Amanda Feilding

00:03Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. TRAIN BY DAY, JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY Thank you very much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. It was lovely to meet you. And I I really really appreciate your life's work. I mean, I think what you've done has been really remarkable, particularly because of the time period in which you embarked in it. I mean, you sort of got involved in psychedelics and psychedelic research at the very beginning of it and when it was extremely controversial and very difficult to do research. Well, I actually got involved in it when it was incredible fun. And um I was incredibly lucky with my timing, I think. Mhm. Because I was very attracted to um the other side, if you like, the mystical. Cuz I lived in this very very isolated spot. And one had nothing to do but kind of mulch around. A beautiful place.

01:17Have mystical experiences. Dream of the future. Is that your phone? There you go. When did you first get involved or even interested in uh what you would call mystical experiences? I'll let you shut Oh, I should be sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know how to turn these things off. Do you want me to turn it on mute for you? Okay. These wacky kids today and their devices. Oh, yes. Sorry about that. No worries. No worries at all. Um so, how old were you when you first got interested in Um very young, I should say. Um I came uh I had a kind of in the I I would grew up in this very isolated place. Um I was very very close to my father who came back from the war a diabetic. And he was a very eccentric person. And so from three I was his carer. So I was like 3 years old? Yeah. Which was a lovely role. I mean, I was his little pet dog. I went everywhere

02:27with him. I adored him and he adored me. And so And he was a very um out of the He wasn't in normal society at all. How so? He just wasn't. He was an eccentric and a charming um Did he sell anything? Mhm. artist Um a farmer but not really a farmer. He couldn't bear really farming but um Yeah, anyway. So um And I suppose spiritually I had three. My mother was a Catholic. So I grew up a Catholic. And then he was whatever agnostic atheist nothing. Except a thinker. And um then his best friend who was his kind of he picked up as Um he the person who did all his work when he was at university called Bertie. Um was became a Buddhist monk rather famous Buddhist monk. But so he was a big influence in the absence cuz he was my godfather. And so I had these three influences. And So I kind of dreamt of doing magic mystical things in the world. Mhm.

03:40And um had mystical experiences as lots of children do. I I'm sorry I can't quite think how to con condense it. But anyway I grew up in an unusual setting. And um with a passion for altered states of mystics. I started studying them when I was probably about 10. Really? Yeah. And um And it became rather a passion and in in the in the place we lived this it got three moat and it was a very overgrown. And in between the moats there was a a mound, very beautiful mound. Well, I had a kind of pet god who lived in the mound. I couldn't see her and my kind of um my mission was making this god figure laugh. So, Mhm. that was the aim of the game. So, when when you say you studied uh the mystical states at 10, like how so? How were you doing that? Um Well, when I started reading I started reading about it, but I didn't really I didn't know what I meant by that. But

04:54when I went to church, Catholic church with my mother and there was incense and all that sort of thing. And I had kind of mystical experiences with Jesus. I was very close to Jesus in those days. And um then uh Whatever. Um but it was a kind of rather wild, quite a dangerous upbringing. Um we had to do the farming. It was quite It was a mixture between rather kind of beautiful setting, but quite a mixture with peasant life of looking after the animals and um fa- farm animals. Mhm. Pigs. Cows, all of that sort of thing. And um then one point I decided I wanted to leave home and I went to a boarding school. It was a terrible mistake. And um convent and actually I won the sound when I was 16 won the sounds prizes. I was quite clever, but I hated it and lived outside the boundaries of the school all the time. And then I wanted books on Buddhism. Mhm, cuz I for my pride.

06:04And the nuns said, "No, no, we can't give you books on Buddhism. And so I said, "All right, I'll I'll I'll leave. Thanks very much and educate myself." Which is what I did. I left school at 16. Really? And um And it was because they wouldn't allow you to study Buddhism. Yeah. That That was what I chose to study and they wouldn't, so I said, "Thanks." In the original days of the church, the incense that they would walk down the aisle with, that was cannabis. That was beautiful. Yeah. I mean, the one thing I loved about that convent, there was a in the chapel they had even song and this Italian nun with a voice of an angel and it really with the incense took one into a mystical space. Yeah. And that was very special. That was the high point of it. They used to use cannabis and then the host, what did the host used to be? The host? I mean, obviously originally

07:01it was a psychedelic. Yes. Um Do we know what psychedelic? Um I think different places had different ones, but kind of based on mushroom or ergot or Yeah. those sort of things. Funny enough, I'm rather keen on making sacred hosts. Um I recently was involved in that. Anyway, that's a different story. But but there's I would love to hear that story. You make sacred hosts? No, I don't, but I'm going to. You're going to? I'm I'm going to. I once actually, the story was very much shock. Um probably Catholic comrades. Um Not to Well, once I was in Paris and we were walking by and really high and um went into the church and lovely Eucharist. I hadn't heard all those wonderful songs. Songs, I love those Latin Mm. 16th century, what 15th century? Um chanting. And so I experienced having the host again. And it was so delicious. Spiritually, it was wonderful.

