. And all of them have time off in between. That is so the tolerance doesn't happen. And it's not, it's not clear how much tolerance happens with that, with that size dose. John, you're going to explain something I got. Yeah, it's just the, so the, the, the, the leaky motif of microdosing is that less is more.

So what we tell everybody is start low and go slow. And actually the book is now saying 0.1 to 0.3, not 0.4, we lowered it. And there are people who will take 0.05. And if you go on Reddit, like Jim said, you'll find people taking one tenth as much as we suggest at that bottom level. So, you know, ideally, if you've never done anything like this, you want to start very low and have a day where you can be at home just in case you're one of the, you know, one in a hundred million people who has a super strong reaction to even the smallest amounts. And then you have your day and then, you know, you'll know this was about about the right amount.

So how do you, with that in mind, how do you micro, how do you like, if someone wants to micro dose LSD and they have a vial of it how do you how does one like actually know how much they're putting in their body if it's so little okay well let's assume that you have something on the bottle it says like a thousand micrograms or ten thousand something and and you have you have what's called biometric measuring which means you put it in if you want to have say there's a hundred micrograms in your bottle okay and then you you make a piece of glass of water with 10 ounces in it okay and then you put 10 drops from your bottle Okay, and then you put 10 drops from your bottle, which has one microgram per drop, into the water.

You now have water which has each ounce has one microgram. Oh, okay. Okay? It's gotta be chemists. You really measure it out. Because with LSC and micrograms, you don't guess. No. Right.

That's a disaster. That's the problem. It's a lot easier with a mushroom to visualize it. Yeah. Exactly. Can we, I know you guys specialize in microdosing, but can we talk about hero dosing? Like when people are doing five to six grams, seven grams.

Yeah, we can talk about it, which is the term that McKenna had, and it's one I have never forgiven him for, it's called the heroic dose translation. How do you handle it when you've taken too much? And the way you handle it when you've taken too much is you lie down for four or five hours until you begin to get back into a world you can handle. I mean, everything can be overdosed. The people, the reason, by the way, a lot of people die during the raves was overdosing water. Right, because they get dehydrated. Right. Well, they think they're dehydrated.

Well, they think they are. Either they drink too much or they drink too little. So when Terrence McKenna came up with this term, and if you Google Sam Harris's mushroom trip, he talks about McKenna and the heroic dose. McKenna always felt that if you weren't taking five grams in a closet with a blindfold on, then you weren't really doing it. That was sort of the psychedelic missionary position, and you had to submit yourself to that. And that's it. Now, sort of the psychedelic missionary position and you had to submit yourself to that and that's it. Now since then there are people, there's some people in Chicago who are taking up to like a hundred grams, just huge amounts. We have it on good

authority from our mushroom scientists brand that anything more than seven or eight, it's, you're going to stay high longer, but you're not going to get anything else. And you know, the problem with these doses of course is that usually you can't remember very much of what you saw and really put it to good use when you came back. Although Jim has a really good write up in a publication where he describes his transcendent dose on LSD in his 20s in the mid 60s. So you know, some people like heroic doses or macro doses and they really want to, you know, redo everything in their mind and their brain. And it's usually

a game for younger people. I mean, I'm 64 now and maybe with my men's group, we're doing journey work, I might do a higher dose of something, but I don't, I'm not called. I mean, there's enough ambient highness that I'm not, you, but I'm not called. I mean, there's enough ambient highness that I'm not, I'm not gonna learn anything new that's super amazing that's gonna change the world at this point. I just think that 64, I need to start microdosing more. Yeah, you look fantastic. I wanna guess like 50.

