Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #153 Tero Isokauppila

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

Tero Isokauppila is the founder and CEO of Four Sigmatic. We discuss life growing up in Finland and he drops a ton of ancient wisdom passed down from the elders in his community. Of course we dive into all things mushrooms and get into saunas as a tool for wellness.  Connect with Tero Isokauppila Website | http://www.teroisokauppila.com/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/FourSigmatic/ Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/iamtero/   Check out Four Sigmatic | https://us.foursigmatic.com/   Help support the podcast by visiting our sponsors: Ancestralsupplements - Grass-Fed Colostrum  https://ancestralsupplements.com Use codeword VISIT  for 10% off / Only Valid through Shopify Option   OneFarm Formally (Waayb CBD) www.onefarm.com/kyle (Get 15% off everything using code word KYLE at checkout)   Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Instagram | https://bit.ly/3asW9Vm   Subscribe to the Kyle Kingsbury Podcast Itunes | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY IHeartRadio | https://ihr.fm/2Ib3HCg Google Play Music | https://bit.ly/2HPdhKY    

Hello friends. Today's guest is a very special human. Taro is a guy that I've been trying to get on this show for a while and he's a very busy man, CEO and founder of Four Sigmatic Mushrooms, which is probably one of the greatest mushroom companies ever on the countryside and has a ton of ancient wisdom from the elders in his community. And we dive into all things mushrooms from lion's mane, cordyceps to all those goodies. And of course we dive into psilocybin and much more. We actually take a deep dive into sauna, which as he points out in the podcast is the only Finnish word in the English language, sauna. So he has a wealth of knowledge in a number of cool things, all related to health and wellness. Just a beautiful human, beautiful soul. And we have a great conversation in this podcast. I know you guys are going to enjoy it. Please leave us a five-star rating so other people can see it with one or two ways that the show has helped you out in life. Check out my website kingsboo.com and check out our sponsors. Today we are brought to you by Ancestral

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everything in the store. Thank you guys for tuning in and let me know what you think at living with the Kingsbury's on Instagram. All right. We're clapped in. We've been, I had to get us going cause we got a cleaning lady here and we're at our, my buddy, Justin's our buddy, Justin's place. And I definitely want to get, uh, there's a lot I want to get to, but we're also,

you know, like when you have like these conversations pre podcast and you're like, fuck, I want to talk about it on the podcast. I want to talk about that on the podcast. Definitely want to talk saunas. Definitely want to talk about your culture, your ancestry,

where you come from. Also want to dive in. We just did Paul Saladino here, the carnivore doc, and dive into a lot of the knowledge that you have on mushrooms, all things mushrooms. Obviously, we're going to talk about your company, but this was really cool. This is a gift that you gave me. And I wanted you to break this down because I think this is a good thing, a cool thing to share. Yeah, that's a Kuksa or Kuksi, depending on which Sami tribe or which part of the northern part of Scandinavia you come from.

And that is a classic mug. And just to highlight a few things. So it's made out of gnarled birch. So it's the same tree that the chaga mushroom grows in. So the tree kind of gets sick. So it kind of curves. So it gets denser. So when it gets super dense, it's easy to carve out. So you kind of gets sick. So it kind of curves, so it gets denser. So when it gets super dense,

it's easy to carve out. So you kind of chop that. And there's about 20 work stages to do that, including like soaking in coffee. But you never have to wash that. You just rinse it hot or cold. And what's cool about that mug is besides the ancestry of very few people make these mugs anymore they make a bunch of them in china you can get them on amazon just like machine made but it's not from they crack really easily so one of the things is is having these little twirls here show the density of the wood um but the other part is i grew up in the boy scouts and camping and being in the forest it's really cool because you always have it hanging so we didn't get to a stream you can just get some spring water but it doesn't make a noise because it doesn't bang there's no metal anything it's just wood so it's it's silent mug

that you can just hang and then just have hot cold great in the winter i just in in there in lapland and it was like really cold and it's amazing then. And summer, spring, great then. So it's pretty handy. Yeah, it sounds good for Burning Man and hunting trips alike. Exactly. And there's a special feeling about like high quality handmade items

that can be valued beyond just the functionality. And what I mean with that is, we have these rituals in life and appreciating those rituals. And let's say what's like drinking coffee or matcha or just water, really good spring water. When you hold it in a good glass or a mug, you appreciate it more. I feel like it's, it's just, it's intentional to me, to me, at least that's how I look at it. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, you're saying to, to you, and that's certainly true. I mean, there, there's a, that was a download I had after, after ayahuasca once was,

I was talking about that, like why in dieta do we come off caffeine? And they said, well, you're trying to get into this deeper restful state and you don't want to be charged up. And I was like, but is there something inherently wrong? Because it is a plant. Arguably, it's a drug. I mean, it's a drug. It has a lot of drug-like factors that go into that.

And what the shaman told me was, it's something that should be used with respect and reverence just like you use ayahuasca it should be something that you have a ritual with and an intention behind not just i wake up this is a part of my daily routine i'm going to slam this thing and go get after life but like actually to take a moment and appreciate what that plant's doing for you yeah i couldn't agree more it's um when you have a coffee by a campfire after doing some forest work or hiking and you prepare it and you make the wood

and just the preparation or whisking matcha, it's so much more special than just like in a hurry, grabbing a big cup. The other thing I want to say about psychedelics and caffeine, although there is a time and place for those, but understanding the energy and I love that we're starting with this the most part but caffeine is very like masculine energy it's very like blinders on linear right and and a lot of not all but many of these psychedelics

are more feminine energy of expanding and very non-linear so it just be good to mindful is that herbalism there are there are uppers and there's downers there is the yin and the yang and understanding the time and place something that might be awesome might not be awesome at that moment and knowing the time and place so we love in health to demonize something like caffeine is good or bad coffee is good or bad nicotine you know good or bad often it's neither it's just a time and place and yeah and having that right time and place so yeah how you how you create space for the medicine correct not just taking off work and things like that all important but creating space around what you're putting in your body so that it actually does its job and you get the effect that you're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. I think more

and more people are waking up to the set and the setting, but also like the work around it. It's not just that ceremony. It's so much more. Yeah, brother. Well, let's dive in. Let's dive into, let's dive into background. We're already jumped in. I want to, I want to get your background, talk about where you're from, talk about the history of the land and just what got you here. Obviously, I've read a couple of your books and understand this, but I think it's a really cool story to see. And that's something that I always start with is just seeing

what brought this person here today. And you have one of my favorite companies on the planet. You're obviously super dialed in and there's a lot to discuss among mushrooms in general. But talk about life growing up. Yeah, I grew up in Finland on our family farm that has been with the family for at least since 1619. Finland is only 100 years old. So we were part of Sweden for 650 years and a little over 100 years of Russia. So it's actually the farm has even gone through a few different rulings.

