The Joe Rogan Experience - #2002 - Amanda Feilding

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Amanda is an award-winning psychedelics researcher, policy advocate, and artist;  advancing psychedelic research for over 50 years.  Founder & Director of the Beckley Foundation, a UK-based think-tank and NGO, aiming to further our understanding of consciousness and how changes in cerebral circulation and neuronal activity underlie the effects of various psychoactive substances. Amanda’s work lies at the cutting edge of psychedelic scientific research, she initiated the study which generated the world’s first images of the brain on LSD. https://www.beckleyfoundation.org https://www.thetripreport.com

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day thank you very much for doing this really appreciate it thank you it's lovely to meet you and i really really appreciate your life's work i mean I think what you've done has been really remarkable, particularly because of the time period in which you embarked in it. I mean, you sort of got involved in psychedelics and psychedelic research at the very beginning of it and when it was extremely controversial and very difficult to do research. Well, I actually got involved in it when it was incredible fun. And I was incredibly lucky with my timing, I think, because I was very attracted to the other side, if you like, the mystical.

Because I lived in this very, very isolated spot. And one had nothing but do, but kind of reach around the beautiful place, have mystical experiences, dream of the future. Is that your phone? Yes. When did you first get involved or even interested in what you would call mystical experiences? I'll let you show me.

Ah, sorry, sorry, sorry. No worries. Whoopsie. I don't know how to turn these things off. Do you want me to turn it on mute for you? Yes, please. Okay. These wacky kids today and their devices.

Ah, sorry about that. No worries. No worries at all. So how old were you when you first got interested in... Very young, I should say. I came... I had a kind of... I grew up in this very isolated place.

I was very, very close to my father, who came back from the war, a diabetic. And he was a very eccentric person. And so from three, I was his carer. Three years old. Yeah. Which was a lovely role. I mean, I was his little pet dog. I went everywhere with him.

I adored him, and he adored me. And he was a very out of the, he wasn't in normal society at all. How so? Did his own thing. Artist. A farmer, but not really a farmer. He couldn't bear really farming. Yeah, anyway. So, and I suppose spiritually I had three. My mother was a Catholic, so I grew up a Catholic. And then he was whatever, agnostic, atheist, nothing. Except a thinker. And then his best friend, who was his kind of – he picked up as the person who did

all his work when he was at university, called Bertie, became a Buddhist monk, a rather famous Buddhist monk. But so he was a big influence in the absence because he was my godfather and so I had these three influences and so I kind of dreamt of doing magic mystical things in the world and had mystical experiences as lots of children do. And so then I'm sorry, I can't quite think how to condense it. But anyway, I grew up in an unusual setting. And with a passion for altered states, mystics, I started studying them when I was probably about 10.

Really? Yeah. And it became rather a passion. And in the place we lived, it got three moats. And it was very overgrown. And in between the moats there was a mound, a very beautiful mound, where I had a kind of pet god who lived in the mound. I called it Zio. And my kind of, my mission was making this god figure laugh.

So that was the aim of the game. So when you say you studied the mystical states at 10, like how so? How were you doing that? Well, when I started reading, I started reading about it. But I didn't really, I don't know what I meant by that. But when I went to church, Catholic church with my mother, and there was incense and all that sort of thing, and I had kind of mystical experiences with Jesus.

I was very close to Jesus in those days. And then, whatever. But it was a kind of rather wild, quite a dangerous upbringing. We had to do the farming. It was quite, it was a mixture between all the kind of beautiful setting, but quite a mixture with peasant life of looking after the animals and farm animals, pigs, cows, all of that sort of thing and then one point I decided I wanted to leave home and I went to a boarding school, which was a terrible mistake. And a convent. And actually, I won the sound.

When I was 16, I won the sounds prize. I was quite clever, but I hated it. I lived outside the boundaries of the school all the time. And then I wanted books on Buddhism for my prize. And the nuns said, no, no, we can't give you books on Buddhism. And so I said, all right, I'll leave. Thanks very much. And educate myself,

which is what I did. I left school at 16. Really? And it was because they wouldn't allow you to study Buddhism. Yeah. Yeah. That was what I chose to study

and they wouldn't, so I said thanks. In the original days of the church, the incense, what they would walk down the aisle with, that was cannabis. That was beautiful. I mean, the one thing I loved about that convent, there was a in the chapel,

they had even song and this Italian nun with a voice of an angel and it really, with incense, took one into a mystical space. Yeah. And that was very special. That was the high point of it. They used to use cannabis.

And then the host. What did the host used to be? The host. I mean, obviously, originally, it was a psychedelic. Yes. Do we know what psychedelic? I think different places are different ones, but kind of based on mushroom or ergot

or those sort of things. Funnily enough, I'm rather keen on making sacred hosts. I recently was involved in that. Anyway, that's a different story. I would love to hear that story. You make sacred hosts? No, I don't, but I'm going to. You're going to?

I'm intending to. I once actually, the story was very much shock, probably a Catholic conference. once I was in Paris and we were walking by Notre Dame on a Sunday and very high and went into the church and lovely Eucharist. I hadn't heard all those wonderful songs.

I love those Latin 16th century, 15th century chanting. And so I experienced having the host again. And it was so delicious. Spiritually, it was wonderful. And so I can absolutely see originally the host was a psychedelic experience. And with that music and the incense, it's a beautiful spiritual experience. Yeah. I'm sure that was probably the root of a lot of those religious ceremonies. I think so. Have you read John Marco Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross?

No, I haven't. No. Is that a good one? It's an amazing book. Right. John Marco Allegro was an ordained minister. Oh, yes. I remember his name. I remember his name. I don't think I ever read him. He was an ordained minister who was a religious scholar and an expert on language. And he was one of the deciphers of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Right.

So he worked with that for 14 years. They deciphered the Dead Sea Scrolls. And then he wrote The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, which was his interpretation of what the Dead Sea Scrolls was really all about. Right. And he believed that the origins of Christianity were in the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms and fertility rituals. Yes. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I'm sure psychedelics were the root of all of those spiritual practices and part of them. Most likely.

Yeah. So when you were first experiencing these things, like what year are we talking about when you first got excited about these things? Let me just think. Well, I first smoked cannabis when I was 16. And funnily enough, the first time I smoked it, Ray Charles was playing. Oh, wow. And I felt this is paradise.

Yeah. And I bet millions of people had Ray Charles on their first sounding of cannabis. But it was wonderful. It's amazing what it does to music. Yeah, yeah. So I was 16, which was, I was born in 43, so I know that was. Anyway, that's when I started smoking cannabis. And it was, I was there at Oxford at that point with a very interesting group of, they were older than the other students because they'd been in Korea, so they were much better educated.

And they were smokers and introduced me to a lot of wonderful books like Against Nature and Le Troumour and, well, rather wonderful material. And it was a very creative period. And at that point, as I'd left school by then, I had somehow got

the world's leading expert, like, what was the American one? Anyway, on comparative religions and mysticism someone called Professor Zahner who's at All Souls in Oxford

and wrote a book called Mysticism of the Sacred and Profane. And he became my tutor. So I went and saw him twice a week. Which was a very kind of awkward meeting.

So, because I was very shy and he was very shy and it was in all cells. And we both sat there cuddling the cats kind of thing. And then finally I decided the best way forward was to bring my very, very handsome cousin, who was a student at Oxford, because he was gay. And that kind of warmed... Loosed everybody up.

Yeah. Oh, very smart. And then it became very friendly and fun. Yeah. But anyway, he'd written this book, which I actually didn't agree with, which was saying, psychedelic mysticism, sacred and profane.

And he was a Catholic convict actually and he thought that he'd had one experience with mescaline I think it was and not liked it and thought that they were a very different bracket to the experience you get through an endogenous mystical experience which I don't

actually think is necessary I think they're the same experience but obviously with different qualities. I've heard you say that you believe that what psychedelics do is make the mind more fertile for these experiences. Is that a good way to put it? Yes. That's exactly what I think. I think you're at that level where the ego's control has dissolved to some degree.

And so it's like fertile ground. And so if you've, whatever, if you're ready for a mystical experience, you're more likely to have it in that experience, in that state of mind. So the mind is actually restricting us in many ways through the ego from having these experiences. Yes, I think so. And what psychedelics do is release those boundaries. Yes. I think that due to the evolution of man, homo sapiens, and now taking the upright position, and are taking the ape, taking the upright position.

This is a theory I was introduced to in 1966, and actually I think a lot of the details are probably wrong, but in concept I think it's true, which is the ape standing upright. One thing people haven't taken into account is obviously there are hundreds of acids standing upright. You free your hands, you run faster, you see further, all of that. But in that bright position, gravity is against the blood in the brain.

Because in the brain there are two fluid volumes, blood and cerebral spinal fluid, which is water, basically, which is made in the brain there are two fluid volumes, blood and cerebral spinal fluid, which is water, basically, which is made in the brain itself. So it has kind of squatters rights in the brain. So when you're in that position, gravity is pulling the blood down. is pulling the blood down. So I think probably with our position, we lost a small proportion of our blood supply.

I mean, some animals, if you tie them up right, a dog, for instance, if it's tied up so it can't get down, it will start howling and go mad because it hasn't got the valves to keep the blood up. And we've obviously got a certain amount, but maybe we lost some blood at that upright position. And as a compensation for that loss, I think we developed an internal mechanism more than any other animal has done it,

which is to direct the blood where it most needs to go. Obviously, all animals do that. They have the power to send the blood where it's most important to survival or whatever. And I think that through the use of the conditioned sound, the word, we learn to control that process more than any other animal. And over the millennia, we kind of build up our power to do that. So I think that's the secret of why humans, you know, which is a talking ape, got control of the whole game

because of our creation of language, which enabled us to do all these incredible things we do. But it also has a disadvantage that our basic state is slightly low in blood in the dominant organ. So we have to keep this mechanism of tight control where the blood is distributed. And that is evolved with the ego, which is essential. I mean, we wouldn't survive without the ego

to kind of direct the blood where it's most needed. People who lose their ego and in the 60s when people took large doses of LSD as it was then, every day sometimes they lost their ego, they flipped out. And there was one occasion of someone we knew who was in Ibiza. And he'd flipped out and he put the key in the lock to open the door. Someone would say goodnight to him.

He put the key in the lock and left him. And then in the morning he was still there with the key in the door because the head hadn't told him, turn the key to open the door. You know? Wow. We need the words to keep us, you know, under control.

Yeah. So the words have made us what we are, this incredible animal who can, you know, have a nuclear war if we want or know all the atoms in the body, all those brilliant things we do, which is amazing. But we're also obviously a very deeply faulted animal at some point. We're, you know, neurotic, psychotic, psychotic, you know, all of those things because of this shortage of blood is in a sense in the meaning of the word. So the danger of our society now, in a sense, is we're getting further and further away from nature, in a sense.

from nature in a sense. And that in a way is why psychedelics can be a very useful medicine because they increase the connectivity with the senses, with the outside perceptual senses. So I actually think that we're entering a kind of new possible age and that's why for fun I call it the psychedelic age because for the first time we've got or getting the knowledge by which we can actually understand the brain better and understand how we can alter the volume of blood in the brain, which is giving the brain energy. The whole thing is about energy. The more energy we have, the more parts of the brain can function simultaneously. And that obviously can be very creative, stimulating, empathic by just having more of the brain functioning. And so I think that the knowledge of psychedelics,

and when I say psychedelics I don't actually mean necessarily psychedelics, because as we all know one can get these experiences endogenously through exercise or... Holotropic breathing. Holotropic breathing, exactly, or breathing exercise. I mean, all the spiritual training all knew that. That's what they were doing in the spiritual disciplines, is teaching people how to control their internal ego and also their sense of consciousness.