Oh, that's very kind of you. I'm not even lying. So will you tell me why they recommend these macro doses as a hero doses when people are either terminally ill Can you tell me why they recommend these macro doses or hero doses when people are either terminally ill from cancers or terminally, or about to die? Again, the hero dose doesn't work. What they're saying is it would be good, well, let me just quote from Bill Richards,

who is like the only guy who's been guiding people since the 60s, and he's still guiding people, and he's training guides, and he's doing work now with dying people. And he says, the purpose of our work is so that people will lose their fear of dying. And one way you lose your fear of dying is you begin to find that if you let go of your ego, you're still there. Whatever it is, you're still there and your Jim Fadimanness is not the essential part of you. And so, oh, okay, well, who was dying? Well, Jim Fadiman. Okay, well, sorry about that. He's had a good life. I can relax into that and see what happens next. That's a very different feeling than a lot of what we talk about when

we talk about fear of death. So the higher dose gets you into that. Now, there is a study going on now in Canada called palliative care with microdosing, and that's not been published yet so I can tell you about it which is which is when people are dying in a good setting in a good medical setting most of the time they're on opioids because they're in pain right so on opioids as you may or may not know you you don't feel pain. Okay? But you also don't feel much and it's really you don't want to communicate and you're in a fog. Well it turns out in the opiate palliative end-of-life care where you're given as much opiates as you need, they're not worrying about you, you're not going to

get addicted. Okay? If you microdose into that What people are saying is they can then? Respond to the family who's there? They can basically communicate. I mean how often have you heard people say well I said this to my father as he was dying. I don't know if you heard me or not, right? Okay, how wonderful it is if your father then says, yeah, I really do appreciate you telling me about that time when we were 20 and I did something terrible and you've forgiven me and I really love you too. That's really true. So that's a whole different use of microdosing that that we're

going to see more of because if it makes dying easier on two groups, the person and the family, it's really a wonderful breakthrough. Yeah. And it's also, well, this goes into psychiatry. Why are people waiting to the last moment to tell like you're dead, dying, a parent that this trauma you had when you were 20. I mean, that's the best thing about mushrooms is I'm most honest and I can talk to people most honestly when I'm on the psychedelic. What's the deal with that, being completely honest through that? Well, you're

honest because your fears and so forth don't get in the way. I mean, I was reading this morning an article in the New York Times about executives and going to executive retreat and taking a mild dose of mushrooms, and one of them said he got over his fear of public speaking, because public speaking fear is almost always, what will people think of me? And as a performer, you know, you've run into enough people who worry about how they're performing, but not because Because it's their inner stuff. It's not the quality of the performance So so when you're dying

It's really kind of silly to worry about what you know what people are thinking about me and so it's not gonna matter soon And that brings a good point like Maybe the reason why they can't talk because they're all fucked up on opium. Yeah, exactly the point. So like you can't even communicate. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's so I mean, that's it. That's a that's one of the breakthroughs that we're seeing. And it doesn't change. You know, it just and also it makes the medical staff feel so much better. Is working with dying people is a really heavy trip. Right. Dying people who are okay about it and can communicate and can say to their children, it's alright, I understand, or thank you for coming. It's an amazing

what a little bit of that does. You know, I was, I want to ask a question. Maybe it's a little too kooky, but as kids get more and more depressed earlier in their life through social media and whatnot, can we start subscribing them microdosing mushrooms? Can we microdose? Can we give kids mushrooms? That's a great reaction. Let me just darken the story a little, okay? Something called ADHD, which is a genetic kind of, you have learning difficulties. The US government says for children of three years and older, you can start medication. The medications are fundamentally speed. Right, methamphetamine.

Yeah, it's pretty close. It's like one- They're called methamphetamines, they're called Adderall, they're called ProVigil. There's actually about 40 different brands because it's a hot market. I feel like that's even more insane. Yeah.

Well, that's why I started there because now when I say microdosing, maybe a better choice for someone, you can see where I'm coming from because what we know about microdosing is it's really hard to find a side effect. Right. I agree. I agree.

It's not addictive. Is it addictive? Not like that already. No. In the sense, no, because addictive usually means if I take X amount, after a while I need X plus 10% or X plus 50%, and after a while I need more than that to get the same level of pain relief or rush, that's addictive. And also addictive is when I stop taking it I feel even worse than when I started unless I get another hit. Right. Okay. Right. Microdosing, you're

taking days off from the day one and what people say basically is after a while what they do is lower their dose not raise it. Lower the, not raise it. Lower the dose, not raise it. That's interesting. That's right. Presumably because your body and brain know how to use it better and you're more familiar with it and you actually need less.