But growing up at the land near Nokia, it's in the south and a couple hours north from Helsinki. And yeah, it's funny. It's actually the town town is even named after our family, family kind of heritage. So it's been there for a while. My mom taught physiology and anatomy, nursing, and my dad is an agronomist. So dad was soil, forest, land. Mom was humans, physiology. And that was the lineage that I was brought up with. But as far as life, very different than most of America.

Probably the closest would be like, think of Maine, maybe Vermont, that kind of scenery and vibe. But the Nordic culture is definitely quite different. We would shower and drink spring water. We would pick up our old wild berries and freeze them but like the same kind of freezers that now a lot of people use for ice baths those we would have three four of those just full of mushrooms you would you know you would hunt moose where i grew up and further up north reindeer for meat and then we had like heirloom cows so we had had limousine type, like nicer breeds. And then obviously mushroom, that's a big thing. And then oats. So a lot of like certain oats and potatoes as a form of carbohydrate. So definitely not carbohydrate bashful life. But yeah, I went to a foraging

school. So my elementary school was like almost think of like Waldorf Steiner type stuff. But my great grandfather started this environmental school that I attended. And I thought my life was very normal. As a kid, you don't know, you see TV, like, you know, Hollywood and all this stuff, but it just seems not real. So to me, life was very normal. It was not a big deal. You would cross country ski to school, cross the frozen lake. No, I'm serious. And you would cross country ski through the frozen lake to school. And that was normal. It's not a big deal. The other kids did it as well. So-

Everybody else is doing it. It's the new thing, right? Yeah, but there's a lot of wisdom. It took me to get a little older to appreciate some of it because life is really tough. I feel like a lot of wisdom. But it took me to get a little older to appreciate some of it because life is really tough. I feel like a lot of people who grew up in a city and start waking up to the power of nature

and value of farming, agriculture, permaculture, herbalism, they're like, this is cool, I'm going to do it. But it's really hard. And like, I know you hunt. So like hunting is really hard. It's really hard. And like, I know you hunt, so like hunting is really hard. It's not easy. Or you could make it easy. I'm not saying that,

but generally speaking, life living off the land is really difficult. And a lot of people will have a rude awakening when they try to do that for an extended time period, especially in a place where the nature is also harsh. It's quite a lot easier and and let's say hawaii and yeah then alaska yeah and then although hawaii has its own challenges but um but yeah that's kind of it yeah that's incredible and you moved here when did you move

here about five years ago but uh you had already started four sigmatic before coming over yeah i've i've lived in 10 us is my 10th country I'm living in. And I was living in first in Switzerland when I started. And then partly because we didn't have outside investors, we're broke, you know, we had like 50K in our bank account to buy inventory basically, and that's it. I moved to Asia,

kind of live cheaper with my savings in the beginning. But yeah, so I've been here five years and it's been a fun journey. Well, let's talk Four Sigmatic. Let's get into this. Obviously, you're exposed. It's a part of your culture. You understand probably a great deal more than most people from a very young age, the power of herbs, the power of mushrooms. And of course we'll, we'll talk psilocybin, but I'm just,

there are so many more medicinal mushrooms out there that have carried a lot of value in things like Vedic cultures and Chinese medicine that aren't necessarily, I mean, people still have this idea that it's, yeah, but that's that, you know? And it's like, well, how can we validate those things? And it's like, well, how can we validate those things? And it's like, no, no, no. People have understood the health and the value of these things for thousands of years. We don't need a double-blind study to necessarily validate that.

Now, of course, we have all the science in the world now to validate this stuff. I'm sure you've seen Fantastic Fungi. Yeah, fucking incredible. So I know once that's mainstream and not just in select cities, that'll really be a beautiful eye-opener for a lot of people about the power of these medicines. But I guess just break down some of that.

Because of your exposure at a young age, did you know that there could be a marketplace for this? How did you formulate the idea that I there could be a marketplace for this like how did how did you formulate like the idea that i'm going to bring this to the masses um that's a great question the answer is i did not know that there would be a marketplace and even five years ago when i brought it to the u.s i wanted to believe that there was a marketplace for it i did not know for sure that there was a marketplace i grew up more with culinary mushrooms. So that's the chanterelles, the russells and the boletes and stuff. Definitely

was a marketplace for that. And about 15 years ago, me and my friend won an innovation award for discovering this like rare mushroom and this like really expensive mushroom. So I knew for culinary mushrooms, there was serving the 1%, the Michelin star restaurants. But, and, you know, having exposure to Asian cultures, I knew there was a massive market there for functional mushrooms, but getting it to Western world,

that was more mycophobic, scared of mushrooms. I did not know that that existed. And for me, the draw was definitely through optimal human performance. That was the thing. I just knew, even before I started Four Sigmatic, I was thinking, what is meaningful to me? And there was a few things that came across real strong. One is that I hated hype that didn't have at least a thought to it. It was just for the sake of something like the

