TrueLife - The War on Consciousness: Psychedelics, Rebellion, and the Stories That Won’t Die

Episode Date: December 1, 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_USThe Lila Code: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4612-3942🚨🚨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/Artem Smirnov | Normalize Psychedelics“One testimony at a time, he’s normalizing the miracle.”In this episode, George sits down with Artem Smirnov, Co-founder & Creative Director of Normalize Psychedelics — a project collecting 1,000 raw testimonies from people whose lives were radically changed by psychedelic medicine. Once a filmmaker documenting narrative, Artem has become a witness to resurrection: real people coming back from “impossible” experiences with new eyes, new lives, and new purpose.From a van rolling down the West Coast to a global archive of healing, Artem is preserving the unfiltered human truth behind psychedelic transformation — not the corporate version, not the sanitized version, but the real one.In this conversation, we explore the movement, the mission, and the mythology behind the psychedelic renaissance… and the questions that will define its future.Topics We ExploreThe origin story of Normalize Psychedelics and why Artem chose testimonies over theoryThe danger of sanitizing or corporate-branding a medicine born from rebellionThe difference between safe access and spiritual sterilizationRitual, archetype, and the “impossible” — why psychedelic stories sound like modern mythWhether the real war has always been a war on consciousnessThe struggle between sacred medicine and capitalist extractionPsychedelics as the potential literacy of the futureHow to hold space for healing without turning it into an industryWhat a world could look like where psychedelic experiences are considered a public goodKey Questions From the Episode“What does ‘normalizing psychedelics’ look like without sterilizing or neutering the rebellion that gave rise to them?”“Is the real war not on drugs but on consciousness that refuses to behave?”“What if psychedelics become the literacy of the future — and sobriety becomes the illiteracy of the past?”“Are we ready for a world where psychedelic experiences are considered a public good?”“How do we avoid turning sacred medicines into another consumer commodity?”About Artem SmirnovCo-founder & Creative Director of Normalize Psychedelics, Artem is traveling the world collecting first-person accounts of transformation — building the largest living archive of psychedelic healing on the planet.Learn more at: www.normalizepsychedelics.com 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, furious 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. you hear me okay too i can okay ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the true live podcast i hope you're having a beautiful black friday hope your thanksgiving was amazing the day i have with me in the studio artem smirnoff co-founder and creative director normalized psychedelics a filmmaker turned witness to resurrection. Artem is collecting a thousand raw, unfiltered stories of people who met the impossible on a molecule and came back, changed forever. From a van rolling down the West Coast to a global archive of healing, he's building the living proof that medicine once outlawed is now

rewriting what it means to be human. One testimony at a time, he's normalizing the miracle. Artem, thank you for being here today. How are you? dude thanks for having me i'm um i'm honored i'm honored to be here um i'm feeling feeling a little overwhelmed today but i'm well you know overwhelmed because there's so many good things happening and i'm and i'm learning how to handle them what are the good things happening man fill us in well i don't know it's just it's it's it's life man you know uh all the opportunities coming from I feel like there's just so many incredible conversations I've been having for this project specifically. And a lot of people are just open to be a part of the project, and they're so stoked to be a part of it.

But sometimes I don't know what to do with all the opportunities, and I'm like, oh, because opportunities are also, you have to, you have to, you know, you have to know how to deal with them and how to cash in and how to make the most of them. but also just life man life uh life uh life is happening and i'm i'm grateful to be here brother yeah man you know sometimes i feel like we're like this empty sort of riverbed and then when these opportunities come to us it's like these tributaries flowing into us and like filling us up on so many levels and i think half the battle is just realizing that like there's all this opportunity waiting to fill you up but it is a matter of trying to figure out how how it can fill you up like how do you dig it deeper how do you get more inflow coming in but it's an exciting time for psychedelics yeah it really is and this project is about three years old and and in that time

like a lot of things have shifted just in that short amount of time in three years like you think three years what can happen in three years seems like a lot can happen in three years man and yeah like People are, I feel like people are more open than ever. I mean, even the conversations I'm having with older folks and my parents around psychedelics are very different now than they were three years ago. Yeah. Is that normalizing psychedelics? Like what does normalizing psychedelics mean to you?

Yeah, I think it's, it's having real conversations with the people that we love. around things that have helped us. And when I first started this project, I was not into the idea of normal. Before I started the project, I wasn't really into that idea. Like I was one of those people who would, you know,

I would take mushrooms recreationally. I'd go into the forest with a few friends. Yeah. And I would pretty much keep that experience to myself. You know, I would share it with a few friends. I would give out mushrooms handling the people who asked. But like I wasn't,

I wasn't out there like sharing it with the world, if you will. I didn't really necessarily understand why that was important, but when I met my partner for this project, Jamie, and seeing her come from the other end of the spectrum where she only found them later in her 30s and she felt deceived by the world that the world lied to her, you know, the question was if something really helped you in your life and society tells you not to talk about it. Do you still talk about it? Or do you listen to society? That's a great question, man. I feel like we're conditioned to listen to society. Like when I think of normalizing something, there's all these taboos around certain things.