Oh. Holy, I wish they did. It's like when you need less yarn as you get better at sewing or making scarves or something. I wish my brain did that with cocaine. What's the different, so George tell me, how did you meet Jim and what was the process

of you guys meeting and having the similar interest in this? I met Jim in 1990 at a psychedelics convention and walked up to him and asked him if he'd be my mentor and he said, who are you? And then we became, and then because we live a mile and a half apart and our families bonded as well, we became close real world friends.

But then in 2007 or so we wrote a review of a book called, a book review of DMT, the spirit molecule. And then fast forward to 2015, where Jim's daughters in particular really wanted him to write this book about the idea of multiple personalities, that everybody has different parts or selves, and that when you realize everyone has the parts or selves, then your life gets a lot better. So we spent five years writing that book together, and we're really proud of it. And there's a lot of implications for understanding psychedelics, high and low trips based on this idea that everyone you know has different cells that

they move in and out of throughout their day. I'm different with my daughter than I am with my old friends than I am with a client. And it really kind of switches. So when we finished that book, then it became clear that in a certain sense, Jim has already written the book on microdosing by making this all possible. But then it was time to take that and actually make a book book out of that. And then through some hard work and a couple of different proposals. And we found the right agent, a guy named James Delvigne, who had the brilliant idea of making the book a question and answer format, sort of like what to expect when you're expecting like what we're doing. Exactly.

That's much easier. So we've been friends since 1990, really. And now we've written two books with each other. Have you ever, I like to, I'm curious about the DMT. If we could talk about that a hair too, because I didn't know you guys wrote a book about DMT. Oh, they did a book review. Book review. So what, can we microdose DMT?

Well. So in the book, we have three different classifications of substances and again, it's like somebody has to draw the line and make some rules, even though we're going to make some mistakes and there are people who have different interests that are going to say, no, you can microdose anything. So around DMT, we say people sometimes speak of it in microdosing terms, but the thing about microdosing is that you don't have a hallucinogenic, you don't have a full psychedelic experience.

The problem with DMT, and I experienced this at a party where my friend's mom had died, and he had on a DMT vapen and he exhaled, and I smelled that molecule like six feet away and part of me was immediately very high remembering the smell of DMT and my brain was on yelp. So for us for now, it's not in the, yeah, you can definitely microdose this.

It's in the people sometimes say you can microdose this. So we generally keep it to psilocybin, LSD and the new kid on the block that we're impressed with is Amanita muscaria, the red and white Christmas mushroom, which is usually presented as being toxic because if you don't prepare it correctly, it is toxic, but it's also got a whole worldwide tradition and Mario Brothers and Alice in Wonderland and it seems to be pretty good for microdosing and it's legal. Explain this new mushroom to me, Jim and Jordan. Okay, Amanita muscaria, two words, is the mushroom and you've seen it in red with the white dots.

Yeah. And again, unlike psilocybin or LSD, overdoses are very, very toxic. We mean toxic as in you either go crazy or you can die. Unlike psilocybin or LSD, overdoses are very, very toxic. And we mean toxic as in you either go crazy or you can die. All doses, small doses do not do what psilocybin or LSD do. They do other things. They're good for energy, they have some other properties.

And I'm a little less enamored of them than Jordan. And in the book, we stay away from them except to say people are using them. Here's one of the other problems, okay? We're dealing with if it's good, let's make a fake version of it and sell it. That's what you see. And people were selling, Amanita got a little hot excitement last year, and there were companies selling Amanita gummies, etc., etc. What was in the gummies sometimes was psilocybin. And there were also people selling psilocybin when they were really selling aminida because aminida is legal. And the company put out a bunch of gummies and candy bars with stuff in them. And it didn't say it was psychedelics. It just said, it's kind of like psychedelics if you read the type, the type kind of. And people ended up in the hospital in about 20 different states. Wow. So, so it's a in the 60s, there was a very simple way of dealing with your with your pot dealer.

Trust. Can you trust your dealer? And if you wouldn't be a dealer, you shouldn't deal that. Unfortunately, we're getting back to those good old days. We're back. The old-fashioned drug dealers back, Jimbo. I like it. Analog. You don't want to buy stuff from a gas station. You don't want to buy prepackaged stuff from gas stations. That's where most of this happened. We didn't know what was in it.