08:19And so, I can absolutely see originally the host was a psychedelic experience. And it's with that music and the incense, it's a beautiful spiritual experience. Yeah, I'm sure that was probably the root of a lot of those religious ceremonies. I think so. Have you read John Marco Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross? No, I haven't. No. Is that a good one? It's an amazing book. Right. John Marco Allegro was an Oh, yes, I remember his name. I remember his name. I don't think I ever read him. He was an ordained minister who was a religious scholar and a expert on language and he was one of the deciphers of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Right. So, he worked with that for 14 years. They deciphered the Dead Sea Scrolls and then he wrote The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, which was his interpretation of what the Dead Sea Scrolls is really all about. And he

09:08believed that the origins of Christianity were in the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms and fertility rituals. Yes. Now, I absolutely agree. I'm sure psychedelics were the root of all of those spiritual practices and part of them. Most likely. Yeah. So, when you were first experiencing these things, like what year are we talking about when you first got excited about these things? Um let me just think when I was a bit Um well, I first smoked cannabis when I was 16. Funnily enough, the first time I smoked it, Ray Charles was playing. Oh, wow. And I I felt this is paradise. Mm. Yeah. And I bet a millions of people have Ray Charles in their first sounding of um cannabis, but it was wonderful. It's amazing what it does to music. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was um 16, which was um I was born in '43. So, we know that that was. Um anyway, that's when I started smoking cannabis.

10:20And um it was I was at Oxford at that point with a very interesting group of um They were older than the other students cuz they'd been in Korea. So, they were much better educated. And they were smokers. And um introduced me to a lot of wonderful books um like Against Nature and uh um Lautréamont and well rather wonderful reading material. And it was a very creative period. And at that point, as I'd left school by then, I had somehow got um the world's leading um expert uh like um what was the American one called Anyway, on um comparative religions and mysticism, someone called Professor Zaehner, who was at All Souls in Oxford and wrote a book called um Mysticism Sacred and Profane. Mhm. And he became my tutor. So, I went and saw him twice a week. Which was a very kind of awkward um meeting. They um um cuz I was very shy and he was very shy and it was in All Souls.

11:35I mean, they both had cuddling the cats kind of thing. And then finally, I decided the best way forward was to bring my very, very handsome um cousin who was a student at Oxford cuz he was gay. And that kind of Loosened everybody up. Yeah. Ah, very smart. And then it became very friendly and fun. Yeah. And but anyway, he'd written this book which I actually didn't agree with, which was saying um uh psychedelic um what Mysticism Sacred and Profane. And he was a Catholic convert, actually. And he thought that he'd had one experience with mescaline, I think it was, and not liked it. Mhm. And thought that they were a very different bracket to the experience you get through an endogenous mystical experience. Interesting. Which I don't actually think is necessary. I think they're the same experience, but obviously with different qualities.

12:29I've I've heard you say that you believe that what psychedelics do is make the mind more fertile for these experiences. Is that a good way to That's exactly what I think. I think you're at that level where the ego's control has dissolved to some degree. And so it's like fertile ground. And so if you've whatever pre-trained or if you're ready for a mystical experience, you're more likely to have it in that experience in that state of mind. So the mind is actually restricting us in many ways through the ego from having these experiences. Yes, I think so. And what psychedelics do is release those boundaries. Yes. I think that due to the um evolution of man, yeah, human Homo sapiens and our taking the ape taking the upright position. This is a theory I was introduced to in 1966. And actually I think a lot of the details are probably wrong, but in concept I think is true.

13:40Which is um the ape standing up right. One thing people haven't taken into account is obviously there are hundreds of assets of standing upright. You free your hands, you run faster, you see further, all of that. But in the upright position, gravity is against the blood in the brain. Cuz in the brain there are two fluid volumes, blood and cerebral spinal fluid. Which is water, basically. Which is made in the brain itself. So it has kind of squatters rights in the brain. So um when you're in the upright position, gravity is pulling the blood down. So, I think probably with our upright position, we lost a small proportion of our blood supply. I mean, some animals, if you tie them upright, a dog for instance, if it's tied up so it can't get down, it hasn't got the valves to keep the blood up. Mhm. And we've obviously got a certain amount, but maybe we lost some blood at

