TrueLife - Stephan Kerby - Healing at the Edge of Reality

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

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/Stephan KerbyToday’s guest burned his pain into prophecy — not the soft, candlelit kind, but the kind carved in lightning and smoked through the lungs of the cosmos. Founder of the UnChurch Church, America’s first DMT sanctuary, he has led thousands across the psychic frontiers, past the last road signs of consensus reality, into ceremonies where time melts, the self dissolves, and the soul remembers its original name.With his wife and co-revolutionary, Amber Kerby, LMFT, he built the Mindscape Psychedelic Institute — a war room disguised as a school, training therapists, facilitators, and guides to handle the most volatile sacrament in the human experience. Their curriculum is not just instruction — it’s a set of lockpicks for the mind, a manual for jailbreaks of the spirit.Recognized as North America’s first Trauma-Informed Entheogenic Guide, he moves between the roles of shaman, teacher, and cultural saboteur — dismantling the machinery of numbness and rebuilding human beings from the inside out.He’s not here to comfort you.He’s here to pull the pin, hand you the grenade, and whisper, “Throw it at the bars of your cage.”About | The UnChurchhttp://linkedin.com/in/mindscapeinstitutehttps://linktr.ee/mindscapeinstitute 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. Heirous 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 to the True Life podcast. Hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. Hope the birds are singing. Hope the wind is at your back.

Today's guest burned his pain into prophecy, not the soft candlelit kind, but the kind carved and lightning and smoke through the lungs of cosmos. Founder of the unchurched church, America's first DMT sanctuary, he has led thousands across the psychic frontiers, past the last road signs of consensus reality into ceremonies where time melts, the self-dissolves, and the soul remembers its original name. With his wife and co-revolutionary, Amber Kirby, LMFT, he built the Minescape Psychedelic Institute, a war room disguised as a school, training therapists, facilitators, and guides to handle the most volatile sacrament in the human experience. Their curriculum is not just instruction. It's a set of lockpicks for the mind,

a manual for jail breaks of the spirit. Recognized as North America's first trauma-informed in theogenic guide, he moves between the roles of shaman teacher and cultural sabotore, dismantling the machinery of numbness and rebuilding human beings from the inside out. He's not here to comfort you. He's here to pull the pin, hands you the grenade and whisper, throw it at the bars of your cage. Ladies and gentlemen, Kirby, thanks for being here. Again, I appreciate you having me, and as we were talking before we went live, you should, I need you to write my obituary. That's pretty impressive. I'm stoked you're here, man.

Like, you've done some really cool things. And, of course, we met through my, our mutual friend Adam Mizo. And when I started looking through your bio, when I started looking through your Instagram, I'm like, oh, I get it. Like, you've got a lot of background here, man. How did you get started in this bad boy? It was interesting because, you know, right before you went live, we were talking about, you know, just the age that we're at.

We're both near, I'm 52, almost 53. You're near 50. and how how this is important. And I think especially as it plays a role in psychedelics, I think, I think it's interesting because we're at, you know, at least for me and maybe for you at a unique crossroads where, like most of the folks I talked to, yeah, I did some psychedelics when I was younger,

it's more of a recreational or just kind of an experiential piece. But now we're meeting folks that are doing it for like life change, healing, right? Mental health, all these other reasons. So I think for the average person, which is why I find this work super fascinating, I think for the average person, you know, I've got an eight-year-old daughter. I also have a 26-year-old son, so I've been in the parenting game for a while now. But kids look at parents as if they know more, they've evolved more. In a lot of cases, I don't know if that's true, right?

I think, you know, a lot of folks have just grown older with very similar thoughts that they had. they're very not necessarily completely aware of who they are why they think what they think how they show up in the world they're programming so to speak so they're just older versions of their younger selves but i think the beauty of this work in psychedelics is it gives you a perspective that's that's a perspective shift right now you can see like i always love the the concept of the witness behind the thoughts right that's a big thing i try to focus on with books being the witness behind the thoughts. You can see all this, this programming, how you show up, your ego, whatever terms you want to use, and then how you're living your life based on that. And the moment

you're aware of that programming, the moment you're aware of that conditioning, you could get a pause, right? I think most people are walking through reality just reacting to stimulus. But the more conscious you could become, the more aware you could become. And you can start seeing this conditioning and programming. Now there's an opportunity for, you know, a response versus a reaction. So, you know, I guess where I'm going with this just because we're kind of in that middle age or we're past middle age at this stage based on life expectancy. It doesn't mean that we've necessarily done anything, but I think a lot of the folks that are meeting in the psychedelic space have had this, again, this, this liberation, this understanding of the stories and the identities that they've

been carrying their whole life and have been able to shift them. I know that didn't answer your question. But just a real brief, I mean, you know, my journey into this work really began, you know, as a participant in ayahuasca ceremonies. I saw a YouTube video one day that said, you know, 20 years of healing in a weekend. And I thought, well, that's efficient. You know, I was in the financial service industry, worker, you know, prided myself, had a lot of pride of the fact that I'm like, I can get 90 minutes out of an hour. I work so hard and I'm so efficient.

And it created this identity of being very good at my role as a finance guy. But I was miserable, depressed, anxious all the time, still had some PTSD. So on the outside looked like all the things that people would want. You know, nice house, beautiful wife, family, all the things. But inside, I was just miserable. And I knew it wouldn't last long. So, you know, 20 years of therapy and a weekend sounded, sounded fantastic. You know, but that's where I first experienced the depth of healing and self-discovery that I think plant medicines can offer.