Over 100 people went to the hospital and there was a big FDA recall and we're still not exactly sure what was in it. It was a big FDA recall and we're still not exactly sure it was in it and it was a problem and the other problem is that people are using the word microdosing to mean so many things you know in so many different contexts and so they just throw it on there to increase cells. Yeah what about what's the I've been seeing on on the streets this synthetic LSD and psilocybin thing it's but but synthetic. It's not like a like in stores or I've been seeing people Kind of illegal. It's like kind of like a change what it what tell me about this

Well, LSD is synthetic. Oh true It starts from something called ergotamine But it basically gets through a number of steps and it's something you make in a lab, period. Psilocybin, best known for making coming out of a mushroom. All the research, all the news you've had, all the exciting moments that people have talked about their laboratory and medical and legal use of psilocybin has all been synthetic. And finally somebody said, well some of us have said that someone actually tested, what's the difference between synthetic psilocybin and psilocybin out of a mushroom? And the answer is, and Jordan kind of

alluded to it, when you take a mushroom you're taking psilocybin and some other things that nature has been working on for a couple million years to make the whole thing work. And it turns out synthetic, no surprise to any of us, isn't as good as real. Right. Wow, no way. Okay, revelation. You know. Something that's been worked on for millions of years. Nah, fuck it. Let's make something new. Yeah. Let's make it plastic. Let's make it plastic. Let's put it in a wrapper. Well, also synthetic is a laboratory. It does take time. It does take money. If I were investing, it in a wrapper. Well, also, synthetic is a laboratory. It does take time. It does take money.

If I were investing not in psilocybin or psilocybin companies, but in mushroom kits for homes, that's the growing industry. And it's because it's easy. And again, people are really good at inventing things that make things easy. And so the stuff on the street, if someone says I guarantee it's synthetic, then I believe them and wouldn't want it. Well, yeah.

Haven't there been some synthetic LSD analogs that were harmful that have been out there? We do talk about it in the book, like I'm forgetting what it's called right now. ALD, there's some things that turn into psilocybin, psilocybin in the body. And there are things that are turned into LSD. One is called ALD 52. And there's another one, PLSD. Both of those turn into LSD. And they what we're called in in a kind of over-the-counter dishonest way they're called a research chemicals which is which is made by labs in China and some of them are perfectly adequate and good but they're they that's what they're called they're

analogs which is they're similar to and get around the law in certain ways. Yeah. Do you mind my question? What was the turning point in your life where you wanted to make this your whole life mission? I didn't do it on purpose. No. Do you mean psychedelics or microdosing? Let's go with first go with microdosing. Let's go to psychedelics first and or microdosing? Let's go with first go with microdosing, then we'll go… let's go to psychedelics first, then microdosing. The origin. The origin.

The origin. The origin is an easy answer, which is I'm 20, I'm just ending up in graduate schools to avoid the draft for Vietnam, so I'm not really very interested in graduate school. But a couple of weeks before that in Paris, my old psychology teacher whose name then was Richard Alpert, who became Ram Dass, is passing through on his way to a world conference or something or other, and he says, hey, the greatest thing in the world has happened to me, and I wanted to share it with you. And I thought, that's cool. I'm about to get one of those great stories. And instead of a story, he reaches in his pocket and comes out with this little bottle of pills. And I'm so straight, I don't drink coffee. Okay.

Yeah. I love you too. So he hands me a pill and I am thinking, uh, and I take it. And it's still a sigh, but it's at a moderate dose. And then for the next few hours, some of my cherished beliefs of how rigid I am, and they're accurate, I kind of dissolve, they just weaken. And I realized there's a whole other way of looking at the world. And a week later I followed RomDos to Copenhagen and I do this again. And then a few weeks later I'm off

in the United States and I meet people who are doing LSD research near the Stanford campus and they get that having had psilocybin with RomDoss, I'm kind of, you know, okay. And I end up having a high dose, curated, guided, supported living room, beautiful setting, etc. Best way of having a psychedelic. And it totally changes my belief system about everything that's important. And so the rest of my life, I've been running off of that session. Oh my, I'm gonna clap to that actually.