14:51that upright position. And as a compensation for that loss, I think we developed an internal mechanism more than any other animal has um done it, which is to direct the blood where it most needs to go. Obviously, all animals do that. They have the power to send the blood where it's most important to survival or whatever. And I think that through the use of the conditioned sound, the word, we learned to control that process more than any other animal. Mhm. And over the millennia, we kind of built up our power to do that. So, I think that's the secret of why humans, you know, which is just a talking ape, a talking ape, got control of the whole game because of our creation of language, which enabled us to do all these incredible things we do. Yes. that our basic state is slightly low in blood in the dominant organ. Mhm. So, we have to keep this

16:12this mechanism of tight control where the blood is distributed. And that is involved with the ego, which is essential. I mean, we wouldn't survive without the ego to a kind of um direct the blood where it's most needed. Um people who lose their ego and in the '60s when people took large doses of LSD as it was then every day, sometimes they lost their ego. They flipped out. Mhm. And there was one occasion of someone who we knew was in Ibiza. And he'd flipped out and he put the key in the his the lock to open the door. So we went to say goodnight to him. He put the key in the lock and left him. And then in the morning he was still there with the key in the door because the head hadn't told him turn the key to open the door. Wow. We need the words to keep us, you know, Yes. under control. Yeah. So it the words have made us what we are, this incredible animal who can

17:24um you know, have a nuclear war if we want or know all the atoms in the body, all those brilliant things we do, which is amazing. But we're also obviously a very deeply faulted animal at some point. We're um you know, neurotic, psychotic, psychopathic, you all of those things because of this um shortage of blood and then the dependent on the meaning of the word. So if we have a terrible conditioning which a lot of people do, Yes. um the the the separation from reality is in a sense in the meaning of the word. Mhm. Um so the danger of our society now in a sense is we're getting further and further away from nature in a sense. And that in a way is why psychedelics can be a very useful medicine because they increase the connectivity with the senses, with the with the internal bodily senses and also the outside perceptual senses. Um So, we're entering a kind of new possible

18:57age and that's why for fun I call it the psychedelic age because for the first time we've got or getting the knowledge by which we can actually understand the brain better and understand how um we can alter the volume of blood in the brain which is giving the brain energy. The The whole thing is about energy. The more energy we have, the more parts of the brain can function simultaneously. And um that obviously can be very um creative, stimulating um empathic by just having more of the brain functioning. Um And so I think that uh the knowledge of psychedelics And when I say psychedelics, I don't actually mean necessarily psychedelics cuz as we all know, one can get these experiences endogenously through exercise or um holotropic breathing holotropic breathing, exactly. All breathing exercise. I mean all the spiritual training all knew that. That's what they were

20:16doing in the spiritual disciplines Mhm. is teaching people how to control their internal ego and also their sense of consciousness. And I think at the center of the spiritual experience is the getting higher and loosening the grip of the ego. So you're more in touch with nature. Do you think that in the absence of these psychedelic experiences, one of the problems with words is that we develop narratives and then we use our ego to reinforce these narratives and we sort of deny objective reality? Yes. I think more and more the word can become the reality. I mean, in the creation of words, which we all have and have to have and I'm thankful to have, but nevertheless, it does create a new a slightly different world. It's rather like um the the shadows on Plato's wall. One gets one's internal edition of the world rather than the real experience of the world. And so um

21:33I think it's I think it's good to be in contact with nature and I think it's it's a dangerous um path that we're taking now where it becomes more and more um um life is a screen. Mhm. Um But still, that's the way we're going. Yeah. And um but and it it has great advantages as well as dangers kind of thing. But I do think that the knowledge of getting high has always been central to the human evolution. And at the earliest um demonstrations of what we've got of the earliest demonstrations of um human culture, say the caves in Chauvet. Do you know them? Yeah. Yes. Which I I think they've never been bettered. I mean, that that artwork, the brush strokes of those animals, they're alive. You can see the movement. No one ever did it better. And it's like 30-something thousand years old. Exactly. 35, 40, something around there. Wow. So, they I can tell that I

22:50um some respects an artist, I know those strokes. Let's see if we pull up some of those images, Jamie, cuz it's some of those images are Yeah, here we go. Yeah. Amazing stuff. That just incredible of them. Yeah. The movement of the animals, the feeling of them. They did create a feeling of movement, like the animals were running. Yeah, and the the lines, I mean, anyone who paints, I mean, um Picasso, I think, said without them he would have never done what he did or I don't I can't remember quite, but a modern art isn't better, it gets as good, but not really. It's crazy because they're depicting rhinos, too. Just really wild that there were there was rhinos in France. Yeah. Beautiful ones of horses and buffaloes and um um And so, and that's in the bowels of the earth they're doing. So, it was obviously a very spiritual Why go into