latest, greatest exotic berry is going to solve all your problems. And that's why even my company's name Four Sigmatic, it just means kind of the top 50 to 100 most researched foods in the world. And funny enough, the most researched foods in the world are also often have huge cultural heritage. So, you know, the green tea and the coffee and the coconut and the hemp, the cinnamon, but also same way, like the ashwagandha and the reishi and the turmeric and, you know, all that stuff. So that was really important for me. The other one was like, what, from a physiology point of view, what is the 80-20? If we can't physiology point of view, what is the 80-20? If we can't fix it all immediately, what is the 80-20? And I came with three answers. One was immunity. I thought it was highly underrated. People only cared about immunity when they had

like a flu or something, but that impacts like obviously cancer, autoimmune, hyperactive, passive immune response. The other one was hormonal response. So partly in the nervous system, but partly also how we produce hormones in our glands and how does that impact everything we do? It's like almost the operating system. So that was just massive. And just kind of going through that list, I realized like, what would I recommend to someone? Like what would be my top five prescriptions for all these things? And mushrooms were part of it all through gut health, through immunomodulation to, you know, beat psychedelics and non-psychedelics to the brain. And that's where I realized is, okay, like this is, this is just something people,

not saying that mushrooms are a cure all for everything, but they're definitely underappreciated and they have so many more powers than just putting it on top of a salad or a pizza. So yeah, and nobody's really doing it. So there's a little bit of a leap of faith. Yeah, that's a beautiful leap of faith. And I'm super, I have a lot of gratitude for the fact,

like people like you that take that, the Paul Stamets of the world, that have had um transformative experiences and understand that there's a lot of medicine there it's it's cool to see because it's something that i think like you know anytime there's like a perfect storm and obviously this isn't to say like all the conditions are right that's why you've done so well it's not that it at all but you know with this health and wellness movement people becoming more conscious. And of course this always comes from a place of crisis.

Like diseases are higher than ever. Obesity is higher than ever, but people actually are paying attention to what they're putting in their body now. And there is this whole gaping hole of food substance that can be utilized to make us better, to help create wellness. And you guys have carved out a big space in the space for that and it's some of my i mean over the years i've weeded the garden more than i've added shit in i think when you get to a certain place in health and wellness you realize health doesn't come from the next great thing that you're going to add to it and getting rid of 90 of the shit in your

supplement cabinet is probably a good idea, but really sticking to what works. And I mean, shameless plug for your company that I have no affiliation with, I fucking bring your products with me everywhere I go. Yeah, it's in your bag. Yeah, it's in my bag. It's in my fanny pack. It's on my person every fucking day because I don't want to be without it and i really feel a difference you know i've done the uh the stamets microdosing protocol for the last month and i use your um lion's mane packs and uh cordyceps from on at the shrimp tech sport how much niacin do you take uh you know that varies so i my um and flush or non-flush? It's flush.

So that's where it gets tricky. And I'll play with my dose from anywhere from a true micro of 100 milligrams to more of a concert dose of like 500 milligrams. And each dose contains 100 milligrams of the niacin. So it'll fluctuate too with it. Yeah. And I've played with higher doses of niacin so it'll fluctuate too with it yeah um and i've played with higher doses of niacin something i want to talk with you about with as we get into saunas is that niacin combo there because it's something i've yeah i just more cola talk about but yeah i just did it a couple weeks ago in

amsterdam it's powerful yeah you can also combine it with exercise it doesn't have to be the sauna okay to get the similar thing but it's definitely powerful it's on yeah well i want to dive into that but i'll just real quick like the the the thing that i noticed was like everything especially as i'm obviously we've got hand pans here we just did a bria on the podcast yesterday so you guys will release around the same time um my creativity has gone through the fucking roof i'm listening'm listening and I've never thought of myself as somebody who was great at music, never played instruments when I was a kid. I was football and fighting pretty much.

And on this last month protocol with playing more musical instruments, Native American flute and painting, I can just see huge changes in a very short period of time. The ability to rewire the brain rapidly through intention, not just, I'm going to take this and think everything gets fixed, but give it an actual direction, I think is really important too, because it will affect the hardware positively regardless. But if you have an intention on what you wish to bring into your life and actually improve upon, then I think that's where a lot of this can be magnified medicine.

Oh, beyond. It's same in herbalism. You never use a single herb. That's never an idea. You should never just go and take one thing.'s always like a supporting herb and balancing herb or herbs with it you know and there's million examples we can talk about i feel like same in lifestyle design so if you do have this intentional practice let's say you have this mushroom supplement or psychedelic or whatever thing by stacking consciously the right practice, be it painting, be it, you know, there's again, million examples, one plus one is three. Like that's the whole, what we're trying to build. It's like you said, it's like getting rid of the 90% of the stuff you do, getting back

to the basics, but also understanding the value of synergies. And those synergies might not be like more is better. Synergy might be better is better. And that's a big thing. But having those intentional practices that mean something to you is definitely powerful. So- Yeah, it's reminding me of some of the concepts

in James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. I haven't read that. It's phenomenal. He was on the show a while ago before the book came out. But anybody who, it New Year, still January as we record this, people have this list of shit they want to get done. And they want to change everything and do it all at the same time. And obviously, that's really hard to accomplish. So his thing is you have your goals.

You prioritize which one is the most important thing. And you just start with one at a time. And as you begin to develop some level of mastery, and it's a known habit that you don't need to worry about, that's when you add in other ones. And from there, the goal is not to get mastery in any one specific thing. It's just to get 1% better at everything you're adding. And from there, that's where you get one plus one equals three. Yeah. Right? And so I think about that too. The, you know, whatever intentional thing that we're bringing in from a supplement standpoint or the microdosing protocol

and how that layers with the practices that you have in life. Like, what is the goal behind this thing? Is it to be smarter or is it to be smarter where specifically? You know, and I think those are some missing ingredients in actually fine tuning what it is exactly that we're looking to get better at. Yeah. I think most of the time, myself included, I sometimes overestimate what I can do in six months, but I underestimate what can be done in five years. And that's, I think, where it gets pretty magical is having that approach exactly,

but being intentional about which way. Because otherwise, it's like you have this rocket ship, but you don't know where you're flying. You go two degrees left or right. After all these years, you're in a very different part of the space if we went left or right two degrees. So over time, time is a powerful, powerful ally. And so, yeah, the intention is huge. Yeah, it's hard to see those little things while you're in the moment.

