Guest speakers: Dr. Roland Griffiths, Dr. Alicia Danforth, and Gabrielle Agin-Liebes

PROGRAM NOTES:

This program features a recording of a panel discussion and Q&A session that took place at the 2013 Burning Man Festival with three people who are currently on the front lines of psychedelic research: Dr. Roland Griffiths, Dr. Alicia Danforth, and Gabrielle Agin-Liebes. This is an overview session covering a wide range of psychedelic research currently underway. Their detailed talks about their work is available in earlier podcasts.

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Dr. Roland Griffiths

Johns Hopkins University Psilocybin & Spirituality

Current Psilocybin Research Projects

Q&A with Roland Griffiths

Dr. Alicia Danforth

MDMA-assisted Therapy for Social Anxiety in Autistic Adults

Gabrielle Agin-Liebes

NYU Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

During the 1980’s, before the birth of the Web, Terence McKenna’s workshops were just about the only source of information about psychedelics that reached the streets. While there was some information about psychoactive plants available in professional journals and university libraries, it took Terence to pull out this information and repackage it for the rest of us. In this June 1989 workshop, he does what he did best back then, give us a detailed inventory, continent by continent, of the psychoactive plants native to each area, along with a brief history of how humans interacted with them in the distant past.

[The following quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“We can’t sell short the spiritual power of cannabis, especially when eaten.”

“In a way, this is a definition of shamanism. A shaman is a person who by some means has gotten out of their own culture.”

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Guest speaker: Sasha Shulgin

PROGRAM NOTES:

On June 2, 2014 Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin passed on to his next adventure. Although this podcast is a tribute to his life and work, I have decided to let it be told mainly in his own words. First you will hear the audio portion of a video tribute to Ann and Sasha Shulgin. Following that is a short interview of Sasha that was conducted by Terence McKenna. In closing I play the famous talk that Sasha gave at the 1983 Psychedelics and Spirituality Conference.

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A Tribute to the Shulgins

Guest speaker: Rick Doblin

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Rick Doblin.]

“Once you’ve produced the scientific data that’s necessary to make a drug into a medicine, you’ve gone a long way towards mainstreaming the acceptance of these drugs as having beneficial properties. And then the step to legalization is not that far behind that.”

“The government has a monopoly on the supply of marijuana that you can use in FDA-approved research. So even though there are 20 states and the District of Columbia [that have legalized medical marijuana], and there’s marijuana everywhere, we’ve spent seven years trying to get 10 grams of marijuana for vaporizer research. We’re the only people in America that can’t get 10 grams of marijuana.”

“We are all dying and we all have some anxiety about it. And so people are more scared of dying than they are of drugs. If we can show that people who are facing death can be assisted with psychedelics that’s a powerful message.”

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MAPS Sponsored: MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Research

“The New Drug They Call ‘Ecstasy’ ”
(New York Magazine, May 20, 1985)

“Confessions of an Ecstasy Advocate” (video)

“Confessions of an Ecstasy Advocate” (podcast)

Guest speaker: Paul Daley

PROGRAM NOTES:

Today’s podcast features the 2013 Palenque Norte Lecture by Dr. Paul Daley in which he talks about Sasha Shulgin, his life and his work. Paul is one of the key people who has stepped in to consolidate and continue the experimental research begun by Dr. Shulgin. In addition to telling about Sasha’s chemical research, Dr. Daley also talks about some of the reasons Sasha has given for why he does what he does. And we also hear about some of the ongoing research taking place in Sasha’s laboratory, including research into a possible remedy for cluster headaches.

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Guest speakers: Alicia Danforth & Charlie Grob

PROGRAM NOTES:

Today’s podcast features a 2013 Palenque Norte lecture given by Alicia Danforth in which she tells about her work with the autistic community and their use of MDMA. Following that is a recording of a conversation with Alicia and Dr. Charlie Grob, who have just begun a new study to investigate the potential of using MDMA to help ease the social anxiety that is sometimes experienced by our friends and fellow saloners in the autistic community.

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LINKS mentioned in this podcast:

Study Information: MDMA-assisted Therapy for Social Anxiety in Autistic Adults

“What Is Autism?” by Nick Walker

Exploring therapeutic effects of MDMA on post-traumatic stress

Podcast 380 – “Confessions of an Ecstasy Advocate”

Podcast Archive for Gary Fisher

MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy

Guest speaker: Roland Griffiths

PROGRAM NOTES:

Today’s podcast features a talk given by Roland Griffiths, who is a professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins Medicine. In addition to describing the current psychedelic studies being undertaken there, he also goes into detail about exactly what characteristics researchers consider when evaluating whether a person has actually had a spiritual experience. Among the research participant’s comments that he read, one of the most common themes was the interconnectedness of all things and beings. Also, he spoke about their research into the character of one’s personality in regards to how a psychedelic experience affected their openness to the experiences of life. Another interesting thing that his research group is investigating is the intersection of psilocybin and meditation, a discussion of which takes up a significant part of this talk.

“Psilocybin is a pharmacological tool that helps people recognize how it feels to embody the present moment. And that’s exactly the same of meditation. It’s about bringing yourself into the present moment.”
-Roland Griffiths

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Johns Hopkins University Psilocybin & Spirituality

Current Psilocybin Research Projects

Q&A with Roland Griffiths

Guest speaker: Lorenzo Hagerty

PROGRAM NOTES:

This relatively short podcast features the audio portion of a film by Tom Huckabee and George Wada in conjunction with “The Starck Project”, a documentary soon to be released. The short film consists primarily of an interview with Lorenzo Hagerty dealing with the introduction of MDMA (Ecstasy) to the street scene in Dallas, Texas during the 1980s.

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The Starck Project

The Starck Project’s Facebook Page

VIDEO FEATURES
» Continue reading “Podcast 380 – “Confessions of an Ecstasy Advocate””

Guest speaker: Timothy Leary

PROGRAM NOTES:

Today’s podcast features Dr. Timothy Leary reading a few selected chapters from his autobiography, Flashbacks. Interestingly, he begins this recording with Chapter 19, which details with his departure from Harvard.

[NOTE: All quotations are by Timothy Leary.]

“We agreed that as much as we loved and respected Harvard University, this finishing school for Fortune 500 executives was not the place for philosophic activists bent on changing practically everything.”

“The State of California should be run like a successful business enterprise. . . . Anyone smart enough to live in California should be paid a dividend.”

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Books by and about
Dr. Timothy Leary

Click to watch a video interview with Lorenzo about the history of when MDMA first hit the streets of Dallas.