23:43the bowels of the earth if it isn't the kind of magical, spiritual experience they're having? Yeah. And so, I I think, without doubt, um they were high. How they got there? Was it through singing, drumming, or um singing, or was it through taking compounds? Funny enough, I've recently been introduced met charming man who's um archaeologist in charge of Chauvet. And I said, "I'd love to be able to analyze and see if we can find out if there's any remnants of some psychedelic substance." And he said I'm very welcome to go there. So, I'm very excited about the possibility. Are you aware of uh Brian Muraresku's work? Yes, I know I knew him years ago. He approached me at the UN. Oh, that's great. he'd do um pro bono lawyer work for me. Really? But I never took it up. Maybe it would help you better if this was on the top of your head. How do you do that?

24:40like it's falling off. Yeah, yeah, you go. There you go. Yeah. That's better. It won't fall down anymore. Yeah, his work with determining that in in Eleusis that they were using ergot and some other psychedelics. Now, I know I know the book. I know him. The Eleusinian mysteries. People And and also I know from long ago um Carl Ruck who wrote the original book. Do you know that one? The Road to Eleusis. Yeah, I've heard of it, yeah. Which is a very good book with with Albert Hofmann and and um the banker. What was his name? Anyway, um So, they know that those people at least back then the Eleusinian mysteries that they were using psychedelics. And do you know it's obvious from the art. What I can What I think is that one can sense when a civilization was um had at its source the use of altered states of consciousness. I see them as You know, civilization rather like the

25:47cutting of a tree. You see the rings. Mhm. Some years are drought and other are sun rain and they are wide and flourishing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in in culture I mean that Eleusis and then that Chauvet. Mhm. I mean they must have been high to produce that incredible art. Mhm. And the same at Eleusis and all of that Greek I mean it's never taught at schools and things. Both my sons did classics at Oxford. None of them it was never mentioned Eleusis. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Amazing. That center of the whole classical world is the mystical experience of death and rebirth. Well, Harvard's opened up a field of study about this. Yeah, which is quite interesting. I knew a student 20 years ago who wanted to do his PhD in a loose leaf. And Harvard told him, "If you do that, you won't get it." Yeah, that was a giant problem after 1970, correct? Like after the sweeping

26:53psychedelic deck where they made everything schedule one, psilocybin, mescaline, everything. And when they did that, they they not only did they ruin the possibility of having those experiences for so many people because it was forbidden, because it was very dangerous, you could get arrested, but also it stopped all the research. Yes, absolutely. For 50 It was 50 60 70 lost years, which is a criminal thing, actually. And the untold suffering of the millions of people who went to prison, usually from minorities. Yes. And they had their right lives ruined by a record Mhm. for maybe having been caught for a joint three times or whatever. I mean, it is horrific what happened. And well, there's people in jail right now for that in this country, which is insane. It's insane. And I mean, I started fighting that back whenever when I started the Betwixt and Between I I saw

27:53that in order to do research, one had to change the drug policies. And the two went hand in hand because doing the research would help change the drug policies. And in order to do the research, you had to change the policies. I mean, it was a bit of a catch-22. You couldn't tell you've done the research, you can't do it, if you see what I mean, cuz it they make it so difficult to do. Well, I think what MAPS has done, which is genius, is um their work with MDMA and soldiers, and soldiers having PTSD. Absolutely. Yeah. The general I mean, when you think of soldiers, you think of people in the military, you generally think of people who are right-wing, who have more authoritarian leanings. Yes. But yet, these are the people that would be aided the most by these psychedelics, particularly coming back from war. So, because of that, I believe they've

28:43opened up a door to an understanding. think it's very, very important. And that's why in the '70s, when cuz I was involved in it in the '60s, mainly. But my passion to change the world started when I first really knew the value of psychedelics, which was probably in '65 onwards. And as the door of repression came down, one could see it as a kind of disaster for humanity. Yes. But I thought the only way we could overcome it is by using the language of the establishment to prove that these compounds can actually heal humanity, not be damaging for humanity as they were advertised as. But actually, they're uh how good to healing. Yes. And better happiness, more fulfilled life. And so, I thought that's why I started doing the sounds to try to with the language of the modern world, which is sounds, to demonstrate how valuable these compounds are. And I

29:59think our first, that's why I set up the Beckley Imperial study. And the first study we did was using psilocybin. And then we saw that I wanted to do LSD, but we couldn't do LSD in those days. Um had to be psilocybin. And as no one knows what psilocybin is, how it's spelled, what what it means, it's not suitable. Mhm. So, we got permission. And um I wanted to do brain imaging to look into our hypothesis that what they do is increase the volume of blood in the in the brain capillaries. Mhm. And hopefully with MRI, one would see that, I thought. But anyway, what we did see in the first study we did with psilocybin was a decrease of blood in the um default mode network, which is the modern expression of the ego. Mhm. What part of the ego? And that was very interesting because the default mode network, I the ego, is hyperactive underlying psychological um