But if it's something that you're doing because you absolutely love it and enjoy it, it doesn't matter. It's easy to go through five years of having an intentional practice of learning to play music or paint or whatever the case is. Or even just having the intentional practice of essentialism, not doing a bunch of shit you quote unquote have to do, but doing the things that you really enjoy doing and making that the priority. Those are practices that take a long time, but when there's meaning behind it and joy behind it, it's a lot easier to go through a full five-year span and look back and be like, damn, we did it. As opposed to just, I'm supposed to lose weight because the doctor said so, or I'm supposed to do this. Yeah. It's not internal

journey. You're outsourcing it, the energy. You're putting it outside of your body because it's coming from outside of your body. You're not owning it. I like that. Well, we touched a little bit on the niacin sauna. I want to break down all things sauna because there's a lot of wisdom from where you come from. And obviously, Dr. Rhonda Patrick going on Rogan's and really blowing up the scene with all the science of sauna therapy and things like that. And there's a couple of things that I see that are big differences in the way you guys utilize sauna and heat shock proteins versus a lot of the stuff that's out around infrared saunas. And it's something that I tell people is there's a greater physiological

adaptation to something that's hard. Like if your body, if I squat the bar a thousand times, it's different than squatting 500 pounds. It's a different adaptation. If I'm in a really hot sauna, even for a shorter period of time, and I just work on extending that time window, that's going to have a much greater impact on my body than staying in something that's 140 degrees for an hour, an hour and a half. But talk a bit about sauna, some of the differences among saunas, because infrared saunas tend to be cheaper, not always, but I think it's worth it to do the hot rock.

And I certainly feel more of a response when I'm using a traditional sauna versus an infrared sauna. Yeah. So I'm definitely a sauna aficionado. And just to kind of frame the conversation, sauna is a Finnish word. It's the only Finnish word in the English language. And sauna means something very specific. But there are many types of hot rooms around the world. Hot rooms are not unique to Finland or Russia or whatever. There's so many hamon's and different parts of the world have to have different kinds

of sweating practices. So through and through, I think all sweat practices are good. Just kind of where they originate, kind of talk a little bit about what was the purpose of those sweating practices. And obviously, if you're in Alaska or Finland or Russia or Korea where it's super cold in winter, it's a different kind of intensity. But if we go purely from health purpose, the sauna truly does refer to either a smoke sauna or a dry sauna that will trigger those heat shock proteins. And I don't think a lot of these hotel saunas that are like 150, 160, I just don't see them as saunas really. It's not really, it's a sweat practice. And again, there is plenty of good benefits

for detoxification. But if you do want that adaptation, like you said, is there's something to be said about something that is difficult. Same with cold therapy. So there are differences between 30 degree water in Lapland where it's minus 40 outside and it's 30 degrees or 28 degrees because there's a stream or otherwise it would freeze. It's a different element than 50 degrees indoors. It's just a different thing.

And both are probably beneficial, but the magic is, I think, the harder it is, probably the better it is for you. So let's go back to how we use it. We do have electric dry saunas and then wooden dry saunas. I think both can be good. Wood burn is usually a little better. It more comes down to the size of the room and the shape of the room that matters. And then the routine. We also have smoke saunas where you put the smoke inside for many hours

and then you ventilate, but it has this smoky feeling. So moisture obviously is a big factor as well. So a lot of good saunas, you go and throw water into the benches first and then kind of absorb into the walls. But classically, the practice would be that we go to this dry sauna, we start hot after an exercise. So cross-country skiing, running, or just a day of hard work at the farm can also do it. So it would usually be like after being active. Then it would go to the sauna. We get birch leaves.

So there's a hitting practice to further improve blood circulation on the surface level. Also, there are oils that are also actually similar compounds that are found in chaga that are absorbed from the birch tree. So betaline. So in chaga, there's betalineic acid, very powerful antioxidant. So you spank and then you go into cold and that should go at least three times back and forth. So the kind of the base rule is you go three times. And if it gets too crazy, like kids are like, probably can't handle 210 degrees as well. They're going to step one level lower, but they're going to do it still. So it's better to do it at some capacity than not do it at all.

So you do that circle and you go into cold water. You drop your shoulders, take deep breaths. Usually even at the, even no matter how cold the water is, you try to stay for about a minute. And then if at the end, you always end cold. So if you don't end in the water, you hang out outside in the cold for five to 10 minutes to cool off.

So you never end hot. You always end cold. And you start hot. Yes, pretty much exclusively start hot. There are some crazy people who do it the other way, but usually you're already, you finish an exercise or work at the farm and then you go hot and then you go water

and then at least three rounds. And yeah, it's the funny things. Then you make sausages on the fire. So you put a sausage on the calls and then you eat a sausage and some people have beer or whatever that sounds like an incredible way to finish yeah it is yeah you eat a sausage at the end and then yeah some people have a beer or something to end the day but yeah yeah i was wondering that i've done a couple um what is it banya the russian yeah i've done a couple banyas and uh banya, the Russian? Yeah, I've done a couple of banyas.

And I always wondered why they were beating me. And they're like, oh, this is a part of the practice. And I see they've got like their little beanies on, like the hat thing. And I just didn't understand it. And that helps a lot if you do super hot saunas, if you have one of the sauna hats. And then if you do serious cold winter ones,

walking to the water, usually have a little booties, kind of like almost like a surf type booties or Crocs. But it's just like walking when it's minus 40 outside and your feet get stuck on the way, it's just better to have a little booties. And then some people wear gloves if they swim, but it's definitely the extremities that you protect, both hot and cold, your ears and the steam that comes out of your head. I've experimented with a little bit, not in the sauna. I've read about it and I've experimented with some of the higher doses. I've had a gram once, which I should have worked my way up to. It's tough. It's really tough.