And those early experiences really just kind of open my eyes to not only my own unconscious patterns, again, or programming, whatever terms you want to use, but also the profound potential for transformation when these tools are used with, like, real skill and real intention. And I was really blessed to have a very talented and well-trained facilitator at that stage and integration specialist. Over the years, I've kind of moved from being a seeker. Well, let me or phrase that. I'm always going to be a seeker. But I guess there's a kind of a pendulum. So always still seeking, but more shifted towards facilitation and then really guiding others in sacred spaces. and then really started specializing in a 5MEODMT, which is, you know, where I've now spent years just kind of refining trauma-informed ethical and spiritually grounded facilitation with that medicine.

And just, you know, along the way, just becoming deeply commended to integration, you know, not as this afterthought. Like, hey, go journal, go meditate, right? But it's like real work of awakening. So yeah, today, you know, a small author, right? Got a book out, got another book coming. I do some speaking engagements. As you mentioned in your beautiful introduction, co-founded the Minescape Psychedelic Institute with my wife. I've been training as a therapist.

So I'm almost completed with my master's degree in marriage and family therapy, which is what my wife has because I see that intersection between like mental health, potentially, and trauma work and facilitation. and that's pretty much it in a short or maybe long story. That's awesome. I love to get to hear the background. It helps me understand the person. You know, as someone who's been working in the field, especially with 5MEO,

have you seen some trends? I know when I was talking to Adam, he had mentioned that there's some people that are chasing like these big highs and that maybe there's a better way to do it. or what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think, look, you know, it's just my personal opinion. Okay, let's hear. And I've kind of gone through a lot of different arcs and different roles in the five-emio space, right? I started off in kind of the ayahuasca community, so I started off facilitating a little bit more from a shamanic perspective.

Right. And then the more I started kind of working with medicine, that particular medicine, started shipping. and started shifting to more of a non-dual kind of perspective and then into more of a therapeutic perspective. So when you talk about this particular medicine, what I think is important so other facilitators don't, you know, I don't want to ruffle any feathers. There's no one way of doing it, right?

There's no, like, this has got to be the way. But the predominant way that we're seeing right now in this space, which I was a contributor to for years, was you show up, you have big experience, you go home. right some people are doing it in in retreat settings for a couple days um but a good majority of the folks are really it's it's a quick intake process if there's an intake process you show up you have this large mystical experience the focus has been on this mystical experience right um and then they go home and have some level of potential self integration or maybe some minor integration um and to me you

know it after you've done this long enough it was pretty pretty easy to recognize that people would show up looking for some level of evolution change healing um have this big mystical experience and then five weeks later as the quote quote medicine was wearing off to them that they would move back to their baseline personality and the amount of folks that i talked to that said yeah i did five m yo or i did Bufo, it was amazing. Well, what, what's it done for you? I don't know. It started dawning on me. I'm like, we're missing a massive opportunity here. It's like the fruits dying on the vine. Like, it's this large energetic experience that there's so much that we can do with that, but we're not doing anything with it because the easier way of facilitating is somebody shows up.

You serve them an experience. You watch them for an hour and a half, maybe say something insightful, and then they go home. So to me, what I'm seeing in the space is a lot of folks are stepping into the space, I think, early. And again, I'm not facilitator, police. I don't get to dictate who facilitates, but I think a misconception is because my experience was beautiful. My experience was love and light.

I connected with everything. I laid there like a little Buddha that that's going to be everybody's experience, but they're not seeing some of the more traumatic experiences, some of the harder experiences. and honestly some of the destabilizing experiences and they don't have the ability to kind of help ground those folks and get them back into some sort of functioning capacity. So I see a lot of people stepping in too early. I see a lot of folks focused on the mystical experience

versus like truly using this medicine for what I think it could be used for. I see a lot of ego-driven, shamanic performance. It's something about the West here that everybody wants to be kind of special or be seen or be recognized as something special. And I'm like, this is the most egoic liberation medicine. Why are we like strengthening our egos in this space? It seems strange. There's a lot of lack of screening and preparation. You know, the amount of folks I talked to that were you, did you get informed consent? Did somebody tell you that you could have a destabilizing experience? The answer is almost inevitably no. And then again, I see a lot of encouraging,

and repeated high doses without really good integration. So in everybody's defense, this medicine is still fairly early. A lot of people are still trying to figure out the best use for it. So I'm not saying that my protocol is the way everyone should use it. But to me, I've just kind of offered it up as an alternative to what we've been doing, right? Like if you want to keep doing that, beautiful. But here's an alternative that's more titration-based, that's more gradually-based, is more therapeutically based, more long-term evolution-based, right?

So here's just an alternative that I think people should at least consider, if that made sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. It's interesting to me because I'm sure you have seen this, and many people that I've spoken to see this. It's like immediately after someone has like a giant life-changing dose, like the first thing they want to do is start serving some medicine. Like, this is for me. I should be the person that does this. And I think that's natural. I think when you have a life-changing experience, you want other people to have it.

Like you want to share in that. But it seems to me that maybe we've gone too far into the world of like schools and facilitators and like everyone becoming someone who serves medicine. And I think maybe the role is to become the very best version of yourself and then go into the world and show an example of that. What are your thoughts? I think I couldn't have worded it better. I mean, I think I saw, I shouldn't say research, but I saw an article that was saying, you know, for typical psychedelics, one in ten have an interest in stepping into the work after the experience, but something about five, and me, it's like one in three or one or four.

And that, that, that, that, there's something about this experience that really pulls people. I think a lot of them look at potentially the ease of how it can be facilitated, right? Right. like in my class, I say, look, if you want to learn how to light the pipe, you know, give me a monkey and a dozen bananas, I could teach it to light a pipe in a weekend. That's not the difficult aspect of this work, no different than handing somebody some psilocybin. Like, that's not difficult to do. So I think a lot of folks get a false sense of the ease of it.

And again, this probably comes from a good space of a place with good intentions. But, you know, one of the questions I really love to ask, you know, or students when they come aboard is, why do you want to do this work? And the first answer can be because I want to help people. I said this at the psychedelic conference last year. And the thought was, you know, you can't say it's because I want to help people. Because we all walk past that group of homeless guys on the bridge. Did any of you stop and help them?

So is it because you truly want to help people? Or is there something more egoic happening? And if that is, that's okay. But it's a recognition of. of wow, I want to feel validated. You know, it seems cool. I get to wear a cool outfit and have some crystals, right? Whatever the reason is, I think it's important to recognize that in ourselves.

Like, oh, okay, that is my ego. That is why I'm showing up the way that I'm showing up. That is the way I'm dressing the way I'm dressing. It's because I want this, that's okay. That's the beginning of seeing the identity and character that you're building around facilitation. And that could also be the beginning of the end of that. But it's pretty common. And again, I think it does come from a place of, I had such a beautiful experience.

I'd like to help some folks. How do you see this? You know, it's so interesting. Like I, when I look at the future and no one's got a crystal ball, no one knows what's going to happen. But my personal opinion is that psychedelics go back underground. Like, I think that there's going to be too much, there's, there seems to me to be too much sort of, gatekeeping and there's too much money and I don't think they'll ever be able to to sort of centralize it so therefore they're not going to be able to legalize it and when that happens I think

everything kind of goes back underground the same way that we look and see the model of cannabis I think too goes the way of psychedelics in the future but what about is that maybe that's too pessimistic but what are your thoughts on how does this thing shake out over the next five years again I think I think your theory is as good as any I am I'm hoping, I mean, what I'm hoping for and what potentially could happen is, again, it's, it's interesting just in our courses. I'm getting more and more therapist, which I find fascinating, because now that I've gone back to school, I could really have a lot of appreciation for the amount of time and energy you put into getting your license. Yeah. Like I've got 500 hours of internship,

and then I've got 3,000 hours of supervised, you know, clinical work before I can become licensed, That's a lot of time, energy, and effort to risk than serving psychedelics that are illegal, right? So it's interesting to see how many of those folks are shifting and coming into the space. And I'm hoping that that professional community, the more and more we can get them into the space, the more that provides just a different perspective on what that space looks like. But it's moving pretty slow. I was a little disappointed that NBMA didn't make approval, right? I thought that was a layup.

Didn't happen. I'm shocked psilocybin already isn't, right? That seemed like a pretty easy entry point. So at least for things like 5MEODMT, unfortunately, I don't see that becoming. I mean, yeah, it's in phase two trials. But again, it's probably five more years off before that becomes something that's even considered to be in the legal space. So it's tricky to say. But, you know, that's, again, so part of the training is, yeah, we trade therapists,

but also I think these underground practitioners, that's the term you want to use, or citizen scientists, whatever feels right. There's still going to be such an important aspect of this work moving forward for at least many, many years. It's interesting you bring up the like the 3,000 hours it takes to get your license. Like, I often think about that. And I don't, this is just me throwing it out there. But it seems, you know, there's that old rule of 10,000 hours makes you an expert.

Like that sounds like something we could move into the psychedelic field. Like you should have 3,000 hours under the influence. You should have 3,000 hours in these altered states to really figure out what's going on out there. Do you know, what do you think about that? Is anybody doing that? You know, I think it's interesting because my, you know, especially with 5MEO, because that's just the way that. the way that my brain could work the best is when I first started training, we needed to have 20 plus experiences, individual experiences with the medicine, and then watch, you know, 50 to 100

people have processes. And that's a lot of processes. And that was invaluable training to me. And, you know, I've done the medicine. I've done a lot of times because I've been fascinated with it and kind of using it for like awakening. Now, my wife, she's done it twice. She's the most awakened person I know. And I'm like, well, that doesn't seem fair. Like, why do you only have to do it twice and you're way farther ahead that I am? And I'd be more likely to sit with her than other folks that have gone through trainings

and had supervision and these types of things in the space. So it's, that's kind of shifted the way I perceive it, right? Like, it's like there's a lot of people that inately I feel, I would feel safe in the space. to keep me physically, spiritually, energetically safe, that have the ability to make sure that I'm safely, you know, medically stepping into the space. And that could integrate that experience properly without trying to inject their own spiritual bias or whatever it may be. I would trust that person over some folks that I know that have served 10,000 people, right? So it's, I'm sure there's a happy medium in there. But I don't know what it is. And it's, and it's, and it's shifted for

me over the years and it may shift again but that's where I'm at right now let me jump in I got some questions coming in here from the chat this one comes to us from Desiree and she says what does healing actually feel like for you and how is it different from what society calls healing oh Desiree that's that healing for me personally and kind of the work that I really enjoy doing with folks is again this this concept of awakening um you know a lot of folks probably know this but I'll say it anyway for the first seven years of your life your brains and theta waves which is essentially hypnosis you're just absorbing how to be in society and be in reality so you can fit into it

it, right? So you're essentially being programmed. Around seven, eight, you become more conscious and you start playing out that program. That's the majority of people that I see around me. And I was that as well, and obviously on some level still that. To me, healing was, you know, becoming aware of like these identities that I was holding on to. I'm Stefan Kirby, the financial advisor, and I'm this thing, and I'm a Christian or I'm a Muslim, or I'm straight, like all these social identities that we've kind of wrapped ourselves and are just identities that are kind of holding us into this, this, this, this program reality. So healing to me was really just becoming aware of everything that I am at this moment is because of an experience or thought that I've had in my past. I've had an

emotion tied to it. And if I'm taking, you know, 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day, they're the same thoughts that I had yesterday, which were the same same thoughts that I had the day before. I'm never going to heal. I'm going to continue to play out that programming. But the moment I could create a pause in that programming and again, become like the observer behind my thoughts, emotions and feelings where I can witness them, but not be a part of them. Even using terms like I'm noticing, I feel anxious. It's not the same as I'm anxious, right? As you're able to witness this programming, then there's an opportunity in there to start adjusting the programming. If you are right now, everything that's ever happened to you, well, if you shifted that, well, then you could be something different.

So so many people are tied into the identity of who they think that they think that they are. And to me, healing was being aware of that. And stepping outside of that and becoming the witness to everything that I've become. And they're starting to restructure that identity. Yeah, it's interesting to me the whole language around healing and how we interpret it. and how when you use these different medicines, it fundamentally just shifts your perspective on it. It was a great question, Desiree.

Thank you for it. Who else do we got here? We also have, this one comes to us from Neil, and he says, why did you decide to train guides instead of just leading ceremonies yourself? It's a good question. I'm going to just say one quick thing on the last question, too, and it's like, I think this misconception or something that was

beneficial for me is all the work that I put into like just being a little bit more aware, a little bit more slowed down, a little bit more conscious so I could react or not react to reality, but respond to it. I think there's this misconception too that, you know, I always use an analogy. I jokingly, of course, and not to offend anybody. I'm like, Buddha cheated, right? Like he left his work, his family, his responsibilities and sat under a tree. I'm like, that seems easy to me. Like the amount of times I said, if I could sit in a cave, life would be good. It's easy to be enlightened, but you don't have outside stimulus, right? But it's this misconception that we are going to walk through reality with this constant sense of happiness and joy.

I don't see it like that. To me, it's more of like this feeling of contentedness. Can I be present in this moment right now and experience it with some level of contentedness? Yes, then I'm winning. Now, how about this moment? How about this moment? But most folks are, again, are living in some sort of past. thought or future dream and that's creating emotions in them and they're just living out these

emotions so i guess where i'm going with that is this understanding that no healing doesn't mean that you're walking through life with no you don't know no difficulties people cut me off in traffic i could still get frustrated for a second that i could witness that but like life is happening we're in a matrix of other people that aren't necessarily awakened it's going to trigger us it's just being aware of why we're being triggered and solely but surely that standard deviation of how you're reacting to that trigger shrinks so i thought for years the fact that i even had the thought that i felt frustrated i'm like you're failing that's a huge misconception we're always going to have those thoughts it's like how long are we tied to that thought um to this question yeah honestly it's uh just being perfectly honest

a couple different things one my waiting list became so long um And I mean that with humility. I mean, I'm in a small area. There's nobody else doing the work here. So it was kind of me. And at first, I really enjoyed that. But again, the more I worked with the medicine, the thought was, why does it have to be you? Like if you say your mission is really to help people, well, does it have to be you that's helping them?

Or is it just to offer them help? And what I could find is I couldn't find any other people training facilitators that were training people. And I didn't have the capacity to have somebody in my space every day, you know, six days a week for, for months to kind of give them the training that I went through. So to me, really, it came out of necessity. And, you know, the amount of folks that were calling me from all across the country or all across the world, like, can I come and sit with you? I'm like, I just don't have the capacity. So I'm like, how do we create more good? I always say, we don't need more facilitators.

We need more good trauma-informed facilitators that have a reverence and respect for the work that we're, doing in high level of integration skills that's what we need more of so can we create that somehow and that was the mission and hopefully we're doing at least an okay job of that i think you guys are you know i get wrapped up in this word medicine curvy like i on some level like i feel it's like i have a deep reverence for the idea of medicine i like i love psychedelics they have they have really help me move through the portals of tragedy in my life. But on some level, I think that that word medicine is loaded because the more we think about it is medicine, the more we think about people that are traumatized. And at some level, selling medicine or giving people medicine

means we need to find more sick people. Do you know what I mean by that? Like, is there, is there a different word or is there, what are your thoughts on that? Like, is on some level, medicine always looking for sick people and is that the window that we want people to be in? It's a great point. I mean, words in general just, you know, they're like we talked about before the podcast started. It's, it's fascinating in all the connotations that are attached to them. I don't, I don't disagree with that. I don't know. And again, you know, and I pick on the spiritual community a little bit because it's kind of created its own lingo too, like grand rising brother. Nothing wrong with that, right? But good morning. It's been.

working for me for 50 years, I'll probably stick with that. There's like a lingo that we've kind of created around these practices. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just find it fascinating, right? It's just another level almost of creating separation between people. So medicine specifically, I don't know. I mean, I've got a lot of my peers call it a sacrament. That feels like it also brings a of heavy connotations to it. You know, drug also has a lot of negative connotations to it. So I don't know what the ideal term is. But if somebody's got one, I'm open to it because I don't disagree with you.

I don't know what the right term to use is. I mean, I was going through your Instagram feed, hilarious. There was so many awesome clips in there. And like, I feel maybe it's because we're Gen Xers or maybe because we love a little bit of parody or maybe because we love rebellion. Like there's so many awesome clips in there. And the one, like there was lots of them, but one clip I'll bring up, I'll probably bring up others, but is that clip of Terrence McKinna where he talks about culture is not your friend.

Culture will isolate you. Culture tries to buy you off. What are your thoughts on culture and rebellion and where we are now? Yeah, I like to have a little humor in this community. It's like everybody takes themselves so seriously. like this enlightened being. It's like you could also be a knucklehead. It's okay.

We could wear multiple hats and have some fun with this because isn't that the nature of reality is to go experience reality? Let's go experience it. But from a culture standpoint, I think, again, I've always been into the concept of what were we originally created or evolved to be, right?

And it definitely isn't me and my house. here with just my family isolated and kind of know the neighbors but don't really know the neighbors, right? Go to work with a bunch of people that I really don't know for a bunch of time a day, then come home. See, this seems like the insanity, right, that we've just kind of bought into like, this is what normal is. I'm like, is it? Because most of the issues that I see that we're facing as a culture is because of this cultural norm that I think is not normal. I mean, And again, if, and not to like romanticize like, you know, hunter-gatherer society is like, yeah, there's, there's, you know, a lot of times to get so, like the indigenous cultures had it figured out. Yeah, on some levels, but there's also some things that weren't ideal, right? But we had a sense of community. I didn't have to be everything to my wife. She didn't have to be everything to me because I had an entire community for support. Our daughter wasn't just being raised by us, right, or some strangers at. a school. It was raised by people that we were close to and we had this community. Everybody had a

role. Everybody felt needed on some level, right? So I think the fact that we've bought into what the culture is, I just haven't. I see it as his own sickness that we just, you know, I don't know if we're ever going to be able to shift away from it. That's always one of the things. I don't, I don't see that. I think you're seeing more and more people trying to create communities, but no, I think culture is not our friend. And I think it's actually creating a tremendous amount of isolation and sickness and sadness and depression. And I think he tossed social media in on top of that. And we've got a real problem, which concerns me for my eight-year-old daughter. What's her future look like? Yeah, that's well said. It's so strange to think that you send your kids to school,

you go to work and then you send your folks to like an old folks home. Like it's just this complete separation of family and community. And then you interact with this community that everyone's there because they have to be, not because they want to be. Like it just seems like the very foundation of a shitty way to live, man. And I know for me, like at the age of 50, like I stopped working at UPS. And like my whole life changed. Like I got to be home with my family.

And I realized like this is such a better life. And you realize people that have that opportunity to work from home or maybe that they're born into a family where they got a great education and they found a way to be home with their family. It gets such a better life than getting up and working nine to five. It is a world of difference. Yeah. And it's, man, again, my wife's into internal family systems parts work. So, you know, sometimes they use parts language. And yeah, there's a part of me that, you know, just the way that I, you know, just the way that I,

was raised part of the culture part of the family was hey go out and produce right you know you know your job is to provide and protect right as a masculine that's your job provide and protect and to do that you need to do everything in your power to make that happen um so i work with a lot of men young men older men that are like they're striving to create something for themselves which i admire and respect but when i start having conversations with people that have maybe financially already made it right and they're still out there trying to conquer and the question is what's what's the utility of this like why is our identity so tied to that like to me it's like after this podcast i'm going to sit in the backyard with my dogs and stare at the grass and the trees and just breathe i don't mean to

be anything more right but like the amount of conversations i've had with friends that are like well what would i do then what would i be then like you would be you like what would you would you you mean like well i always need something to like so you always need something external to provide value or to you know provide something for you internally then maybe we should see that differently is there any better role than being someone that's helping create amazing young adults and from children to adults to adult like there's no bigger responsibility right so it's like how many more cars do you need how many more cool toys do you need how much more money do you need all the while, like, are we bringing up a really good, healthy, amazing children? So same as you.

I get to stay home now. And the time I get to spend with my daughter and family, I'm like, no, I have no desire to get back into something to be somebody for other people. Like, this is, this is, there's nothing more important than what we're doing right here and right now. And it's often overlooked, I think. Yeah, I agree. You about at the point of external validation. That is something that is ingrained in us. Maybe it comes from our parents or maybe it comes from an authoritarian school system. But it's really difficult to shake off the idea of success and external validation. At least it was for me.

Like when all of your process is tied to outcome, like it's real easy to get down on yourself. It's real easy to realize or start getting into these negative feedback loops about I'm not successful or I hate my friends. I hate this or I hate that. Like, how do you notice that in your life? And how do we sort of decouple the idea of success from external validation? Yeah, it's interesting because something I say to folks, a gentleman I was talking to next last week was, again, talking about physical body, finally. Like, if you were on a deserted island all by yourself, you're the most attractive person,

you're the most intelligent person, you're the healthiest person, right? not till I drop you into a mix of other people. And then we start comparing ourselves to these other people. And there's something about that comparison that sets off all the alarms of like, I'm not enough or this one's better than me. And then the game begins, right? But when you can really just become comfortable with, there's nothing wrong with trying to achieve things and wanting to accomplish things.

But I think it's like this level of attachment to those, right? like overly striving, overly attached, overly committed. But it's ingrained. It's still in me, right? I mean, just being honest, it flares up every now and then, right? Like, should I be doing more? Like, I'm just spending time in the backyard with the animal. Like, should I be doing more?

Maybe you should be doing more. Maybe you're not making the most of your life. And I'm like, well, what does that even mean? Like, what does that even mean? It's like I'm here. I'm content. I'm at peace. It seems to be, in my opinion for me, that's the game, right? That's the game. And then if I went to pursue something, great, I could pursue it with very intentional steps, very like being aware, being in the present moment and working through that, but no attachment to the outcome of it. And especially for other people, the amount of people that I've worked with that were on the outside, like, extremely successful where you have everything that are miserable. It's changed my whole perspective.

on, you know, like, I don't have that much. This guy's got millions. I've got enough to pay my rent, right? And there's like this part of society that's always told us that we're less than because of that. Work with these folks enough where you're like, they're miserable. They would change the person for the person that I feel that I, they would make that swap in a heartbeat, right? They would give up all that money to be content and be present and be aware and just be able to be still. They'd give it all up for that. So who's really successful? And like who's deciding to, you know, deciding what success is. And again, that's another cultural thing. Success is what, right? To me, it's to be content and to be present and to experience this reality and to navigate through it because, yeah, we have bills to pay and we're in the system. So we have to kind of play the system to some degree. But to what end, right?

Yeah, that's a great point. Let me jump in over some. Who else do we got come on over here. Sorry, everybody in the chat. I'm just kind of in my own world, asking my own questions. Who do we have over here? We have, okay, this one comes to us from Betsy. She says, how do you imagine the world 50 years from now if the psychedelic movement succeeds?

Oh, man, I don't want to be overly pessimistic. Honestly, we could play it from two sides. The one side of me is like, do we have 50 years? You know, I'm one of those. I'm a little bit of a prepper. You know, I've got some concerns about like AI and where that technology is going and weaponization. Like I've got some concerns. So 50 years seems like a long, long term, but I hope so.

but let's say everything continues to chug along as it is what do i see the world looking like in 50 years oh man um that's that's difficult to say there's just so many variables um you know in 50 years they'd probably map out a way for us to live forever right they're going to probably figure out 18 they'll probably figure out how to um upload our consciousness into to, you know, the cloud and then potentially other forms. I don't know. It could be a wild space. I honestly, I'm on a three-year plan.

I'm like, let's just get through the next three years. They have three. Forget 50. Through these three. Just get through these three. And also, and I don't mean this selfishly, but somewhat, like, selfishly. My focus is, like, how you started the podcast. It is to be the best version of myself.

right and you know it's also a game i play with folks is the and then what game right so many folks are trying to think so far into the future yeah the beauty of five of me is it's giving me so many ego deaths where i'm convinced i'm like oh this is what happens after we die okay sign me up so my fear of death is eliminated so now it's at the point of like well and then what well then this thing's going to happen and this is going to happen in politics and then what and then what and we can follow that all the way out to the end and the end is well again the world gets destroyed or we all whatever it may be. And I'm like, okay. Right. So like I'm already okay with the end game. And I think once you're able to do that, you're able to just like my goal right now was just to

experience this moment and then the next moment and just experience that reality. And those types of conversations are great thoughts that I can go down the rabbit hole on. But it's so far out. I just, I don't know. I don't know. I don't either. I would say Betsy, you know what I would say, Betty, I think it's going to be some sort of science fiction Blade Runner meets Philip K. Dick, where you'll be able to simultaneously change your identity and your form and live a life that's half virtual and real. You know, but I don't know. If I'm going way down to science, I love reading science fiction, and I can see us moving into

this world where you could live in your room in a set of VR goggles and, and be fulfilled on some level. I think that's going to be routes for people to live a sort of, yeah, it's interesting to think about it, which brings me to AI. Like there's some real, I think that there's some real sort of similarities between AI and psychedelics. Like on some level, the world of AI is sort of, I don't know, it's psychedelic in a lot of ways, but what are your thoughts on the relationship between psychedelics and AI?

Are they going to merge together? Do you have any thoughts on the two? I don't. You know, I think just kind of a piece on Betsy's thing is too. I think what we're seeing, at least scientifically, is again, what we're able to perceive as humans is actually very limited. Like we think the way that we see reality, hear, reality, smell reality is reality. It's a very small amount, right? Like what our eyes are able to see from like a visual spectrum of like wavelengths of light, right?

So if that wavelength of light started in California and went all the way to New York City, that's all the potential visual spectrum that we can see. What the human eye can see is literally the size of a peanut, right, on that line across the entire country. So that tells me what we're seeing, what we're smelling, what we're hearing, what my dogs are picking up outside, completely different than when I pick it. So the way that we're sense in reality is very limited, but we're designed that way. We're really designed, if you take us back to the basic animal, is to, the senses we're designed. and our unconsciousness was designed to keep us alive long enough to kind of procreate, right?

Like everything in reality is just procreating the trees, dropping the nuts, all the things. So I think with the psychedelic movement or the psychedelics, it could go in a negative direction. Some people have kind of perceived that where it's like we're not supposed to have this amount of awareness because then you have people like Kirby that's like, I don't want to, why would I want to go to a nine to five? I just want to kind of sit in the backyard with the dogs. Right. Can not have too many of those people, right? Because we don't, we're not going to progress, right? So I don't know. It could go in a couple different directions. But AI and psychedelics, well, that's a great question. I don't know. I'd be curious what you think. I don't. I think that it's a great research tool. And that's how I see AI. I see it as a tool. I see it as something that we can, you can be lazy. about it and get something in and get something out of it, or you can build something with it. And I think that in the future, we'll be able to investigate ourselves more because of AI.

I think it's just a lens. I think it's a mirror for us. And the people that fear AI are the people that fear themselves or the people that fear humanity. And the people that see beauty in AI are the people that see the beauty in humanity. Because it's just, in my opinion, it's just scraping history. It's scraping all of the internet. and feeding back to us an image of us.

And so people are afraid of that. People see that and they're like, oh, no, it's horrible. No, we're horrible. Oh, it's beautiful. No, we're beautiful. You know? And so that to me is where it echoes psychedelics, because psychedelics is the same thing for me.

Like, it'll allow me to see the worst parts of myself and the best parts of myself. But when I realize I am the person that is observing it, I realize I can change all those things. And that's just a snapshot of me. So I think that that for me is where the two are connected. They're both psychedelic and that they're a mirror for you to understand that you're the observer. So I kind of see them merging on that level. If I were to take a stab at what's going to happen with psychedelics, like I am a huge fan of peptides and no tropics. And I think that these are going to be the next wave of psychedelics. I think you're going to be able to see these peptides, It's something like MK 67, which is a growth hormone sacralog, which is a fancy way of saying you eat this pill or powder and it stimulates HGH in your body.

But I've done some experiments where I'll take that like two hours before my trip and it strengthens the trip. So I got to think that HGH and psilocybin are working harmoniously inside the brain and the body to strengthen the trip, to strengthen the gut, to strengthen the neurotrans. So I think we're going to see that coming up. Like that's the next wave for me is like, oh, look, and we're going to be using these peptides and these nootropics along with psychinology. It's not just in the brain. It's in the gut. But that to me is super exciting because I love the different substances.

I love the way they make me feel. I love the potential for longevity. I love the potential for gaining, you know, insights and stuff like that. But have you seen some of these new novel peptides or ever experimented with like the different kind of smart drugs? maybe in a different manner but yeah i've gone down the rabbit hole a little bit of the peptides but more for because again i'm 53 my wife is 43 so um i'm trying to keep in the game you know so like i started with like sir mirellin then moved to like ipamorellin and cjc 11295 or whatever it may be um injured all the time so i take like what they call the wolverine stack

right BP B-157 and TB 500 so really just for like optimization like that term but just like help with being old because I think that again that the fact that my understanding is it's stimulating the part of the body that would create like a growth hormone versus yeah artificially putting growth hormone in your body like I like that concept and to the gut health inflammation all these things we know is what's wearing us down and having such a dramatic impact. So I'm new into the peptide space, probably the last three months, but not as it relates to psychedelics. So what you said just a few minutes ago is fascinating to me.

Yeah. I think we're going to see some research on them. And obviously everyone should, everyone listening to my voice, I'm definitely not a doctor. So don't go do it because I said you should do it. However, that being said, there's some really cool experiments you can do with them. And a lot of them have like a really beautiful safety profile. So for anybody out there, listen and do your own research, but it's definitely worth checking out. Who else do we got over here?

This one's coming to us from Kenneth. Kenneth says, what's the most dangerous myth about psychedelic healing that needs to be destroyed? The most dangerous myth. That's really good. The most dangerous myth. I think, again, I think we have a lot of talk about, you know, integration is a term that could also often be kind of overplayed.

So you got to integrate. You got to, like, I think we all know it, but I don't think people understand, not the importance of it, but really like the value of it. And I think, so I think the dangerous myth is, it's the mystical experience that's creating the healing. You know, it's, it's, for some folks, yes, you're having this experience, but to me, it's, it's really about the content of that experience, the content or the imagery of that process and how do we embody that into a state of being? It's always about embodiment to me. So the amount of folks that I served that, you know, early on that would have this mystical experience with this profound experience, right? Then again, shift back to kind of a baseline personality that weren't getting true healing.

just became obvious to me. I'm like, we're not approaching this properly right out of the gate. So it's not integration doesn't start at the end of it to me. It really starts at the beginning, right? Like, what are we stepping into this for? Let's kind of curate around that. Now we're sliding into the experience. Now we've moved it. It's all just kind of one organic process. But to me, it's, it is really understanding that it's not the mystical experience. It's about taking this experience and turned it into like a lived and structured practice. Yeah. What do you think that, like, to me, that comes from someone that's kind of hit rock bottom.

Like, you have to want to change your life. You know, like, and you have to have reasons to do it. Like, and I see it a lot of, I see it with the people in the addiction community, or I see it in people in the veteran community. Like, they have a real reason to change. And that seems to me to be the work after the big experiences. Because, like, the big experience will help you with neuroplasticity. It'll help you with the cravings.

It'll help you understand. But afterwards, like, you still got to have the catalyst to, like, move forward. And it seems to me for veterans or people in addiction, it's like, I want to live a better life. I want my family back. I want to be loved. They have all these reasons to continue to change where if you're doing okay in life, you have this mystical experience. Like, you're not really going to change that much.

You just got to enjoy this sort of little mind vacation. I don't know. It's interesting to think about it from that aspect, like the catalyst to change. I agree. I think, you know, I'll just speak for myself. It was desperation. Yeah. Right?

Like I approached it with desperation. You know, and that just puts a different flavor to it where it's very intentional. And, you know, I'm going to maximize it, right? It's like I'm going to make sure that I get everything out of this experience that I can. And then I think, again, it's. You know, integration is just a term that, again, I don't want to say it's overused, but I think is, is become too broad. Like, you know, the amount of folks are like, what was your integration protocol where they told me to like do some meditation and journaling? Okay, that's good stuff, right?

But like, how are you embodying that experience? Like, what can we pull from that experience? The whole point of these experiences for a lot of folks is to, you know, get some sort of insight. It's like I got a picture of a tree on my wall right now. Well, you take the psychedelic, you have this psychedelic experience. Kind of like what you said with the AI. Now that tree is a three-dimensional tree. It's like, oh, I could walk around it.

I get to see it from a multitude of angles, not just the beautiful angle on this side. Well, what's it look like from the dark side of it? Or where the moss is growing or where a bird poked all of it. Like I get to see all of that. Now that I've seen that, what do I do with that? Right. And if you just see that, what's going to happen is the ego. Your programming is very powerful.

It's going to, its job is to shift you back to where you were. That's its whole job. So you're fighting a current, right? So if you're not fighting back against that current, you're going to lose and you're going to end up back in a very similar spot, maybe a little progress, but in a very similar spot that you started. You're fighting a current, right? So if you're not, if you don't have very dialed in practices, very consistent practices, very specific practices to kind of fight that current, you're going to get sucked right back into it. And those are the folks that go to, you know, that was me.

I was going to an experience every month, right? I wasn't getting really good integration. So I'm like, I don't want that feeling to go. So I'll go back. And I'll just keep doing it until finally it like kind of clicked on me. I'm like, this isn't efficient. This isn't affordable, number one. And we're not making the progress I think we should make.

I need to find somebody that's going to help me, you know, grab that process and embody it. Yeah, it's well said. Jesse Munreal, Jesse is super awesome. Jesse is an incredible individual that's been helping people at all levels for quite some time. Her and I have a podcast

that is going to be coming up really soon. We've recorded it already. But she says epiphanies only happen in movies. Real change is small and boring and incremental, but it stacks up into the big change. But that doesn't sell. It's such a real thing. Yeah.

It's a hundred, percent. I mean, especially with five of meo, because it is such a powerful, you know, ego, death, potentially mystical experience. You're one with everything. You feel you connect to God. Now, obviously different people have different experiences, but that's kind of the most reported experience, right? That's life changing, right? But to me, that just opens the door. You're like, oh, you know, it was my third experience. I remember having my third experience and coming out of the medicine and thinking, oh my gosh that's what enlightenment was like so you have a moment of enlightenment and it's fading not enlightened but you experience it and i'm like that's what the monks were going to the monasteries

for 30 years to try to achieve that just happened i was like my brain remembers it there's got to be a way i can tap back into that without the medicine that's been my mission ever since right i didn't become enlightened and awakened then it just opened the door to the understanding of like there's the path now you got to walk through that door and shut it. And with this new lens of reality, I used to call them like the, the, the, Bufo goggles. Now you have the Bufo lenses. Now you have to go out and experience reality all over again, every aspect of it. So she's right. The real, it's small changes. How am I interacting with the person at the pool? How am I interacting with the, like you have to go re-experience reality,

all of it in its entirety all over again with this new set of lenses. That's where the change is. Yes, people have this massive experience. They're like, oh, I'm changed. I'm enlightened. I'm like, maybe hold on to that for a minute. You got a sneak peek into it. You got to experience it and embody it for a short moment. But until you are able to deeply embody that and that become who you are, that's where

all the work is. And that's a slow, slow process. But it's a beautiful process that's ongoing. Yeah, that's well said. It's so, it's like a cruel joke. Like you get this little glimpse of bliss and you're like, I got to go back into the Matrix. I got back into this thing.

No, I don't want to go back. It's so crazy to me. I got, um, so I got something new I'm working on, Kirby. I have a list of lightning round questions for you. Okay, I'll be brief. I'll do my best. Okay. So ladies and gentlemen, here we go.

The first edition of the Lightning Round on the True Life podcast. So I will name these out and you will answer as fast as you can. Are you ready, Kobe? I'll do my best. Okay. Who would you rather guide, Charles Manson or Jesus? Oh, Jesus. Ayahuasca is a ayahuasca in a haunted house or LSD at a kid's birthday party.

a haunted house would you rather smoke DMT in the Oval office or the Vatican Ooh Vatican If you had to pick a co-pilot for hyperspace Carl Sagan or Snoop Dog Snoop Dog Mushrooms before a first date or before a job

interview. Well, first date, that's probably less important. More psychedelic. Quantum physics or your last family Thanksgiving? More psychedelic. Probably the last Thanksgiving. Would you rather be the leader of the CIA or the Wu-Tang clan? Ooh.

Probably the CIA. If you had to choose a trip sitter, your mom, or Hunter S. Thompson? Man, those are good. I'll go with my mom. More terrifying. Ego death or middle school gym class? Middle school gym class, done the ego death.

Been there, done it. Easy, breezy. If you could swap minds with any living person for a day, who would it be? Oh, boy, Joe Dispenza, maybe. Love it. Better shaman, Yoda or Gandalf? Yoda. I'm old school. Would you rather do peyote in the desert with Jim Morrison or the Dalai Lama? Dalai Lama.

More dangerous. A bad trip or a billion dollar PR campaign? Billion dollar ad campaign. Billion dollar ad campaign. Okay, the last one we have is, would you rather trip in zero gravity or 300 feet underwater? Oh, zero gravity. Epic. Kirby, that was awesome. I had all these questions lined out.

I had some help from my Discord over there. But you're the first person to go through the lightning round, man. Nice. So Kirby, if people are listening, and they are, whether you're listening right now in the chat or you're listening five days from now or a year from now, if they want to find you, What's the best people, what's the best way for people to reach out and find you? Yeah, I'm easy. I'm old school.

We don't have a whole marketing group and a bunch of interns. Like, we pretty much keep things simple. You know, it's the Mindscape Institute.org would be the website. Mindscape Institute at ProtonMail.com, pretty easy to find it. Like an email, I'm pretty personal. I like to talk to everyone. I kind of like this pocket. I find so much joy in hearing people's stories, right?

That's one of my favorite parts of speaking at conferences. You usually have a handful of people that they come up. They want to share their story. I'm like, let's do the stories. How do you get here? So I really like the personal kind of a touch with people. So pretty easy to get hold of me. Either the website, you can send us an email.

You can just Google search the Minescape Psychedelic Institute. see us pull up. And I'd say, just send me a note. I'm always curious, always interested. Yeah. So ladies and gentlemen, go down to the show notes. Check out Kirby. Check out the Institute. I hope everybody had a beautiful day. Kirby, hang on afterwards. That's all. And ladies and gentlemen, that's all we got. Thanks for being in the chat. Thank you to everybody there. We'll talk to you soon. And Kirby, I'll talk to you briefly afterwards. Hello, everybody. Appreciate you guys.