31:10conditions like depression or anxiety or addiction or all of those things have a hyperactive ego saying "I need a drink. I'm so depressed." You know? Yes. And we saw that psilocybin lowers the blood supply to that part of the brain. Mhm. And so then actually we got a government grant to help us do the next phase of the study. So I think it's very important showing how cuz as we all know, we're in a epidemic of mental illness now. Getting ever more. And rather surprisingly and in a way rather ironically, science, which has been so determined to prove that the spiritual is an old man in the sky sitting just total Yes. rubbish. Which it finally has done. Um now at the very center of the new healing, I psychedelic assisted therapy, is the mystical experience. And what we showed is the people who underwent what is kind of categorized as a mystical experience,

32:28I loosening of the ego, a feeling of Those are the ones who have the best outcomes of overcoming their depression. Mhm. So it's rather a little a rather twist Yes. that now suddenly the psychedelics are at the center of this new approach to healing. And I think the healing of psychedelics goes much, much farther than what we've touched on so far, which is um the psychologically based conditions. I I think it can be very, very useful in different doses cuz what is so wonderful about psychedelics is they have different, totally different effects in the different dose. Right. And at the um mini micro dose um I I'm beginning to have evidence and I'm just starting a study which shows the amazing potential results of micro dose for Alzheimer's. Really? Yeah. Absolutely. Interesting. Amazing. Remarkable. Really? Yeah. And watching a video yesterday on cannabis

33:48and Parkinson's. It was incredible. Yeah. There was a gentleman who had horrible loss of control of his body and the shaking and they gave him cannabis oil and he put it under his tongue and a few minutes later he's lying back on the couch and then he holds his hands out and his hands are dead straight. I'm like, this is extraordinary. And my uh partner before who um um is the father of my children, he got Parkinson's. So I was very well and very fond of him. Mild Parkinson's, but still it was Parkinson's. And so I'd heard how and I had studied it how microdosing ibogaine Mhm. is very good for um my minimizing. So I'm wanting to do I'm setting up a research into that. Interesting. You know, I think and I think also is the gentleman right here. This is exactly the video that I saw. So, this guy has Yeah. terrible loss of control of his body. He

34:50can barely hold the cannabis oil in his mouth. Oh, poor man. Yeah. I mean Yeah. It he's struggling so bad. But now, why? It says 1:37 p.m. This is when he takes it and then you see just a few minutes later they show him lie back. And this is at Go ahead, Jamie. That's 1:41. Look at this. I mean, not even 10 minutes. That is magic. And look at this. And he's he's fine. He sits up. And he's he's just blown away by it. He's like, "It's so quickly." And look at his hands. Incredible. No, that is wonderful. I have a friend who has a child that has a pretty severe autism. And when he gives the kid cannabis, when he gives them edible cannabis, it just stops it. Yes. It just stops it. The kid can Absolutely. make eye contact, communicate. Absolutely. Well, I could show you the trouble is I can't I can show you privately, but not the person involved doesn't want it to go out. Um

35:48of a wonderful old lady of 97 who had Alzheimer's for 7 years or something, but she was very bright. She was a poet and a painter and I don't know. Um and was looked after by her son. And then he went away for a week and someone else came and looked after her. And when he came back, she was in a kind of um acute vegeta- vegetative apathy where she didn't recognize him. Mhm. Just staring into space. And they discussed it before and she'd said, "Yeah." She knew he sometimes took psychedelic and so he gave her a microdose of LSD. And an hour later, I've got the photograph, she's a little sparkling old lady with a full contact with him saying, "I feel so wonderful. Let's read some poetry now." Wow. You know, it just like that, man. Yeah. And then he contacted me and said, "What what should he do?" So, I said, "Well, first thing would be to get a doctor to help you

36:57um manage it. And then continue with the lower doses get that effect, which was 10 micro which is 10 millionths of a gram. I mean, such a small dose you would hardly think it could have an effect. And that does something which I'm doing research on now to I think it's to do with the connectivity between the different brain centers, which I think it sparks. Mhm. And it brought her back. And her children said it was just remarkable. It's incredible. You know, and I've noticed the same things I'm very I've in the middle of getting going on the autism study because I think for certainly with level one the lower lower um degrees of autism um microdosing LSD can be enormously um beneficial. Mhm. And I've got a friend who's had experience of that um and wrote a very good book about it actually called um Autism and LSD. And um so, now I'm designing a study at