I would recommend doing 500 and 500. Start 500 and then maybe 30 or 60 minutes in, add a 500, then go straight to a gram. Okay. And talk a little bit about the why behind this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, most things come back to what are difficult. When you challenge your body, you squat or you hike or you do these things, it gives a temporary shock to the body, which makes the body actually weaker, but then also signals certain parts of physiology to like, hey, you got to step up, right? If you go too hard, there's a risk of injury or illness or too hard too long. But you can go pretty hard on a short time window if you're mindful. And the same goes for cells. So there's a cellular energy,

cellular function that puts pressure on the body. And in this case, you're playing a lot with thermodynamics of your body using a B vitamin, soniocin, to flush. You go a little harder than you probably should. That creates this like irritation in your cellular levels that creates irritation on your skin and sweating and redness in your body that when you combine it with sauna, that does increase sweating and redness in your skin. You're kind of hitting it from internally and externally. So you're getting that from within and also from the out, kind of doubling down. One plus one is three. And the benefits of that, a lot of people use it for fat absorption and just kind of ability to absorb nutrients. That's a very common way to do that. But I would say generally, if you think of what

I care about is more of the longevity side, is just giving these kind of like conscious shocks occasionally to the cells. And that would be like a pretty interesting thing to do. To do, and you feel very blissful afterwards. that's another reason why i do enjoy it um but yeah my practice with the the niacin is usually 250 um and um it's a very comfortable um i i have taken a gram um and it's very very very difficult for a moment or uncomfortable for a moment. But I would say like 250, if you combine it with exercise is great.

So I do yoga running just to kind of like get the blood moving, just nostril breath. So I'm not going after like getting my best run or my best yoga or something. You could do squats, but just focus on your breathing, the nose, warming up the body.

And when it starts to get quite the nose, warming up the body. And when you start to get quite uncomfortable, then go to the sauna. And yeah, it's just going to be itchy and sweaty. But yeah, cell energy, energy production, particularly how you absorb lipids is kind of why people usually do it. But I think just improving that blood circulation will have so many benefits like in chinese you believe in the qi and the improvement of qi um there's there's something to be said about that but yeah no doubt well we're touching on qi let's let's uh let's dive into into some of the plant medicines yeah when was this is this you know obviously i don't want to talk about you know the santa Santa Claus story if we have time.

I know you talked about it with Aubrey a couple of years ago. But talk about your first introduction into plant medicines. Was it psilocybin? And expand upon some of those experiences and how they progressed over the years. Yeah, I feel like every culture has had some sort of a mind-altering substance. And in obviously almost all societies, the last two, three generations have been pretty anti of mind-altering.

Before that, even in pockets, certain religions were kind of not supportive of that finland is no different so finland has had for thousands of years long history with psychedelics um there is psilocybin there i would say more commonly it is the amanita that is consumed and one other swamp plant which is more similarly mind-altering. And both of them, Amanita and this one plant, are the ones that I've tried in the very beginning in very small dosages. So those would be the first ones I've had is Amanita. And it shouldn't be anybody's first psychedelic.

But they are darker. They're definitely like GA know gaba agonist but like they are on the more not sedative but like numbing kind of darker layer of of that versus a more you know uh 2a cheritonin receptor psilocybin happy loving connective there's wisdom in both but um but they're very different but right now uh finland in the last yeah two three generations um has been very kind of anti um psychedelics again which has been you know a bummer it's been combined with you know more synthetic uh drugs and there's a lot of fear among among people um but because of the proximity to mushrooms

and proximity to more indigenous cultures, it was like finding fairy rings of Amanitas was, I don't know how old was, four or five? Oh, wow. Probably when you first get exposed to them. But there is, among forgers, there's always been for the Amanita family, there's this like deep beauty and respect but fear

because the Amanita family also has some of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world. Most mushroom-related deaths for forgers happen because Amanita mushrooms, not Amanita muscaria, but the destroying angel and the death cap. So there's this fear and beauty in this family of mushrooms that you get taught as a young kid. It's like one of the first mushrooms you get taught is Amanita muscaria and, and, and the destroying angel is like probably the

top three mushrooms I was taught as a kid. And, uh, um, so, so for me, me, for psychedelics, I knew about it so early on and I had some exposure and small dosages, but I felt that I was not ready for that. And I feel like psychedelics have these two really beautiful windows for men when it's like when you're like somewhere 11 to 14 years old, rite of passage, this really beautiful time somewhere there to explore. It sounds really odd, but as a parent, it probably is a great time to expose your kids

into psychedelics. And then there's a time when you probably, I mean, Freud and even like, where young, dumb and there's a, there's a time when you probably, I mean, Freud and, and even top, like we're young, dumb and full of cum. Like there's a period when it's harder to get that wisdom because we're on our way and maybe other types of work need to happen. And then, you know, when, when you start to like thirties and forties, those become again, like massively valuable tools, assets.

Um, so I had this, like, I felt that I didn't know a reason why I would do. I even went to Amazon for ayahuasca in my early 20s and I didn't take any. I was like, I'm not, it doesn't feel organic at that point. And that's just something I would encourage everyone is just listen. It's like, why am I doing it? Don't do it because others are doing it. Know that they're very powerful. Know that they're very safe. Know that there's a lot of beauty. But don't do it just because other people are doing it.

Ask yourself why. And then when you find the calling, go for it. And that's, I think, very important. And yeah, for me, it's my use, especially for psilocybin is more on the macro dose. I'm a huge believer in higher dose, less often, maybe twice a year. A lot of my ancestors do winter solstice, summer solstice. I think there may be other compounds, iboga, maybe LSD, where the microdosing principle is a little more powerful but with the right microdosing protocol there's definitely like it's a very interesting world but i feel like

psilocybin is is is more of like less often rare bigger dose type of knowledge at least that's my that's funny you say that because i i'm just coming to the end of the 30 days with psilocybin and i'd read the psychedelic explorer Explorer's Guide by Jim Fadiman, where he studied microdosing for 30 years. A lot of his gatherings of wisdom is coming strictly with LSD. And so I'd done the every fourth day protocol he recommends with LSD. And I absolutely loved it. I did it for two months with my wife, probably about four years ago.