Like, don't do that thing. Or, you know, if you want to live a good life, you have to stay by these straight and narrow. There's all these confines, like, you know, all this confinement around society's constantly telling you what is normal. But you're right. Like, what happens when these things that make you see the world differently are told you're not you're not supposed to do that like what does that mean it kind of it kind of what does that mean to you when society tells you not to do these things um I was yeah I totally listen to society for for definitely more than a few years yeah I mean I wasn't I wasn't super late on it my my first experience I was probably 23 but I thought people like I

The funny thing about this project is I thought people who shared every detail of their psychedelic experience in college. There was this one guy who I loved to death. He was a great friend of mine. And he used to do acid all the time. And he would share every detail of that experience with me. And it would drive me bonkers. And I'd be like, dude, I don't want to hear about it. Like, it super turned me off because it was like it was a lot on the experience,

but it wasn't a lot about what I learned from the experience and what I'm taking away from the experience. So I was not really interested until I had my first experience. Like it was almost like I wasn't interested until I experienced it. And then everything changed after that. Do you know what I mean? Kind of. How did they change? Explain it to me.

Well, I feel like it opened up a whole portal of things that were invisible to me prior. So I might and funny enough my first experience I was 23 and I accidentally dosed me and one of my best friends with a research chemical called 25 I and BOMI. Prior to that I've never done I'd never done psychedelics before that and I had this crazy I'm not going to say crazy kid I'm going to say this interesting Russian kid who lived on my street. He used to get a lot of substances from the dark web and he he'd always just offer them to me and i would say no every time and i'd be like dude i don't i don't want that um and for this one he said artem just try it you're going to see light trails

in the sky for for a few hours it's just going to make the stars look really cool and me and my buddy were playing basketball and um we decided we're like you know we're kind of a chill night we're playing basketball and we popped it in we popped one little tab of 25 eye and then an hour into it we stopped playing basketball we're just walking around the neighborhood with our eyes completely, like, wide open. Like, we're seeing the world for the first time. Yeah. Completely unprepared.

No, no pre-work, no understanding what this even was. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. But this experience lasted like eight to 12 hours. And, I mean, even talking to him, my buddy, 13 years later, he would probably agree that this was one of the most important things that's ever happened to him in his life. Because there's like a before. after like like portals were open opportunities were open and um yeah it's so mind-blowing to hear

that like and i know that experience well but for people that may be listening that may have be on the fence or just kind of curious about it like think about the language of i walked around the neighborhood and saw the world for the first time like that's such a large statement it's so incredible to like see through that lens to see the sort of grass waving or to see the ecosystem beneath your feet in a way that makes sense to you that may have just been oblivious in the past like that sort of opening of the of the world around you it's magnificent totally i mean it's it's it's it's inevitable really like it's it's something that you cannot put into words and yet here we are trying to put words to it right exactly exactly

It's beyond words. And that's the point I think that's so contagious for people. And that's why your other friend probably was like, listen to know what happened to me. This is amazing. Listen to know what happened to me. And it's just that's the experience that everybody, not everybody, but most people find sometimes through breathwork, sometimes through psychedelics, sometimes through running or working out super hard. But it is this opening of the mind that allows you to experience yourself in a way that you haven't done before, man. And it's mind-blowing to me.

Tell me more about the project, though. Like, when you think about normalizing psychedelics, like you have a lot of incredible stories that are coming to you and you're publishing them, but there's so much more with normalizing psychedelics. Tell me more about it. Yeah, so the idea of normalized psychedelics started with my friend Jamie, who I just mentioned,

and she's part of decriminalized nature. And decriminalized nature is a grassroots, organization, a grassroots political organization, changing local laws in cities all around the United States. It's a movement. And they've been able to decriminalize psychedelics. And a lot of these cities on the West Coast, but also places in Michigan and really all over the country.

And their idea is, you know, let's not wait for these things to be legal. There's a bunch more grassroots way of making these things safely available to our communities. And it's by being open and honest with our towns and city councils and stuff like that. And really it's a brilliant organization founded. One of the founders is Dr. Larry Norris. And one of the things that they're doing, they have a playbook of, how to make these things decriminalized in your community. And a big part of it is convincing city council

that these things are actually helping your community. It's pretty simple. And a big part of that is having people come to these meetings, city council meetings and talking to local government officials and just open and honestly telling them, like what's happening. They're like, hey, you know, I am Joe and, you know, man, I've had some.

such incredible experiences with with mushrooms. They've been so helpful in my life. They'll help me with, you know, feeling more in my own skin, feeling happier, feeling more life satisfaction. And the idea is if enough of these stories come, city council has no choice. They're like, well, who are we to tell these people that they're not telling the truth?

And a lot of times they'll vote in, you know, six and 12 months after these initiatives are started and they'll decriminalize. So Jamie was part of that organization. And I wasn't. I was just a psychedelic advocate. I was like, I'm just the dude who likes doing mushrooms in the forest every six months to help me with life's transitions.

Yeah. So the idea where the project got started was we met a lot of these separate decriminalized communities around the country, and we talked to them. And they had a lot of, they had a lot of shit to say. They had a lot of stories. And some of them were coming. from, you know, just, just, I mean, being hugely depressed, feeling suicidal and then coming back to life. Yeah. Finding their way back to wholeness, if you will. A lot of them were more

on the political side and they were just, you know, they're organizing these get-togethers and they're, the stories were both, you know, they're all from health stories. They're from veteran stories, their politics stories, grassroots stories, and our original idea was to create a documentary about how these things are being normalized through grassroots organizations in the United States. We wanted to make a documentary about D. Crim, but we didn't know exactly what we wanted to say. So we came out of this trip with like 50 stories. Some of them so powerful. And we were like, well, what do we do now? Like, we don't know exactly the narrative for this, for this documentary.

And I do think that the documentary is still really important to make. But we just decided to put them off as one-offs. We're like, hey, we're just, we're sharing these stories as a way of normalizing the conversation on YouTube, on Instagram, and we partnered with Decrim Nature. And we're like, we're, you know, we're calling in other people who have experiences that they want to add to our collection. And we had so many people, like, reach out to us. and tell us that they want to be a part of the movement. They wanted to share what they were going through.