38:10getting his advice on the autism level of things. And I I think that what I think is what I'm fascinated in and this is where I got this interest right back in 1966 uh what are the mechanisms underlying that makes um LSD and associated compounds have the effect it has. And obviously then there was no brain imaging, so it was very difficult to see inside the brain. One could only uh theorize about it, make hypothesis. Mhm. And so, this um Dutch scientist who I had this long relationship with had um this hypothesis that it um constricts is a vasoconstrictor constricting the veins so blood comes into the capillaries can't get out the capillaries blow up and squeeze out the cerebrospinal fluid and then slowly over the year hours gravity um pulls the blood down again so that's um That's the theory. Yeah, and you go back to normal. But during that period of more blood in the

39:28brain you have more energy. Now I'm looking into now how does it make more energy apart from providing more glucose and oxygen? And I've got a very very interesting something which is coming up which I'll tell you on my next talk about. Okay. I I'm very excited because uh I think people anyone you talk to would say that the psychedelics or indeed cannabis they all work on the same direction. I think they all cannabis and the psychedelics have the same underlying mechanisms but at different levels of um I think the constrictions is in the psychedelics are much stronger cuz you obviously get much higher you can on the psychedelic but they're going in the same direction. And that's what the endogenously a lot of the I'd love to know more about that now really if I've got time and do that study into the underlying um you know um

40:31serotonin dopamine all all the different enzymes um hormones in the body which can do these things endogenously. I mean we know the saints got top high. Mhm. Saint Teresa her description of her um orgasm with God it's just like a description of a psychedelic trip can we say? So, it's the same experience but either gotten dogenously or through other ways. I think once one of the thing that's very interesting about cannabis, too, is the difference between eating it and and when your your body's producing 11-hydroxy metabolite from the eating of it, it can produce a very powerful psychedelic experience. Absolutely. And my experiences with it were it's been very profound are with the sensory deprivation tank. Yes. I have a sensory deprivation tank and I do it with edible marijuana. Right. And it's incredible. Right. And I think there's some I've got

41:30a friend who grows marijuana and I think I'm very interested in the um he always wants me to work with one of the breeds he breeds because it is like a psychedelic. Mhm. And I thought I'd call it the if I do it get it the Beckley brain boost because he it brings back his memory. Mhm. It brings back I I think they're very I mean we're only beginning to scrape the top of the knowledge Yeah. of how these compounds work and how we can use them for humanity. Well, it's just very unfortunate that research was stopped for so long. Yes. And we're very fortunate that there's people like yourself and MAPS and and some of the other groups that have continued research and and really pushed for the legalization of this. Yes. And I think now we we've got a tipping point where I think we've got enough good research which really shows without doubt that

42:33we can get better results with using psychedelics to help and cannabis than we can get without it. Mhm. And therefore it's really criminal not to throw money at this research so we can get it out to the people quicker. Yeah. Cuz access is what we need for all those people who have got terrible things they're suffering from Yeah. which could be helped. And I mean, I I do as much as the research that I can, but I'm a tiny organization, four or five people. And tiny amounts of money we've got. And so and to get a study going takes a year of paperwork, getting permissions, getting the compounds which are I'm at the moment doing cuz I'm wanting to re-um civilized LSD because I think LSD is actually the purest and the cleanest of the compounds and in many way the best. Not Not against I think psilocybin and other ones are wonderful and they all have their

43:39different characteristics which are incredibly valuable. But it's a complete um madness that the one which is really in a way the purest is kind of opening up a magnification of what we are with very little external coloring. I think LSD is. And as it is completely non-toxic, you can give it to people forever. Do you know it's not toxic. They aren't building up toxicity. A lot of people are microdosing it now. That's a very very common thing that microdosing of LSD and this what they're reporting is an alleviation of anxiety, a heightened state of of wellness and of awareness and of being in the moment. Yes. Clarity. Yeah. Yes, I am. Just from a microdose? Yes. I mean, we actually did the first re- scientific research on the microdose. I was collaborating with Maastricht in Holland. And we did it on on 5 10 20 I think it was dose doses.

44:50And I mean, it was amazing the results. It's um increases mood. It increases neuroplasticity. It increases um neurogenesis, it increases anti-inflammatory. It increases tolerance to pain. um vigilance, you know, all of these very valuable qualities Yeah. in a microdose. Yeah. And we could be using that with all sorts of indications which need actually more energy to have kind of overcome certain deficits. And also to therapy applications because you do it and you're essentially completely sober. Yes. And in the sense of you can communicate, you see things clearly, everything is fine. Yes. But you have achieved a very elevated state. Absolutely. But you say everyone can do it. It's only those very few who know how I know I come across a number of normal people who I I know someone who you know, who has terrible migraine. Mhm. And um he had a microdose of LSD.