And I think at the center of the spiritual experience is the getting higher and loosening the grip of the ego so you're more in touch with nature. Do you think that in the absence of these psychedelic experiences, one of the problems with words is that we develop narratives and then we use our ego to reinforce these narratives and we sort of deny objective reality? Yes. I think more and more the word can become the reality.

I mean, in the creation of words, which we all have and have to have and are thankful to have, but nevertheless it does create a slightly different world. It's rather like the shadows on Plato's wall. One gets

one's internal addition of the world rather than the real experience of the world. And so I think it's good to be in contact with nature and I think it's a dangerous path that we're taking now where it becomes more and more life is the screen. But still, that's where we're going. it has great advantages as well

as dangers kind of thing. But I do think that the knowledge of getting high has always been central to the human evolution. And at the earliest demonstrations of what we've got, of the earliest demonstrations of human culture, say the caves in Chauvet. Do you know that?

Yes. Which I think they've never been bettered. I mean, that artwork, the brushstrokes of those animals, they were alive. You can see the movement. No one ever did it better. And it's like 30-something thousand years old? Exactly.

It's 35, 40, something around there. Wow. So I can tell, because I, in some respects, am an artist, I know those strokes. Let's pull up some of those images, Jamie, because some of those images are amazing stuff. They're just incredible, aren't they? Yeah.

The movement of the animals, the feeling. Yeah, they did create a feeling of movement, like the animals were running. Yeah, and the lines. I mean, anyone who paints, I mean, Picasso, I think, said without them, he would have never done what he did. I can't remember quite, but modern art isn't better. It gets as good, but not really. It's crazy because they're depicting rhinos, too.

Yeah. Really wild. There was rhinos too, which is really wild. There was rhinos in France. Yeah, beautiful ones of horses and buffaloes. Yeah. And that's in the bowels of the earth they're doing. So it was obviously very spiritual, because why go into the bowels of the earth

if it's just a kind of magical, spiritual experience they're having. Yeah. very spiritual, because why go into the fowls of the earth if it's just the kind of magical spiritual experience they're having. And so I think without doubt they were high. How they got there? Was it through singing, drumming or singing or was it through taking compounds? Funny enough, I've recently been introduced to a charming man who's an archaeologist in charge of the Chauvet. And I said I'd love to be able to analyze and see if we can find out if there's any remnants of some psychoactive substance. And he said I was very welcome to go there. So I'm very excited about the possibility.

Are you aware of Brian Murrow-Rescue's work? Yes, I know. I knew him years ago. He approached me at the UN. Oh, that's great. And said he'd do pro bono lawyer work for me. Really? But I never took it up. Maybe it would help you better if this was on the top of your head. How do you do that? It seems like it's falling. Like that? Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, his work with determining that in Eleusis that they were using. Yeah, absolutely. Ergot and some other psychedelics. Now, I know the book and I know him. The Immortality Key. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For people to listen to. And also I know from long ago Carl Rook wrote the original book.

Do you know that one? No. The Road to Eleusis? Yeah, I've heard of it. Which is a very good book with Albert Hoffman and the banker. What was his name? Anyway. So they know that those people, at least back then, the Eleusinian Mysteries, that they were using psychedelics.

And do you know, it's obvious from art. What I think is that one can sense when the civilization had at its source the use of altered states of consciousness. I see them as, you know, civilization, rather like the cutting of a tree. You see the rings. Some years are drought and other are sun and rain, and they are wide and flourishing.

Yes. Well, in culture, I mean, that Eleusis, you know, that Chauvet, I mean, they must have been high to produce that incredible art. And the same at Eleusis and all of that Greek. I mean, it's never taught at schools and things. Both my sons did classics at Oxford.

None of them, it was never mentioned at Eleusis. Do you know what I mean? It's Amazing. That center of the whole classical world is the mystical experience of death and rebirth. Well, Harvard's

opened up a field of study about this. Now. Yeah, which is quite interesting. But I knew a student 20 years ago who wanted to do his PhD in a Lucis. And Harvard told him, if you do that, you won't get it. Yeah, that was a giant problem after 1970, correct? Like after the sweeping psychedelic DAC where they made everything Schedule I,

psilocybin, mescaline, everything. And when they did that, not only did they ruin the possibility of having those experiences for so many people because it was forbidden, because it was very dangerous, you could get arrested, but also it stopped all the research. Yes, absolutely. It was 50, 60, 70 lost years, which is a criminal thing, actually. And the untold suffering of the millions of people who went to prison, usually from minorities, and had their lives ruined by a record for maybe having been caught for a joint three times or whatever.

I mean, it is horrific what happened. Well, there's people in jail right now for that in this country, which is insane. It's insane. And, I mean, I started fighting that back whenever, when I started the Becker Foundation. I saw that in order to do research, one had to change the drug policies. And the two went hand in hand because doing the research would help change the drug policies. And in order to do the research, you had to change the policies. I mean, it was a bit of a catch-22 because until you've done the research, you can't do it, if you see what I mean, because they make it so difficult to do.

I think what MAPS has done, which is genius, is their work with MDMA and soldiers, and soldiers having PTSD. Absolutely. Because the general, I mean, when you think of soldiers, you think of people in the military, you generally think of people who are right-wing, who have more authoritarian leanings. But yet these are the people that would be aided the most by these psychedelics, particularly coming back from war.

So because of that, I believe they've opened up a door to understanding. I think it's very, very important. And that's why in the 70s when – because I was involved in it in the 60s mainly when my passion to change the world started when I first really knew the value of psychedelics which was probably in 65 onwards. And as the door of repression came down, one could see it's a kind of disaster for humanity. But I thought the only way we could overcome it is by using the language of the establishment

to prove that these compounds can actually heal humanity, not be damaging for humanity as they were advertised as, but actually there are a route to healing and better happiness, more fulfilled life. And so I thought that that's why I started doing the science, to try to, with the language of the modern world, which is science, to demonstrate how valuable these compounds are. study. And the first study we did was using psilocybin. And then we saw that I wanted to do LSD, but we couldn't do LSD

in those days. I had to be psilocybin, unless no one knows what psilocybin is, how it's spelled, what it means. It's not so taboo. So we got permission. And I wanted to do brain imaging to look into our hypothesis that what they do And I wanted to do brain imaging to look into a hypothesis

that what they do is increase the volume of blood in the brain capillaries. And hopefully with MRI one would see that. But anyway, what we did see in the first study we did with acelocybin was a decrease of blood in the default mode network, which is the modern expression of the ego, or part of the ego. And that was very interesting because the default mode network, i.e. the ego, is hyperactive underlying psychological conditions like depression or anxiety or addiction. All of those things have a hyperactive ego saying, I need a drink.

I'm so depressed. And we saw that psilocybin lowers the blood supply to that part of the brain. And so then actually we got a government grant to help us do the next phase of the study. So I think it's very important showing how, because as we all know, we're in an epidemic of mental illness now getting ever more and rather surprisingly and in a way rather ironically

science which has been so determined to prove that the spiritual is an old man in the sky sitting just total rubbish which he finally has old man in the sky sitting just total rubbish, which he finally has done. Now, at the very centre of the new healing,

i.e. psychedelic-assisted therapy, is the mystical experience. And what we showed is the people who underwent what's kind of categorised as a mystical experience, i.e. a loosening of the ego, a feeling of unity, those are the psychedelics are at the center of this new approach to healing. And I think the healing of psychedelics

goes much, much farther than what we've touched on so far, which is psychologically based conditions, I think it can be very, very useful in different doses because what is so wonderful about psychedelics is they have totally different effects in the micro dose. I'm beginning to have evidence, and I'm just starting a study, which shows amazing potential results of micro dose for Alzheimer's.

Really? Yeah. Interesting. Absolutely amazing, remarkable. Really? Yeah. I was watching a video yesterday on cannabis and Parkinson's it was incredible yeah there was a gentleman who had horrible loss of control of his body and the shaking and they gave him cannabis oil

yeah and he put it under his tongue and a few minutes later he's lying back on the couch and then he holds his hands out and his hands are dead straight. I'm like, this is extraordinary. Extraordinary. And my partner before, who is the father of my children, he got Parkinson's. So I was very well and very fond of him. Mild Parkinson's, but still it was Parkinson's. And so I'd heard how, and I've studied it, how microdosing ibogaine is very good for minimizing. So I'm wanting to do, I'm setting up a research into that.

Interesting. You know, I think, and I think also. Yeah, this is the gentleman right here. This is exactly the video that I saw. So this guy has terrible loss of control of his body. He can barely hold the cannabis oil in his mouth. Poor man. Yeah. I mean, he's struggling so bad.

But now what? It says 1.37 p.m. This is when he takes it. And then you see just a few minutes later, they show him lie back. And this is at. go ahead, Jamie. That's 141. Look at this. I mean, not even 10 minutes.

That is magic. And look at this. And he's fine. He sits up. And he's just blown away by it. He's like, it's so quickly. And look at his hands. Incredible.

No, that is wonderful. I have a friend who has a child that has pretty severe autism. And when he gives the kid cannabis, when he gives him edible cannabis, it just stops it. It just stops it. The kid can make eye contact, communicate. Absolutely. Well, I could show you. The trouble is I can show you privately, but not the person involved doesn't want it to go out.

Of a wonderful old lady of 97 who had Alzheimer's for seven years or something, but she was very bright. She was a pirate and a pirate, and was looked after by her son. And then he went away for a week, and someone else came and looked after by her son. And then he went away for a week and someone else came and looked after him. And when he came back, she was in a kind of acute vegetative apathy

where she didn't recognize him, just staring into space. And they discussed it before and she'd said, she knew he sometimes took psychedelic and so he gave her a microdose of LSD. And an hour later, I've got the photograph, she's a little sparkling old lady with her full contact with him saying, I feel so wonderful, let's read some poetry now. Wow. You know, just like that man. Yeah.

And then he contacted me and said, what should he do? So I said, well, first thing would be to get a doctor to help you manage it and then continue with the lower doses, get that effect, which was 10 micro, which is 10 millionth of a gram. I mean, such a small dose, you would hardly think he could have an effect. And that does something which I'm doing research on now. I think it's to do with the connectivity between the different brain centers, which I think it sparks. And it brought her back. And her children said it was just remarkable. It's incredible.

You know, and I've noticed the same things. I'm very... I'm in the middle of getting going on an autism study because I think certainly with level one, the lower degrees of autism, microdosing LSD can be enormously beneficial.

I've got a friend who's had experience of that and wrote a very good book about it, actually, called Autism and LSD. So now I'm designing a study, getting his advice on the autism level of things. And I think that what I think is what I'm fascinated in,

and this is where I got this interest right back in 1966, are what are the mechanisms underlying that makes LSD and associated compounds have the effect it has. And obviously then there was no brain imaging, so it was very difficult to see inside the brain. One could only theorize about it, make hypotheses. theorize about it, make hypotheses. And so this Dutch scientist who I had a long relationship with

had this hypothesis that it constricts, it's a vasoconstrictor constricting the veins so blood comes into the capillaries, can't get out, the capillaries blow up and squeeze out the cerebral spinal fluid. And then slowly over the years, gravity pulls the blood down again. That's the theory.