And unbelievable. How long? We love it. How long after that did you go to your first Grateful Dead concert? Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. What, tell me about Leary.

What's your take on Leary's studies? Well, those are two questions. Leary and Leary's studies. Tim Leary was one of the most charming people you've ever met. And what people said of Tim, I think it's true, is everyone, even his worst enemies liked him. He was wonderful, and he was sweet and open and He was wonderful, and he was sweet and open and kind of got, kind of wasn't sure what we could do with psychedelics in those days except that it changed people's lives in what he felt positive way, and why not make it for everybody? And that everybody got him in trouble.

But before that, they were doing a study, you know, nice researchers, and they were finding out if you gave psychedelics to prisoners, would they be less likely to show up again in prison? And the nice thing about that study is it takes a while before people who get out of jail get rebusted or not. And what Tim said is it looks like either we're really improving people and they don't really see a need to be criminals or, and then the little leery smile, or we're making really smart criminals. That's so good. That's so good.

And what's also cool about that research was that Tim and the other people involved took the substance. That's why Tim didn't become popular with us. That's amazing. Yeah. And so, and then when they threw him out of Harvard, it was kind of like saying, well, now you have no restrictions. You don't have to be sensible.

You don't have to write papers that use polysyllabic words that nobody cares about. You can just go out and tell people whatever you want and since you're charming you're a great lecturer and you have all this cool new stuff to talk about and it became you know he became the kind of Johnny Appleseed of psychedelics in that way. Were you intimidated by him because he could talk to a room like that? No, no because I come out of a polysyllabic family, so it's kind of, you know, like, you know, as musicians will often tell you, you know, my mother and my grandmother were musicians, so we just did music.

So in my family, we did talk. So, and also Tim, Tim was this very very sweet charming guy and took enormous risks with his own life and with his own kind of... Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't follow Tim because it would be far too scary because he was such a great risk taker. But he was a charming, lovely person. And then when he got out of prison, he had a great risk taker. But he was a charming, lovely person. And then when he got out of prison, he had a whole other set of things that he talked about and people were interested. So he's more of a kind of a peace seeker of psychedelics, it might be a way of saying.

What about you, Jordan? What got you into psychedelics? Starting in junior high school, I was already interested in parapsychology and, you know, Psy and whether telekinesis and, and all these sorts of things. And then when I got to college, it was philosophy. And very soon I was, uh, I, I had friends who were pagans or neo pagans. And so I was in that world and there were substances happening, but I was reading Leary very early on and writing articles in the college newspaper

way back when, and then I was 22 and I went to a festival and I got to meet Tim Leary and a guy named Bill Eichmann and some other people. And so, I've been focused on all of the different ways that human potential could help save the planet since I was in college and stopped working for Ralph Nader because I didn't think politics would ever make a difference. So what I'm so thrilled about now is that it's really clear that microdosing can help heal people and unleash their potential and make them nicer people.

Yeah. I mean, that's the goal. I was an asshole before I started taking micro dosing. I was, because I was an alcoholic. It got me off a coke for the period time. I'm kind of back on it now, but it helped me. Microdose helped me kind of take my ego away to kind of rewire your brain. Why? Everyone talks about, like, that's why I want to talk about the DMT thing. This, the creator idea, like you see your maker and it's always like people rewire. For me, it was like, like these women plugging in these different wires. Right. The machine elves. Yeah. Machine elves. Will you explain that to me and what what do you think that is?

That's it this is a phrase Terrence mechanic came up with the idea of Translinguistic machine elves when you take DMT and once he put that out there a lot of other people Began seeing the same thing So it's hard to tell if this is just a very successful artist He's living rent-free in everybody's head or if these are actually there and real I can't say that the last time I took a large dose of DMT. I got busted by the machine Oh, they were like constabulary

They say you have to stay in this waiting room until you come down human beings aren't allowed at this level. So I haven't really taken it since. Oh my god. Alright, I'm not welcome. I'll leave. That brings good points like about memory. So do we basically believe something someone told me told us versus what actually happened in a sense like when my parents like I keep on forgetting if I remember the story or if my parents told me the story. Right, right. Well the answer is memory is its own little trip and then the kind of latest stuff about memory is every time you remember something it's being rewritten slightly. So that memory kind of slides usually

in a direction where you end up being better in your memory than you were. That's kind of like why people when they describe a crime they'll get fine for an account. And it's also full of facts and real events and so forth. But the question of what you was full of facts and real events and so forth. But the question of what you, well, if I say to myself, I'm having this incredible awareness of what's the true nature of reality, and I'm on LSD, and I am actually now remembering when I did that, okay? And when I did that, I did know everything.

I was really very impressed with myself. I knew everything. And then as I came down, the image was, if you've ever, we've seen a coral reef and it's got like a thousand species. And we are like one little parrotfish. And imagine someone says to us, some researcher, hey, parrotfish, can you describe the ecology of the reef? And you've lived here all your life. These are all the people you know. You must understand the reef.

And the parrotfish says, are you fucking crazy? In the size of my brain, right? It's like the size of a peanut. How could I possibly know about this whole reef? And the answer is, well, if you were in a high state of a psychedelic, you might have it there, but you wouldn't be able to take it back because it doesn't fit. Wow. So true. That's crap.

I feel full. I was wanting... Talk about brain. I got a couple more questions for you, I'll let you guys go, I know you guys are busy. I want to know why don't, why can't we use the full potential of our brain? And why do we need these drugs to have? Like how they say you only use 10% of your brain at any time?

True or? Yeah, that's, oh, the 10%? No one believes that. This is not true. So, yeah, will you explain that to my audience? Yeah, it's not true. So relax. Okay, cool. Okay. Great explanation. Well, basically you use what you need and you're set up. Remember, remember to, to you, for you to be aware of that you're part of the divine, everything will mean you'll probably miss lunch.

And God is everywhere. And if you look at your lunch, your lunch says, hello, I'm your lunch and so forth. But you miss lunch and then your body starts to feel it's a little malnourished. And that if you stay high long enough, you literally, again, you get dehydrated, you get literally, you can starve yourself to death by staying high. So the system is, you're designed to function at a certain level. I mean, for instance, when you, and I'm sure you know this feeling you're not feeling really up to it and then you're on stage and you're gonna start to play and you click in and you're there and

You're great. And then you're done. And after a while you're still feeling great And after a while you get back to that you weren't feeling so great Because you didn't need that particular part of yourself functioning full until you were on stage. Right. Exactly. I feel that completely. What were you saying, Jordan?

We have also an answer to your question. Again, it's when you're taking a psychedelic, the default mode network, the way your brain normally works, seems to be suspended, things get desynchronized. So you do open up to more parts of your brain talking to each other, more neurons and more levels communicating and more systems of neurons communicating. But the higher and more intense that goes, like Jim just said, the less chance you're going to be able to do something in the real world in real time

or remember it. So this is why when we're thinking that a lot of people doing sports and creative pursuits will probably be trying microdosing at some point, the reason why taking three times a microdose, you know, if some is good, a lot's got to be a lot better. It's like, no, you won't paint. You're not going to do your music, you're going to eventually just lie down or go for a walk. So there's this zone that microdosing puts you in where you can do what you normally do and be really effective. And also, as Jim was saying, when you shift into that other part of you, that gets back to this book, you know, your symphony itself. And it's like micro dosing helps you see the different parts of you and helps you be in the right mind at the right time more often. That's

how we define mental health is being the right mind at the right time. So when you're a little bit more flexible and your brain's a little bit more open up, you know, you have more possibilities of what you can do. But if you take too much, you're just going to become, you know, you're gonna want to sit down or lie down or you know do some kind of thing That's just pleasurable or listen to music and you know not have to think or work or do anything So the question is how do we get to that state of euphoric that the microdose gives us this contentment without taking drugs Well, I have an actual very profound comment. However, I didn't understand the question because you sound so excited.

Sorry. How do we get to that state of contention when we're on the microdose dose the psilocybin in our everyday life How do we get to that point of kind of happiness or stillness? How can we get to that point in our life into our everyday life without taking a drug? Well, what you need to do is you need to have a guru and a guru will help you Charging too much like how much Good advice that it will change your life. In fact, what I have done is every Thursday at four o'clock on my radio show, which you could sign up for. For $225 a lesson.

A month. This happiness could be yours as well. I mean, you're kind of asking how do we manage in this life? Well, Paul Stamets is a very simple, Paul Stamets is a mycologist mushroom guy. Yeah, he's terrific. And what he says is people who use psychedelics are nicer. Okay? That's a good start. That is a good start.

And as you get nicer, the world works better around you. And when you begin to also be aware that the trees are conscious and the grass is conscious, different levels, I'm just reading about trees who communicate with each other and help each other more than people do. But there's a whole other way of looking at the world where it's working and you fit yourself into it versus I have no idea that I'm part of the world therefore I have to push and struggle and I have to get over, you know, I have to push people aside because there's not enough room, all those kind of things. So when you stop believing things that aren't true, it's easier. So basic.

So hard to do. Now, some people do say that meditation and mindfulness will help you get in these flow states more often, and that if you're going to microdose, you want to set your intentions and you want to journal on afterwards, you want to integrate it, And other people basically approach it like it's a magic pill, and it still works. So I mean, the big question is, how do we get and flow more often? And the answer is, how do we get out of our own way more often?

If you believe that the natural human state is one of joy and peace and productivity, mostly we're messing ourselves up with bad, weird thoughts, and we're in the past, and we're in the future. We're not doing all those things that all the productivity and happiness gurus tell us about being in the present and in the moment. Well, microdosing helps to be more present, and helps you be more in the moment, and helps you to move into that creative self more easily.

But notice the word is helps. It helps. You still have to do your side, which is to want it and to be focused on. Right. Mm-hmm. This is... I mean, one of the things that we say about microdosing, because it's true, is you get better sex.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay? And years ago, someone wrote me a note, many years ago, and I was just getting started. He said, hey, man, if people figure out what this does to libido, you have a real product. Oh, yeah. Those real product. Oh yeah.

Those do sell. Jimbo's just pushing out ropes over here, bud. What we've realized is there are two ways you can have better sex. One is more libido, you know, you're just more turned on and so forth. The other is you're in better communication. You're less in the way of hearing the other person

and feeling the other person and being with the other person and wanting to give them pleasure. And that level of communication improves your relationship and your sex. Both of those ways make total sense and those are two of the ways in which microdosing, again, Jordan's correct word here, helps. Doesn't do. Yeah. Or it just helps being present, right? Because intimacy

is presence. Exactly. Wow. You've got, honestly, I feel like I should be paying you for this therapy lesson you guys are giving me because this is exactly what I needed. Well, don't worry the bill is in the mail. Yeah. I think I just got it in my email actually. So before we leave, tell us what the So before we leave that, tell us tell us what the name of the book is, tell us when it's coming out and why people should read it. Okay Jordan, do you want to do the pitch? The name of the book is micro dosing for health, healing and enhanced performance. It's coming out from St. Martin's Essentials.

It'll be out in hardcover in the United States, softcover in England two days later. It'll be out February 18th here and an ebook. We have an audio book. We have a great reader. His name is Kaleo Griffith, who just is a fantastic reader. And with the Q&A format, we think people will be very much into it.

And if you want to preorder or learn more about the book, we have a great URL, which is just microdosingbook, microdosingbookoneword.com. And that will take you right to the website where you can ask a question. We've got a blog going and see what we have some fantastic people like Andrew Weil and talk about how great the book is. Michael Pollan, we have a quote from him on the cover. He has a great book about it. It's easy to find at microdosingbook.com. You guys got lucky with that URL, bud. Yeah, I can't believe that wasn't already. Yeah, actually, it was April of this year and this tech stuff falls on me and I was like, oh crap, I hadn't thought of a domain. We don't have one, we'll never find one. And then I just

thought, what about microdosing book? And I was like, bingo. I hadn't thought of a domain. We don't have one, we'll never find one. And then I just thought, what about microdosing book? And I was like, bingo. And then if you spell it with a capital M and a capital B when you're in social media, it's kind of like the name of the book and the URL on one package. Yeah, we've got one. I love it. I got one quick.

I got one last. I got some good real estate. Do you think Jesus and all the, was just tripping his dick off? Like what's, how do you get like curious about that? Or just any of any of those religious like prophets, leaders, did think who thought outside the box. What's your take on that?

Well, my take on it, I'm just thinking of a couple of high spiritual beings. One in particular who was running a beautiful ashram in Los Angeles, just a wonderful woman, and one of her flock was a big LSD user, and he got her to take LSD. And he's waiting, and she says to him, okay. And he says, maybe I'll give you more. And what you watched is as he as he would get higher She would get higher And oh no the other way around she wasn't using LSE she just tracked him no matter where he went on his psychedelic trip and

What he got is she knew the that part of the of the mind without Needing you know without with only the you know, maybe 20 years of meditation that she put in. So, the answer is, what did Jesus take? The answer is probably whatever was around like the rest of us. And, however, he also was able to retain what he felt and what he knew. So the other is? So there's high spiritual beings in every tradition, and when you listen to them, their tradition falls away.

It's kind of like if you're climbing a mountain and there's 10 different companies that sells you gear The top of the mountain is actually the same no matter what gear you've got. Yeah So there's a There's a book called the immortality key, which is the most recent comprehensive book It's by bryan marescu And it looks at all of the different types of psychedelic beer and wine people were using all of the different types of psychedelic beer and wine people were using in the ancient Near East and Mid East for thousands of years. And there's pretty good evidence that some of the things like the Ellicinian mysteries and other things were actually based on psychedelics. And then, you know, you go back even farther and you think about Moses and the Israelites and the calves and the

golden calf and the tablets. What was going on there? So Terence McKenna at one point speculated that, look, the tribes of Israel had cattle with them and mushrooms are caprophilic, meaning dung-loving. So maybe what they were calling mana was actually mushrooms and maybe people were all, and we don't know, and it's pure speculation, but it's, you know, there may have been major psychedelic inputs into religions throughout history. And so this book, Brian Muraski, The Immortality Key, is a really good, popular book that kind of goes through the latest thinking on this. And there's a wonderful recent article. They have taken a cup from ancient Egypt way before and scraped

the inside of the cup and done all their little amazing analyses and found that the cup contained some psychedelic plant residues, some human blood residues, and a few other things. And this was a drinking cup. And if you then look at Egyptian religion and you look at those gods and you think, oh, I've seen things like that. Oh, yeah, that guy. Yeah. I mean, if you look at the Egyptian gods, a lot of them were like human, and then there's this, you know, whatever happened. And then you think, yeah, I've seen that. In fact, I've looked in there, I've been there. Yeah, he was a... And then you think, yeah, I've seen that. In fact, I've looked in there, I've been there.

And the other related point is that we're pretty sure now that DMT is endogenous in the human brain, that under enough duress, maybe things like birth and death, that you can squirt your own DMT in your brain. And so, that might also explain some of the visions that people have had. Interesting. So again, the nice thing is it is two ways to get to that place with help and with less help, right? God I just want to hang out with you guys. That's what I while you guys are studying. I just want to be a fly on the wall Yeah, yeah Jim, thank, Jordan. Thank you so much for your time. Really means a lot. Well, I'm on it. You're

doing the Lord's work. Gentlemen, keep doing it. Keep fighting the good fight. We'll be rooting you on. All right. Thank you so much. Good night, guys. Thanks for being on the show. Appreciate it. I'm gonna put your music on. I'll put it on. I'll read your book again. Your publicist gave it to me. I'll be happy. Thank you. Later, guys.

All right. Take care, guys. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye. Your publicist gave it to me. I'll be happy. Thank you. Later, guys. All right. Take care, guys. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye. Thanks.

You've just tuned into the World Saving Podcast with Andy Frasco, produced by Andy Frasco, Joe Angelhowe, and Chris Lorenz. Please help us save the world by subscribing and rating the show on volume.com, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you're listening so we can spread the word and save the world. Follow us on Instagram at World Saving Podcasts for updates, for tour dates, merch, and whatever crazy special event Andy thinks of next, check out andyfrasco.com. Special thanks to this week's guest, courtesy of our talent booker, Mara Davis, That's Me or Andy's other mother. Be your best and we'll talk to you next week for another great episode of the World Saving Podcast.