46:04And it cured it. And he has terrible problems in getting it. And um it's not easy to get. No. So do you see what I mean? And a lot of people don't want to have to go onto the dark web but they don't know I've no idea how you do the dark web. Do you know what I mean? And what you're opening yourself up to when you get on the dark web. Exactly. You don't know what product it is. I mean what I've said about the I mean I've spent 10 boring years talking at the UN and places, not totally, but I went there trying to say we should have a drug policy which is based on science on harm reduction on human rights. You know, and cost-effectiveness. I mean, you know, and that one which is the exact reverse. Right. Well, that's sort of sort of the problem is cost. The the the real problem is there's a vested financial interest in keeping these things illegal. Yeah.

46:58Because there's a lot of psychological medications that people are taking, psychiatric medications that people are taking that they really don't need. Yeah. Yeah, and it keeps the counties and also um prisons were were the second biggest industry. Yeah. Um cuz it's free labor and a lot of funding coming in. twisted. It's it's awful. That that aspect of it is terrifying. It is terrifying. And I mean, I've been at it I wrote a report on the whatever you call them the United Nations convention on drugs, which is obviously created by America. But 190 countries follow it. Mhm. Actually, funny enough, America's the one which is breaking it but doesn't allow other countries to break it. Um but not one word has been changed in Yeah. the last 20 years. Which is crazy. Especially when considering what we know now. Yeah, exactly. About the benefits of it. Yeah.

47:55Were you friends with Terence McKenna? Did you know him? I knew him. Yes. Yes. Yes. What did you think of his stoned ape theory? Um now what was that? The stoned ape theory is the theory that ancient hominids when the rainforest receded into grasslands, they started experimenting with different food sources. And one of the things they started doing was tipping over cow patties Yeah. to find grubs and beetles and on those cow patties psilocybin mushrooms would grow. Yeah. And that they started eating those and that it increased visual acuity, it increased their arousal states. Yeah. Um and that they also think glossolalia and so many different the formation of language, so many things came about from that. Yes. I mean, I wouldn't put it exactly the way he put it, but I would say that we know animals um we know that reindeer eat mushrooms. And as mushrooms are

48:50exactly as they're toxic um the king reindeer drinks the pee of the Mhm. drug which has gone through like the big boss of the village would get all the lower members of the village to take the psilocybin first or whatever and then drink the urine of cleaned out. Yeah. Um got the clean version. Well, that reindeer also does that. And so animals have taken it and I think I think that psychedelics were an integral part of Homo sapiens evolution. If you see what I mean. I don't think it's the only feature at all, but I think it's Yes. one of the major uh you know, the the development maybe of the mirror neuron was very important and one or two other things, but um I think that's a major lift. I think at the center of human culture is the experience of altered states of consciousness. Mhm. He attributed to the increase in brain size. He believed that, you know,

50:04because of the neurogenesis properties of psilocybin, he thinks that it may have contributed to the doubling of the human brain size over a period of 2 million years. I I mean, I I definitely think all of those things are showing I I I don't I mean, he was a poet. He wasn't Yes. You know, he he expressed it Um poetically. Yeah. Yes. Um so I mean, he talked a lot of rubbish. I knew that cuz I I went to a lot of conferences with him and I I knew it was What did you think was rubbish? Well, I can't remember, but exaggerated things. The time zero, the Whatever, you Yeah. Time wave zero. Yeah, but at the same time he's a very good poet and he had a lot of very you know, deep thinking. But he was very compelling. Yeah, absolutely. And that's wonderful. Yeah, and he got a lot of people to be interested in psychedelics because he was so interesting to hear.

50:54Yes. And that was very good presentation. Yeah, and unusual voice, too. Yes, wonderful. Irish accent. Yeah, that was very very good. Very good. Um Yeah. But Yeah, I I think these compounds are integral to where human Homo sapiens has got to. And I think the disaster is that we started repressing it. I mean, obviously even at the time of Jesus, it was kept secret. Yes. It was always kept secret, even at Eleusis, which went on for 2,000 years. Mhm. They kept it secret. Probably that's why um Socrates had to commit suicide because he had it with his boyfriend at the dinner parties. Mhm. Do you know, um it was only to be used sacredly for the ceremonies. Yes. Which I actually think um I mean, so I think that's an incredibly important part of it, the ceremony. Mhm. But I think also as an elixir when we get knowledgeable about how to use these compounds,