Yeah, and you go back to normal. That's the theory. Yeah, and you go back to normal. But during that period of more blood in the brain, you have more energy. Now I'm looking into, now, how does it make more energy apart from providing more glucose and oxygen? And I've got a very, very interesting something which is coming up, which I'll tell you on my next talk about. Okay. But I'm very excited because I think people, anyone you talk to would say that the psychedelics or indeed cannabis,

they all work on the same direction. I think cannabis and the psychedelics have the same underlying mechanisms but at different levels of, I think, constrictions. The psychedelics are much stronger because you obviously get much higher. You can on the psychedelic. But they're going in the same direction. And that's what the endogenously,

a lot of the, I'd love to know more about that. I will if I've got time to do that, study into the underlying, you know, serotonin, dopamine, all the different enzymes, hormones in the body which can do these things endogenously. I mean, we know the saints got top high. Saint Teresa, her description of her orgasm with God is just like a description of a psychedelic trip kind of thing. So it's the same experience, but either got endogenously or through other ways. I think one of the things that's very interesting about cannabis, too, is the difference between eating it. Yes. And when your body's producing 11-hydroxymetabolite

from the eating of it, it can produce a very powerful psychedelic experience. Absolutely. And my experiences with it, where it's been very profound, are with the sensory deprivation tank. Yes. I have a sensory deprivation tank,

and I do it with edible marijuana. Right. And it's marijuana. Right. And it's incredible. Right. And I think there's some, I've got a friend who grows marijuana and I think I'm very interested in the, he always wants me to work with one of the breeds he breeds because it is like a psychedelic and I thought I'd call it the, if I do it, the Beckley brain boost because it brings back his memory.

It brings back – I think they're very – I mean we are only beginning to scrape the top of the knowledge of how these compounds work and how we can use them for humanity. Well, it's just very unfortunate that research was stopped for so long. Yes. And we're very fortunate that there's people like yourself and MAPS and some of the other groups got enough good research which really shows without doubt that we can get better results with using psychedelics

to help and cannabis than we can get without it. And therefore, it's really criminal not to throw money at this research so we can get it out to the people quicker. Because access is what we need for all those people who have got terrible things they're suffering from,

which could be helped. And, I mean, I do as much research as I can, but I'm a tiny organisation, four or five people, and tiny amounts of money we've got. And to get a study going takes a year of paperwork, getting permissions, getting the compounds, which I'm at the moment doing because I'm wanting to re-civilize LSD. a re-civilized LSD, because I think LSD is actually the purest and cleanest of the compounds and in many ways the best. Not against, I think psilocybin and other ones are wonderful and they all have their

different characteristics which are incredibly valuable, but it's a complete madness that the one which is really in a way the purest is kind of opening up a magnification of what we are with very little external colouring I think LSD is and as it is

completely non-toxic you can give it to people forever it's not toxic, they aren't building up It's completely non-toxic. You can give it to people forever. You know, it's not toxic. They aren't building up toxicity. A lot of people are microdosing it now. It's a very, very common thing, microdosing of LSD. And what they're reporting is an alleviation of anxiety, a heightened state of wellness and of awareness and of being in the moment.

Yes. Clarity. Yeah. Just from being in the moment. Yes. Clarity. Yeah. Just from a microdose. Yes. I mean, we actually did the first scientific research on the microdose. I was collaborating with Maastricht in Holland. And we did it on 5, 10, 20, I think it was, doses.

And, I mean, it was 20, I think it was, doses. And, I mean, it was amazing, the results. It increases mood. It increases neuroplasticity. It increases neurogenesis. It increases anti-inflammatory. It increases tolerance to pain, vigilance. You know, all of these very valuable qualities in a microdose. And we could be using that with all sorts of indications which need actually more energy to kind of overcome certain deficits.

And also to therapy applications because you do it and you're essentially completely sober. Yes. In the sense of you can communicate, you see things clearly, everything is fine. Yes. But you have achieved a very elevated state. Absolutely. But you say everyone can do it. Absolutely. But you say everyone can do it. It's only those very few who know how. I come across innumerable people who I know someone who you know who has terrible migraine. And he had a microdose of OCD and it cured it. And he has terrible problems in getting it. And it's not easy to get.

Trevor Burrus No. Rose Ross So, do you see what I mean? And a lot of people don't want to have to go on to the dark web but don't know. I have no idea how you do the dark web. Do you know what I mean? Trevor Burrus Right. And what you're opening yourself up to when you get on the dark web. Rose Ross Yeah. Exactly. And you don't know what the product is. I mean, what I've said about the, I mean, I spent 10 boring years talking at the UN and places, not totally, but I went there, trying to say we should have a drug policy which is based on science, on harm reduction, on human rights, you know, and cost effectiveness.

Yes. You know, and not one which is the exact reverse. Right. Well, that's sort of the problem is cost. The real problem is there's a vested financial interest in keeping these things illegal. Yeah. Because there's a lot of psychological medications that people are taking, psychiatric medications that people are taking that they really don't need.

Yeah. Yeah. psychiatric medications that people are taking that they really don't need. Yeah, and it keeps companies and also prisons were the second biggest industry because it's free labor and a lot of funding coming in. It's very twisted. It's awful. That aspect of it is terrifying. It is terrifying.

And, I mean, I've been at it. I wrote a report on the, whatever you call them, the United Nations Convention on Drugs, which is obviously created by America, but 190 countries follow it. Actually, funny enough, America's the one which is breaking it, but doesn't allow other countries to break it. But not one word has been changed in the last 20 years. Which is crazy. Which is crazy. Especially when considering what we know now. Yeah, exactly.

About the benefits of it. Yeah. Were you friends with Terence McKenna? Did you know him? I knew him. Yes, yes, yes. What did you think of his stoned ape theory? What was that? The stoned ape theory is the theory that ancient hominids, when the rainforest receded into grasslands, they started experimenting with different food sources. One of the things they started doing was tipping over cow patties to find grubs and beetles.

And on those cow patties, psilocybin mushrooms would grow. And that they started eating those and that it increased visual acuity. It increased their arousal states, and that they also think glossolalia and so many different, the formation of language, so many things came about from that. Yes. I mean, I wouldn't put it exactly the way he put it, but I would say that we know animals. We know that reindeer eat mushrooms. Yes. And as mushrooms are toxic,

the king reindeer drinks the pee of the drug which has gone through like the big boss of the village would get all the lower members of the village to take the psilocybin first or whatever and then drink the urine of cleaned out. Yeah. Cleaned version. Well, the reindeer also does that. And so animals have taken it. were an integral part of Homo sapiens evolution, if you see what I mean. I don't think it's

the only feature at all, but I think it's one of the major, you know, the development maybe of the mirror neuron was very important and one or two other things, but I think that's a major lift. I think at the center of human culture is the experience of altered states of consciousness. He attributed it to the increase in brain size. He believed that, you know, because of the neurogenesis properties also of psilocybin, he thinks that it may have contributed to the doubling of the human brain size over a period of two million years? I mean, I definitely think all of those things are showing. I don't, I mean, he was a poet.

He wasn't, you know, he expressed it poetically. So, I mean, he talked a lot of rubbish. I know that because I went to a lot of conferences with him and I knew it. What did you think was rubbish? Well, I can't remember, but exaggerated things. The time zero. Whatever. Time wave zero. Yeah.

But at the same time, he's a very good poet and he had a lot of very, you know, deep thinking. Well, he was very compelling. Yeah, absolutely, and that's wonderful. Yeah, and he got a lot of people to be interested in the psychedelics because he was so interesting to hear. And a very good presentation. Yeah, an unusual voice, too. Yes, wonderful, Irish.

Yes, yes, yes. Very good, very good. Very good. Very good. Yeah. But, yeah, I think these compounds are integral to where Homo sapiens has got to. And I think the disaster is that we started repressing it. I mean, obviously, even at the time of Jesus, it was kept secret. It was always kept secret, even at Eleusis, which went on for 2,000 years. They kept it secret.

Probably that's why Socrates had to commit suicide, because he had it with his boyfriend at the dinner parties. It was only to be used sacredly for the ceremonies. Yes. Which I actually think, I mean, so I think that's an incredibly important part of it, the ceremony. As an elixir, when we get knowledgeable about how to use these compounds, they're just amazing health, mental health elixirs. And I think, I mean, I'm obviously, as I get older, very, very interested in how one can hopefully delay the... And it's all based on blood. You know, as we get older, the blood supply gets worse to the brain.

So how does one keep the supply of energy as topped up, basically, in the most beneficial way for the animal. Yeah. And I think, funnily enough, the cerebral circulation is out of fashion. Because we discovered about the cerebral circulation whenever we did 100, 200 years ago, it's considered old-fashioned. So modern science really isn't interested in the blood, actually. You know, everyone knows blood goes up, blood comes down.

But there's very little interest in it. I mean, I worked with one of the leading Russian scientists who was on their space program and was the leading world expert on cerebral circulation involving cerebral spinal fluid and the relationship between cerebral spinal fluid and blood. We worked together for about six years and then he died in COVID at 80-something, which was a tragedy actually because he also was very interested in the kind of related thing of the possible increase in pulsation

brought about by trepanation which is a very ancient practice which maybe brings the level of cerebral circulation back to childhood level which is higher than the adult level. We should explain trepanation to people because trepanation is a very ancient practice of drilling holes in one's head. And you decided to do it. You were in your 20s when you did this? Yes. And what influenced you to do that? Like what was the motivation? Well, it was the

theory of it which induced me to do it. And in a way, I prefer not talking too much about it, not because I'm not in favor of researching it, but because I haven't done the research. So I can't say, look, this has been proven by science, which until then people didn't believe psychedelics worked. They would say that's some placebo, fantasy. Only that when you show in science, it works. But anyway, the hypothesis is that when we are born, as we all know, there's the fontanelle, which are holes, which close soon. And you can see the pulsation in the fontanelle hole of the baby. You can see.

And then the holes close, but the sutras, the bones, are quite flexible. So there's still the full pulsation, the full systolic pulsation is happening. Then as you grow and the bones grow together, slowly, slowly, some of the pulsation is suppressed because it hasn't got the room to explain. So the hypothesis of trepanation, which has been done now, the earliest skull found, and it's funny enough, the archaeologists at Chauvet told me, near Chauvet they found a trepan skull of 25,000 years old. And you can see if the person lived after the trepanation.

Because the bone grows. Yes, and softens. So that's kind of, I think, I haven't been studying it for the last 20 years because I've been on to psychedelics too much. But I long to, because it's very close to what I want to do. Do we know the origins of trepanation? Do we know how it was? We know it's the oldest operation in the world, that it's done all around the world.

It's very much associated with religion, mysticism. with religion, mysticism. Very often, the skulls which are trepanned have a special burial. They are buried in a pot or with silk around them, showing that they were either priest caste or royal caste or something. But they're very present in every culture

which is interested. Not very present, but present. And the biggest mass of Japan's cults, funnily enough, I think is on the German-Dutch border. I don't know why. From what time period?

Pre-history. I'm afraid know why. From what time period? Pre-history. I'm afraid my memory's back and I haven't been studying it lately. But the thing is, wherever you look, there's, I mean, the third eye, the thing in your picture,

the third eye, I was told by a thing, is a visualization of the third eye. And one of the high, whatever, I can't quite think of the word, the high aims of Buddhism and spiritually is by meditation opening your hole in the skull. And that's in beautiful old Tibetan art showing energy coming in and out of the hole in the head. So it's always been... Why I think the priest caste was associated with it, because I think that on the whole it was the priest caste was associated with it, because I think that on the whole

it was the priest caste which took the compounds to get high, whatever they were, mushrooms or ergot. And the danger of getting high is when you come down you have a bad time, maybe flip out but have a bad time. And I think it was probably observed that the people with a fractured skull or wound or whatever it was, a hole in the head, actually slightly kind of rose to the top in the village, in the thing. They became the doctors or the shamans or... It seems to have an advantage.

Because, like in Mexico skulls, everyone grows up with skulls, you know they have skulls they have the these day of the dead skulls they're not real no, right

well I've seen I mean because I was interested in I've seen quite a lot of skulls in fact I've even got one which, because I was interested in it, I've seen quite a lot of skulls. In fact, I've even got one, which is, I think it's, I can't quite remember, 400, 700 BC. Wow. An Irish chieftain it's meant to be. And it's got actually six holes in it. Wow.

And why anyone wants to do six holes, I have no idea. Some of them are quite large, too. Yeah, yeah. But I think, I personally think that the change happens with one hole. All you need is for the membrane to be able to expand on the heartbeat. And I think what the restoration at the point of trepanation is allowing that expansion on the heartbeat to the full expansion of the systolic pressure, which the child has until it starts to close over, kind of 13 onwards, the child comes down,

21 was average, the skull closes. And that's often when the mental problems start after 21, psychosis and all of those things. You're just at a slightly lower level in terms of energy for the brain. And what I want to do, it's very easy research to do trepanation because people are doing it in hospitals every day. By the thousand, if there's any brain operation, first you have to pound the skull. So it's happening all the time.

So we could very easily, actually. I work with some very top-level scientists in Mexico, and I want to get that study going again, and particularly doing it for headaches, migraine, because it used to historically, in my father's encyclopedia, which is whatever, 1912, I can't remember, something like that, it said trepanation is blah, blah, blah, been done throughout history, and it is still currently being done with apparent success for the treatment of mental conditions, migraine, and da-da-da.

So until in the First World War, they did the first lobotomy, and that stopped trepanation as just an old wives' tale. So in a sense, they threw out the baby with the bathwater. And I think that there is something. It's quite easy to do. So I'm trying to find the possibilities, and I really want to do this research with trepanation. Funnily enough, years ago, I was at Burning Man,

and I had a campaign. What was it? Barlow. Barlow was an old friend of mine, and he got a lot of rather important people to sign up that they wanted to be trepanned. And we were going to do, you know, so getting people trepanned legally in a research program. But it never happened.

But what I want to say is that, for instance, Jamie, my husband, got to pound. How long ago did he do that? How long ago? How long ago did he do it? Long time ago. I mean, soon after we got together. And very difficult to find. We were looking for someone in Egypt

and found a wonderful surgeon there who did it, who was very interested in the kind of mathematics of pyramids and things. And he had terrible headaches all his life. He lost a day or two a week on headaches. After his trepanation, he doesn't have headaches. Wow. And I think it just gives back to the body and the brain that extra pulsation, which means, I mean, you have it from all that exercise you do.

So constantly you're getting that extra blood to the brain through your exercise. But for those of us who don't do all that exercise, it's good to have alternative ways of keeping the blood going. That's got to be a big factor in the runner's high. Yeah. Because in runner's high, they achieve these states of elevated consciousness. Absolutely. Yeah. I met one, and I'm sure you've met plenty, but who runs, I think he said 140 or some

enormous number, 100 miles or something. And he said at a certain point he had a breakthrough where he got into a kind of real altered state of consciousness. And I'm sure we can do all these things endogenously. I mean, obviously, that's what meditation is doing. It's training you to do your own way of getting high. And monks and people, they productively spend 30 years of their life doing it. And I think that's wonderful. But for those of us who would like a quicker technique, I think there's nothing wrong than learning to use a non-toxic substance to help us get up there.

And so, funny enough, I think the new, how I look on it, it's all about feeding the brain with enough energy mitochondria working away to produce that mental cell energy so that we can keep

our function close to the optimal that's what we want or anyway not allowing it to drop too low function close to the optimal. That's what we want. Or anyway, not allowing it to drop too low. Right. And that's what I think is the purpose in a way. Not the only purpose at all. I actually think psychedelics have value in a lot of different non-specific areas.

One is self-realizations, experience, beauty, love of beauty, love of sound, love of people, love. I think it increases compassion and empathy and nature love and all of those rather good human qualities. So I think it has the sensible use of the psychedelics. And by that I also mean cannabis, I mean the consciousness-altering techniques. consciousness-altering techniques. And I think those people who do it purely by meditation are to be very much admired

because it's wonderful not to need an outside thing just to be able to do it within your own self, like a hot bath and a freezing bath or any of those techniques, obviously, change your level of consciousness by bodily reactions. Yes. But also I think the use of the psychoactive compounds, we can, you know, tune it so it's a very, very carefully regulated, I mean, self-regulated operation.

You can dial it in. Yeah. You can control it. Yeah. And I feel very grateful for many things in my childhood. But one of them was that I was my father's companion and he was a diabetic. I was my father's companion, and he was a diabetic. And he was an artist, so he didn't like his sugar level going high because then you lose your sight and his terror was going blind.

So he always kept his sugar level low. So every day he was getting short of carbohydrates, falling in a ditch. If he was driving a car, he drove over the centre of roundabouts. You know, he did all sorts of funny things when he was short of carbohydrates. And my job was putting the sugar in his mouth. And so I got a very good relationship of knowledge of how the glucose level controls your level of concentration, if you like, and how important it is.

So when Bart, this Dutch scientist, told me his hypothesis of psychedelics increasing the volume of blood in the brain capillaries, and particularly if you're doing a cognitively demanding activity, you use a lot of glucose and the sugar level falls. Therefore, you need to keep the sugar level normal by increasing the intake. And actually, all those years before it was legal,

we lived on LSD. When I say live, I meant on big doses every day. We really lived. And I psychoanalyzed myself on myself. I was doctor and patient. And I read the whole of whatever,

Freud, Reich. Did you make notes? Did you take a journal during that time? Not a journal, but I did diagrams of, you know. Yeah, and I watched myself. I overcame, for instance, I was very tall as a child. I rather kind of hated being taller than everyone else. So at about 13, I started smoking cigarettes behind the bushes. So I was pretty addicted by the time I met Bob when I was 22 or 23, I can't remember.

I was pretty addicted. And he said what a horrible habit it is, was mine, smoking. So then I said, well, I'll give up. And so I took a trip of LSD with the intention, I'll stop. It's a horrible habit. Just give it up. And I never smoked another cigarette. Do you remember when you did that, when you took the LSD with the intention of giving up cigarettes?

Do you remember what happened to you? Yeah, I do. What was it like? I remember smoking a cigarette during the trip and thinking, yuck, this is disgusting. I remember when I was a child,

young child smoking, made one feel a bit sick. One had to repress the feeling of sickness. And then I realized, gosh, it makes me feel sick. Yeah. And then, yeah,

the smell is horrible. It's making you sick. Yeah, yeah. So I gave up. And 40 years later or whenever, when I was talking to Roland Giffiths, funnily enough, I had, I think it was $10,000 to do a research program. So I went to Roland at that time, said, I've got this. He said, oh, what would you like to do what would you suggest

so I said well what about overcoming nicotine addiction I did that with LSD we could do it with psilocybin try and that was the basis of the study which is I mean I remember

the first lot was 80% success rate. And no, yeah, 80% success rate. I don't know what it is now. But it's an extraordinarily successful, because actually nicotine is more difficult to give up than heroin, because you're always repeating it. So I experimented in those years when we were living on LSD.

We worked. That was our passion. We were studying the human brain and the self. And the T-shirt I've got for you is the motto is Know Thyself. And that was what one was doing, trying to understand how we work better at that level and how we can enhance our working. And I just think there's a lot more to be learned about how we can

if we concentrate more on giving the brain the energy it needs to function optimally how can we help that happen obviously exercise is one I've always slightly avoided the exercise route, being lazy. But I have to say, you

know, there are alternatives which can be used to the health of the person. And I think it's a tragedy that one can't talk about things more openly. Yes. It's not easier to carry out research because I know having done it for now over 20 years or 50 years trying to do research into psychedelics, how difficult it is. I mean, in order for me to do it,

I realized I had to stop being Amanda Fielding. No letters after my name, no money, so who am I? And become a foundation. Funnily enough, it was a very clever conceptual artwork. Because in England, it's very kind of liberal England. You pay whatever it is, and you become a foundation. A thousand pounds, I think, or something. Suddenly you're a foundation a thousand pounds I think or something suddenly you're a foundation

you don't have to have any money you're just a foundation registered in Scotland I'm registered and then I got the top scientists in the world 10, 15 of them including Albert Hoffman

and Sasha Shulgin but the more important ones were the established ones 15 of them, including Albert Hoffman and Sascha Schorgen. But the more important ones were the established ones like, I always forget his name. He was wonderful. Colin Blakemore, who was a kind of top neuroscientist in the world at that point. And he very much backed what we were going to start a centre at Oxford studying it, but that was going to cost 4 million and we couldn't get it. And various other high-level scientists.

So I had a very impressive advisory board. And so then I gave seminars, a series of seminars at the House of Lords where I had presidents and blah blah blah, all the head of NIDA, head of the Russian people, asked themselves if they could come. So 70 invited people came to discuss global drug policy. That made quite a difference. That went on for 10 years or something. And then I went to the whatever, the national, what do you call it? Anyway, I advised certain governments and things on drug policy.

The United Nations went there regularly trying to change things. So through this foundation. Yeah. If you don't mind, when you had your own personal experience with trepanation, what was that like? What did it do for you? Yeah. It was, sorry, can I do my drive? Sure.

I remember, I mean, no one wants to drill a hole in their head on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I can tell you, it is not something, I'm a very cautious person. And so I had a deep interest in it because I had a very deep understanding of the hypothesis of blood supply and I was interested in researching it. Then my partner, Joey Mellon, at that time he was very keen on Japan himself. And he was a second son, so he kind of was a bit more casual, cavalier about it than I was. And so I had quite a few missed shots before he finally got through. And funny enough, then I did notice a difference and the difference is very subtle you really have to know a person to notice it but how I'd express it is it slightly lowers the neurotic characteristics if you see what I mean

they become I mean they don mean, they don't eliminate them in any way, but it lowers it. And so having seen the difference, because Bart was Japan before I knew him, so I never experienced the change. But when I saw the change in Joe, I thought, well, it does make a difference. So I had thought I'd find a doctor. So I'd spent four years looking for a doctor to talk about me. And I had people who said they would nearly, and then they said, ah, if God meant us

to have a hole in his head, he would have given us one. Or, you know, it could be bad for my career and Harley Street if it came out, or if you died, or, you know, whatever. And so it didn't happen. So then I thought, well, I'm a sculptor.

I'll sculpt my own skull and see what happens. So I really studied it because I'm a very, very cautious person. And in London, strangely, the shop was called Down Brothers. It's off Harley Street. It has all the instrumentation for trepanation. Very old shop, actually. And charming staff there who'd show me in detail how you trepan, because I went in as an interested observer.

And so I learned how to do it very cautiously. There are three layers of bone, et cetera, et cetera. I learned how to do it very cautiously. There are three layers of bone, etc., etc. I learned how to do it. So I felt competent to do it. And that took quite a long time, deciding I was competent and confident I could do it. So I decided to make a film of it because I thought that would kind of separate me from the unpleasant

of doing such a silly thing. And so I made, funny enough, my great aunt just died and given me 70 pounds and I bought a lovely little movie, Super 8 Camera, and set it up. And I had my beloved birdie always with me.

He was an observer of this thing. And there was all sorts of stories, which I won't waste the time, which was amazing because we were asked to a party by rather kind of guardian journalists, top journalists in England, for the Saturday night. I had been planning on doing it on the Sunday, but I moved it forward. So I thought it would be good publicity for the movement

if I... Anyway, I moved it forward. And then there was the electricity strike in England. So if I hadn't moved it forward, the electricity would have been cut, which was just a kind of good little trickle, beating fate to do it. So anyway, I did it very, very carefully with a hand trapan in the mirror. Perfect little operation. What kind? Was it a drill?

Drill. Electric drill. But I used a ball with a flat bottom so it couldn't damage the membrane because obviously what one's frightened of is damaging the membrane surrounding the brain. Right. I mean, I don't want to go into detail with it at all, but all I can say, I did it, I knew the second I was through because the second you're through, there's no resistance. And it had a flat bottom, so it couldn't. I mean, it's not something one wants to do at all. But

it's kind of like people go skiing, people go horse riding, just the same danger. You know, it's a danger. Possibly infection is the only danger. That's the danger. And I always say no one should do it themselves. It's a foolish thing to do.

But then when I'd finished, I bandaged up. We went out and had steak for dinner to replace the lost blood. And then went to this party. And the photograph, which I don't know if you know, with Birdie on my shoulder was the evening that came out of the Super 8 movie. I've seen the images. Yeah. But I haven't seen, apparently you never released the video.

I never released it. And the person who made the film actually, as always, conned one. So, I had forbidden to let the images out on public thing, because I didn't want I didn't want anyone doing it.

And funnily enough... Why did you not want anyone doing it? Because I don't think self-tribulation is a good idea. But you did it. Yeah, but I'm me. You know, I took trouble not to. And funnily enough, when I did an artwork in New York about it at PS1, because at that period I was trying to educate the world through art. And I had this exhibition in PS1

of the slides. Norm was great. It was like an Egyptian tomb. It was lovely. It was a Norm's room they gave me. And apparently people were queuing up,

including people like Warhol and Bernardo Bertolucci couldn't get in. It was a kind of pleasure a hot movie at that point. And people fainted, it said in the papers, like ripe plums falling to the ground. But then 60 Minutes did a film of it, of me, and wanted to film me back at Beckley with Birdie,

who was my pigeon, who was never in a cage or always free. And so they flew me home on corn call because I was pregnant with my oldest son, Rocky, to film me with Birdie. And Birdie was a very strong sense of justice. And I'd broken the code of love by going away. So if I went away, he punished me until the punishment had been done.

So when they flew me back from Concord, he wouldn't come down from the house stop. Anyway, they made this film and he was very nice director and then it was as always when one did something which was well done it was not allowed to go

out because the lawyers said there'll be a epidemic of people trapping themselves. Were you worried about that? Were people copying you? No. No? No, not really.

Just too crazy? Yeah, too crazy. What was your personal experience like? What was it like after it was over? Sorry you asked me that. How I described it at the time was it was like the tide coming in. There was a kind of stillness in the brain, that internal, endless internal conversation of basically the ego.

Calm down. the ego. Calm down. Now, of course one cannot explain all of those things could happen anyway just from relaxation of having finished it, blah, blah, blah. So what difference does it make? I would say it makes a slight difference. It's slightly like the energy. I mean, I watch children. Children have that extra energy. You know, they do those leaps and jumps and play around and that energy. Adults don't.

Energy is the more difficult thing. And when I became 21, I'd had one of my trips to Egypt where I live very wild and I thought I got bilharzia which is a worm you get and drains your energy and I went when I was 21 I got myself

tested thinking I'd caught it but I hadn't then I realised that that was adulthood. It's a slightly lower level. And very often that's when people have their first schizophrenic experience or some mental thing after that. It's a down, it's a slight down. There's a slight exuberance and that's what I noticed after.

But the difference is so slight, I couldn't swear on it at all. How long did the difference last? Well, you don't, you only notice the difference. You don't notice the change. Do you see what I mean? So now I can't say, have I got any advantage? Is my hole closed? Is it open? I can't say. Have you ever got looked at to see if it's closed? No. I tried to actually, and it was very difficult to do. I'd like to do that. It's a very small hole, though, right?

Well, it was that big. Okay, so a quarter of an inch, a couple millimeters? It was wide enough. All you need is for the heartbeat to express itself. It's all about the expression of the heartbeat. And it takes half an hour. of the heartbeat. And it takes half an hour. If it was shown to increase cranial compliance,

which is what I worked on with this professor, Yuri Moskalenko, who was a leading professor in those things, he thought, yes, it increases cranial compliance. And that's just a slightly healthier state to be in. And so it takes half an hour to do. In hospitals, the nurse does it. The surgeon doesn't have to do it.

Do you know what I mean? It's a nothing operation. So if that can slightly raise the level of energy going to the brain for the rest of the life, it's a valuable tool. But do you think that these people that have multiple holes in their head, is there like a point of diminishing returns? I should think they had B-grain or some terrible thing which went on. And they were trying to alleviate it. And tried to, yeah, I think something like that. Because I don't see the logic of it says you only need one to get the expansion back.

But that's why I actually don't talk about it now because it sounds so crazy. Right. That's the problem is the optics. Yeah. It's not good optics until you've got it proven, which I actually seriously want to do. Because what I do is on research with people with headaches, migraines, headaches, whatever, some form. Because that's one of the things that all cultures who did it, one of the things they did it for was headaches and insanity. In the old days, they said it's letting devils out. And the other indication is letting light in.

Because often people in the mystical tradition were trepanned. So I actually, before I hit the bucket, I would really like to have done that research because maybe no one else will be motivated to do it. Right. Has anyone been motivated to do self-trepanation that you're friends with? Yeah, I know quite a lot. Not a lot, but a few.

I mean, and then they started saying, oh, I certainly won't trepan anyone. I wouldn't dream of it. Do you know what I mean? See, that's why I found a very good surgeon, brain surgeon team in Mexico who did it. So he did it for certain people. And people wrote back saying it had altered their life. You know, I think if I was asked do I think it has effect or not, I would say I wouldn't be humiliated if it didn't, but I think it does. That's my opinion. For instance, it changed my dream pattern after I'd done it.

I used to have very anxious dreams, which very often were about Birdie, my beloved Birdie, getting killed in some way. After the trepanation, I didn't have those anxious dreams. So that's something which I couldn't control. Anyway, I think it makes a difference. So I'm in favor. But we need to do the research.

Yeah. It's a fascinating subject. It's just fascinating that it's existed for so long. Yes. And very much associated with religious practice, basically, whatever. You know, very often, funnily enough, there's in Mongolia some Japan skulls, and nearby is a very beautiful, this is very early, I forget, B.C., long, 700 maybe, a little beautiful basket with cannabis, rather high THC cannabis in it.

I mean, I think they go together. The trepanation, you know, like in Mexico, there were lots of trepanations, and they went with the kind of spiritual practices. It's very fascinating to me that from the moment human beings have discovered altered states of consciousness, whatever that was, that it's always been a part of this desire to sort of escape the confines of modern consciousness or of natural consciousness. Yeah, it's to kind of slightly expand.

Yes. Slightly get back the childhood experience. Yeah, joy, wonder. Yeah, joy, wonder. I do think it's that. And I think it's still that. And I think that's a very healthy urge. Yes.

And I think, therefore, we should, I really seriously think we should do research on trepanation, which I can very easily do. It just needs ethical approval. That's the only problem. Do you think that it's warranted? Do you think that the use of psychedelics and psychedelic therapy can replace that, that it's not necessary?

No, I don't think it replaces it. I think they're, as they were in the ancient times, they're complementary. They're both moving in the same direction of trying to increase the energy supply to the brain, basically. And I think that's very key for our future survival because at the moment I think we're at a very critical time because artificial intelligence is getting greater than our own, etc., etc. There's all sorts of forces which kind of build the danger up. So we need internal growth to balance that technological growth.

Yeah. It's such a strange contradiction that today, in a day where that growth is so necessary, these substances are so demonized. Yes. It's a tragedy. And I really think it's a time when America is a force which forced it upon us for all the wrong reasons. And we all know it. And America knows it.

Yeah. It was during the Civil Rights Movement. They were trying to arrest the Black Panthers and the civil rights activists and all the anti-war activists. And that was one of the ways they could do it. And it's the way to enter any country you want to, like Afghanistan or Latin America or any country you can go and raid and spray and kill and capture. You know, it was wonderful. The CIA loved it. And, you know, and so it was…

Which is so ironic considering that they did so many LSD experiments. Yeah, and then threw the people who were troublesome out of the window and said they wanted to fly. That's such a typical. I mean, it's a tragedy, the history of altered states. I mean, like the midwives used psychedelics to help stop bleeding. They realized the vasoconstrictive property of these compounds. So they were used in childbirth. And midwives were very often the people who were burnt for witchery.

And the ironic thing is, when the witches were burnt, then the villagers got a plague. They called it the witch's curse of St. Vitus' dance where you shake and then you finally die. And that's ergot poisoning because the witches went out with their hats at the full moon. And the hats would show the glow of the ergot from the light of the moon on the ergot. How did the hats do that? They hid them. I mean, that's, I think, where the hat story came. Because they collect the ergot by night

because it's phosphorescence from the moon. And then the burning of the witches, which was part of the Inquisition, basically, then they had these awful plagues of St Vitus's dance, which was called the curse of the poor old witch who had been using their medication to help childbirth. So it's quite ironic how the authorities translate it wrongly. I mean, basically it was because the witch wasn't gathering the ergot off the wheat, so the villagers were eating the poison and therefore getting sick from the bread. Yeah, that was, to me, one of the most fascinating things about the Salem witch trials.

Yeah. Is that they found out that there was a late frost, and when they examined whatever crops that they could find back then, they did find ergot in them. Yeah. Is that they found out that there was a late frost and when they examined whatever crops that they could find back then, they did find ergot in them. Right. And they think that that was partially responsible for that whole hysteria. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was very much intermingled with the Protestants, the inquisition between the religions and the whole thing came at the same time. Yeah. So there's been a kind of tragedy. I mean, the point is those in power actually don't want other people taking these compounds like the Americans didn't want their soldiers taking acid. Right. Because it made the soldiers say, gosh, actually, I prefer to be in the park with my girlfriend than in some bloody wood far away getting shot.

It's pretty common sense. Yeah, they didn't want common sense. Yeah. So it's a tragedy of the human fate. I mean, the tragedy of humanity, us, is that we've developed this compensatory mechanism which has made us the genius that we are and we can do all these brilliant things we do. But it also has made us this psychotic animal which is capable of great self-harm. And somehow we need to balance it.

And that's why I rather like the phrase, the psychedelic age. In the sense, I don't mean everyone taking psychedelics and having a party. I mean learning the art of how do you control your level of consciousness and then how do you control that level so you can keep your concentration. I don't go in for Leary, you know, turn on, drop out. I say turn on and drop in. You know, do be creative. Yeah, that was the problem with Leary, that his philosophy and what he was espousing to people was, people felt like it was dangerous to civilization, that people were going to ruin their lives, they were going to drop out, and they were going to become part of these hippie communes. Bad publicity, badly played.

Yeah. And in those early years, in the whatever, mid-60s, when I started taking psychedelics seriously, we took it for working. I mean, the Stones would be playing half a mile away from our flat where I lived and still live in London, we didn't bother to go to them because we were having such fun doing our work, which is studying the brain on acid.

Do you know who goes? My mother. So I think that you, I'm sure you and millions of other people know, how incredibly inspiring for work the use of psychedelics can be. You can see things you never saw before. Because suddenly having more of the brain simultaneously active as our images showed, the two circuits. You can see this is the ordinary brain. This is the brain on psychedelics. I've got those beautiful things came from our study. The circuits, do you know the ones?

I've got a picture of it in my back. You can see the difference in the brain. And that can be used for whatever you're doing, for whatever creative, thoughtful process. You've suddenly got all that extra brain power to dedicate towards what you feel passionate about. It's a superpower for stand-up comedy. For stand-up comedy, so many of my comedian friends

use it to write. Yes, absolutely. And I have an intimate relationship with Jamaica and the deep divers. There's someone on the beach who said the one who wins that prize is his best friend. And she can stay down there much longer than the best friend can because he smokes very heavily before he goes down. Cannabis. Yeah. And he said that enables him to stop breathing for a much longer period.

You know, so I think whatever you do, you've got more passion or energy. So here's the imagery. So that's the adult brain. On the left. On the left. And what are these lines representing? It's connectivity between different centers in the

brain. So this is when you're on a psychedelic. It doesn't matter if it's psilocybin or LSD. When you're on, you've suddenly got this much more intimate connection between the different parts of the brain. And so, I think it needs training to learn to control that increased. It's like riding an incredibly powerful horse. You have to learn how you control it. The brain is the same thing.

If you just go and take that, you can have a wonderful experience looking at the stars or having a love affair or listening to music. All of those things can be wonderful. But if you want to use it for cognitive discipline, which actually uses a lot of glucose because it's very late in development, so it's not part of the autonomic nervous system. It's a part of the cognitive nervous system which burns glucose to get the energy to concentrate.

And so that's the importance of taking the vitamin C and keeping the sugar level normal. Can I ask you a question about that? Yeah. What about ketones? What about the, like, I know many people, they get on a ketogenic diet and their brain produces ketones and they feel like intellectually that's a superior fuel.

I think probably it is a very good fuel. Yeah. I think there's a lot more we'll constantly be learning about how you can energize the brain in better, healthier ways. But I think a secret, a basic secret, which I feel I was given the key to in 1966 when I learned about how one can increase the blood supply to the brain and therefore give it all that extra energy to have all the brain functioning. And then it's a whole new art. How do you use that productively? But, I mean, that's like being a magician. Brilliant magicians, they have to practice. So it's a skill. Yes.

practice. So it's a skill. Yes. I always say to take psychedelics, you have to be much more disciplined than not to take them. It's much easier not to take them, in a sense. I agree with that. I think people have a misconception about what you're doing

when you're taking psychedelics. Or when you're taking, including cannabis. I think the common misconception is that you are avoiding reality. Yeah. And that you are somehow or another giving yourself a crutch. Yeah. I don't think it's that at all.

No. And I think that with discipline, the use of psychedelics with discipline, it allows you to experience these states and get something from them and pull something from them and apply it to normal consciousness. I totally agree. It gives you an extra power, like riding a more powerful horse. Yes. You've got in your brain power, there's more there. Yes. And so, I mean, I find if I'm in a really beautiful place, if I'm in Egypt or all those wonderful places with incredible beauty, it's almost an assault to the place not to be at your optimum. I say that all the time.

I say that because when I go to art galleries, I never go to an art gallery sober. No, I quite agree. Yeah, I always get that. No point. go to art galleries i didn't i never go to an art gallery so over no i quite agree yeah i always get no no point you don't i also feel that i mean it's just people don't like this but i'm going to say it anyway i like to be high around my children yeah because when i'm around my children i'm fascinated by them yeah and things that maybe would be frustrating perhaps if i was sober instead are charming. Yeah.

And I find them interesting and I'm fascinated by their mindset and talking to them. Yeah. And you have much more in common with them. Yeah. Because you're on the same wavelength. So you stay in contact with them. I adored having my children and the greatest pleasure. And I remember being at one of those conferences in Palenque or something

psychedelic conference and I think it was Terence McKenna's wife actually was giving a lecture or giving a talk very nicely and how when she was pregnant she gave up everything and I couldn't, I hate public speaking and I remember putting up my finger

because I wanted to say, well, actually, when I was pregnant, I didn't because I actually think it's good for my health. I've taken enough of it that I really think it's actually good. It's not like alcohol or cigarettes. No. And my children – I'm proud of my children. And, you know, they are children of parents who understood the benefits of altered states of consciousness. Yeah, I've had those conversations with my children, my youngest, who are 13 and 15. And they're at that age where, you know, children want to experiment with alcohol. They want to experiment with alcohol. They want to experiment with drugs.

And I have conversations with them about ones that you should avoid and the dangers of things that may be contaminated with fentanyl. Yeah, absolutely. And that these organic compounds, as long as you know the source that you're getting them from, whether they're psilocybin or particular marijuana, they're not what everybody is telling you they are. Yeah. And that's what's criminal, and I do think criminal, about the government because all the governments, the knowledge is out there. These are non-toxic, the ones which are non-toxic. And like in England, people on the mass can only buy the illegal marketing cannabis is taken over by certain breeders who breed only rubbish stuff. An insensible person would never dream of smoking very high THC cannabis, which is shit.

And it's not good for young people to smoke that. And it's the authorities which are forcing the young people into that if they choose to smoke. And I did a paper for the government saying that if they, as I hope they do, regulate cannabis, they should make very low tax for THC-CBD balance. And as it gets more and more strong, tax it more, because that will incline people to stop smoking this extremely high THC. Do you think there's dangers in smoking a very high THC?

I mean, not for grown-ups who know how to handle it and things. Right. But I think it can be dangerous. I believe so, too. And I think there's also some correlations between that and schizophrenic breaks, that people who perhaps have a tendency towards schizophrenia when they have high doses of THC, they've had very traumatic experiences. Yeah, yeah.

I think it should be encouraged, a nice balance of THC, CBD. Yeah. Well, that's one of the good things about the legalization in California in particular, because they've relegated these edibles in particular to 10 milligrams, which is a very sensible dose. Right. It's just comfortable, not too bad. Yeah.

And that especially in conjunction with all the cannabinoids with CBD and it's... Yeah, wonderful. Yeah. And that's such a wonderful step forward. And it's wonderful it's happening in America, And that's such a wonderful step forward. And it's wonderful it's happening in America, but also quite ironic that America is still forbidding the rest of the world to do the same thing. And it really does need to change because it's holding up humanity in a sense. Well, I'm hoping that with education, the younger people are realizing what it actually is.

And as these people go into public service, they will go into public service with this new understanding. Yes, absolutely. And I think I absolutely commend you on the wonderful information you give to people by having such a wide reach and letting people who you think are right say what they think. And slowly slowly, slowly it will seep through and come to the top and be the dominant. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, there's a propaganda narrative that's just very unfortunate that has permeated our society and it's incorrect.

Susan D' Yeah, exactly. That narrative of the brain, LSD and something, cooking the brain in the frying pan. Yeah, this is your brain. I remember once having lunch with Peter Thiel, and he was saying he was grown up with that and couldn't get over it. Right. I mean, what rubbish. Rubbish.

A thing which is complete. There isn't another compound, I think, which is so powerful, which is less toxic. You can't kill. Well, it's fascinating to me that that all took place during the 80s. And the 80s, culturally, is some of the worst artwork and music that the American society has ever produced during the influence of the Just Say No era. Yes. And the 60s were a period of cultural

growth and change. And people always put down the 60s. But actually, all the things we love, not all the things, but a lot of the things we love came out of the 60s. Spirituality, Eastern spirituality, yoga, health, music,

comedy, yeah. Even the automobile design. And it was all on LSD. It was fueled, that change. And so I promised Albert Hoffman, I said, I'll, I can't remember what the words were, but I'll reinstate your favorite child. You know, LSD is a wonderful creation because it's non-toxic. It's so controllable. You know, if the governments were doing what a government should do,

which is basically looking after their citizens like a good mother or father looks after their children, and therefore teaching them what they need to know, like our children. I'm never frightened my children might become addicted because they know. They're from an earlier stage. They know. Yes. They've been educated. Don't.

Don't. You know. Silly. Right. And also, they benefit from you discussing, like, your addiction to cigarettes and how you got over it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. And they saw how when one did, when it was legal, use e-compounds, one was productive with it. Yes. And it increased one's passion. I mean, I'm a workaholic. As am I. Yeah.

And I'm a user. Yeah. It makes one want to achieve the work one can do. Yes. Yes. I'm fascinated with American automobile design. I collect old cars. Yeah.

And there's a time period between 1965 and 1970 where there's some of the most amazing cars ever. Oh, really? How interesting. And it directly correlates. How interesting. It drops off a cliff after 1970. How interesting. It's fascinating because those cars from 1965 to 1970, to this day, are the most cherished

collector's automobiles and the most beautiful designs. Yes, that's very interesting. Funny enough, in this talk I'm giving in a few days' time at Denver, I'm saying you can see the markings of civilization. You can see which civilizations had integrated altered states of consciousness and which hadn't by their creativity production.

Rather like in a tree, you can see by the rings which are the years of drought and which are the years of rain and sunshine. And that's exactly it, what you're saying in that, in the peak of beauty in cars. I want to show you something, just so you can see this. I want, Jamie, something just so you could see this. I want Jamie pull up on 1969 Mustang. And then I want you I want to see a 1980 Mustang. The difference is so stark. Yeah,

it's amazing. Yeah. And it's so clear that that time period directly correlates with the sweeping psychedelics acts of 1970. Where they stopped people using these things. They made them forbidden and dangerous. And that is a 1969 Mustang. It's one of the most beautiful things that anybody's ever designed. It's gorgeous. I mean, I look at that thing and I'm like, my God, it's perfect. What an artwork.

Artwork. Now, show me a 1980. Now, this is just disgusting. Look at that clunky piece of shit. What is that? What the hell is that? Imagine that you went from that to that. Absolutely.

What the hell happened to us? Something's wrong. Something's very, very wrong. And people attribute it to, I mean, God, it's so gorgeous. And people attribute it to, I mean, God, it's so gorgeous. And people attribute it to so many different things. And one of the things they attribute it to is like gas being, you know, more efficient gas vehicle, but not true because you could still make it beautiful. And that is not beautiful. That's an ugly piece of shit. You're absolutely right. And I think that's

such a beautiful, and I think you can tell it in culture. I mean, like whatever in, I think you can tell it in a culture. I mean, like, whatever, in, well, the beautiful cultures. Sure. You can see they were high. Yes. They had that, those lines in Chauvet. Yes.

Couldn't have been done by people who weren't high. You know, it's too intuitive. Abstract. It's an intuitive expression. I think one of the things that psychedelics do is increase the intuitive part of the brain. And now I've got a new program at the moment I'm doing, which is looking at LSD both in high doses and micro doses in the best and latest technology in the world can give. So in the high doses, I'm wanting to do a research on the mystical experience and anomalous experiences.

And it will be the first research to use a Tesla 7. Do you know what I mean by MRI? Yes. It's usually a Tesla 3. All the research I've done is with a Tesla 3. Is this fMRI, functional MRI? And then one does whatever, how many people, let's say 20, and one averages the results between the 20.

What I'm going to do in this other one is use a 7 Tesla and personalize the data. So it will only be person by person looking at the data. And then it will be 7 Tesla and a Meg. A Meg is the one which does that electrical. You can see which centers of the brain are communicating with each other. And then we'll have a very deep psychological one. that electrical, you can see which centers of the brain are communicating with each other.

And then we'll have a very deep psychological one. So you'll know when the person has some expression of the mystical experience or some other experience. And you can see what's happening in the brain waves and the blood and markers. So one will have it much more carefully analyzed than ever before. Because apart from just pure fascination, interest, it's valuable to know how do we encourage people who are having a psychedelic-assisted experience to overcome treatment-resistant depression or whatever, to have that mystical experience. So the more we can learn about how does that grow, how does one help the fruition of that experience, the better.