LSD is easier to gauge. It's much easier to gauge because it's the same thing. Which flush did it come from? That doesn't equate with LSD. LSD is also very energetic. And I think a lot of people that are using microdosing for their work specifically, whether it's people in tech in the Silicon Valley or any of these articles that get written about it,

they want to be able to do their emails and get shit done. LSD will do that for you. Psilocybin will tell me some days, you're not doing, fuck, don't touch your computer, go outside and sit down by a tree. And that's a beautiful medicine if I can listen to that. If I couldn't, it would be very hard to try to, I'd be forcing a square peg in a round hole

trying to get shit done when the medicine tells me otherwise. And so I think that, yeah, that very much what you're saying, I get that. But definitely what we know of, and also what I do believe energetically, but psilocybin will be impactful even on one use case at least a year, if not years.

And again, what is your intention? Is it neuroplasticity? Is it finding answers? That's also a good thing to gauge with that one is what is the purpose? There is part of the receptors that get used to it. So you need to keep certain breaks. So I think based on what we know today, the daily use seems to be not quite aligned

of what we know about it today. You might want to, depending on how small of microdose you take, you might want to space it out every other day, every third day even, to get like a 36-hour window. I think it will be fascinating in the next couple of years. We'll learn a lot more.

But I think it's also more powerful if you look at from a classic herbalistic practice is that you first get to know the plant on higher dose. And then when you bring it in these more smaller dosages, it's more familiar with it. And that sounds pretty woo-woo. But you could use a creatine as an example, where there's a buildup period and then a maintenance period. So it's not that far-fetched idea is that the power of the microdosing is probably also partially because you have had those higher doses multiple times and then kind of reminding kind of like, hey, remember, remember. And then kind of that might be also part of the wisdom. But I think different substances work

better or worse in high dosages. You know, iboga or Ibogaine, it's pretty rough on high dosages, but it might work pretty well on smaller dosages and vice versa. Yeah, Iboga is a really incredible compound. It's one that I had played after, I think Tim Ferriss talked about his use as his friend Slim Barris and gave like his full protocol of hedonic calendar

from micro to the macro. And he was using, I think, Ibogaine HCI or HCL. And so I was able to get some of that. And I noticed that it has its energy. Like Iboga is a very, like you don't sleep on it. It's up. And so that really paired well with the morning coffee and I could do a lot.

But one of the things as I was starting to learn more about it was that made it really cool is that it actually increases receptor density in the brain for dopamine as well as serotonin. So our feel-good neurotransmitters are all there and they're all getting increased from the use. Whereas smoking cigarettes, you'll start to remove some of those.

And so I found that to be fascinating about that compound. Talk a little bit, I do want to get to the Santa story, but talk about your first experience with Amanita, because I've heard my brother Porangi had done it before, and the history, from my understanding, was that the reindeer would take it, and then they would drink the urine to prevent some of the issues around that. How did you consume it and what was the experience like?

The first couple of times, because I had this fear that was installed upon me, or respect, the dosages were really small. So I felt like woozy. I would consume it both as fresh and dried in the beginning. Never in the beginning of the urine I can get to the reason why the urine is there. You become, I would say being drunk is a pretty good like spinning head. Like you feel there's a toxic reaction a little bit. Not like bad, not your vomiting or anything like that,

but you feel a little woozy. You start to get these like darker emotions. Like, you know, the Berserk story, you probably know how they would, so you know the Berserks that would, so these are these warriors that were like fearless and there would be much less of them and they would just go hard and just

basically kill berserker exactly they would kill everyone it was this tribe and it was set that they took so there's two theories of that one was the swamp plant that i've taken as well and uh the other one is the amanita muscaria and they would take these pre-battle and you you just kind of think of it someone who drinks and they just like they almost like black out and get rage they get this like this just like shuts empathy and compassion correct and they and and that gabba agonist like that like blocks certain like universal love and then like this fear or hatred kicks in and And that can be a lot of the Amanita feeling. So there's two compounds that depending how you consume it, you will impact the

feeling a lot. So there's muscimol, which is the psychoactive compound. That's like the good. And then there's the apotenic acid, is you know the toxic compound which is not good and when you consume it fresh or dried you will have the apotenic acid that then converts into muscimol and there's a way how you cook it in a certain way to kind of reduce or some say even completely remove but i don't fully believe that like reduce reduce the amount of hypotonic acid and then get the muscimol. But you have to eat quite a lot of amanita. That's also the thing is in order to get enough muscimol. So a lot of people have taken five, 10 grams and not felt anything. You might have to take 20 to 50 grams of dried mushrooms. So the volume is a little bigger. Also depends

if it's younger. Younger tends to have higher amounts of muscimol versus if it's bigger. Big amanitas actually might be worse than small amanitas. So that's also period of the year that is collected can impact. But so you have to eat more. You might get quite sick. So you have to eat quite a lot and when you eat a lot you will also get quite a bit of ipotonic acid and you might get that's where you get that flu like so that's some of the santa stories ideas of how why did the santa or the

shaman why was it red and because you kept this like almost like not a niacin flush, but like similar kind of like uncomfortable feelings and in order before it converts into. So it's almost like the getting high period is kind of painful until you cross the valley and then the apotentic acid leaves your body and the muscum all kind of kicks in. But why the pee and the urine is that the first person who will eat it will get sick but then the urine have your liver has removed the botanic acid and the urine concentrates urine it often is a concentration of various like not waste chemicals but things that the body doesn't have a use for or you'd had excess of like vitamin C, you had excess vitamin C, you peed out. So, but it's a concentrated form. So in this case, when you drink someone's urine, a human or reindeer that has consumed high amounts of Amanita, you have removed the toxic element or

the brain leasening element of apoteneic acid, and you have concentrated the psychedelic compound. So then you have to consume less. So it's easier for your body and you'll have higher amounts of muscimol. And there might be other compounds that impact on Amanita that we don't know, but those are the kind of, there's a couple of forms of muscimol as well, compound wise, but that's probably how it works. Yeah. it's fascinating to me because i've never really taken a deep dive into that compound but it makes a lot of sense it also makes a lot of sense from the from like a union analyst standpoint of going into the shadow work oh you're touching it right now so what when and why Amanita could make sense, again, it's not on, shouldn't be on

anybody's top five, but where it could make sense is going back to the indigenous people and when and how they used it. They used it on winter solstice. So in Lapland in winter solstice, you might get two hours of sunlight. So the sun creeps up a little bit and then goes down. So it's almost complete darkness. And they have a belief of these three layers of the heavens where the gods live. And then there's the underworld. Underworld is not where only negative, that's where everybody who dies goes underground.

And you go with that substance, you go mostly underground to talk to people who have died. So that is the world world that is the shadow work that is the part of you that you think you are but you don't want to be or you're you're some people say you know multi-generational traumas and fears that you're processing with that. And that is, you don't take that in LA in a sunny day. Like you take that when you go to winter into a cabin and darkness and let the dragons fly in. I love it.

That's beautiful. Well, let's talk Santa. You wrote a book about this since your podcast with Aubrey. And it's awesome. I think on the internet, maybe, I don't know when I saw it, it was years ago, but some of that story has been told in various ways.

And just, it's really fascinating to me to think of that. But break that down for people who maybe are unfamiliar with it. Yeah, so the origins of Santa Claus is what we're talking about and how that relates to psychedelics, particularly this mushroom, Amanita muscaria. So maybe taking one step back, pretty much all the cultural stories we have, have a different origin that is commercially brought to us, be it Halloween, Celtic traditions, Easter. And sometimes we forget this. We're like, oh,

you know, there's just Coca-Cola. No, there's a reason why the reindeers are there. There's a reason why the Christmas tree is there. And I think from all the things that we get sold commercially, this might be one of the biggest lies or misunderstandings of the origins. So, and why I also say that is partly because Santa Claus is arguably the world's most famous character. Like there isn't like across every religion around the world, people know Santa Claus. Like it could be the most famous character in the world.

But the story of Santa Claus goes back eight to 10,000 years. A lot of people, when they talk about Santa Claus, they're kind of vaguely aware, like Saint Nicholas, like they think it's German. But the story to Santa Claus and what we think of today came to the US through New York or New Amsterdam, it was brought mostly here by the Dutch where it's called Sinterklaas, and the Dutch got it from the Germans. But it's not a German thing

because St. Nicholas is actually Turkish. So St. Nicholas was a Turkish Bishop. And that was a time when Christianity had split between Orthodox Christianity and Catholic and Constantinople, today's Istanbul, and Rome had their battle, and the Italians actually went to even steal St. Nicholas's grave. But the story has traveled along the way, and everybody's added their own spice to it, like the Dutch really built on their elves that were actually black slaves.

So there's kind of some effed up stuff there as well. But the real story does not begin in Turkey. And that's really funny is like, people don't even think about that, but like, there's no reindeers in Turkey. Like where's the North Pole, but then there's a Turkish Bishop. It's Christianity wanted to absorb a pagan story to themselves.

It's San Pedro. I mean, there's so many examples of it. Well, even the birth of Christ on December 25th to replace the winter solstice. Well, great that you said that. So, but there's so many proven evidence of this. I'll get to that. But stories are stories. There's always a spice,

there's an element, things get added, things get removed. That's normal. But the real heritage of this story comes from the Slavic countries through this last official indigenous cultural left in Europe called the Sami. The Sami live in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Russia. And funny enough, if you talk to any Russian or Ukrainian person about Christmas, they actually celebrate this old man frost, dead moors, even still today. It's like a similar outfit, kind of more bluish, a little bit of red, but more blue versus Santa is more red and a little bit of blue. But they got it from the Sami and the Sami had been there 8,000 to 10,000 years, much before the Vikings. Vikings been there 1,300 years or so. And why is the Santa story

really relevant and how does that all tie? So I'm just going to give a couple of the facts because it's a long story. But basically, the Sami believe that all living things have a soul, rocks have a soul. The wind has a soul. Adam Winslow, Animism. Adam Winslow, Animism. Exactly. And, um, they live very deeply with, in conjunction with nature. You might imagine going from like a winter it's minus 40.

It's very real. So they believe that this also this after world and and uh heavens and they believe that their sons of god uh of son their um son sons and daughters of son had son had sex with a giant so this is their belief origin story basically and they're the the children of the giant and the son and so so they would have magic, so ceremonies. And the two big ceremonies were winter solstice and summer solstice. Summer solstice, there was 24 hours of sunlight, and winter, it was almost all darkness.

And the person conducting the ceremony is called Noida, the shaman. The shaman at that time did more than just being a shaman. They were a doctoraman they were a doctor they were a priest they were an elder so that's why probably if you think that santa has lived forever because there's been thousands of santas because every region would have your own shaman noida and the the shaman would conduct these ceremonies there was also summer solstice ceremony but this winter solstice ceremony was more famous. And, um, and this, by the way, the only area where reindeers live. So that's also kind of one indication that this origins of this

story is where the reindeers are. And for the winter solstice ceremony, it was about a lot about death, end of the year and starting the new year and talking to our deceased elderly. So your ancestors who had died and asking wisdom from them starting the new year and talking to our deceased elderly. So your ancestors who had died and asking wisdom from them for the new year. So that was part of what they believed. So let's gather as a family. Let's have a ceremony. Let's talk to the dead. Let's ask for questions and insights and let's apply them to the new year. And in order to have this ceremony, the Sami shaman would collect this

psychedelic mushroom of that area called Amanita muscaria, which is the world's most famous mushroom, but nobody knows it. It's the mushroom emoji. It's the mushroom that Super Mario takes. It's the red mushroom with the white dots, the kind of classic toadstool. It's the one that you see in disney movies fantasia you see it at the snow white you see it at uh you know all these songs it's it's everywhere in pop culture all over the book that i read my son was the the mother goose fairy tales yeah it's in all of them littered throughout it and it's a psychedelic mushroom it's actually legal in every state in the u.s as a psychedelic by the way it's one of the only legal psychedelics. I believe Tennessee is the one where it's not legal. But yeah, the shaman would eat this mushroom, but this mushroom grows not in the snow. You need to collect it in the