52:10they're just amazing health, mental health elixirs. Mhm. And I think um I mean, I'm obviously, as I get older, very, very interested in how one can um hopefully um delay the um And it's all based on blood, you know. As we get older, the blood supply gets worse to the brain. So, how does one keep the supply of energy as as topped up, basically, in the most beneficial way for the animal? Yeah. the s- cerebral circulation is out of fashion um because we discovered about the cerebral circulation, whenever we did, 100, 200 years ago. It's considered old-fashioned. So, modern science really isn't interested in the blood. Mhm. Actually, you you know, everyone knows blood goes up, blood comes down. But, um there's very little interest in it. I mean, I worked with one of the leading Russian scientists who was on their space program and was the leading world expert on

53:31cerebral circulation involving cerebral spinal fluid and the relationship between cerebral spinal fluid and blood. We worked together for about 6 years, and then he died in COVID at 80-something. Which was a tragedy, actually. Because he also was very interested in the kind of related thing of the possible increase in pulsation brought about by trepanation, which is a very ancient practice. Which maybe brings the level of cerebral circulation back to childhood level, which is higher than adult level. We should explain trepanation to people because trepanation is a very ancient practice of drilling holes in uh in one's head. And you decided to do You were in your 20s when you did this? Um yes. And what what influenced you to do that? Like, what was the motivation? Um It was the theory of it which induced me to do it. And in a way, I prefer

54:38not um talking too much about it, not because I'm not in favor of researching it, but because I haven't done the research. So, I can't say, "Look, this is been proven by science." Which Until then, people didn't believe psychedelics worked. Right. They'd say that's some placebo, fancy. Only that when you show them science, then it it works. But anyway, the hypothesis is that when we are born, as we know now, there's the fontanelle, which are holes, which close soon. And you can see the pulsation in the fontanelle hole of the baby. You can see them pulsing. And then the holes close, but the sutures, the bones, are quite flexible. So, there's still the full pulsation, the full systolic pulsation is happening. Then, as you grow and the bones grow together, slowly, slowly, some of the pulsation is suppressed because it hasn't got the room to expand. So, the hypothesis of

55:53trepanation, which has been done now, the earliest skull found is, funnily enough, the archaeologists at Chauvet um told me um near Chauvet, they found a trepanned skull um of 25,000 years old. And you can see if the person lived after the trepanation Cuz the bone grows. grows Yes, and softens. Mhm. So, that's kind of I think it I haven't been studying it for the last 20 years because I've been on to psychedelics too much. Right. But I long to because it's very close to what I want to do. Do we know the origins of trepanation? Do we know that how it was Uh we know it's the oldest operation in the world. That it's done all around the world. It's very much associated with um religion, mysticism. Um Very often the skulls which are trepanned have a special burial. They are buried in a in a pot or with silk around them, showing that they're either priest caste or royal

57:02caste or some thing. Um but they are very present in every culture, which is interesting. Not very pleasant, but present. And the the biggest um mass of trepanned skulls, funnily enough, I think it's on the German Dutch border. I don't know why, but um From what time period? Prehistory. I I I'm afraid my memory's bad, and I haven't been studying it lately. But the thing is, wherever you look there's there's I mean the third eye, the the the thing in your picture, the third eye. Yeah. Um I was told by a um thing is a is a visualization of the third eye. And one Whatever. I can't quite think of the word. The high aims of Buddhism and spiritually is by meditation opening your hole in the skull. And that's in beautiful old Tibetan art showing um energy coming Mhm. in and out of the hole in the head. So, it's always been the priest Why I think the priest caste was associated

58:25with it because I think that the on the whole it was the priest caste which took the compounds to get high, whatever they were, mushrooms or ergot. And the danger of getting high is when you come down, you have a bad time, maybe flip out. But have a bad time. And I think it was probably observed that the people with fractured skull or wound or whatever it was, a hole in the head, actually slightly kind of rose to the top in the village, in the thing. They became the doctors or the shamans or um It seems to have an advantage. Mhm. Because like in Mexico, skulls everyone grows up with skulls. You you know, they have skulls. There's a They have that. Is Day of the Dead skulls? They don't real. They're uh No. Right. Well, I I've seen I mean cuz I was interested in I've seen quite quite a lot of skulls. In fact, I've even got one which is I think it's I can't quite

59:32remember if 400 700 BC. Wow. An Irish chieftain it's meant to be. Um and it's got actually six holes in it. Wow. And why anyone wants to do six holes I I've no idea. Some of them are quite large, too. Yeah. Yeah. But I think I I personally think that the change it happens with one hole. All you need is for the membrane to be able to expand on the heartbeat. And I think what the restoration at the point of trepanation is allowing that expansion on the heartbeat to the full expansion of the systolic pressure which the child has until it starts to close over. Kind of 13 oz child comes down. 21 oz average. The skull closes. And that's often when the mental problem start after 21 oz. