TrueLife - Prema Sagara - Moksha Journeys

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/http://linkedin.com/in/prema-sagara-211721234Prema Sagara is the clinical director of Moksha Journeys. They are doing things which are not commonly talked about. Frankly Ive never heard of anyone else doing exactly what they are doing. Moksha Journeys is a collective of trained and experienced guides who come to this special work after decades working as therapists, coaches, doctors, herbalists, mycologists, research scientists, and experienced entheogenic facilitators from eastern and western spiritual traditions. We are devoted to supporting safe, effective, and meaningful sacred medicine journeys, in private, natural settings, that are custom designed to meet each client's needs. We provide professional guide services that include a wide range of beneficial strategies for personal development, self-healing, and spiritual exploration. ​Moksha Journeys features individual and group services, including preparation, planning, education, guided journeys, nature retreats, and integration sessions. We offer microdose coaching with individualized protocols, tools, and workbooks, depth coaching to achieve lasting personal transformation and healing, and ceremonial practice and training groups. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back again to the True Life podcast. I hope that everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope that you are surrounded by people you love and the sun is shining, the birds are singing and you have something to look forward. World War II. I've got a great show for you today. We have someone who is, that I find on a, on a, on a level that speaks to me. We started talking about this idea of Moxha medicine. Before I get ahead of myself, let me introduce Premis Sagara, clinical director of the neuro-wellness team at Moxha Journeys. You know, and maybe you could talk a little bit about, Pram, before we talk about Mokshah journeys, maybe you could.

could introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your journey before we talk about the moksha journeys sure yeah that's a great starting point thank you thank you yeah so my journey how i how how did i come to do what i do we go all the way back from the beginning um you know my so i'd like to start with my my real origin story yeah um which begins with, you know, my ancestors, my mother and her parents. You know, I like to put the lens on my mother because, you know, that is really kind of like my superhero origin story. You know, my mother is an indigenous Central American.

And, you know, her family came to the U.S. in the 40s. and they became migrant workers in California. And at the time, in the 40s and 50s, it was common practice for the migrant workers to get crop dusted while they were working in the fields. So they'd be picking fruits and vegetables and the planes would come. And my mom describes the scene, you know, in a certain way. at the time she was living, the Air Force allowed them to live at these barracks that were not in use, that were part of the base, Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Okay. And so they would sleep there and then work in the fields in the surrounding areas. And she described how many of the women in the community became sterile. And both men and women were becoming. coming, we're developing rapid onset of fatal types of cancer, especially neurological cancer. And so she was sterilized. And later on, she ended up moving a little bit south to Los Angeles, which was in the mid to late 60s, and she got into the health scene, the burgeoning health scene that was happening. So she worked.

with a number of different practitioners. She got into, she was, back then, they were doing saunas with niacin flushes. Mm. And, you know, early diet or early, you know, diet explorations. So she actually used to listen to a radio show with this particular gentleman named Dr. Robert Marshall. And many decades later, at least 40 years later, I would end up studying with Dr. Robert Marshall. He was a PhD of biochemistry and a clinical nutritionist. And he was a huge influence on me because my parents, you know, that I was exposed to his work early on and used some of his products as a child.

So, but the real turning point came from my mom. when she got into working with Dr. Stig Erlander, who I think was in Arcadia or somewhere around that area and the greater L.A. area. And he put he put her and my father on this particular protocol, which was basically to improve methylation in the body. And, you know, so it was a detoxification protocol. and they had to eliminate all toxins from their living environment, which, you know, Dr. Erlander was a real pioneer.

You know, methylation has become a huge topic in functional medicine these days. But he had some different methods. You know, definitely his detox ideas were on point. And then he was trying to methylate the body using food. So he was especially focusing on carrots because, you know, I don't know, your background is with nutrition, but, you know, carrots and beets are both root vegetables that are really high in methyl groups. And methyl groups basically are what keep our cells young and keep our DNA from aging. So they were eating a lot of steamed

carrots, and his advice was always to drink the steam water as well. And, you know, so they would eliminate things like, so this is really getting into my childhood, you know. I rarely talk about this with anyone, you know, because I don't get this deep into my origin story normally. But it's really part of my passion and shapes on my path. So they would eliminate all hydrocarbon-based toxins especially. So like no VOC paint and not using central forced air heat that didn't, you know, Because back then, the gas was burning and the system would just push air and you would get the byproducts in the living environment.

Now they have closed systems that aren't as toxic. But for many decades, people are breathing in hydrocarbon metabolites, basically, that age the body and act as toxins that demethylate our genes. and not only accelerate aging, but they can induce pathologies. So you get rid of all the airborne toxins, you get rid of all the toxic cleaners, toxic body care, and you eat organic and pasture-raised products. So we grew up getting these deliveries from a pasture-raised company. Back in, we were doing this, they started in the 70s and 80s, you know. Real pioneering stuff.

Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah. So, yeah, so that my mom started doing that protocol, I think, probably in the mid-70s. And then, you know, not too long after that, I was born. She had, we had, you know, been trying for many, many, many years. So it was a great victory. But, you know, it wasn't perfect. I was born with a congenital defect of the left urator where it attached to the kidney.

And so urine couldn't pass out through that side. So all the metabolic waste was going back into the blood and ultimately compounding it the liver and causing acute autotoxicity. And so as an infant, I was extremely ill just from the get-go. And as far away back as I can remember, I was going to the hospital. You know, my parents didn't know what to do because I would vomit frequently every night for years, basically. Bomiting, unexplained vomiting. And so, you know, I had every type of scan and diagnostic done on me. in time, I started getting more neurological symptoms.

And I described the primary symptom as a quote unquote, brain bomb. Yeah, break that down for us, man. What's a brain bomb? The brain bomb. I think it's unique to me. I've never heard anyone describe it. But it was an intense nerve sensation that was happening in the back of my cranium and you know kind of like at that that nest at the crown and but it would go along the

whole back of my neck and it would move it would kind of move in a spiral motion when it would come on like a wave and it would go towards the crown and kind of like right you know implode on itself so the wave would start more generalized and then converge at the crown and it would feel like the nerves were all firing simultaneously in a wave pattern that would converge at the crown, starting around at my neck, kind of like maybe upper trapezius. So, yeah, that's the brain bomb. And it was painful, but not like any other sensation I've ever experienced. It was very kind of jarring and consuming, but it didn't feel like,

any other sensation. You know, I could say it's painful, but it was mostly kind of like disorienting. But very, very visceral, you know, like in terms of the feeling like the sensation was coming from deep within. Yeah. So, not necessarily in the viscera, but, you know, in the deeper tissues of the body. And so I would describe that complaint. to the doctors and they did everything you can think of including I went to University of San Diego and did a sleep study and then after that they put a computer in a backpack with sensors and a cast over my head and so I walked around living my life for a little while bio data and you know and in and out of

emergency rooms and children's hospital and local hospitals and it was it wasn't until I was six years old probably almost six and a half where I got to the point that my body actually was failing and I remember that a particular doctor had told me like you know you've gotten to a point where you you know you might consider doing doing some type of surgery on you but we'd Well, actually, I'm getting ahead of myself. What actually happened was I actually collapsed. I was running a jog-a-thon. Hmm.

I remember those. Yeah, right? Yeah, totally. I was trying to get that money. Yeah, of course, man. You got all the people, your neighbors signed up, doing 50, 60 cents for a lap. I'm with you, man.

Right. So I was really pushing it. push for myself. And then my body gave out on the track. And so I lost consciousness and just fell to the ground and crumpled down. And, you know, the next thing I remember is being in the hospital. And that was the first time where I had lost consciousness like that. And so up to that point, I hadn't been diagnosed with anything.

You know, everyone was exploring and attempting to figure something out. And it wasn't until that point where they did a simple x-ray and just at a hospital I'd never been to. And they located the abnormality in the kidney. That entire time for six and a half years, they were looking in the central nervous system and in the brain. They were doing all the scans on the brain. And they didn't look anywhere else. you know which is kind of a stereotype of alopathy like what the the term

ideology like what how do you define that and how do you approach it like in holistic systems the root cause you know is often understood that it can be located in a different region separate from your symptomology you know that might not have an obvious correlation but with a system primarily five element systems that come from the east, but also in ancient Greek medicine, there's the concepts of the three humors, which have a basis in the five elements or the four

elements. And in those systems, they will understand, like in Chinese medicine, that the kidneys are very much associated with the central nervous system. So, you know, anyways, that's kind of jumping ahead. It's all right. It's foreshadowing. Right, right. Yeah, so they, they, we got a good surgeon, a kidney specialist that works on children, and pretty rapidly, they did an angioplasty and they cut open that urture and put a silicone bladder in there and it opened it up. And that definitely made a huge difference. It was extremely beneficial. It ended the brain bombs.

So I'm super grateful for that because I definitely felt like it saved my life You know I'm not sure what the outcome would have been otherwise, but it wasn't you know I couldn't sustain that I think I would have gone downhill you know Over the years if that if I didn't get that procedure So um so that's great however There was you know that there's all these other aspects to it that were unaddressed. You know, the liver, my liver was in trouble and no one did anything for the liver.

You know, all of those years of the metabolic waste going into the liver, it degraded the liver function significantly. And my digestive system was not good. You know, I didn't have good digestion, assimilation, absorption. So by the time I got into my, you know, into puberty, and with the, with the, increased nutritional needs that people have, the young, you know, developing youth have, you know, I wasn't, you already need more nutrition to develop in a healthy manner when you reach puberty. And most kids don't get an ideal nutritional support. You know, you need new,

your glands need support. You need minerals. You know, minerals are the core of, of hormone synthesis. And, you know, your body's growing and you need, you definitely need. need a lot of minerals and all kinds of other support. But I think if parents out there just gave their children mineral supplementation, which is what I advocate a lot for, they make a huge difference. But I didn't, you know, I wasn't digesting my food hardly, so I wasn't even getting any basic level of nutrition hardly. So, you know, in my teen years, I was really, I developed severe depression.

You know Just a lot of health issues I mean at one point I was having one bowel movement a week Whoa That's crazy Yeah it was crazy I mean

Your mom must have been having But scared out of their minds Like as you were growing up They're like what? They must have been like what are we What's going on man? They are superheroes Amazing people

Just by being parents And going through all this and getting you the help. I'm sure that wasn't easy for them, right? Right. No, I mean, my parents, I have good fortune. You know, they were so supportive all along and did whatever they could. So, yeah, I'm blessed.

I feel weird. I sidetracked you there. I just wanted to just a shout out to them, though, because their parents are awesome. They are, yeah. They were great parents. You know, my mom is still with us, and she's an amazing lady. so so you know I I felt like you know my life was saved by the strengths of allopathic medicine I think anyone who's done the dance with the with the hospital system and standard alopathy

and who has chronic disease you know many people get in that position get to a point where you realize that there are not great solutions available in alopathy medicine, right? I mean, I think people who are listening to this podcast probably, that's a given. Like, they get that, you know. So I got to a point where I was like, I have to take my health into my own hands, I feel like. And so I began pursuing healing traditions. But all of, you know, I would say that it was in my mid-teens where, I really started getting interested in enlightenment traditions.

And, you know, it was out of that, you know, interest and self-study where, you know, it started branching into more holistic ways of living. You know, they are part and parcel with those traditions, in my opinion. So, yeah, and that's kind of like how I got to psilocybin in that time period. And that's that's the beginning of like how my paths led me to moxha journeys. So let's see. How do we want to synthesize that? Well, that's a beautiful, maybe we'll just take a moment to think about that path and how it seems to me.

It seems to me whether we return to Joseph Campbell or we return to the Greek tragedies that in all people's lives, there's almost like this mythological structure that happens. And it's like you come up and you face this threshold guardian and you're cast back down. And whether it's an actual guardian or it's a giant owl named Molok or whether it's a disease that attacks you where you can't do anything about it. I think it's, I always admire people telling me their origin story because I think it speaks volumes of, I think people can see in their own. own life, their own battles they're fighting. So I just want to say thank you for sharing that. And then, you know, I think from moving on from that journey and then you started talking about some enlightenment types of ideas that you began to explore, maybe before you get into the ideas of Mokshod journeys,

maybe like there's a, there's another chapter of some of the other enlightenment things that you've explored. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that is really kind of the intermediate phase. Yeah, totally. But it was around that time in my mid-teens where, you know, when I, I grew up Christian. Okay. You know, I grew up Catholic initially, and then I got into, I started going to a Lutheran private school when I was 10 or, yeah, maybe I just turned 11 years old. and I found the Lutheranism, the Protestantism, especially, you know, in that Lutheran form, to be refreshing. You know, I didn't, I mean, I didn't, I hadn't been exposed to that before.

Yeah. It was like, oh, wow, you can, I like the idea that we could have a more simplified, direct relationship with Christ. And, you know, we could, we could just like get out of some of the aspects of the Catholic Church. Growing up, I didn't really resonate with it. Right. Right. So, you know, but that, so that was like 11 years old. I was, like, taking it pretty seriously.

I was like, I got to go study all this. I'm going to bring my parents to this church. And we, my whole family converted to Lutheranism. And so for, you know, like four or five years, I thought that was really interesting. But then I started really getting interested in Eastern spiritual religions. And so I recall probably being 16 years old and having read, you know, I had acquired like a collection of Buddhist sutras, like the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra, the Thousand Songs of Milarepa. And I had visited a Hindu tantric temple in our area in the hills and thought that was incredible. You know, they had like a point on and a library and this beautiful monastery, very peaceful.

And, you know, so my, the gears were going, right? They were trying to turn. I was like, hmm, there's something here for me. And within a couple years, probably a year and a half, I had gone to Borders books. Remember? I had gone to Borders book. Yeah, you remember? Yeah, Borders is awesome.

That's awesome. love browsing. Yeah. And on one of the tables, you know, on the display tables, they had this little display and it was like this stack of books, this one title that had on the cover, really psychedelic art. It was like black light art. And there was, you know, psychedelia on it.

And it was a collection of stories on all of the counterculture icons. the 16th and 70s. So it was recounting kind of like the how Gordon Watson went to Mexico and it was recounting when he brought Timothy Leary and Richard Alper

and what was happening. It was a lot of like quotations and you know dialogue and like real kind of they piece together a lot of different sources and made it pretty coherent and it was like this incredible narrative and I tried to find that book I don't have it anymore and I can't find

the title, but it was really a cool book. Yeah. Did that speak, like, being where your heritage is from, like your family coming from central Mexico, was that like another factor that was like, whoa, this is, this is my roots right here as well? Was that a factor? Yeah, I think, you know, for sure, because, you know, also at the time there was, I had watched Altered States.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, all of it was very magnetic, right? There was in movies, they go to Mexico, right? And in the book I'm reading, and I like could feel the connection to the volcano where they went to get the mushroom off the mountainside, right? And for sure, that was like, I remember being entranced by the idea of wild crafting a mushroom on the side of a mountain in Mexico, you know.

And for sure, it was speaking to me at some type of morphogenetic, you know, genetic level. and industrial memory level. And then a couple years after that, I was really deep into the health scene in California. I had gotten into these communities where people were experimenting with plant-based diets at the time. And it was a real kind of exciting time where people were talking about the ascines

and, you know, I definitely feel that there, even after all my studies in all of the trends and all of the science and the place of all the different types of diets, quote unquote, you know, the plant-based diet has a function and a purpose and a time and a place. And, you know, at that time, we were like, wow, we're discovering something. It felt like we were discovering something, like, you know, definitely expression. experimenting with psychedelics and trying to live off living foods. And so I got together with these guys and one of them was named Gonzago and one of them was named Eddie and they were both Mexican. And they owned these shops that had like all these kind of psychedelic references and they were a big influence on me.

They kind of got they were giving me books on plant-based diets and, you know, like one of their shops had these like, neon mushroom art signs. And it turns out that Gonzalo actually owns property in Lauga area. And actually knew Maria Savina and used to go down there. Boy, he still goes down there, but he had a connection to her back to that. And he's an original player. Yeah. Coo and Dero.

Is this something like that? Am I butcher in that? Yeah, that did pretty good. Yeah, so what am I missing? You know, that was a really pivotal time, mid to late teens. And, you know, in that period, of course, I also, I debated whether or not I would confess this. But I have to say that one of my early influences, it was really pivotal as well was both Alex Gray and his work with the band Tool,

which I don't really confess to too many people these days. But it was huge for me because, you know, I bought Tools album La Duralas when I was 15 years old, and the album art was incredible, right? And it was their first collaboration with Alex Gray. And, you know, the layered album sleeve that had all the anatomical layers of man and then the spiritual layers and the spiral eyes and the way you leaf through it and you you would you know all the layers would add up at the

end to make this incredible mandala of like a divine prototypic prototype of man with you know just incredible psychedelic symbolism and i was like there's some i became obsessed with alex gray's work at that time you know i i was like just getting online you know in the nascent days of of the internet and trying to find images his you know the scans of his art and i read everything that i could about alex gray and was always like just contemplating his paintings and and his everything about it you know his live art um you know i thought his early live art installations were just mind blowing especially like the omani padme hum installation was phenomenal um so that you know that was 15 and then you know that that that was such a huge influence and I bought that

that book that I described and then the next month I went to the last tool concert of their lateralis tour and the the stage show that they had on that tour was it was all Alex Gray and he actually went on tour with them and painted main the senior manor the singer's body I think every night where he would paint the flaming eye in a spiral pattern on each limb and up his spine and two layers going on the sides of his head down to his forehead, these flaming eyes just all over down his legs to his feet. And then the rest of his body was painted black and then he would get illuminated with a black light. And then I'm going to digress a little and disagree.

Yeah, go for it. This is awesome. Okay. So, you know, I was 16 and I went to this show with my brother and it was at the Long Beach Arena. And, wow, I mean, on the backdrop, you know, the huge screen on the back, they were projecting different pieces of Alex Gray of his paintings. And so there was a number of different paintings that are all very iconic, like that feature his eye patterns, the net patterns. But they were shifting in colors that are not standard. So, like, each color would become a different color. It was incredibly psychedelic, and it had a whole, like, living, breathing pattern to it.

And then as the show progressed, they kept adding more elements. So they have their kind of iconic standard sacred geometry. metal sculpture that they suspend from the rafters. So now then that drops down in front of Alex Bade's artwork. And then they have these big balloon sculptures that were like supposed to be cells, like conglomerations of cells that they were floating in the air with some type of fan. And so these giant like cellular masses were like floating all around. and then they added these kind of,

I don't know if they were screens or tapestries, but then in front of everything, they put his sacred mirror series at the end. And, you know, this whole time Maynard is like fully dressed at the beginning and he's stripping down more and more to the point where he's, you know, he's wearing a speedo and he's basically like, you know, this spiral black art living sculpture. And he's on a platform that has,

the golden mean ratio spiral drawn on it and then that platform is spinning in a circle while he's standing on it and and you know that lines up with the lyrics and some of the songs um which are you know if you dig deep into his work you understand that he went through a phase i think probably in the 80s went around his time in art school where he ate mescaline i believe peyote and He wrote these poems, a series of poems. And all those poems went into the songs of that album, which came out like 20 years later. And so, you know, some of the lyrics are,

his lyrics were such an inspiration to me at that time. Very spiritually awakening for me. And, you know, it's a little lesser known fact that their drummer is in a Western mystery tradition. And so at that time, I got really interested in the drummer. And because some of the drummer's friends were documenting online, their journey to Rendez Chateau and to like the south of France where Mary Magdalene went, was cast out.

And so, you know, that was hugely influential on me. And so, you know, it was that, it was all converging, right? that show, after I went to that show, and in the middle of the show, they take an interlude, and they play a clip from one of their older albums. And it's, well, isn't it? I mean, it's a song that incorporates this long clip

of Timothy Leary talking. And, you know, the main slogan is, think for yourself, question authority. And, you know, he starts giving a discourse on that. And, gosh, I remember standing there in the crowd and listening to him talk. And I've heard that clip many times, but when you're there with all the art and all the energy and it was like, boom. And I was like, I've been reading this book and now I've made the decision, I'm going to have my first psilocybin drink. Yeah.

Yeah. That's so awesome. You've just created like a generation of new tool fans. Oh man. Yeah. That's such an awesome. I didn't know any of that. Like I didn't know his background.

I didn't know those things about him. And I'm going to, as soon as we're done, I'm going to go look up on YouTube and see if I can find the video of him painted like that, sitting in like the golden ratio. That sounds amazing. I can't imagine seeing that at the stage you were in your life and how influential that would have been. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. No, no, you're feeling me.

Yeah. Did I pick it up what you're putting down, brother. If you want to find it, I know you can find it on like that particular show, Long Beach 2002 Laterale Store, because that was the last show of the tour and it was like, you know, the grand sendoff. So there's a good video out there about. But I feel like I digressed a bit there. Necessary. That was totally necessary. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're getting that, like, I feel like it was a long time ago, and it's important, you know, it was formative and really helped help to inform my trajectory.

So, yeah. So where do we go from there? Wow. I mean, so let me just think for me. I got to digest that a little bit because I'm thinking of the pivotal. times in which I've had in my life where I got to see, music has always been a part of them. For me, I got to go, I graduated in the early 90s. And my friend and I, we drove my Volkswagen bus up to Atsom Stadium up there in Oregon

and Eugene, went to go see a dead show. And I'll never forget, like it, man, we bought like a quarter pound of weed, drove my bus up the whole way, camping some forest. And I'll never forget, like, we got up there like a day early. And I'm like, dude, are you, my friend Craig and I'm like, you Craig, man, are you sure does the spot? I was like, nobody here. And we crashed out that night and I woke up in the morning and it was just buses on all sides of me. I was like, whoa, it is so nuts.

But for me, like I understand the power that a good, not only good music, but a psychedelic setting. It's almost an art form. It's almost like you're part of a painting. Like you're part of this piece of artwork and you're working through it. You're like, I'm in this piece of artwork right here. And it gives you this weird way of seeing yourself

in a third person point of view while simultaneously taking everything in around you. And it's dramatic and it's poetic. And it's William Blake and Aristotle all combined into one. Wow. You're right there, right? I really feel that, wow, you're doing a great job. Well, thanks.

I mean, you're inspiring me with this kind of stuff. It's... It means your experience, too. You know, you're talking about that time in Eugene. I mean, gosh. Yeah. Yeah, I'll never forget because we... You know, I had just...

It was almost one of the beginnings of my psychedelic experience because I had taken... I had begun taking mushrooms and going to, like, the laser door to show, or the Laser Floyd show, where you'd sit down in like a lazarium and they would project these 3D images of, like, pink Floyd show. dark side of the moon. And so that was the beginning.

And then we went on this trip up there. And that was one of the first times my friend and I had bought LSD for the first time. And, you know, it was just, it was just mind-blowing to be in this other world where you're surrounded by all these people and you're driving your Volkswagen bus. And there's this really hot hippie girl next to you selling MDMA. And I'm pretty sure she's mimp. She's talking to me because. I'm just, she's saying my name and telling me to come over there.

And I'm like, my friend's like, she's not talking to you. I'm like, yeah, she is. You know, but it's, I don't know, I think there's something to be said about youth and exploration and heightened states of awareness that you really mesh into when you're at a pivotal age. And those kinds of experiences will fundamentally change you for the rest of your life. It changes your trajectory. And it's almost like you have to make a decision.

Like you have to invite that into you. you so that it can flow through you and change your course of direction. That's what I, when you were talking about that, I was like, I was so enamored by your story and it just filled me up with memories of my own story. So thank you for letting me share that, man. That was, that felt great, man. Thank you. Yeah.

So, okay, so from there, you know, I began reading some interesting books as well. You know, and I started finding myself going down these, these mystic traditions and mystery schools and you start thinking of the doors of perception with Huxley and you're like, wow, man, this guy wrote Brave New World, man. This guy's out of his mind, man. You know what he wants? He wants to create this world and, you know, like you start going down these rabbit holes.

And then as I got older, I found the book, the island, which in this book, the island, it's almost the antidote to Brave New World. It's like, one is this dystopia and one is this utopia over here. And that book for me was, it was eye-opening because you got to see the way in which the mokshah medicine. You got to see the way in which a really well-dosed society with a real strong connection to mysticism and community can find these medicines and use them as a sort of right of passage. You know, when we get back to the mystery schools, when you see the kids climbing up the mountain to sit in the church and sit with the older, child like you know that kind of stuff spoke to me and it's probably because i have had an absence and i think most people in the western traditions have an absence of rights of passage there's no

more there's a keen there's echoes of a kinsignera there's echoes of a bar mitzvah but there's not really that tradition for young men to go through so and that's kind of what it was with whether it's your experience watching tool or my experience going to a dead show it's almost this right of passage that we found our own way. We found our own people. So I guess when we start thinking about books and Huxley and William Blake and all these rites of passage, I began thinking of Huxley, which got me into Mokshah Medicine. So that was my destination to Mokshah Medicine. What was your introduction to Mokshah Medicine? Well, I think, you know, the reason that we were going to call our company Mokshah Medicine original.

Well, at one point, I should say. And that was actually chosen by my co-founder, Rose, Rose Mulan Franco. And I think, you know, you should consider having her on for an interview as well. Open invitation, Rose. I would love to talk to you. And she's the one that really chose that name, Mochion Medicine, you know, because she, you know, I felt like I want to give a little bit of a quick intro to Rose, you know. Yeah, please. That's how Moksha got into our name.

Yes. And because, okay, so Rose, I don't, I want her to tell her story. Okay, okay. I'll tell you briefly that she was around in the time of these counterculture icons, right? And so Huxley, you know, that these things were fresh when she was a youth. And, you know, she's really influenced by Alan Watts as well. Oh, I love it. I believe.

You know, she considers Alan Watts to be her first teacher. And so that happened. But, and she has some, I mean, you'll get her story. And as I tell people, it is my main shining inspiration of what I want to achieve in my life. But she actually is an army veteran. She was in the army during the Vietnam era. But she didn't fight in the war, but she did have trauma from her experience, severe trauma. And I'm going to hopefully let her tell that story.

But she was married to a purple heart, bronze or silver star recipient who was a Vietnam War hero. and he passed away due to the complications from Agent Orange. So, and she has this whole trajectory of how, you know, she had these spiritually awakening her initiations when she was in her teens. And then she got into the military and then she got out of the military. And ultimately, you know, she, I mean, well, I shouldn't say ultimately, I mean, she became a licensed psychotherapist after the military. And she owned a trauma and addiction treatment center.

And so she did that in the Austin, Texas area. And she owned that center for 15 years. During which time, I mean, she probably won't tell you this, but I'll tell you, I mean, she had amazing results. I mean, they had a whole team, and they had amazing results with their clientele and she was doing unconventional things. And so what can I say? I mean, she, her first job out of school was working with vets, you know, helping them treat their PTSD with therapy. And so her stories are wild. I mean, some of the things that she's experienced

with her work in that regard. But she was nominated. She spoke at the Senate as a special subject matter expert on treating PTSD. She was nominated as special counsel to the president on that subject of treating PTSD. And so, you know, she's, I know, all of her stories, I mean, I try not to get too into it. But I will say that at one point, she started realizing that in order to really get deep healing results, she had to go beyond what she had learned in school. And so she got into certain powerful spiritual traditions that started providing her tools that she could use in her healing practice in her clinical psychotherapy, which was technically not legal, quote unquote,

but nobody really I mean the clients didn't mind and nobody knew the difference except for those clients were getting better getting better outcomes and so at a certain point she was like she devoted herself completely to spiritual traditions and she got out of that clinical work and ultimately she became a lineage holder traveling to eastern Europe and traveling to the Himalayas and having legitimate empowerment from lineage teachers giving her these traditions of healing and practice, legitimate enlightenment traditions that include

entheogenic sacramental rituals. So I found her through synchronicity, you know, 11 years ago, I had heard about her through my network of friends. And we crossed, past a few times over the years just by chance. And it wasn't until 2000, end of 2017, where I actually felt like I needed to contact her directly

and get into what she was doing. And I did that. You know, I emailed her and said, I feel called to work with you, to help you, to help any projects you have, and I want to learn from you. And so, you know, that after some time of doing that, collaborating, all of this stuff started transpiring. You know, we were living in Colorado at the time, living and working in Colorado in Denver decriminalized,

psilocybin. And, you know, everything, all of these dominoes started going off. And we had already been working on this vision and this idea for a project. And so, you know, so when we went to name, She was like, that was 100% her. Like, let's call it Moksha Medicine. You know, and then she was thinking back to when she was a teenager. And so we were going running with that, but then our legal counsel suggested maybe we not use the word medicine.

Because we do have a medical doctor on our team. We have PhD in biochemistry on our team. We have numerous different licensed psychotherapists. Um, but, you know, for multiple reasons where we decided not to use the word medicine in our company name. So we won't win mocha journeys. Um, but, you know, that, Rose is really the one, you know, to, I, I feel like I stole a little bit of her thunder telling you that story. But, um, you know, she's the one to talk to about mocha medicine for sure. I mean, I, I can speak a little bit to Huxley and, and, um, you know, the island, but she's the reason that that is in our name. Also, you know, even from the fact that we, I practice in the traditions that she, you know, collected,

especially the Himalian ones where we, where that, so the word the Sanskrit is, Sanskrit and Tamil, you know, we, our practice is oriented around Moksha as a, you know, a core component of our ethos. So, you know, we didn't just pick Moksham medicine because of Huxley alone. You know, there's layers to it. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, it seems I would love to. I'll reach out to her after this. I love to hear the origin stories. And I'm thankful to get to hear yours. I think it would be amazing to get to her to hear hers as well. And I hope she'll want to come on because I think it's important. especially now more than ever to get people that have a lineage of healing to get their ideas and to get their stories on record because I wish there were more of those resources for you

and I to turn towards. So I think it's responsible of people like us to try to make sure that those messages get out there. So yeah, please, I would love to talk to her more. And what, so were there other influences? I mean, it sounds to me like you were called to meet with this person and you began practicing these things. What sort of healing techniques were taught to you from the Himalayas or from those traditions? Or is there something you can talk about from those traditions that? Yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, a lot of this subject matter is kind of held in strict secrecy. And so there are many things that I won't talk about. But I will say that, like, you know, in 2009, I went to Southern Colorado to a remote town in the Rocky Mountains. The town's at 8,000 feet, and you can walk out your yard directly up several 14ers. And I moved there to study full time in a tradition, well, you know, with a couple teachers who had affiliations with Himalian traditions. So, you know, it's like growing up in Southern California and how I told you my origin story, you know, was leading me more and more towards the Indian Enlightenment traditions. And in 2009, I like took that big step. I was like, not only do I want to like go to classes in my area or like, you know, this local community, I like want to do something more serious.

You know, I want to go deeper. And so I sought out some people and I went to Southern Colorado. And these are one of the teachers there had lived for seven years in the lower Himalayas with a teacher who, you know, has written a lot of books who, you know, an Indian. I'll tell you. He's in the lineage, the Kriya Pranayam lineage that is commonly known as connected to Mahavatar Babaji. And, you know, that is well known through Parmhmanza Yogananda. But there are many other inroads to that tradition. You know, there are other teachers, other people, you know, like that family tree of practitioners.

So I got into that and through that, you know, I became very interested in the Indic kind of herbalism traditions which are encompassed within Cidamedic and Ayurveda. And largely, you know, it's there's the bioregional differences in herbs, but there are many commonalities amongst the earths between North and South India. And, you know, there's the linguistic changes. but a lot of the core tenets are very similar, if not identical, between the North and South Indian cultures and their medicine traditions. And so, you know, it was that study in the Crea lineage that really started igniting my passion for studying Ayurveda. You know, because I had already gotten into clinical nutrition. You know, I started practicing clinical nutrition in 2011. February 2011, I opened my practice in Colorado.

And one of my earlier teachers, who was a clinical nutritionist, was also a doctor of oriental medicine. So they were teaching us the Meridian system and the acupoints and a synthesis of how to work with herbalism and assessing the acupoints in conjunction with your herbal medicine. So I was introduced to the Five Elements ideas, and they were also introducing to us Ayurvedic concepts. But over time, I started realizing, like, the level of depth that exists in these other five element traditions.

And so I became, you know, that's what drew me. It was like, okay, who wrote the Vedas? What are the branches of the Vedas? You know, what is Ayurveda? And what is the context of it? And, you know, that's what drew me deeper into both the study of the medicine path as a whole, you know, in a clinical sense. And how psychedelics fit into that historically within my own lineages and within the lineages I would continue to seek out new lineages. And so that was, you know, I spent 10 years living in Southern Colorado.

and I did end up studying, I ended up getting influenced by a number of different verbalism traditions. You know, I corresponded with different people who really inspired me in different areas of the world, you know, because I had gotten a lot of momentum. You know, once you start doing things, right? I mean, I was seeing clients and really testing protocols, right? And, yeah, like what is what? What really works?

And my kind of my experimentation clinically ended up kind of arriving at the conclusion that all of the best healing results that I had seen with the people that influenced me, they are using combinations of intact medicine traditions that incorporate psychedelics amongst the other forms of herbalism. You know, so I practice a synthesis of, you know, modern, the best of modern science with the best of lineage tradition. And, you know, it's like working on the body as a whole. So we incorporate things into our neuro-wellness protocols that are, you know, that they're truly holistic. And they accomplish some wonderful outcomes. But in terms of, you know, the Himalian connection, you know, it's like Mahatah Babaji, you know, know, I just started realizing, like, he doesn't exist in a vacuum. You can study everything that he was a part of. It's out there. A lot of, I mean, some of it's in English. I mean, the bulk of it's not in English. But, you know, it's like some people have published papers, you know, that I've seen papers on the Indic psilocybin traditions. And people have, you know, since Wasson have proposed ideas for what is Soma. And I can tell you, you know, I've arrived at a couple of faths, you know, in that exploration, you know, through the last 15 years of devoting myself to this work.

And I'd certainly feel like I'm a beginner. Compared to my truest, my biggest inspirations, you know, I'm definitely a beginner. But like, in terms of what is Soma, you know, there's, I would like to expound two aspects of that. one someone can be defined broadly as a liquid principle in nature so this is very much correlating with the concept of yin in chinese medicine but you know it has all these correspondences which you know is but very much an esoteric thing um but you know so that's its broadest sense and it exists in all things that are wet um you know you know that's it's the broadest sense and it exists in all things that are wet um know, herbs, certain herbs have a higher amount of this energy, right? And so, you know, I don't want to

get too deep into that. But I will say that, you know, there are simple things like oats, you know, common foods that you can tell are very lubricating to the body. Anything that's lubricating to the body is usually going to be high in soma. And soma is something that is, you know, and very much used on a day-to-day basis in Ayurveda. You know, you need to get soma to keep your body liquid, and you need to be able to digest and assimilate that soma. So, you know, we get soma from different sources, but, you know, like milky oats is kind of a herb versus the food,

but milky oats are incredibly soothing to the nervous system, right? And if you look at all the properties of that herb, you know, What does it look like? What does it feel like? What is it like when you eat it? What is it like in your mouth? You know, that herb in particular, oats and milky oat tops are a really prime example of common high soma foods and herbs. But when you get into the science of rejuvenation that's encompassing a whole branch of Ayurveda,

there are many of the common herbs that people think about that are soma herbs, you know, that they're rejuvenation herbs, and they help to basically restore the cell salts in the body. And the cell salts are pivotal, you know, in maintaining the proper state of water. And, yeah, like, you can get cell salts from different sources, and you can get them from plants. and those cell salts are, you know, help to create a stable hydration in the cells so that your tissues don't dry out, you know. So like there are herbs for hydrating your skeletal system and your connective tissue, you know, and these are kind of like the deeper rejuvenation secrets that I was seeking after. And, you know, so that's kind of like a common way that we encounter soma, right? right, from the environment.

Like, I live in Southern Oregon now, and the environment is wonderfully wet compared to where I lived in Colorado. Right. You live in Hawaii. So it's like, we can actually get that moisture directly from the environment, right? And so we can get it from the environment, from our food, from herbs. And when it comes to herbs, you know, there's like standard kind of normal day-to-day soma. But then there's soma as it pertains to, as it's defined as, psychedelic alcoholics,

psychotropic alcoholics. So I think that's its most broad definition. You know, all psychedelics can be, well, I would say all natural psychedelics can be defined as soma, in my opinion.

And so that's its most broad sense. But there is a true Vedic soma, and it's not the Aminida mushroom, But Amanita mushroom does have soma in it. And the secrets of the Vedic soma are out there, and it can be understood, and it's a ritual that can be engaged in, in an authentic way. But, you know, it's like, I don't have it. I don't diminish Amanita in any way.

It's, you know, it is an amazing fungi. And it has all its, you know, long list of benefits and uses, beyond psychedelic, you know, it has medical benefit as well. And so Ammanita is an important fungi, you know, in human history and human experience. But I, you know, I think there's factual evidence. I know that there's factual evidence for proving that the Amonita theory of Soma is not exactly correct. It's not what's being referred to in the Rig Beda. Mandela 9, that's not what they're talking about.

But, you know, if you take the broadest definition of Soma, you know, Amanita does kind of fit in there in a sense, you know, it is Soma, right? It's one of those things like where all psychoactive are Soma, but not all, not all mushrooms are psychoactive, but not all are Soma. in terms of the Vedic soma. They're exactly the same, only different. Right. Right.

I'm with you. We have this discussion around a lot of things like God. Yeah. Chile and Mascall, right? All Miscala is tequila, but not all tequila is Mascala. Right. Right. Tequila is an interesting one because it has to be made in tequila, Mexico, right?

Like, that's the only way it can be tequila. Same with champagne and France. kind of like, is it champagne or is it Prosecco? I guess what depends where it's made, right? And I'm sure if you talk to the right distiller, he would say, listen, George, you don't understand what's happening over here in this part of Mexico.

But yeah, I think it's a great, it's a fascinating concept, and I think it paints a picture of what it takes to begin to understand the necessary pathway for healing. You know, and I'm wondering, after spending time in Colorado and being inspired by Rose and having the

childhood that you did, at what point in time did you decide, like, okay, I think I'm ready to help heal somebody. That seems like it's a missing step we haven't talked about yet. There had to be a point where you're like, okay, I think I'm ready to start helping people now. Am I just making that up

or was there a point where you decided you were good enough or someone helped you say, look, man, I think you're ready to do this. Right. Yeah, and I mean, well, yeah, if we go back and we look at, like, after I, after I had my first psilocybin journey, you know, there was no integration support. So figure it out, right? Right. And it was challenging.

I feel like I actually did need decades later to talk about it with integration professionals. to really get the full integration. And so, but definitely, you know, it was like once I made those realizations about the nature of reality, you know, it was like I, and I determined, I had the psilocybin journey and I'm like, okay, you know, I understood a lot more about the literary nature of reality and, you know, concepts of time, my concept of time changed. and, you know, my ability to think for myself and follow my own path really came out. And so, you know, and that was at a relatively young age. And the culture was not very supportive of that around me. It's still not. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So, but I did, you know, I just decided, like, here's this path that my parents carved out for me. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not going to do that. Right. So, you know, instead they, they, I remember being a boy thinking, look at these neurologists that are trying to help me. They're so amazing.

They're so smart. I want to be like them. I want to be like, you know, in this position that they're in. And, you know, then by the time I was a teenager, I'm like, no. I'm not going to do that. So. And so, yeah, it was a little. like when I I was supposed to like do this follow this specific trajectory in my studies and like go to a

certain type of institution and like have a very specific career path and and then you know I ate the psilocybin and then I was like you know I have to find my own way yeah yes and so that's that's where it all changed right in my late teens I'm like okay all these things I've been interested in I'm gonna fully devote myself to them and that and so I started studying them right in a lot in every different way that I could and so I got into clinical nutrition I got into herbalism and not only was I studying it intellectually but like I was also of course devoting myself to it practically in every way that I could investing all of my wages

to buying herbs, you know, I was immersing myself in the healing path and my testing everything that I learned on myself and, you know, so much that, I mean, it's been decades of that, you know, because once you figure out what works, then you, you know, you're constantly working on refining it and maintaining your health and rejuvenation, you know, that's really the path of Ayurveda and specifically the Rassayana path is, you know, the path of rejuvenation is a lifelong effort you know with progressive phases of going deeper into maintaining your cell salts and and regenerating your systems so um so that you know that in that phase you know is years and years and years of study um you know is like during that time i kind of like i i was trying to make ends

meat so i started working as a supplement um i sold supplements as the biggest supplement store in Southern California, which had an incredible inventory of herbs. I mean, they started out in the 70s selling just herbs in this little beach town. And, you know, over the years, I mean, I grew up shopping there. And I was a little boy going to eat the sample vitamins. I was so excited to, like, pop open the tester bottle and get kids chewables. and me and my brother like run to do that and so then I started working there later on and

I saw you know people would come in and be like you know they would just ask you questions and you get I used to get training from the supplement companies like a lot of big names would come in and do these little afternoon classes and so it was like companies like new chapter and mega foods and smaller ones like eclectic herbs and local brands like a health force naturals or health force whatever it is now and um um you know so they would tell you all about their products and what's in them and how to use them and then people come from the community and they're like i need something and so that was the very beginning where i wasn't really ready but they gave me information and it was like go so you know you're like telling people yeah get these corticeps

I mean, that was decades ago, and I'm like, yeah, you need, trying to get a boost, take these cortisps. You got this ginseng. We got these nettles. You know, it was like, so many products. And, you know, that's how it turned into, you know, once I ate the psychedelics and I was doing that work and I'm doing my studies. And, you know, it was like, then the community I was in, a lot of experimentation with the plant-based diet and psychedelics. And that, you know, that's how it all started, like putting all your wages to buying herbs. Like, okay, we didn't know anything, though.

It was like, Hushawu. Okay, let's read everything we can and take it. And we didn't know anything about traditional guidelines or, you know, the scriptures or the source text or, you know, how to recommend something properly. So it was kind of crazy, you know, it was like, if I look back on, like, God, this is just wrong. Maybe not even beneficial, but, you know, we're passionate. And, you know, we're, I mean, we were being employed of the team of people. That's what they still do to this day.

I mean, people from the local community just go in that shop and ask questions and buy products and experiment. But the more that I did my studies, you know, the more, the more I started realizing, I got to do things a little differently. And so then my next job was, well, I also waited tables at that point. And then I got to the point where I'm like, I have to make a big jump away from this stuff. Like I don't want to work in supplements. I don't want to work waiting tables. I don't want to work at these store shops.

And I was like, I really felt strongly. You know, like, universe, I need to do something in this interim. period where I'm studying and I need to like have a huge shift to something that feels better. And you know, I kind of really felt the entrepreneurial spirit. And I kind of started doing my own thing, which was through my connections in the community, I knew some guys who had started a superfood company. And they, you know, were like, yeah, we'll give you a wholesale account. And I was like, that's it. You know, I'm going to start selling superfoods, right?

So I got into, I bought stuff that I felt like was reasonably safe for most people, right? So we were buying all the major foods like, you know, hemp seeds and goji berries and some of the herbs, you know, simple herbs that I felt like were safe and minerals. I was really big on the minerals. And so I was just buying my whole stuff. inventory and then organizing local talks and selling my own supplements. And I was, you know, focusing more on things that felt right for me to sell instead of trying to sell like everything under the sun. And I didn't even have any say in before. So, so I started selling the, those products on my own. And then at the time, I got into a relationship with someone who was

owning and operating a retreat management company. And they were involved in hosting these wellness retreats all over the world. They were going to South America and Hot Springs in all over the U.S. and Canada. And so I started, I mean, I was in a relationship with this person. And at one point I started working with them. And we went to Indonesia and did some wellness retreats in. Bali and wow and yeah we had various people that we consulted to and and I ended up shifting to Arizona and for about a year and a half I was doing that same type of thing

at a permanent location where I was like basically on the staff of a wellness retreat and they let me host my talks and I also got into cold lasers at the time. So I was providing certain types of cold laser services and, you know, set private sessions with cold lasers. And I would sell the cold lasers as well. They were approved for kind of consumer use. So, so that's what happened. People would come to this wellness retreat and I would help behind the scenes managing different things. Like I did website management and I managed the inventory for, herbs and superfoods and I managed certain aspects of creating living foods like bulk fermented vegetables for the clientele to eat on the certain programs and I also brought in like the raw spring water program for everyone to drink raw spring water from the local spring that I would harvest and so that was like felt a lot better for me. I felt like I was getting paid as an independent contractor and you know I was I was a little bit more of a real entrepreneur and I felt

like I had more control and you know it was a really good experience and I got to live at this incredible location in a rural area is so super beautiful and so then so I was doing that for years you know like how many years went by like seven years went by and then I got to the point where you know But the last mentor that I had, he was a Japanese acupuncturist, and he had gotten into these clinical nutrition things as well. And so our paths were aligning basically through clinical nutrition. And he was giving me a lot more insight into acupuncture from a different angle, you know, because one of my teachers, as I mentioned, a doctor of oriental medicine,

but I wasn't an acupuncturist. And so he was mentoring me in certain ways and opening my eyes to a lot of things. And, you know, it was like I got to a point in my clinical nutrition studies where, you know, I went through a clinical nutrition program and then I had all these mentors and, you know, after enough time with my mentors and, you know, going through a program and feeling like I had not only the intellectual basis, but, you know, my mentor support was there as well, and I was like, I feel capable. You know, I'm at the point where I'm, you know, in a position where I can open a practice. And so I did that.

But I moved to, I moved from Northern Arizona to southern Colorado to do that so that I could open my practice in proximity to these teachers of the Indic Enlightenment traditions that I was pursuing. So, you know, during the... I lived either at an ashram or next door to the ashram for many years where I would wake up. And it was a place where they kept horses. So, you know, we had it as Sava, we would take care of the horses and take care of the ranch. And, you know, I learned all these things I didn't know growing up that wasn't part of my upbringing. Like I did all these firsts, like we constructed horse shelters from scratch.

And we fixed the wire fencing and, you know, like learn how to live on a solar off-grid property at 8,000 feet in a remote area with no, like, no infrastructure. And, you know, like dirt roads and forest and, you know, like a thousand people. And so and and but people, this community there attracts, it's built around retreat centers. And in the warmer months, all these people come from all over the world to do retreats with these different lineages. And so the economy booms in the warm months and then shrinks in the winter. And, you know, it's like I realized in the winter I needed to have an online business. And I started, you know, started building some online businesses. But anyways, you know, it was like, so that's what I was doing is I opened a practice doing clinical nutrition and herbalism.

And I then opened an online business where we were selling herbal formulas. So it was the next evolution. Now we were selling more clinically oriented formulas. And we sold formulas that helped to work on chronic infections, actually was our main specialty. And so that's actually been the main component of my work is I have a big focus on chronic infections. And, you know, neuroimmunology is one of my studies. you know, I got into neuroimmunology through some people, you know.

I mean, the main teachers were Dr. Karazian in the functional medicine community. And so studying people around him like Dr. Hal Blumenfeld-Bloomfeld, neuroanatomy, and, you know, these different functional clinical methods, that that was a huge component for me. So, you know, it was like I've been. So that's why I mentioned, like at one point I said the synthesis of tradition in modern science. I had been exploring psychedelics and I've been exploring these traditions. And then I started having just organic experiences, you know, where once I open my practice and you get that rubber on the road and you see what works and what doesn't work.

And, you know, like I said, that I feel from everything I have been able to ascertain, from my direct experience as well as from other sources, that the best clinical healing results when it comes to, you know, I don't practice medicine, you know, but when it comes to herbalism, when it comes to traditions like Ayurveda and, you know, five element systems, you know, these are the areas where I feel the best clinical outcomes happen.

You know, in my opinion, it happens when you get that synthesis of the best of the traditional and the best of the modern, scientific. And it was through my own exploration of like seeing these principles, where things intersect and how I could create formulations, create formulations with different types of ingredients that I didn't see anywhere else. But as I used herbs, you know, as I used both the rejuvenation herbs as well as the psychotropic herbs, I started seeing there's a place where all of this intervie. intersects and all the light bulbs were going off. And, you know, so I feel like I'm going past your question a little bit. But, you know, it was about a period of seven years where, you know, I was studying and experimenting and learning and trying to work jobs and doing and kind of bridging the gap until I could get to the point where I would, I could do what I do now. So, you know, and in that, like, there's.

still an ongoing process. You know, I actively engage in continued education, you know, and right now, for the last six years, I focus the bulk of my continued education on authentic lineages, going really deep into intact lineages. But I continue to keep up to date with science, you know, like I spend time with reading all of the, the papers that are relevant, you know, I read, and I read them in as a whole. I read the methodology, you know, it's like, you know, abstract methodologies, results, conclusions, and I get deep into, you know, maintaining what I created and evolving it. And, and so that's what goes into the neuro wellness protocols. And, you know, the neuro wellness protocols are really kind of like

what i bring to the table you know it's like rose brings this incredible base of like understanding how to work with deeply entrenched patterns and that's really what on what moxha journey's focus is on you know we are specialists in working with all types of rehab you know our team works on some of the most difficult cases um cases that other people turn away even um and and so we work with with people who have histories of trauma, people who have early childhood trauma, a complex PTSD. You know, we work with people who, you know, need deep healing. That's not all that we do, but, you know, that's kind of what we're geared towards. And that's one of the areas in which the neuro wellness protocol shines.

Yeah, that's, I think it's relevant because I was going to ask this question. I think you covered it, but, you know, it seems to me that one, you have to find your own way before you can help someone figure out what it is that they're looking for. If that kind of makes sense, like, you know, how much of the problems do we see manifesting themselves are a symptom of someone that is not living a life that's true to their nature? You know, I mean, it seems for a very long time, all of us have been plugged in to a job or a position or a label that was given to us by our culture. You can be a fireman. You can be a truck driver.

You can be a doctor. But stay in the mold. Don't go over there. You know, and it seems like as long as everyone stayed in their lane, then we were moving. We had this myth of progress that was taught to us. It was given to us by our schools. And now it seems that maybe it's because I'm getting older or maybe it's what's really happening out in the world

is this veil is kind of being lifted. Like, hey, that was all kind of bullshit. Look at that over there. And people are starting to freak out a little bit. So when I start to hear people like you, where I see these industries of healing that are intertwining the ideas of traditional and science, it just seems like this more holistic approach.

Like you need both of them. Like you need to have, you know, you need to have both pillars. You need to have that double helix spiraling up if you want to be able to cross in between them. And I guess I want to get into the, I want to get into the protocols. But before I jump into there, I have just one question that goes to the idea. And I think you're unique to answer this because you have traveled to India. You've traveled to these different places. And one of my ideas is that it's not necessarily my idea, but it's this idea that, you know, different countries have different diseases.

Like when you go to India, are there like a lot of young girls that are anorexic there, you know, or, you know, it just seems to me like different societies have created different illnesses. Is that something you found? I would say, yes. And there are commonalities amongst global cultures, you know, like the effects of burning fossil fuels. You know, it's like, yeah. I don't want to digress, but, you know, like that's a major thing that unifies all humans in terms of disease pathology, you know, because it's like not, it's carbon is not the main issue, in my opinion. from listening to other experts in environmental science. It's the chemicals, there are many other types of chemicals in fuels.

And those chemicals, when they're burned, they create metabolites. And so they're oxidized, and then you have hydrocarbon-based toxins besides carbon. And so you can look it up. Look at the list of additives in gasoline. You can look it up on Wikipedia, and it's pretty accurate. all of those chemicals end up in an oxidized form in the environment. And so that is creating a severe toxicity for the planet and for humans. And, you know, it definitely stress, depending on your, you know, genetics and your environment, your lifestyle, that toxic stress affects you one way or another and some worse than others.

So I do think that, you know, some diseases have these global unifying aspects. But when it comes to, you know, diseases, spiritual diseases, you know, spiritual psychological diseases, definitely, you know, those are things that like each culture has its own neuroses. Right. That makes sense. Okay, so let me, let me, I can,

I'll birdwalk and go crazy on different things like that. It's fascinating to me. Thanks for allowing me to ask some of those questions. But let's, let's jump into what the neural wellness protocols are. I think I've been teasing people long enough. Let's talk about and maybe you can define what neural wellness is and then you can tell us about the neural wellness protocols that you have developed. Okay. What is, so you're asking me to define what is a neural wellness protocol? Yes. Okay. Maybe you, yeah, what is neural wellness? Maybe we could start with that and then the neural wellness protocol.

Sure. You know, I mean, I'll start with saying that the compound work, is something that we like to use because for us like you know it's it's at that level like right it's it we we practice neural wellness and it's not two words it's one word and um it's really simple at its core just as those two words imply or the compound word implies neurological wellness So this is a particular relevance when we do the psychedelic work, right? Neural wellness isn't limited to psychedelic work, but, you know, it's very intertwined with it. So, like, as I said, I don't practice medicine. You know, I am not a medical doctor, but I do practice wellness.

You know, that's primarily what I'm interested in, you know, health and health. and wellness. And so when it comes to neuro wellness protocols, you know, it's, there are, it can, it's, there's the broad definition and then there's the different types of protocols, but neuro wellness is anything that we do to cultivate neurological wellness or health.

You know, a lot of our clients are starting out with a lot of severe kind of neuroimmunological issues. And so especially our work focuses around neurotransmitter health. And there's the Ayurvedic way that I look at that. And then there's like the functional way that I look at that. So that's basically what it is. I mean, we work on all the things that people talk about and we have our unique ways that we work on them. You know, like people that have been just, I've seen different blogs that there are people introducing the ideas of like, you know, or the question.

of how do psychedelics affect the gut-brain axis or the brain gut axis? You know, that's a question that's very much kind of coming out of the functional community. And that's something we work on. But in particular, you know, how do neurotransmitters affect your psychedelic health? I mean, psychedelic experience, you know, and how does your neurotransmitter health affect your therapeutic outcome? you know like your baseline neurotransmitter health your neuroimmunology how does that affect your one's therapeutic outcome when taking psychedelics you know so if you look at the progression of of studies that are coming out you know like you see the johns various johns hopkins papers or imperial college

of london you know both them in collaboration beckley foundation you know you which i i think i'd like to touch on maybe a little bit later you You know, there's, you know, there's people are starting to show how long do the benefits last after a certain number of journeys, whether it's, you know, one journey, several journeys, you know, how long are the, do you get the benefits? And that, you know, I have my criticisms of the, of how they look at these things. But one thing I've been saying for a long time is that, you know, from my experience with myself and working with my clients. You know, you can definitely create shifts using the psychedelics, and they can be long-lasting shifts. But the deepest integration, in my opinion, happens when you heal your body

to the point where the expanded state of awareness that you experience in the journey is matching your day-to-day consciousness in your body. So having an expanded state of freedom with your health and wellness. You know, are you bringing that change that you realized all the way into the physical? And the psychedelic doesn't do that on its own completely, you know, like it may have, it does and may affect certain physiological changes. But it doesn't do all the work for you, right? And so that's kind of along the lines of like working on the gut brain axis and the brain gut axis. And, you know, that's kind of where the neuro wellness protocols come in because, you know, this is, this is a, I want to introduce it at the right time in the right way, but, you know, that I'm not sure if you've seen any of our content around this yet because we're just getting going.

but you know that I the main star of the neuro wellness protocols are what I call my stack you know I haven't named the stack it's very different than the summit stack it has no relation to it but it is a stack you know it's a formula yeah yeah and you know you can put that you can make that formula in different ways you know you could put it all in one capsule yeah or or you can combine it in different ways with different material. And so that I have my primary core stack and then I have kind of supplementary protocols, you know, so we work with people who have come off, who are wanting to come off of, I mean, a lot of people do this, but I'm saying it, we do work with people who want to be off their antidepressants.

So they may have already titrated off, according to their doctor's instructions. But, you know, they need support to really be well after that. So they do the journeys and they do microdosing. Neural wellness protocols are things that can help tremendously to bridge, to bridge. You know, like for instance, if you come off of an SSRI or SNRI, you may not feel great, you know. Yep, it's true. the common thing, right?

We see it all the time. So your wellness protocol can naturally help support your brain health and wellness so that you feel better in that intermittent period where you're, you know, going to take your journeys or going to do your microdosing and there's, you need additional support, you know, because there's a gap there, you know? Yeah, makes sense. So that's one area. And then the stack, you know, you.

People can do both things. Like the stack is something we incorporate in the journey work primarily. So people might do both things. You know, they might have a neuro wellness protocol that they're doing before they come to a journey, you know, to help them on the day-to-day until they get to their journeys. And they might continue with that neural wellness protocol during and after their retreats. But then the stack is something we employ during the journeys. And, you know, this is kind of like where I like to reference the Beckley Imperial and Beckley Johns Hopkins studies and analyses because that, you know, there's some really great data there and representations of that data that helped to illustrate my points really well.

So, you know, this really did come from this kind of all these. different synchronicities with my personal exploration and my studies where I was just getting these aha moments, you know, seeing how things were working in my body and having different types of journeys and connecting different dots. And, you know, I was able to make this realization that if you have major dysregulation in your neurotransmitter system, you know, where to the point where you maybe are taking pharmaceutical antidepressants or something similar, or maybe you're not, but you're at that same level of dysregulation. And that's affecting your mindset, right?

So that's part of your set. Maybe you could define that a little bit more for people. Like when you say neurotransmitters are disrupting their system, does that manifest as depression or anxiety? Or it's like, can you maybe broaden that so people can understand like what that means? Yeah, I mean, hopefully you can keep me on track. You're doing a great job. I just wanted you to, I get what you're saying, and I'm sure a lot of the audience does.

For people who may listen to this or jump right in, like, what does that mean when your neurotransmitters are out of linemen? Right. What does it mean when they're not in a healthy state? Right. So I'll start, I'll take a step back with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. say that like I primarily come from the Ayurvedic standpoint with my work and when we look at mood and we look at all the things that can affect mood you know when we even use the word neurotransmitter

right but you know there's this we can get really granular with current science on it and the debates that are being had around neurotransmitter mediated models of depression and treatment. But I look at it from a different angle, which goes in hand with the science, which is that neurotransmitters, which I think people basically may know that there's some connection, there's some correlation between your neurotransmitters and how you're, and your mood, right? But neurotransmitters, what are they?

I mean, I equate them to brain hormones, essentially. And I think that lines up. You know, I've had a lot of corroboration on that idea. Like, it's basically a brain hormone. And, you know, it's in the gut as well, right? That axis. But it's part of the nervous system. So whether it's when your gut or your brain, we're talking about nervous system hormones.

Serotonin in the gut, serotonin in the brain, those are brain hormones. All of them. You know, we can list them off. But, yeah. So what even is a brain hormone? I mean, we, there's a couple ways to look at that. You know, hormones are basically controlling our expression of energy, right? Adrenaline and cortisol are affecting having energy or not having energy.

You're in terms of getting up, being able to do things physically, right? Stand up, move. Physical energy, right? So that's that type of energy. Your reproductive hormones are affecting your sexual energy, right? You have the energy to engage in healthy sexual expression or not. You know, if you don't have the energy to do that, if it's declining, and we need to take a look at your reproductive hormones,

or, you know, just the hormones that come from those glands, no matter what state of life you're in. And so, you know, they're units of energy. And so, you know, from a traditional perspective, I look at it like this. You know, they're part of the liquid principle in the physiology. And so when we have different pathologies that increase heat in our body, you know, it can come from different angles. You know, there's all different ways in which we can get factors that burn up our liquid, right? And that's the basis of aging, whether we're talking about just water or we're talking about hormones,

Hormones, you know, in Ayurveda, we would kind of use a certain Sanskrit words like snigda, which means oily, right? And so, yeah, this is coming from the, you know, this is correlated to this concept called Ojas. Ojas is basically the raw energy that you need to fuel your immune system. And if you have healthy immunity, you have a lot of Ojas. and you know if you have a lot of you know energy in general you know that energy is this substance that's quantified in iroveda um vitality vitality is quantified in this concept of ojas and you can get to a point with ojas where you have enough of it that your your immunity is at the point of like heroic immunity i taught a class on that called heroic immunity because the word for that level of immunity

immunity is bala and bala means strength and bala is a word that words that it's a word that is associated traditionally with heroes whether whether it's the the medicine masters at the root of the ayurveda traditions you know they that's a word that's associated with them is the word viria which means potency it it but it really is this kind of associated with the word hero So, Viria is potent, potency. And so these words, like, these heroes, they have Bala, strength. And so it's kind of like this, the concept of Bala is really closely tied to Ojas in immunity. If you have Bala, it's because you have immunity, this immune strength.

And the fuel for that is the liquid. principle. It actually starts at its most subtle form in nature and filters all the way to we bioaccumulate it in our physiology. And it forms the cerebo spinal fluid. And it forms hormones, including brain hormones like neurotransmitters, which are an oily substance that's secreted by the glands. And that's the key word there, secreted. What does that imply? It implies that it's some type of liquid, right? You secrete liquids, right? Whether it's milk or sweat or sebaceous fluid, you know, you're secreting oily,

unctuous is actually what Snigna translates as, unctuous substances. So, you know, and there's all kinds of tools that you use in Ayurveda, like putting healthy fats on the skin to get the endocrine gland that is the skin to produce hormones, right? Because we know that fat, you eat fat, and cholesterol helps to produce hormones, right? You need minerals and you need cholesterol. So the skin can produce hormones. Your brain can produce hormones. Your gut produces hormones.

Your gland is producing hormones, right? So that's how it all ties together. Right. And soma is really the origin of it. Soma in nature, right? So you look at the foods like snigda, unctuous foods, you know, that have fat, you know, just look at their whole process

of how the plant develops that food and all those correspondences of, you know, how we're getting the unctuousness of nature into our physiology so that we stay unctuous. And that's neurotransmitters. And if someone has, you know, mood imbalances, it's usually because their system has a pathology where they're burning up their unctuousness, right? So usually all the different types of unctuousness, right?

The fluids, the water, the glandular secretions. And so, yeah, the neurotransmitters are getting burned up. And heat is something that is, you know, whether you have a heat excess, like what's considered a heat pathology or a cold pathology in five element systems everybody is who has a pathology is generating some type of chronic inflammation acute or chronic inflammation right and so there it is inflamed flame right right what is that doing what is the flame doing in flaming you and flaming or burning everything that's the opposite of the fire what is the direct opposite right I mean, we know this water evaporates. So that's what the neural wellness protocols are helping to,

that's what they're helping to regulate, is this idea of the, of the soma, the water, and the heat and all together like that. And it's different stacks for different types of ailments or for different types of, I guess I guess it kind of, depends on what the person is trying to achieve what it is that they're out of balance in is is would you correlate a separate kind of stack for a separate kind of ailment well yeah first i should say that yeah i don't i don't diagnose treat or cure right right right but you know we have

medical doctors on our team right and you know they you know they're they're learning my protocols um but the yeah i mean we create we create custom the custom protocols you know like you look at the genetic data you know we look at all the different variants you know that might be relevant um we look at your history we look at you know all the different things that we can assess all the different data we can gather and we create the custom protocols for each individual need but when it comes to moxha journeys you know that that's where we're doing things that are specifically going to enhance your experience in a macrodose journey as well as enhance the

integration period as well. And so I think that's a good segue into talking about a couple of these papers that I like to. Yeah, please. A little bit, you know, because this is really where our main stack shines and what it does. So, you know, I'm going to put on my glasses. Yeah. So, you know, I, I don't, I don't think I could share my screen. If you, if you press present down here, you might be able to. Okay. I'm going to do it. Okay. Yeah. I'd love to see it. Okay. Awesome. So share screen.

Yes. There we go. Share. There it is. Am I? coming through? There we go. Whoa. Okay. How does that look? It's good. I can I can read it off. Okay. Okay.

So the first I really like this particular study in paper. This is the chart that I want to talk about, but it comes from this is the, this is, this chart here is an analysis it was put together by Beckley Foundation using the data that

they acquired in conjunction with this study that you know was done collaboratively with Robin Carhart Harris and the Imperial College of London so let's see I think I'm gonna take this off of that all right so as you can see here that there was 19 participants and they did this is the fmri study on depression and um you know that those 19 participants um are their outcomes are what are depicted here i mean this this is what they experienced in the um in the journey itself is that they did so you can see the purple line here this is the data from nine of the participants that they call responders. And then the 10 non-responders, these people in the red category, they did get benefit

from their experience. However, these are the people who experienced more challenging aspects in their journey, right? And they called them non-responders because their therapeutic outcome was not as good as the people who experienced greater mystical states. And that's really what the purple line is all about. They're mapping the qualities of the mystical state and showing that the responders had greater experience of unity. Versus, you know, if you look to the other side,

over here we have it. It's not directly opposing it, but we have anxiety, you know, and that's really how I look at it. You know, it's people will, this is what people are talking about. about when they describe the quote unquote bad trip right and we don't use that word or we try not to use it or we put it in quotes because we don't know you know anyone who's been around the block knows there's no such thing as a bad trip however you know when we're talking about working with deeply entrenched patterns you know which is our specialty you know we we we want to go to the

best therapeutic outcome so we want to take people to the mystical state as much of as possible. And so that's what my stack does. People can be in a journey and starting to have these emotions, having anxiety. I kind of describe it as a feeling of like a downward spiral. And if I would put a vertical axis on this chart and kind of like deadline going down, you know, like they're spiraling downwards. The feeling state is, you know, like it's destabilizing. And the mystical state is going up, right? You're having these positive, elevating, expansive experiences, deepening into experiences of unity, right?

And so the stack can help someone who is experiencing anxiety, experiencing destabilization, having a very strongly challenging journey. And as soon as they start digesting it 30 to 60 minutes later, they will go straight to the experience of unity. They will go to a mystical state. It will have a 180 degree turnaround. I've seen this with myself and with our clients. And so this kind of is the topic for really engaging in an exciting discussion

depending on what are your cherished belief systems. You know, like I have found that some people feel challenged by this idea that we can, you don't have to have a challenging journey. You know, you don't have to have a bad trip, even if you might start it out that way. No, I just, I commented on this post on psychedelic spotlight recently. And, you know, they had this whole article on their site about can you do anything about a challenging journey or bad trip, quote unquote. And, you know, it's like, well, well, you can just like try to focus.

on your mindset or try to feel better or just, you know, do work on it in the integration or whatever it said. It's like there's nothing you can really do, but you can try to get the gold out of it. And it will get you benefit. And you can work on having a good mindset and setting. And so, you know, going into it, as I was saying, you know, tying it back to our discussion about, you know,

transmitters and mindset, you know, and how, you know, if you're having a challenging time in your life and your concern you might not have a great mindset or the right set for a positive journey, that's a major concern that's out there. Some people don't want to have those challenging experiences. And I can tell you, you know, it's more beneficial to have a mystical experience,

according to the data. And we can help you attain that with our neuro-windless protocols or the stack. And so not only is this, This was the depression study that Imperial College did, but then there's also the Johns Hopkins smoking cessation study. So there's this, actually that's not the best. Let's see if I have it over here.

I don't think I have it on this computer. But there's another graph from the paper with Johns Hopkins where they had the smoking cessation data and there were several more charts here next to this mystical experience one but this is really good you know it's like what how many people was it I want to say it was 15 yeah it was 15 participants in this Johns Hopkins study on smoking cessation that was a 2016 paper I know that this one here was published in 2017 or the end of of 2017, the one with the mystical state data and the depression treatment. But the one with smoking cessation, that was a 2016 paper and it had 15 participants.

And they did the six-month follow-up. And at six months, 80% or 12 of the participants had quit smoking still. They had a great outcome. And there's a couple other ones where they did some self-evaluation. other scorings, but this really does kind of explain the gist of it where, you know, on the bottom you see the greater than mystical experience rating, the less cravings to smoke they were having. So here, more mystical experience, better change in craving for smoking.

So let me bring up this to like, I think I'm getting lost and I think some people watching this or listening to this may get lost in the words we're using. Like when you say, and this is, this is the part of the problem is this subjectivity of it, right? Like, if we talk about a bad trip, like this is a good graph. Like, if we come down here and we say people are having a bad, like, what does that mean? Like, if they're having a challenging trip, like, it doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation to it. And could it mystical also be bad? Couldn't mystical also be negative? Like, so how, I guess the question I'm having is, it's, seems like the only way we're able to measure this is subjectively, which is kind of, it's not a

problem for me, but it's a problem for sciences. And it's, it's also a problem when you try to measure something. Like, if you have a stack that can help people from having a challenging experience, might it be that just telling them beforehand that this is going to help? Maybe that's what's doing it. You know what I mean? Like, how do you measure that your stack is actually doing that? Well, I mean, if we wanted to fully prove it, we would have to do a study, which is something that we're, you know, in multiple studies, which is something we endeavor to do. And that's why we have research. We have kind of researchers on our team who have cut their teeth on doing studies in the past.

But, you know, that will come in time, I'm sure. But to answer your question, you know, this is qualitative data, right? It's not quantitative data. And so qualitative, I mean, you could, some people could call that subject. Yeah, they're doing their best to try to apply the scientific method to something that is, you know, potentially subjective. But I think they're doing a good job of creating scales and measurements, you know. So, like, I think if you dive into, you know, like the mystical experience questionnaire and how that evolved, the MEQ and how that evolved, a questionnaire of 500 questions to a questionnaire of 30-some questions, you know, and something that like rolling grip is. and Bill Richards have been very involved with developing.

You know, the MEQ subject a lot of discussion. I mean, how do you quantify what is a mystical experience? That's where these things come from, these points here, experience of unity, spiritual experience, blissfulness. People generally don't qualify those things as challenging. And I think one of the aspects, of that is that, you know, when you're feeling really good in these types of states, blissfulness, unity, you're feeling generally, you're going toward, what I describe it as you're going towards

integration. So when you're feeling strongly challenged, generally, you know, if you're on the red line, people tend to feel, or I describe them as going away from integration because we've seen that these are the individuals when you have scores more along this red line where you know we do a deeply engaged transformational process right and I think a lot of other retreat companies out there do that as well where in the preparation you know you're outlining what type of transformation goals you have what you will use this catalyst to work on and not only are we we're looking to get that change at every level right fully integrate that into your life and so Gen, like, as I said, they called them the non-responders because these are the people who didn't quit smoking.

You know, they would be generally more in this red line. The people who, you know, didn't their depression didn't shift as much or, you know, in six months they weren't in, they weren't feeling as integrated. They weren't feeling like they got out of their depression as much. You know, that's why I say the mystical state is helping you go there. it means helping to move towards integration. And I heard one people kind of, one person actually asked me recently, does that mean like maybe that you're more grounded through the stack? And, you know, I actually have to think about that because it was a recent conversation.

But in a sense, yes, I mean, you can go inward. I really feel like the scale is, you know, like of psilocybin is when you go more mystical, you go more inward towards yourself or your, true self, you know, and when we're experiencing things like entrenched patterns, you know, whether it's addiction, you know, like I use that word. We use substance use disorder is kind of like the common word now in science that's emerging. Historic, historically called addiction. You know, if you want to resolve addiction, you know, there's, you can, it can be resolved. Like we looked at the smoking cessation. I mean, we work with all kinds. Rose and our psychedelic

assistant therapist, they are experts in helping people, you know, we do rehab, essentially. And that's kind of one of our main programs. And so if we look at, you know, is someone getting in touch with their true self, you know, meaning are they integrating and getting out of their negative entrenched pattern where their life is out of control and they're not feeling good and, you know, everything is chaotic and there's major issues and they need a need intervention and their communities trying to support them to heal, you know. I mean, you can bridge that gap and we can help you get, you know, the best chance of fully taking that step from, you know, where you are to where you want to be. And the red line is kind of the risk of going for people

who don't do, you know, who don't enter the mystical state as much. The data is showing that you may not end your entrenched pattern. You may continue in that repetitive cycle. You may continue smoking or using whatever substances it is that you've become dependent on. And so, you know, it's like, I hope that I'm answering your question. What are you doing? You are. I do.

It's a very complex question. And no one knows for sure. And the questions I'm asking are purely just ideas that are coming to mind. from things that I've read. And I don't have the answers to this, but I'm curious just to get your opinion. You know, sometimes I think that the, and I don't even have a graph to prove this,

but this is just my personal subjective ideas that I've been through where I think that the mystical experience is in direct correlation to what I call the oh shit factor. And the oh shit factor is like, oh my God, I've taken too much. much. Oh shit. Like that to me is usually a sign that I am going to be what Merseille Eliad calls the terror before the sacred. And that's why I think that the mystical has its roots in the in the in the in the fanatical like the mystical experience to me is often the

the understanding like like I don't have the book and book. Like, Rudolph Otto has written on this. Mercea Iliad has written on this. But it's called like the, and I know you're aware of this, it's the terror before the sacred. It's almost like being in the presence of God is so terrifying. Because you see this thing or you're part of this thing that is so beautiful. There's no words.

It's the dog with his tail between his legs. Like, just pissing himself. Like that is the mystical state for me because it's like, oh my God. the presence of something so powerful, I'm paralyzed. And that's scary, man. That is like, but that to me is the mystical state. That to me is the transformative state where the magic happens. And it's that it's the height of the roller coaster. And then it drops. But I think those things are correlated. And I think that you, on some level, trying to take out that and replace it with the,

like I don't think you get that. You know, and I think people need that. And like you said, there's no such thing as a bad trip. And shoot, that would be a great, great point that you and me and five other people should sit down and debate.

Like, is there such thing? That would be a great debate topic. Because I know people on both sides that we could really have an interesting conversation about. that and I think people need that. I think that's the that is the the dark humor that is the trickster deity. It's all those things that scare you, snap you out of this crazy cycle of samsara that weren't like don't we need to be scared out of our minds. Don't we need to be in the presence of a God that's threatening us? Like if you look back at all the religions like it seems that you

should be scared of God. Our God is a jealous God. Shiva's got two different faces on it, right? He's the creator and the bringer of death. Like, and shouldn't you, if you're in this mystical state, shouldn't you see the creator and the bringer of death? And shouldn't you be frightened from that? Is that making sense? I love what you're saying.

Yeah, no. And I would, I can say that there's actually, in my opinion, no debate between you and I. We're on the same page. I know, I know. And the beautiful thing about what you're describing is like, that is really kind of, the benefit of the mystical state in some specific regards that is those are aspects of it um

because the like the stack that i'm talking about it doesn't eliminate those types of things you know yeah and that's kind of i think i was recently describing that to someone where the stack isn't meant to control what you're going to experience it's not going to help you avoid something that you need right avoid some part of of the journey that is inherent to the journey that is part of the medicine, you know, and I think what you're describing is an essential part because, you know, I'm a part of initiatory traditions and what we're doing. And so I'm really good at right.

And Rose is like the queen of that, you know, but, you know, what we're doing with journeys it's people aren't getting formal initiations into our lineages you know I think psychedelics by their very nature are initiatory yeah and we're helping people to create a container for their own initiation experience with themselves that's you know going to help them achieve what they want and sometimes that means you have to experience things that you didn't expect or that you may have no concept of and yes there's these these you know, it's totally paradigm shifting and that can involve these aspects like you're describing where it's like awe can, you know, people go into a journey and we can't control if they're

going to feel nervous or anxious or fearful or, you know, we can help you give guidance. You know, they may have concerns. We may tell them, you know, like that's part of the process. That's normal. You know, that's something that happens. It's normal. I mean, it's normal that people take the dose and then 30, 40 minutes in, they're like, you know, having some thing that's so different and they're like, you know, it's blowing their mind. And that might be expressed in some of the ways that you're talking about.

So that's one of the big things that I like to emphasize about the stack is it doesn't change what your journey is meant to be. it supports you to have the best journey for you. And, you know, it can look a variety of different ways. But at the end of it, you know, that we use these kind of qualitative measures as well as quantitative measures. You know, like we're in the business of helping people heal substance use disorders, heal complex PTSD. and you know it's like we see when people attempt those types of healing processes and they and they it doesn't happen you know or it gets delayed or it might go on unnecessarily for longer periods of time and then life happens and they might spiral off in some other direction you know it's like

we specialize in helping people have the most efficacious you know journey and process possible and so you know, I think that you can't, that's, this is actually, this, okay, I am not for, I'll tell you, I usually try to talk about what I am for, but I'll tell you that I'm not for the type of psychedelic drug development or we're trying to divorce the hallucinogenic assholes. Right, right, right. And inherently, if you experience ego dissolution, it's going to be scary. Even with my stack, which is, I think is awesome, you know, It's like, yeah, you're still going to have ego dissolution and you're going to be like, oh, my God, I'm dissolving.

You know, I'm dying, maybe, you know, people still feel like they're dying in ego dissolution either way. But I remember in your, I think in a recent post, there was something along the nature of that the stack will alleviate or reverse the process of someone having a bad trip. I think that's where I got caught up and I was thinking about that. Maybe I read that wrong. Was that accurate or like, what does that mean? Like, was that accurate? Was that in the post or something like that? I don't know.

I'm not sure if we made a post about that. I mean, we did, I mean, we do these Moxha moments. Okay. Meetings usually once a month. Right. And so in the last Moxham moments a few weeks ago, we, we, this was the topic. Right. And so I talked about this.

And I'm not sure if we talked, if we made any, post besides that you know we've right mentioned it in the in the event page or you know in the comments around that but um you know i i i think that you know that that's kind of that is kind of what i was talking about like um sometimes it can be a cherished belief that like yeah there's oh and how do you if you if people want to be attached to their cherished belief that like bad challenging journeys are necessary and you have to go through it, we can agree to disagree on that. Yeah, yeah. It's all good.

It's all good. And, you know, it's like I've, like I said, I have had challenging journeys myself. And I wouldn't, you know, seek to erase them. Like, I wouldn't go back in time with a time machine and prevent them. but I have come to the point where I've learned that historically, in our lineages, psychedelics are combined in formulations. And they're not used as single earth for the most part. Right. And so, like, Rose, you know, she has been in the Hamalayas in different areas, like the eastern Himalias of West Bengal, as well as up towards Nepal and Badronath above, you know, northwestern India.

and her teachers there are giving her various psychedelics in ritual settings, right? And all of them are done in formulation. And for specific reasons, you know, then it's not just about having, you know, a better journey or a non-challenging journey. I mean, the lineages have specific reasons why they want to use a combination of botanicals to, you know, and people are doing that now. People are like combining, making simple combinations out there.

I see different companies making psychedelic products and putting different herbs with them and exploring what that can do for you. And it's like, you know, that's why I talk about the blending of the tradition and the modern science because, you know, I think that even in the best most efficacious clinical methods from ancient traditions that are carried through to this day, where I see incredible outcomes, clients, you know, even those can benefit from the little fine tuning that. science can bring. And so, you know, like with Rose experiencing those traditional sacraments and we have a 501C3 church, Rose formed it in 19, I think, 1997 or maybe 1995. So, you know, that in the 501C3 church, like it encompasses all of these. It's specifically the myth, the mission of bridging enlightenment traditions of east and west. And, you know, it's really big on lineage

and lineage and lineage empowerment and going to these locations and getting it passed on. And so, you know,

that's kind of where we come from. It's like Rose has all these decades of experience, you know, as a clinician, and then we have

the traditional experience and it's in a nonprofit setting. And, you know, I kind of stepped into her arena and, you know,

I'm a part of, I'm, I'm a part of her 501 C3 church as well. But, you know, that my point was just about psychedelic formulation. And I think it's a nascent thing. It's a nascent thing in our culture. And there are cultures where it's highly developed. And there's different psychedelic formulas for different rituals,

different times, different reasons, purposes. So, you know, what we're doing here is we're seeking to provide the best results for our clients and our clients are happy when they you know when they get those results so it's all based off of that like we seek to be that that bridge of tradition and science and we seek to we do deep work of healing you know healing transformational journeys and to do that we can't accomplish it without something like the stack i mean if we if we don't have the stack we will we've seen it i mean we've done the work i've been i've been a facilitator just you know, I consider myself a young facilitator at just five years next month.

Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. But Rose, you know. She's got a lifetime. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And it's like, and then we brought in other people who have done this work for 10, 15 years or more. And so we have that spectrum of practitioners and clinicians get it. You know, like, if you look at retreat companies and if you talk, or try to gather data about what goes on in retreats behind the scenes like psychedelic journeys with major companies that everyone's heard of you know we have a facilitator training to train our in-house employees and it's you know it's approved by the OHA in the state of Oregon and we train our facilitators according to our method and people come to us having already had gone through

you know all the major programs IPI California Institute integral studies, you know, we get them on and we talk about the stack and people get it. You know, people who have been doing retreats in Jamaica, it's like there's a high incidence of people having challenging experiences. And I kind of feel like it's, I don't know why. Maybe it's just there's not a lot of exposure, but a lot of facilitators, you know, it's hard. It's hard to go through the prep and the journeys and the integration and to see some people getting really amazing outcomes. And then others, you know, they're having challenging journeys.

They're not having great integration. The outcomes aren't as their, the therapeutic outcomes aren't as positive. And you're like, it's tiring and you get a certain type of fatigue from it. It's along, you know, kind of along the lines of compassion fatigue. And so, you know, I think there's a high incidence of that with retreat facilitators. And, you know, we can help. Not only does the stack help our clients, it helps our facilitators.

And so people who are in the ecosystem, you know, other facilitators, they come to it and they're like, this is golden. I mean, it's a win-win for everybody. And we're really excited about it. We're really, you know, we want to learn it. You want to do it. We want to incorporate it. And so, you know, in our company, the neuro wellness team are the ones who have kind of administer the neural wellness protocols. And we work in conjunction with our facilitators, our facilitation team.

with our retreats with our clients and so you know that I think that's just kind of like my my opinion is I feel like this kind of stuff gets swept under the rug a little bit you know it's like there there are people you know who aren't you know maybe in a they're not prone or they're not in a position where they're going to have like this same type of context you know um some people I think are more prone to to having the kind of lesser therapeutic outcomes that I'm talking about like you know this whole two paths that we're talking about and it's like yeah like if you if someone's given a choice I think at least we've seen when when these types of clients come to us like they if we get the chance to see you if we get the chance to see it. with them and they get to see what we're about and what we offer, it makes sense to a lot of people. And, and yeah, that's our, that's our mission. It's like, we're here to help those who are aligned and resonate with what we do.

And yeah. Yeah, I think you, I think it's, I've talked to a lot of different people. And I think that from, from what I understand, it's imperative to take it, you know, no one wants to go to the McDonald's of transformation. You know what I mean? You don't want to go through a drive-through window and get this thing. It's like a happy, you know, no one, we don't need that. And I love the fact that you guys are breaking it down on an individual level. And the more that I think about it, incorporating an idea of the individual and what their journey should be is probably a really, really healthy thing. And, you know, incorporating lineages, you know, in some ways, like if you look at Georgetown University, you get if you want to, you to be someone who, you know, works in the world of politics, you're going to go to Georgetown. If you're going to be someone who wants to be a lawyer, you're probably going to go to Harvard. You know, there's different schools.

And the same with mystery schools or misdi initiations, right? Like different types of lineages provide people with different types of transformational journeys, whether you're the Pythagoreans or you're one of the women who studied under, you know, Mary Magdalene. Like, I think it's there. And I, I would, I know you won't tell me what the stack is, but I'm curious over there. I'm going to have to come out there, Prima. I'm going to come and check it out myself.

I would love to. And I, I, I am fascinated by it. And I, you know, I push back on people because I care about what it is they're doing. And I, I, I'm very curious. And I, I hope that you see my questioning in that light. It's something that I'm, I'm curious about. I want to know more. And I'm thrilled by it.

Yeah, I know. I know you do. That's why I did it. You know what I really like is the way when you brought up that graph and it was almost a spider web form and you would mention, you know, it would be great if there was like a depth chart on there. Like you're right. And when you go back and you look at that thing, did they position those like mysticism,

anxiety at the bottom? Was that purposely like anxiety being at the bottom level and that stuff being at the top? It seemed that way, right? I think they did do that intentionally. Yeah. And I think that, you know, that vertical access, like, yes, that's what. I'm not sure how to depict it.

I thought about it, you know, we want to be able to get another dimension to it so that you can see people going inwards. You know, I feel like mystical state is about a depth of inwardness, right? Okay, you know what? So do you, are you familiar with 3D printing at all? Have you tried any of that? Okay, so you know when you go on your, for those, they're just listening or for those who are not familiar with 3D printing,

when you put the 3D printer in your computer and you're sizing things up, it gives you like a virtual little studio on your computer. And then it gives you like an L model, like an L graph. But then there's another little arm that comes off of it. I think that something like that would be very conducive to understanding the going into, right? Because you could have that other arm come off, and especially with computers now. Now we can have that other dimension. And that would free up the way to measure things because you would have that other dimension there.

But I'm coming up on a hard break permit. I feel like you and I have a lot more to discuss, my friend. Yeah, I get it. We got to go. But I really think you're on to something there. I've been trying to think along those lines. And I think, you know, the scientific accepted methods could incorporate that. You know, Johns Hopkins and all these different institutes, you know, I hope that they consider trying to.

add another dimension to their data sets, you know, the way they graphically depict them. So I think that would be the future for sure. Yeah. Well, let's talk. I know, I know Cole Butler. If you're listening to Cole, first off, I love you, buddy. And Cole's doing a lot of things with setting up studies and stuff like that. But I think he would be someone that could really, he's someone that I talk to all the time that I was like, God damn it, why didn't I think of that?

You know what I mean? He's one of those guys. But I think if we all talk together, and I'm sure you have doctors, and I'm sure you have people on staff that are setting up studies like that. But he's like a research coordinator. And I think that he might be someone that we could bounce ideas off of. Because John Hopkins is awesome. But what about Moogshod journeys?

Why don't you guys come up with the own studies? The person to put that graph in the model. You know what I mean? All right. Yeah, they can come and be like, hey, how did you guys figure this out? Like there's from the ground up is what I say. So anyways, before I let you go, where can people, find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah, I mean,

moxha journeys.com. If you're wanting to do this type of work, that's where you would find us. We're on LinkedIn primarily. We're working on getting on Instagram going, but primarily we're on LinkedIn right now and, and of course our website. And then, you know, we have the in-house training program, Bodie-academy.com for facilitators who want to consider joining our team, which is constantly growing. We're interviewing people all the time, even today and yesterday. So, you know, whatever angle you're interested in, those are the two primary gateways. And what do we got coming up? I mean, there's going to be a motion moment's Zoom call where you can get on and we'll talk and you can ask questions and engage in conversation, kind of like we're doing

except there'll be more people. Yeah, now we're talking. And so that, you know, we'll have to check our LinkedIn. I think it's going to come up at the end of May. And then, you know, there's, we do retreats, you know. So it's like, if you want to find us, it's like you'll find us in a retreat. So, you know, you can book a free exploratory call. We can tell you all about our programs. You can ask all the questions you want at no cost.

You can book it on the widget on motion journeys.com. And hopefully we'll get Rose on here. you get there. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to reach out to her. Tell her, tell her she better watch out because I'm coming for her. I want her to come on the podcast. Yeah. And also, I'm just, I'm just remembering we have a women's microdose recovery group that's going to start shortly. And that's something that's led by Rose and our other female facilitators, our lead facilitator to Sienna and our new recent facilitator, Rachel. We have a, we have a, other women facilitators as well, but they're putting together a women's recovery microdose group. And so those details are forthcoming. You know, you can sign up for our email list on mochajourneys.com and, you know, it's in the footer. And you can get the details if you're interested in a women's recovery microdosing group. And also we have, we're just starting our next cohort. So if people do want to join the Bodie Academy,

the training for psychedelic psychotherapists and any organ license facilitator who wants to work on our team. You know, that second cohort is just about to start up. So it's a good time. We will have a third cohort later this year, but the second one is going to kick off. So if you're interested, you know, let's know, let us know, drop us a message. Yeah. I would, I would keep. I would talk to you for another hour.

I'm curious what's in the curriculum. Like, I know I have all these other questions. But I really, really enjoyed this, but I'm thankful that you shared so much about your childhood. I'm thankful that you've turned on a whole new generation to tool. That was an unexpected outcome. But a great one, a great one. And I'm thankful to get to share in your journey a little bit.

I feel like I got to, I really got to know you as much as a conversation can in the short time that we did. and I'm really thankful for that. I look forward to future conversations. I hope you have a phenomenal day. Hang on one second. I'm going to hang up with everybody else, but I still want to talk to you for a minute. Ladies and gentlemen, that was so much fun,

and I'm so thankful for everybody here spending time with us. Go in the links. Check out what they got going on over there. Check out the post. They have some really interesting things, this idea of the stack and the protocols. I think that everyone should be investigating and reach out to Premah, pick his brain,

and he'd love to talk to you. So that's what we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, Aloha.