And then say, well, that's at the top level looking at those experiences. I mean it's going to be so exciting which parts of the brain to look at and the whole different areas, hemispheres, the blood supply, which parts of the brain are actively activating in the highest way in that experience. I once did an experience with a very high level Indian meditator lady and she really wanted to help me and it was in a Meg, one of those ones, Hedra. And she told me after she came out beaming she'd had the most wonderful mystical experience while she was in the machine.

She said, the best experience I've had with God for a long time. And it showed a great burst of gamma in the right cerebellum, which is very fascinating because everyone thinks the cerebellum is just nothing basic, balance and all those sort of things. But actually, I think it's a very highly, much more fascinating than that. And so a mystical experience is rather like a toad in the sun, sitting on the sun in a state of blissful happiness. You know, it'd be very fascinating to actually know about more these different experiences that we can as humans experience. Yes.

And how hopefully we can map them. Yeah. And therefore learn how to get them more. One of the things I was fascinated about with you is your discussions of your experiences on LSD playing Go. Yes. That's very interesting. Which is really interesting because you said it made you a better player. Yeah.

And Go is an incredibly complex game. Yeah. And that's why for the last 50 years I wanted to and I will do a research on Go. But it's very difficult to find Go players who are used to functioning on a high-level LSD. Do you see what? Because people don't have the whole. Right.

But I've got that in place. Because Go, as you know, is a pattern recognition. It's an intuitive game of pattern recognition. I've never played it. It's a wonderful game. Once you get into it, you really get addicted to it because it's behind everything.

You can play life on the go board. And you have a handicap so you know exactly where you are with the person you play against. A numerical handicap? Yeah. The better player plays with white stone. So the worst player has black, which is more obvious.

So it's a better visual, but it's slightly less good psychologically. And then they have handicaps. Every three games you win, they get one stone put down on the board first advance hmm so anyway we we played passionately in the early 60s when LSD was legal and at the end of day you know we were doing brain studies all day or whatever we were doing and And then Go was there. And we wrote down every game we played so we knew who won and what the score was.

And anyway, I was a slightly better player than my opponent. But if I was an LSD and he wasn't, his handicap went up from three to six. So that's winning nine games so that's a lot of winning 9 games, that's a big big change and then it would come down again as he saw the patterns

it's a pattern recognition game and it's a wonderful game but I gave it up because you have to be passionate about it to keep playing. Right. It's very taxing, right?

Yeah, very taxing. There's a similar result with psilocybin in the game of pool, pocket billiards. Right. You have more feel and you know where the ball is going more. Right. And you can understand angles and the ball is going more. Right. And you can understand angles and patterns. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

And I think sportsmen, I mean, like Joe, the father of my children, he loved cricket. And he said he was the better bowler. Have you heard of the pitcher who pitched a game on acid, a no-hitter game on acid? No. Who was that again, Jamie? It's a very famous story of a guy who he made a mistake and got just too high. And it didn't wear off. And he went to the game. Here it is.

Doc Ellis. Yeah. He took acid and pitched a no-hitter. So don't get his ball when he was on acid, which sounds so crazy. That's exactly it. And do you know that picture of the spider, which came out in the 60s? The spider's web. Yes.

I'm trying to recreate that study. See if you can find that spider. They gave the spider LSD. Yeah. And, you know, the caffeine one was absolutely chaotic. Right. So bad. Look at it.

The cannabis one started off rather well. Then you're chaotic, just like cannabis does happen. But look at the LSD one. And the LSD one was perfect. Better than perfect. Well, look at the normal one, though. The normal one's pretty amazing, too. Yeah.

Well, look at the normal one, though. The normal one's pretty amazing, too. Yeah. But funny enough, now I know the leading web person in the world is Donald Oxford, who I've been talking about six years now, to do this research. But you wouldn't believe it. To give a spider LSD, one has to get ethical approval. Oh, that's hilarious. I mean— That's funny. And for six, eight years, we haven't yet to get ethical approval. Oh, that's hilarious. I mean.

That's funny. And for six, eight years, we haven't yet got the ethical approval. There's nothing ethical about being a spider. I know. You can't believe it. Their whole existence is unethical. Yeah. They're trapping other insects.

Exactly. Exactly. Anyway, so far we haven't done it, but I really want to do it this year. Because, I mean, maybe they were pulling our legs. Exactly. Anyway, so, so far we haven't done it, but I really want to do it this year. Because, I mean, maybe they were pulling our legs. Maybe. It's a very interesting concept. Sure. That even at the spider level, it improves function. Yes.

It would make sense that caffeine would be all over the place, too. Yeah. The heart rate would be jacked up or whatever their central nervous system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's jacked up or whatever their central nervous system. Yeah, yeah. But it's very, there's so much we could do. And that's why I actually feel having lived with these substances

as my passion for 56 years and particularly LSB because I think it's the cleanest and I know it the best, I've got a very good instinct how to do it. I've designed several studies I haven't talked about because they shouldn't come out. But I can see how it can help, like the old woman with Alzheimer's. Which I'd like to just show you, not to go on forever, but to show you. Because the difference is so big.

When I showed it to the professor of geriatrics in Switzerland, within an hour he said he wanted to do a collaboration with me to do an Alzheimer's study with it because you can't fake someone's expression. So from deep apathy it goes to a sparkling little old lady. And there's nothing conventional that would replace that. There's no conventional medication that has the same sort of application. And actually, I'm working with a very nice man who's the CEO of the biggest care home in England, which is a national health one.

And he'd heard about my research and was very interested. He says 70% of his residents have Alzheimer's, and there's nothing you can do. And the suffering it causes them and their relations and their carers is devastating and it's getting worse and worse as we live longer and longer. And it's stunning that there's something available. Yeah. Well, after I'll show you because it is miraculous.

And so I've also got a very, very good concept for the perfect place because what I would like to do is with these conditions, like I'd like to do Alzheimer's, I also want to do is, with these conditions, like I'd like to do Alzheimer's,

I also want to do autism, also Parkinson's, you know, I want to be able to fast forward these researches with the best doctors available, scientists, you know. I can design them. I know them. I know how they go. And what I can see is it's very similar to a condition which we know historically, which is called terminal lucidity. And I've been studying that for the last year or two. It's a well-known fact that people quite often just before death

who are in coma or paralyzed or one of those conditions out of the picture for years, suddenly will come back just before they die and make jokes about when they were in the nursery and people who know them know they're there, sharp. And I think what can happen with a microdose is that you light up the connectivity between these different brain centers. So suddenly the brain is functioning again.

I mean, not probably functioning like this old lady. She came back. Her children said it was remarkable. It was getting our mother back. She had her wit, her love, her attention. She said, I feel so wonderful. Let's read some poetry. Do you know?

Wow. From having been this... Vegetative state. Yeah. And I think we can now get that going. And what I want is the freedom to design, to make the care home called the Beckley Harbour, where people

can go and be treated with these compounds to see if it suits them, see if it has the same effect as it had with this old lady. And then we collect the data, and then I would have wonderful trained doulas who entertain them and make it a wonderful place to be.

We'd have dogs and children, and it would be like home. That sounds incredible. You know, it would be like being at home with lovely people who look after your emotional humor, and you're given a microdose personally fitted to suit you. And what a superior experience that would be to the traditional nursing home. Yeah. And then we'd find out, does it suit? And then one could collect in a year in a not a very big nursing home. And this wonderful man in England said, so long as it's legal, he'll give me the nursing home to try it.

So I want the permissions to be able to do this. Yeah. And then one could get a lot of people coming through and then one would give them home care. So one would have someone visiting them at home as much as they need to maintain a safe and good program. Yeah. Anyway, we could do that. Yeah. You know, this year. Oh, that sounds incredible.

But it needs, one, the regulatory passport to do it, and two, the funding. And both are there. I mean, there's so much money around it. You know, and everyone's getting old. Either their parents are or they are. And, you know, we should do these things speedily. Not wait 10 years until, you know, it takes two years even to get the paperwork done for this research.

Or one year. I wanted to talk to you about near-death experiences. And there's a lot of speculation about what happens in the brain during near-death experiences because many people report things that are very similar to what is like a breakthrough psychedelic experience. Yes, yeah, yeah. Well, what I think is near death, the body kind of is in a state of extreme turn-on, and it naturally, endogenously, lets out these compounds, oxytocin,

you know, all the different compounds in the body, which DMT may be, maybe there's, you know, they're probably more than we've even discovered, which give a shot of something, serotonin, which is very similar to a psychedelic. And that's why people can suddenly come out of a vegetative state shortly before death. And that's what I'm saying. I think that what I'm doing with microdosing is creating that effect without having to wait for the person to die, poor person. Yes. Right?

One can do it on a protocol. And that's what I'd like to research now that would be amazing I've got proof of the thing that it happens you can't fake it you can't fake someone coming back to life again in the look in the eyes so it's there

and just let's get the space so legally I can set it up with the best people, you know I can set it up and we can do it and then if we get successful data, we can set open clinics

care homes, services and then hopefully the people can take the treatment home with them. One of the more bizarre things that comes out of psychedelic experience is contact with entities, contact with what seems to be some other form of consciousness. What do you think is going on with that? That, I love your entity flashing across the ceiling.

Oh, that's a shooting star. I have to tell people about that, especially people that have had psychedelic experiences. They think they're having a flashback. Sorry I didn't warn you. But what do I think? Certain compounds create it more than others. DMT, much more. LSD doesn't really produce entities, strangely.

I think it's a, yeah. But psilocybin does. Yeah, but that's got DMT in it. Right. Which LSD. That's why I love LSD. LSD, I think, is more like a flower opening up, i.e. it's more of yourself.

Mm. Right. Whereas DMT, whether it's ayahuasca or psilocybin to a lesser degree, has this slightly boom, boom, boom, slightly dominating sound, slightly I don't really like the colors as much. You don't? Not quite. There's kind of mauves

and browns and I prefer the LSD colors. You see mauves and browns when you do DMT? Well, I'm not a DMT person. I mean, I've done it, but I don't. I've seen very bright, vivid colors.

I've not seen mauve and browns. Haven't you seen the darker colors? I find it slightly dark. I mean, I was once in, quite recently, in a room of a session when people were doing it. There were only ten people in the room. Three of them

were in a battleground. A poor boy had had much too much and was screaming and yelling and getting burnt. And the person who looked after him was a very practiced person in these things. He then said to me, well, actually, I was in a massacre myself. A massacre? Yeah. I mean, you know, he was, while he looked after the person, but he's very well contained with his massacre, so he still managed to look after the young.

But I actually thought, I don't really so choose compounds which bring the tendency of those sort of experiences. But I know people have wonderful experiences. Yeah. I've never had those negative experiences like that. No, my experience has been very vivid and bright. Right, yeah. And enlightening.

Right. Yeah, and the entities are very colorful. Right. Bright colors and wild, beautiful, loving experiences. Right. How colorful. Right. Bright colors and wild, beautiful, loving experiences. Right. How lovely. Yeah.

Well, that's very lucky because I know people who've had horrible ones too. But, I mean, obviously they come and they go. Do you think that that's people struggling with the experience and trying to control it? I'm sure trying to control it is not a good, detrimental. And I think people are very lucky who've never had a really bad experience. I had a really bad experience when someone, right back in the first year of my taking LSD, someone who had actually turned leery onto LSD, who was a kind of freak, not a nice person at all. Anyway, he had a vinegar bottle of Sandos vitamin C. I mean, not LSD.

And he offered me some. I said, not LSD. And he offered me some and I said, thanks. I didn't want it. I didn't want him around. And then he poured it into my coffee Oh God. without telling me. Oh God. And thousands of trips. Oh God. And so I had

a dying experience. It was a a dying experience. It was a really bad experience. And, you know, once you cut a thing in the soul or the body, you retain that fear. The pathway. Yeah, that pathway. So I think people who've had really bad experiences and have got pathways cut are more likely, if they're given a psychedelic, are fearful of getting down that route.

Right. Do you think that's a memory retention? Like perhaps they remember the bad trip and then they start manifesting it? Yeah. Yeah. And I think they definitely remember. The question is whether they can remember it in what you call it, I've forgotten the word, epigenetics, which says maybe you can go on for generations of memory of trauma. But I don't know if that's true or not.

But I quite agree with you. I mean, if you're someone who's never had a really bad experience, you're much less likely to have it. And that's a great gift. And that's what we want everyone to be like. Most certainly. Yeah. What do you think you're encountering, like, especially on DMT? What do you think the entities are? Do you think that's a figment of the imagination?

Do you think it's the consciousness expressing itself in different ways through the visual cortex? Yeah. What do you think is actually an entity? I know Sharman, I was a chair, and he says he always considered in the Sente Dami church, they consider entities a deflection of attention. It's better not to go into the world of entities. Really?

But a lot of people love the entities. Yeah. And so I don't know. My son once had an entity experience with Awoska. And the entity told him, why do you have so many, such a collection of sneakers? He has a sneaker head? Yes, which he does. He's got a passion for sneakers.

Oh, that's funny. So I don't know. I'm not an expert on entities. I always wondered if maybe that's your own consciousness, recognizing that you're obsessing about a thing. Yeah. I think there's that element about it. I think there's, I'm hoping this research I'm doing on the mystical experience, I think anomalous experiences like telepathy.

Telepathy, I know, happens to my own satisfaction. I'm in no doubt. How so? Because with my pigeon lover, we were lovers for 15 years, passionate lovers. Didn't Tesla, wasn't Tesla in love with a pigeon as well? Yes, I think he was. Yeah. Why pigeons?

Well, it just so happened that his mother died on the window ledge. And Joe went to collect her body. We were trying to feed her. And there was a little day-old fledgling without any feather. Oh, so he raised it and he but he shouldn't have lived because he didn't at that age but I fed him warm milk and meat Weetabix on a paintbrush and she became I mean he he was he became just obsessive and he became became the boss. And Joe said to me, let's get rid of this pigeon, this creature. We're going to have him.

I insisted, let's put him out because we're going to have him forever. And he's going to ruin our lives. So I put him out. I thought, I'm not going to put him out, my beloved little papa. And I went and brought him in again. And sure enough, we had him forever. How long did he live? He lived for 15 years.

Wow. But he was then killed. I always knew he'd be killed somehow. And the interesting thing, I won't tell the story because it's too long, but I knew before he died, and I said out loud to him as he flew by I said buddy I love you more than anything else in the world that was the last thing I said to him and then he died and I knew he's dead I was painting a picture I was on acid painting a picture I suddenly had this thing that is dead that is dead and so I

did what I had never done. I stopped painting and went down to look for him. Anyway, it turned out my father, who was also very kind of in on those sort of things, Birdie was very fond of, had lost his temper with the old cowman we had for 50 years and told him to go and cut these effing nettles somewhere and in the nettles was birdies still warm body so I knew before it happened and he knew within 10 minutes of it happening.

I mean, how many dead birds do you get? See, hardly ever. I mean, birds are dying all the time. They get eaten. You never trace them. Birdie. And then once we took Birdie camping years before that. Anyway, it's another story.

But he flew off. And then I did a national, I got on English BBC news. I said he was a hero, Ante Nioni's new film. And because I put adverts in the Times that everyone was looking for beloved grey London pigeon. I got thousands of people saying they had him and we went all over England collecting these wretched pigeons which were meant to be Birdie.

And then I went up to the television and did this petition for Birdie on the television, on the news because I said he was the star of Antonioni's new film. I asked Antonioni if I could do that, and he said yes. And so the BBC was jammed with telephones seeing people finding, seeing Birdie. And then I was really upset because they said

they never introduce whatever people who ring in to people looking for fear of something. Anyway, so I was incredibly sad because I thought what the point of the whole thing, the whole point was to get Birdie back. And then there was one telephone call which came through, which came from the police station. from the police station and because birdie had landed on a washing line of a man who didn't have a telephone so he didn't do his own telephony he sent his son to the police station saying he had birdie and because it was the police's line it got through to me and that was buddy Do you see what I mean? Multiple things of telepathy. And other things. I mean, I'm in no doubt that telepathy exists.

Are you or not? I think it probably does in some way. I think it's an emergent property of human consciousness that's not quite fully formed. I think it's there, we, because of our egos we don't sense it. I mean because like animals know when there's going to be a tsunami. No animals die

in the tsunami. They all go up the mountain. Well humans don't have that sense. Do you know? Yes. Because we've got too much noise in the brain. So I think we've got the sense, but we don't use it. Right. Or don't know how to use it.

Right. So I think it's there. And I love those sort of things. I'd love to know. I think they work with the same centers in the brain as their mystical experience. So by learning more about the mystical experience, one can hook on to learn more about anomalous experiences. You know, like I know a Buddhist monk who can shoot electricity kind of thing.

I mean, strange things which are unexplicable at the moment. But it would be very interesting to find out. So you think that these are probably abilities that we have, but they're stifled by ego. They're stifled by noise. They're stifled by anxiety. They're stifled by noise. They're stifled by anxiety. They're stifled by... Yeah. I think they're probably skills that you have to design. I mean, it is a funny thing that animals aren't ever killed by a sasami.

Right. They just have the instinct to go up, out of the way before it happens. That they have some understanding. Some sense. Yeah. I think things like telepathy happen with two things, passion, love, love, passion, i.e. connection, and threat. I think they put the tendency, the sense of more likely to sense it if it's like that.

I mean, that's why I had passion for Birdie. And it was when he was in danger on several occasions I found him when his wings were trapped. Do you see what I mean? Right, like you sensed it. Yeah. You had this connection with him. Yeah. And I've had it with humans too.

But it's usually a threat to life, a kind of adrenal threat, which obviously sends a message if you're there ready to receive it. One of the things about ayahuasca was when they were first recognizing it, they tried to call one of the compounds of it telepathine. Yes. Yeah. But then they realized that it had already been named. It was already harming. Right. Right. Right. We did the first, I did the first research with Harmeen, with someone called Jordi Riva, who is a wonderful Spanish scientist, on Harmeen and on neurogenesis.

We showed that it increased neurogenesis. As does psilocybin, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, we're going to find out so much. And he committed suicide, sadly, which is a tragedy because he was a great scientist. But, yeah, there is so much to understand.

And I think we're at such an incredibly interesting sphere of investigation. Yes. Because these things are all on the cusp of where we are and where we can go to in the future. Yeah. Well, I think that's why it's so wonderful that someone like you is out here with this passion for doing this research. And wonderful that you're spreading information about these things to people. Because it has to get out there that people are actually interested. Yes.

And then force our politicians in a nice way. But, you know, to change. To release it. It really needs to be changed. It does. It really needs to be changed. It does. And because I do think, I mean, I think the use of cannabis and psychedelics can enhance one's relationship with one's partner. One can help see the other viewpoint and help kind of get over difficult periods.

Yes. I think it can do that with warring countries. Yes. I think, you know, empathy, it increases empathy. It increases the possibility. We know from research we've done and other people have done too that the amygdala is lowered, particularly with MDMA, the fear, so you can approach things which are fearful, like trauma, better.

I mean, there's so many different pathways that these compounds can help enable humanity to get to their healthier, nobler, more creative expressions of themselves. I mean the number of people I know, and I bet you know many more, who've said it changed their lives, their experience. Changed mine. Yeah, and mine. I mean, I don't think, I know I couldn't have done what I've done without what I got from these compounds giving me the extra energy and understanding. And that's what I think should be there.

I passionately think psychedelics are a gift of the gods in inverted commas. It's a natural gift. It shouldn't be expensive. We must keep it so it's affordable to the poorest and the rest of the world. And that shouldn't be difficult to do. They cost nothing. I've twice started a legal, at Beckley Labs,

to make top-level compounds, which I did. But both times something happened. I never had the money to have a legal, so I never had a legal agreement. So actually the person who did the dirty on me, when it just got going, so it never happened. But I want it to happen because the purpose was to keep it low price. Do you know that? Yes. I mean, people have to make money.

Getting a compound through phase three costs hundreds of millions. So as governments aren't paying, we're very lucky to have people who invest money to do it. Yeah. But then one wants to try to make sure that the investment doesn't stop other people being able to have benefit from it.

Right, but they don't have monopoly over it. Yeah, yeah. And they raise the price. How we work out how you do the research, get it done, and the whole thing is maintained in an ethical sort of way. So it's not going to be a sport of the rich people only. Right. It's going to be democratized and available. And that's the benefit of the rich people as well.

And the rich people are the ones who hopefully are those who take the risk of, as the governments don't do it, of putting their money in to make the studies happen. But really, governments should be encouraging. Governments should be encouraging. I mean, to give the British government, they did fund our depression study second time round to give them their two. And I know that NIDA is now funded. But, I mean, it's a pittance.

One's needing a lot of money to allow... I mean, I do studies. I do them fantastically cheap. I think since I started the Beckley 25 years ago, I think Vivian has been with it 20 years. I think she said I've had about

the Beckley's had about 5.5 million pounds in total. For 25 years. That's amazing. Yeah. And I've done a lot of the breakthrough research But I'm now The age I am And I can't go on forever working 15 hours a day

And I would like To be able to do what I Can do now, which is a lot Because I know the compounds so well I know Where are their strengths, where to use them And it's such fun Doing, who knows It it's like playing Go, you know, when that's playing Go.

Yeah. And it's a much more interesting game because then maybe one can help deal with Alzheimer's. Maybe one can help, there's all these conditions, which I think these compounds can help. Just elevate humanity in general. Yeah, exactly. And not only for treating people, but elevation. I think that's absolutely as important. And that's why it has to not have to only be a medicine.

It's a medicine, which is essential. But it's also an elixir to make the human animal, the upright talking ape, a bit less of an idiot. Yes, yes. I think that's a great way to wrap this up. Thank you very much. I really, really appreciate you being here. And I really appreciate everything you've done. It means so much to just the whole world.

Well, thank you very much for asking me. If someone wants to learn more about your research, where should they go? Well, to the Beckley Foundation. But I have – we have – you know, we're a tiny organization. So we can never – I mean, I hardly ever look at the website. Do you see what I mean? Yes. What I would – they can help because I can do a lot of wonderful research.

I've got a very good tiny team, but I want to do more research and make things happen. So you want people to contribute. So there's a donate button. If you go to thebeckleyfoundation.org, in the upper right-hand corner, there's a donation button. You can support psychedelic research. You can donate from anywhere in the world, UK tax-deductible donations, US tax-deductible donations. Donate via bank transfer, cryptocurrency, Apple Pay. Amazing.

Well, I've never seen it, but well done. It's really comprehensive. But it'd be lovely if it starts to work because it's particularly difficult now that business – because people think, why put money in a bottomless well when one could put it in a well which can sprout? Yes. But I think there's an advantage in philanthropy because one's not guided by profit at all. One's guided by the knowledge we can get. Yes. And then that can become profitable.

Yes. Thank you very much. Not at all. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. And thank you for asking me profitable. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. And thank you for asking me. My pleasure. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.