So at that point, we had more stories than we knew what to do it. You know, so, you know, that was the birth of the project. We're like, okay, well, we're a living library of psychedelic firsthand testimonials. You know, and if we can create a way for this to make waves in the world, Well, that's good. Simple. Yeah, I think it is. I love the language of a living library of stories because in the end, like, it's the stories that move us. It's the experience of the others that we can incorporate into our lives, you know,

or at least see through that lens in a way that changes everything. I got a couple questions chiming in over here. This one comes to us from, who is this coming from over? This one's coming from Desiree. She says, are we ready for a world where psychedelic experiences are considered a public good? That's a good question. Thanks, Desiree. I think that the alternative is, if we flip that question on its head and we say,

What if we don't share our experiences for the public good? And I think that there's more to be lost if we don't share our experiences. And I think that being open and honest with something that helps us, I think we have to take the leap of faith and say that if it helped me, it's going to help other people too. I'm not saying definitively it's going to help, but I'm saying that this is something that's helped me. um so education is is a good thing i mean giving people education around safety around how to set up their environment how to do the set and setting thing how how to find a good source for what

they're doing how to make sure that they don't do something stupid um i think that's that's definitely in the public good and i actually know somebody who you know, ruined their life also on psychedelics. So every day that I continue this project, I think about my friend. I'm not saying that his life is ruined, but I'm saying that it didn't

change him in the best way. You know, and he had a really, really challenging experience that lasted many years. So I know that there's risk associated with it, but I think that giving education to as many people as possible

is a public good, especially now when there's research that it's helping all sorts of individuals that we had no idea prior that it could help. I love the stories of chronic illness, autoimmune illness, of people losing weight, of people finding their sense of spirituality, I like the really unconventional stories. So, yeah, I think there is a lot more to be gained by having it a part of the public discourse than lost, for sure. Yeah. I agree, too.

When I think about that question, you know, it's interesting to me because it seems like all it takes is like one bad story. There's one sensational bad story about someone losing their life to psychedelics. And that's a total tragedy. but for every 100 good stories it seems like that one bad story overshadows all of them like how do we combat that like what are your thoughts on that yeah well i mean those bad stories are are also important agreed and we can't we can't just walk around with rainbow colored you know shades saying that all that happens is good because i live i live in a very uh psychedelic town and There's a lot of people who I would not advise taking more psychedelics.

They've taken enough. They need to go to the gym. Like they need to go find a job. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, telling the stories in the most natural way like you would to your parents is kind of the lens that I'm trying to see it through. And the bad stories are also important to share, like the stories of, you know, the shamans who are shamans, fake shamans, you know, taking advantage of people.

Those stories are really important. People are getting in trouble. And people need to know that there is risk when you're going into a completely new land doing something that is going to put you in a very perceptible state. those stories are really important. Those stories are really important, too. And for me, a lot of those bad stories are, the ones that I'm hearing with, like, people take advantage of others is people just giving too much power away to other people,

which is, you know, wanting somebody to heal them instead of understanding that we are the healer. So it's reframing, I think a lot of it's reframing those stories in a way that that's more accurate. It's just like people didn't have a bad trip. It's like what is a bad trip, right? A challenging trip is finding something that you maybe weren't prepared for. What does that mean?

You know, and understanding why that came and what you can still learn from it. And it also not blaming the victim of somebody got taken advantage of. Like, there's bad actors out there for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I think perhaps psychedelics are supposed to remain underground and the people that have the courage to try them, knowing the risks, become like the catalyst for change. And so maybe it's something that will never be adopted by the mainstream. Like I see a lot of work right now in medicine and people with PTSD and a lot of veterans. And of course, there's always the psychonauts out there.

But is it possible that maybe it's just something a catalyst for the underground? for like the change makers and maybe it never gets accepted by the mainstream yeah i mean that's that's definitely one one one way to view it and but but then the thing that gets me is well then a lot of people aren't the a lot of the people that actually do need it the most aren't going to get access to it so i'm trying my best to stay open to both the medical model and like the underground model, although I sway towards one of those, which is 100% of the underground model. But there's a lot of people who are beautiful, law-abiding citizens who don't want to do stuff

that's illegal. Yeah. Like they don't want to do it, and they're really good people, but sometimes they can probably benefit from it the most. So having it offered and having, you know, the experience offered in a Western model with therapists. You know, it's not, it's not necessarily my cup of tea, but I think there's a lot of people that that can also serve. And I want to, I want to make sure that this project isn't necessarily, it doesn't have too many of my opinions. It's just people, people sharing their stories. So if people had benefit from the therapeutic model, you know, the legal model, the more sterile model, you know, that's great, too.

so um for me though like going and meeting meeting the people who have been working with it for for a long period of time and understanding the cultures and the traditions that they come from that's the that's half the fun and that's the interesting part but that's my opinion yeah it's well said because like you are really well traveled like you're in denver you're in san francisco you're down in mexico are there some what are some similarities and some different difference is that you see culturally in the different places you go with psychedelics. Yeah. Well, San Francisco is a really psychedelic place.

Totally. It's also a mess. Totally. Total mess. It gives me a total conundrum and a headache every time I go there. Encountering ultra-millionaires and homeless people in, so much anger so much anger there as well denver super open-minded place as well i mean both those places are on the cutting edge of like seems like what what is to come in the united states

yeah it's a good point and the united states has rules that people listen to more often than that we actually have a really you know if we if we get a ticket in the united states we're probably going to pay the ticket and that try to bribe the police officer. So, and in Mexico, I think that there's a lot of really, really, really, really, really powerful research, underground work going on in Mexico right now. Mexico seems to be where a lot of, a lot of that's being done, just because although it's, a lot of the things aren't necessarily legal, they're sort of in the gray area and you know you're seeing it with the ibegain clinics and stuff like that so in terms of the differences that that people see with psychedelics i think that people

are open to it in a lot of the world even for our project we get people writing to us from europe and yeah you know different countries in eastern europe and africa i think i had a few people writing to me from like Pakistan around like hey you know this is we're they're looking to us for like for for for for help because they're like hey we don't have this available in our country like this is very taboo in our country much more than it is in the united states so they're seeing us as a as a blueprint for what's going to hopefully happen in their country in in a few different decades so there's there's that note in Mexico there's a really interesting like Mexican tradition with peyote goes really, really deep.

You know, Mexican tradition with mushrooms goes pretty deep. You know, people like the Mazatex here have been using it for for many, many years, which I think the sense I get that even in small towns in Mexico, there's people, there's more people who have had experiences with mushrooms or peyote, then it's part of their culture more than it is part of our culture in the United States. It's so interesting. When I think of some of the incredible people down in Mexico, I think of like Gareth Moxie,

Tindaba retreats, Barry Rusinoff's down there. There's so many incredible people that are really working to help people work through their trauma. And it seems so much more ceremonial. when I think of medicine down that way. But maybe our model ceremonial, too. Like, we don't really think of going to a clinic or we don't really think of going to a psychiatrist

and sitting in a room and doing psychedelics is ceremonial. But in some ways, it kind of fits that bill. Do you think just a different kind of ceremony? It's a ceremony that maybe we're ready for. I didn't know anything about setting up spaces. like that's something that psychedelics brought me to like setting up a beautiful environment yeah like like there's there's there's a big difference of of like uh that's my dog just coffee nice random things um there's a difference between like drinking ayahuasca behind a dumpster you know

and like drinking ayahuasca hey buddy you're you're ruining my recording what you're doing man and doing it in like the most beautiful setting with music yeah with um with with songs you know with all of these things i think like creating a creating a uh an atmosphere that feels sacred seems to be part of the the ceremonial experience and that's something i didn't even know existed prior to psychedelics yeah like psychedelics brought me to that it's not like it's not like sacred containers didn't exist. They've always existed and people know how to set up a room and how to clear a room and to do stuff like that.

But I think that the sacredness, it's really important for the psychedelic experience. I think doing it in that way will, it adds a layer of beauty, right? Yes. That maybe we can't even put words to. that will stay with you forever, you know, when I, when I drank ayahuasca, like on a, like an, on a little island south of Mexico City, and I woke up with like parrots, you know, singing there. But the way that they set up the container was, was just so beautiful with some of the most beautiful songs. it just felt so sacred that that's the part that stays with me years later when generally the experience has left my field you know yeah yeah that's well put it

it seems to me like in the western world it's it's a lot about labels and isolation like you go into a room with one of the person who is a professional and you are sort of the patient you know what I mean, but when you have those labels on you and it's so isolating, like maybe that speaks to so much of what's going on in the United States is this feeling of isolation, like this lack of connection. And the way you described it as being in this incredible environment with being surrounded by nature, it almost seems like nature itself is acting as a community member to help snap you out of this lack of connection. What are your thoughts on that? 100%, 100%.

You phrase it so beautifully, I just have to let it seat in for like 10 seconds. I'm like, this guy just said it so, yeah, so beautifully. I do think that we have a problem with isolation in the West, in the West, not just in America. Yeah, agreed. My dog is just... You want to be part of the show, man. That's awesome. Where are you at?

This is LeBron. LeBron. What's cracking, buddy? LeBron. Buddy, are you okay? What are you doing, man? What's going on? Yeah, but it seems to be like that's one of the things that people come away.

That's one thing that I came away. Yeah. It's like the importance of community afterwards. Yeah. You know? And I feel like that's a really popular. That's a really popular, like, takeaway is, is, like, feeling isolated. And when people feel isolated, they also feel depressed.

They feel like they can't share themselves. Yeah. And then understanding that you're part of a whole and you've been part of the whole, the whole fucking time. Yep. But you forgot. Yep. Just like remembering that you're part of a community and remembering that healing doesn't, happen in isolation.

And yeah, like I think that for me, nature is one of those things where it's just inherently healing. Like if I don't go in nature every week, like I just find myself feeling disconnected. It's one of those things that balances me out. But to circle back on the isolation, I'm hoping that this is one of those things that helps us come together and form tighter knit communities in in our own countries without being cults

because that's also that's also the dark side the cults they they happen as well um but yeah like just another thing about sometimes we don't see it when when we're in it but yeah like we have so many like we have such a homeless problem in in the west and it's like well you know what does that have to do with psychedelics? Well, on the surface, nothing, right? But if you dig deeper, it's maybe a lot. It's like, we have a huge homeless problem. We're also the richest country that's ever existed in the history of the world. So we're just not fucking sharing. Like, we don't, we think that the homeless problem isn't our problem, but it actually is everybody's problem. Like in America, there's a common sentiment that that's not my problem. But it actually

is your problem because it's part of your community. And one person makes, you know, healing one person heals the whole. And living in Mexico, Mexico has a ton of poverty, a ton of poverty, like 40 or 50% of the population live in poverty. But they have almost no home. homeless people, which is an interesting, it's an interesting, like, comparison and kind of seeing how the two cultures, the two neighbors, there are, you know, America and Mexico side-by-side neighbors, one is much richer than the other. And the richer one has more homeless people, although there's much more poor people in the poor country, obviously, you know. So that's just a small, small comparison. But I'm hopeful that, that psychedelics, I one of those things that can help us see each other that will help us come together as as smaller communities and as larger communities as well yeah man that's really well put it's interesting like i've been tripping out on there's a there's a friend of mine her name's lila lang and she's written these paper multiple papers people just check it out i'll put us some

links in the show notes but it speaks to the idea of can't cancer in the body, like an individual body, like rogue cells, you know, deciding that they're no longer part of the whole and then trying to live forever. And then she expands that out into society. And I can't help but see the parallel there. Like what happens when a group of individuals decide that they're no longer part of the whole? Well, I think it looks a lot like the world we live in today. And like we mentioned San Francisco.

Like there are some really incredibly intelligent, beautiful, wealthy people there. But on the flip side, there's probably five to one people that are homeless. And to see that not as a dying organism, it's like, look, this is the cancer. Like when you go into the town, when you go into the city, you see all these homeless people, that's clearly cancer. Not that those people are cancerous, but like, like this is what an organism looks like when it's not dealing with the whole. It's just segregating itself.

And part of it is flourishing. And the other half is just slowly being, having all the life sucked out of them. it's amazing to see it from that and i i think that psychedelics can show you that i think psychedelics show you like you you are part of this huge thing right here and when you see something like homelessness at the scale that it's at like that is a warning sign to you like this organism is dying you know and it's it's just so interesting how we i myself too like i am totally guilty of this of not caring enough about maybe the homeless problem or different problems out there it's so easy to to just not try and think about but you know it's right there in front of you like it's an interesting parallel what are your

thoughts on cancer in the body being same as cancer in society yeah like it it seems it seems plausible yeah you know i actually read that paper that you posted yeah and i was i sent it to a few people because i was like man this is uh this is so well put right it's it means holistic thinking right yeah yeah um like what is cancer yeah yeah like what is cancer at its root yeah and you know i was just talking the other day in terms of partnering with different organizations that can help us collect the most unfiltered the most raw stories of what's of what's happening with psychedelics and you know i talked to shout out to heal i think it's healing cancer stories and they're they're putting stories together with cancer healing and psychedelics,

with how psychedelics are helping people heal with cancer. So it seems like, yeah, it seems like nothing is isolated. We're all part of this thing together. And I would, I would agree that it's almost a snapshot of what cancer looks like. disconnection yeah people not thinking they're that they're part of the whole um and if that if that happens within our bodies like yeah why wouldn't that happen within other living systems and living universes like like what what's within what's the saying as within so without yeah like what's happening in there the it has to be um the universe inside of us is the universe inside of us is the

universe outside of us so to me that makes sense um and i'm and i'm hoping that you know for our people we can we can you know we can find enough science to convince more people of um of of of yeah of just like how a living in in community and living in um in more balance actually makes us healthier i love the stories of of of wellness of like of people using this to feel um to feel 100 to feel like they're living their their healthiest lives you know yeah yeah i do shout out to jacob kishire what's up jacob thanks for being here i hope your day's going absolutely beautiful jacob says hey gentlemen beyond the limits of the medical research model. Do you have any thought on the need to re-forge a grammar for the sacred and bridging

Christianity and psychedelics? What are your thoughts, Artum? Oh, I need to comprehend this one. Shout out, Jacob. I know Jacob. Jacob is a really cool dude that I met in Oaxaca City with Adam and Christian actually. Imagine that. Yeah. Okay. Beyond the limits of the medical research model, do you have any thoughts on the need to reforge the grammar for the sacred and bridging Christianity and psychedelics? Hmm. I wish he could rephrase this in another way. Let's see. How do I... I... I... I love the stories of religion and psychedelics. We had one story on our platform. We had a few stories of religion. okay we had um we had like a buddhist llama talking about his psychedelic experiences which i thought was awesome he was like a 70 year old buddhist lama talking about how these things can go completely hand in hand with with buddhism um we also had like a a 70 year old pastor used to be a fundamentalist

pastor talking about how like buffo changed his life and he's like living his best life now when he's he's 70 years old and it's cool that he's 70 years old it's even cooler that he's a former fundamentalist pastor yeah so um i i still think that um and i hope this answer is your question i still think that people don't um don't think of religion as as being as having direct experiences whereas um with with um with with uh sacred profound and psychic psychedelic states, but I think that it probably is the way that all of religion was formed. And even with Christianity, I don't know that much about Christianity, but, you know, I read about the Gnostics back in the day.

And those are the guys who believed in direct experience more than they believed in scripture. And I think that that we're probably all in that camp of Gnostics. We're all looking for direct experiences with something sacred. So I think I would love to hear and collect more stories of people who are very, very pro-religion and also very pro-psychedelic. Because they shouldn't, I don't think that they should be mutually exclusive. I think that they should very much go hand in hand. So, yeah, I'd love to see more of those stories. And I feel like for most major organized religions, we've grown away from direct experience

because it's been diluted through many, many generations. And we've, you know, I think we've gone more in the direction of scripture and discipline and stuff like that. Whereas I would love to hear the stories of Jewish rabbis. doing underground ayahuasca ceremonies which they are doing they're doing this is happening they're not always willing to share these things but i have you know i've talked to these people so though you know i i would this is a call to all those folks to to go more public because i think that we we can do more in terms of merging religious not merging them but just having them

be more open towards one other because i don't want to demonize religion in fact i think that before psychedelics, I would probably say that I was in the camp of people who thought that religion was really stupid. I was like, wow, these people are so ignorant. I couldn't even understand where they were coming from. I didn't understand church or synagogue. It just, it seemed really foreign to me. And I think that after having a few, you know, mushroom experiences and psychedelics in general, I completely got it. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, I no longer have, like, a hatred of religion, personally. Can you share your, what do you think?

What do you think, man? First off, I agree with so much of that sentiment. Jacob, I think that Christianity, religion, like, it is, like, it can be an incredible psychedelic experience. And if you need, like, one thing all you have to really do is look back at some of like the mystics. you know, like Merset Iliad, or there's a great book called The Cloud of the Unknowing. And if you look back to the medieval mystics, these guys were right on top of the experience of psychedelics.

They're talking about being in communion with different deities, being not only inspired by them, but guided by them. And the same thing is true. Like when I read the like Thomas Aquinas, you know, it sounds like a psychedelic journey to me. You know, when you think about like the Eucharist, like you're fed the flesh of Christ, like that seems a lot like the mushroom to me. That seems a lot like taking the flesh of God, eating it, and then seeing the world in a way you've never, ever seen it before. You know, it is this direct experience of communing with God because you see the world from a whole other perspective.

You see this idea of this geometrical images being shown to you the same way, a burning bush is talking to you. You can have those direct experiences. And it seems on some level, maybe with Martin Luther or something like that, we've got into this ways where the communion with God was sat down and explained to us, instead of us having our own birthright in our own way of it. I love the way you said to re-forge grammar.

And I think it's, when I think of reforging grammar, I think of remembering, but not remembering in the sense that you play back a memory, but actually remembering, like taking yourself, apart and then putting it back together. And I think that that's what we can do to bridge Christianity and psychedelics is take it apart

from the story that was told to us and relive it. Like you remember it the same way you would take yourself apart and then remember yourself. If you go back and read some of those stories from whether it's the Kabbalah or the Talmud or from the Bible, like just remember them in a way. Put them in, change the variables around so that it means more to you. And I think you'll get the direct experience of it in ways. that you know is is lacking from traditional scripture where you just go in and you listen to someone talk but i love that i think it's um i think it's a great question jacob and i wish more

people would would think about it there's a great podcast jacob you should check out it's called it's by clink kiles the psychedelic christian podcast and he goes pretty deep into a lot of this stuff there's another gentleman named um dr david solomon who is in my opinion the the most incredible scholar on medieval mystics and he dives deep and of mysticism and psychedelic, maybe not psychedelics, but he talks about the mystics and people like Mersa Eiliad who talks about the terror before the sacred, which to me is being in the depths of like a super, just balls deep journey or you're like, ah, you know what I mean? And you're like, but you're scared out of your mind. That's like the terror before the sacred. You're in front of

something so beautiful that you're shaking because you've never seen it before. And so I think, I think that's what the psychedelic experience holds for us is actually touching the divine or getting close enough to it to experience it in a way that most people have forgotten about. Jacob, I love that question. And let's see what else. He comes in here with another part too. And he says, um, part too. How, yeah, how does modern society's addiction to caffeine and alcohol affect the

sensibility of disconnection, Artem, what are your thoughts? Jesus, dude, you're, you're, you're, this guy's on it. He's on it. These are things I think about a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, caffeine. So, so a lot of the time that people, you know, talk to me about psychedelics, you know, they're, I feel like I'm constantly reminding people that they're consuming drugs on a daily level. Yeah. Like, that's a lot of the conversation. You know, alcohol, yes, it's, it's legal. It's very much a, it's very much a drug and very much, it's very psychoactive. Like, it alters your state. Caffeine is incredibly psychoactive. And, but in which ways is it psychoactive?

I think that's the question. And it's, I read somewhere that, that, and I think this is probably accurate. Caffeine, it makes you think that you're doing, like, a better job with your work. Like, it makes you think that you're doing a better job. But actually, when they look at any work that you do under caffeine, it's actually not better at all. So caffeine is like the productivity drug. Yeah, totally. And it makes, it kind of turns you into a little bit of a, like a robot.

Yeah. It's not like I haven't had great insights under caffeine. And I love caffeine. I actually have to be careful with it because my only addiction I've ever had in this life has been to coffee. And I say this very seriously, like, like getting off of coffee was one of the hardest things ever for me. Yeah. And I know people have had harder addictions, but for me, it was, it was kind of a brutal addiction, actually, to caffeine and to feeling like I was productive. Yeah.

And feeling, like, feeling like I'm in an advantage, putting myself in this, like, like, the state of, like, I'm at an advantage. but but like I literally had like bad biological effects from the caffeine like caffeine triggered caffeine triggered my body to go into like fight or flight and I feel like it does that if we consume it too much to the point where like my body would get itchy like if I drink too much caffeine my body will get itchy even to this day so very very much legal very much that we, God, we really endorse caffeine so much that there's a Starbucks at every corner. Like, we love caffeine. Like, we love caffeine so much.

But it, I would argue that it's not very healthy, you know, at least in my life it hasn't been very healthy. Other people can, you know, they can argue with me and a lot of people, a lot of biohackers, they love caffeine. So I'm not going to say that it's unhealthy for everybody, but it was unhealthy for me. And alcohol, too. You know, there's, there's, um, there's, um, there's, um, there's, um, there's there's a there's a you know an alcohol store at every corner yeah and so we we very

much um endorse alcohol as a as a culture and why do we endorse it like I I find that the correlation this is this is this is one of my observations I feel like the correlation between mushrooms and alcohol is hilarious because there's like a complete inverse correlation where the more mushrooms somebody takes like the least the the less alcohol they drink they they i met so many people who love um who love mushrooms and and they detest alcohol they almost seem to they almost seem to detest it to a very high level to where they have to tell everybody how much it sucks like i'm doing right now like they're doing this but there's there's a there's an interesting correlation between, you know, alcohol, which, you know, I can only speak

from my own experiences, but waking up with a hangover, like feeling not at your best the next day. You know, I have nothing against, like, having a few shots or a few beers with, for an occasion, but I feel like there needs to be an occasion for alcohol in my life. And yeah, like it, And I think that the sign for me of how it's not working or things that I don't like about alcohol are the next day. Like you wake up feeling disconnected, depressed, depleted. Whereas when you take something like mushrooms, you feel literally the next day you feel rejuvenated and in love with life. healthy so I don't know if that answers your question Jacob but yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna end it right there what do you what do you think man dying to hear your break down here yeah again Jacob beautiful

beautiful question I feel like disconnection is the desired effect you know and I don't know that it was, I think all societies run on drugs. And since the Industrial Revolution, we've run on caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine is the ultimate productive drug, and it allows you to do something monotonous for hours and not even care about it. Like, if you have enough caffeine, you can put a widget on another widget and be happy about it. And then you can go home and booze it up a little bit and then feel good.

You know, I think that that has been our society for a long time. And maybe it started off in the industrial revolution. We had to build all these tanks and we had to build all these things and we had to do a lot of shit we didn't want to do. So here's these drugs to help you do it. And then here's another drug, alcohol, to help you feel a bit better about it. But I think we've outgrown those drugs. And I think that the connection or the disconnection is something that is maybe baked into the cake by people that are pulling the levers right now. And this might be a little conspiratorial, but there's really no design.

for people in positions of authority to have a connected populace. Like, that's the last thing you want if you have a position of authority. Like, I don't want all these fucking people down here getting together figuring out how badly they're getting screwed for the last 30 years. It gives them some alcohol. Let them go out there and fight each other. It's so much better when they wake up hung over and they're fighting each other instead of getting together and realizing there are no differences between like the blacks and whites

and gays and straights. Like pretty much everybody wants a house to live in. everybody wants a better future for their kids. And so if you hold these levers of power, you know, you want to drive these divisions into people. Like you want to have red versus blue. You want to have Democrat versus Republican. And we're going to try to just alienate everybody and so that they don't get together.

But I think that's changing. And I think psychedelics are a giant part of that because what happens when a society runs on mushrooms? What happens when a society runs on drugs that brings people together? Well, that's the burgeoning of a whole new culture. That's the burgeoning of a whole new set of industries. That's a burgeoning of a whole new way of looking at life. And so I think that we're moving away from these drugs of the industrial revolution

into a more connected populace. And that's why you're seeing a lot of areas of borders being dissolved. Psychedelics in themselves are inherently border dissolving. And so when you start seeing a world running on psychedelics, you see these borders start coming down. You see people working together. And if the psychedelic space is something that just there's all kinds of people in this space and they all have a similar goal of creating wellness and everyone's talking about being in the whole. So I would say modern society's addiction to caffeine and alcohol are a direct reflection of disconnection and that maybe disconnection was something that was sought after. But we're changing that, Jacob.

I would love to hear your opinion, Jacob. What do you think it is? And let me jump over here to his next question. So stoked Jacob's chiming in with us over here. He says, I'm already going to talk to Clint Kyle's. Great move. And he says, notably, he told me that his YouTube channel was just recently banned without recourse. I have some thoughts on this one, too, Jacob.

First off, Clint Kyle's is an amazing orator. And he is speaking specifically to the Christian community. And while his channel was taken down for mushrooms and not even psychedelic mushrooms, it was like functional mushrooms. I think what happened is people are beginning to see him specifically speaking to a group of people that maybe it's a little taboo for them. What happens when you revive, when you have a revival of the Christian community? What happens when you have a revival in faith? And I think that that is what makes Clint Kyle not only incredibly powerful, but dangerous to a lot of people.

Here's a guy, Salt of the Earth, finding a way to communicate to people. just like him in reviving their faith. I think that's what makes Clint Kyle's a lightning rod, is that he does inspire faith, and he's using psychedelics to do it. And everyone should check out Clint Kyle's and support him because he did lose his channel out there. But let me kick it off to you, Ardum.

What are your thoughts? Yeah. Shout out to Clint. Yeah. I haven't had a chance to hang out with him in real life. I have checked out some of his, you know, some of his content. It's powerful stuff. Yeah.

So, but in terms of like the banning and censorship, that's something that we have to deal with in this space pretty heavily. And I think that comes with the territory, unfortunately. Yeah. But I think it's just the beginning. You know, I think it's just the beginning for what is to come. And I think that right now it's sort of the, the. you know the brave the trendsetters who are talking about this stuff and the people who are unafraid maybe the people who are self-employed you know because you know if you have a job

and you're worried about getting fired like I get that you don't want to share these things you don't want to share stories about about doing ayahuasca in the jungle if you're you know doing something you know corporate stuff for a conservative company they might not look too kindly on that but it seems like in when we look back at this time in in 20 or 30 or 40 years um we're going to probably have a lot more data and we're um it it seems like with with due time i'm hoping that if enough people um voice their opinions and voice their stories that the censorship will go away. They can't censor the whole world, right? So yeah, like right now, people have to be a little bit brave, especially if they're afraid for, you know, the law or losing their job or something

like that. And YouTube and Instagram, especially when stuff goes viral, they're more likely to take it down. So, yeah, that's the world that we're living in. And I think that in, in 20, 30, or 40 years, we're going to look at this time and be like, wow, I can't believe you guys were censoring something that was helping so many people. Yeah. I'm hoping that's the case. I think so. I think it was Julian Assange who said that censorship is a good thing.

Censorship means that your message is so powerful that it has to be shut down. And as soon as you start seeing censorship somewhere, that means it's already broken through. That means that it's already permeating the culture. And we have seen huge bands in meta. all over the place when it comes to psychedelics. And I think that that means it's permeating the culture that it's already there. And I wouldn't be surprised that in the next 10 years, we start seeing this sort of explosion of creativity. You know, and I, for one, am an advocate of trying to establish psychedelic societies on college campuses.

You know, I think that that's where the real power is going to come from. So you start seeing some college radio. stations, promoting different events or starting their own psychedelic societies. My friend Jacob Tell has a company called District 216. And that, to me, is like the evolution of elucis, or it's maybe a better way to say it would be it's the new, it's like the new Eselon Institute for Gen X. Like I see so many cool people going there and giving talks and giving presentations. And I'm like, look at this model.

This is something that travels the nation. This is a message that's experiential. And I see that as the message of psychedelics, the same way my celium begins to grow and make these different nodes and then produce fruit. I think that's how movements are born. And I see it in the psychedelic community, whether it's through Christianity, whether it's through breathwork, whether it's through books or whatever. But I just see this psychedelic culture moving in the underground and producing fruit above ground. And I think that's going to continue for the foreseeable future. Yeah, I love that.

And yeah, like these things are meant to be shared in real life. Of course. Like regardless of what's happening on the Internet. Yeah. Like there's the magic is happening in person, in community. Agreed. And there's something happening probably in most communities in the United States. Yeah.

Yeah, everybody knows somebody, I think, who's shared a story or been on a podcast or read a book. And that's why I think what normalizing psychedelics is doing is so important. It is this collection of stories that permeates everything. You know, you catch a little bit of a story here, or you catch a little bit of a question there. And you're like, what is that? And that causes you to go and research it more. And with a collection of stories that you have and just the amount of people reaching out to you are, I think that's a really positive sign. Totally, totally. And I'm hoping that I know how to best share these stories because

it's one thing to receive them. But it's another thing to actually, people want their stories out there. People are ready. They're like, hey, man, share mine with the world. And a lot of people, I speak to organizations and they're like, you know, we want to protect the privacy of the people. Absolutely. A lot of people that write to us. they want their name everywhere. They're like, dude, I don't care. Like, I'm ready. I'm ready to take this on.

So, yeah, like, the idea is to tap into so many different subcategories of stories that to really give it the like 360 degree angle, like talking about, you know, chronic disease, but also talking about how people are using these to get better orgasms, you know? Yeah, yeah. And then also talking about people losing weight and then also talking talking about new moms, you know, how people are using this for, you know, for hormonal balance and stuff like that. So tapping in to as many different micro communities out there is really the goal because there's,

there's so many different organizations in the psychedelic space doing like incredible work. And, you know, my opinion, I'm like, let's partner. with all of them like reach out to us yeah 100% 100% artem I feel like we're just kind of getting warmed up but my family's coming with a Christmas tree right now so I'm gonna go do some decorating some Christmas trees over here but before before I start doing that man I want to kick it back to you and give you the a chance hopefully to tell people what you where people can find you what you got coming up let's say there's someone listening to this right now and they're like I want my story to be with Artem over here how do they reach

out to you how do they find you what do you got coming up cool um yeah yeah so we we have um we our website but we have our instagram and youtube channel those are generally our our platforms um everything is the website's www www normalize psychedelics.com the instagram is normalize underscore psychedelics and on the website there is a way for people to submit their story like right right the beginning you say submit your story and then there's a few different questions that we ask and it asks for a you know description a synopsis of the story and if you want to share it yourself or if you want us to interview you and we're not able to interview everybody that that wants to share but we do our best to interview people from our community we're also working on a way for

people to just be able to share these stories on instagram and tag us and invite us as collaborators like You know, if you're, if you, if you have a wild story that you, you know, you really want the world to hear with psychedelics, you are welcome to record it on on platform like Instagram and invite us to be a collaborator. If we're able to do it, we'll accept. And there's, there's also a way that each story that we share also gets added to the living library on the website. and that way they become searchable and they're going to be there for the world to see. So do you have a story? Reach out to us, connect with us, submit it on our website, tag us on Instagram, hashtag normalized psychedelics.

And this year, we're looking to partner with as many innovation, like different organizations within psychedelics and within health and spirituality and religion as we can to create this, this hub of first experience stories. So if you're, you know, if you're an organization that wants collaboration and storytelling, also reach out to us. We'll also be at different various conferences and hopefully a few festivals. Not sure yet which ones, but we will, you know, we'll be at as many conferences as we can be at, both in Mexico and the United States.

So if you guys have an opportunity with, you know, with a conference or with a festival and you want us there, like reach out to us as well. We're open and we're here to make a little ripple in the world that will hopefully be remembered. I think it's more of a wave, man. I think you guys are creating a wave of change, man. Everybody within the sound of my voice, go check out normalize psychedelics. Reach out to Artem yourself. He's an incredible individual to talk to. And they're doing incredible work over there.

So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for hanging out with us today. That's all we got. Artem, hang on briefly afterwards, but to everybody else within the sound of my voice. Thank you so much for being here. That's all we got. Aloha. Peace. You can't

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