summer, fall, and you need to sun dry it, otherwise it gets moldy. So what the shaman would do is go to the forest, find this mushroom, and this mushroom grows under their sacred tree, the Pinacea trees. So the pine family of trees is very sacred to many indigenous cultures, including like the Mayans. So that's why maybe the pine cone, the pineal gland, that whole connection of the soul and consciousness, sacred tree. Think of like the avatar movie where the navi people believe that the trees are yeah home tree this is the home tree the pinellia trees particularly the spruce so spruce tree so that is the christmas tree you see at rockefeller center in new york and this psychedelic mushroom needs to live in a symbiotic relationship with

these pinellia trees so under under the Christmas tree where you would normally put presents is a psychedelic mushroom that the shaman would collect and sun dried by putting the mushroom hanging from the Christmas tree branches. So the sun would dry it, add vitamin D to it because they were also vitamin D deficient in the winter because you don't get sun. And then do loops. So there would be one tree eventually that would be full of these red mushrooms. So even if you go back to old Christmas or Yuletide posters, photos, books, images, even from the German time, you don't even have to go older than that. The kids are holding the psychedelic mushroom. They're not holding red balls hanging from a Christmas tree. The Christmas tree decorations, even in New York,

old New York, would be psychedelic mushrooms hanging, not red balls. The red balls got changed later. It was a psychedelic mushroom hanging from the tree. And that's why you put presents under the tree, because that's where the psychedelic grows, or hanging from on top of a fire, because if it was not sunny at that time when you were harvesting, you would dry it on top of a fireplace. So then shaman carries these, puts them on a sack, and reindeer is the domesticated mammal to kind of travel around. So have a sled, wearing a little coat, beard, probably an elderly person, traveling from village to village to give ceremonies with a sack full of psychedelics, getting into their home which is

called kota and kota is like a like a semi-permanent tp so i think of a tp but you need it for winter so it's a little more insulated like a yurt it's like a yurt but like shape-wise closer to tp but yurt and it has a small entrance that you kind of crawl in and then there's a hole at the top because there's a fire inside because otherwise you freeze your ass. But often there will be a snowstorm and this little narrow entrance will get shut in. So the chimney or the hole for the fire would be your secondary exit and entrance. So it could be that you come in and out through the chimney with the psychedelics, you hold court, you take a psychedelic, you get all red and jolly and you're laughing and you're talking to the ancestors. And then you might see reindeers flying or you

might see visions and stuff like that. And then sometimes the families would join by drinking the urine from this kuxa mug. So this is actually where the psychedelics also, either with the reindeer or from another human's pee, would be drank from this mug. So this is also a psychedelic urine mug. And the first, when you handed me that, I was like, this is my fucking medicine cup. I don't know if I could fit 30 grams of mushrooms in there, but I certainly can try.

Yeah, you can, I mean, you can cook it and you can sip it along the way. So you don't have to like chug it either. Like you can make your along the way so you don't have to like chug it either like you can make your amanita tea or whatever medicine and then kind of slowly sip on it so yeah and then you would have this ceremony you would have these visions but what is beautiful so mostly christmas has become this ridiculous ridiculous um commercial holiday but the beauty of like gathering a family, slowing down, looking at the previous year,

setting intentions for the next year, putting fire or candles, giving gifts or like a celebration, that is still beautiful. Like that is, there's definitely a place for that. It's just all the hoopla of like commercialism as added and then there's a whole story about the elves but maybe we'll save it for another time so oh that's fucking fantastic thank you so much brother no worries so uh your company four sigmatic where

can people get it i don't know a lot of places everywhere yeah i right? Yeah. I don't know. Whole Foods, Sephora, online, Amazon, foursigmatic.com. We sell internationally as well. I started the company overseas, so you can get it globally as well pretty well. I know you probably have a lot of listeners all around the world now. Yeah, brother.

And where can people find you online? I'm really bad. I don't have Facebook or anything. I have a private Instagram, IamTaro, where I post dumb photos when I'm really bad. I don't have Facebook or anything. I have a private Instagram, I am Tero, where I post dumb photos when I feel like it. Sometimes go a month without posting, but I am Tero, T-E-R-O is my personal. And then Four Sigmatic, F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C everywhere. We're much better there. We're relaunching our Mushroom Academy soon. So we have a free Mushroom Academy we'd have for years

so completely free you can study about the knowledge about mushrooms online no cost no strings attached we just

love sharing the word and we just reshot the videos and they should be out soon so incredible that'll be on foursigmatic.com

yeah yeah our mushroomacademy.com might be as well either way you'll get there cool we'll link to it all in the show notes so you don't have to jot this shit down but yeah I'll have yeah yeah or mushroomacademy.com might be as well either way you'll get there cool we'll link to it all

in the show notes so you don't have to jot this shit down but yeah I'll have Giles get with you and get all the correct links

yeah yeah thank you so much brother this has been fantastic thanks for glad we got to finally do this yeah brother it was a long time coming

big time next time Lapland or we'll go to the cabins in Finland I'm in we'll do Niasin yeah summer sol Maybe we'll go for a summer solstice.

Yeah. I'll be there summer solstice. Have you ever had... We got a little wolf on the way but 2021 I'm down for summertime. I'll bring the whole family. Yeah. 2021, 2022. Oh yeah. We have cabins

and there's separate saunas. So each cabin has a sauna and then there's a separate sauna building and the sauna building has a bedroom as well. So you can come with homies and the babies. Yeah, I'm in brother. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks a lot. Thank you guys for tuning into today's show with Tarot.

They are just fantastic over at Four Sigmatic and Tarot is a wealth of knowledge. Check out my website, kingsboo.com and give my boys at ancestralsupplements.com and onefarm.com a shout out. You will love their products as much as I do. Thank you guys for tuning in. We'll see you in a week. you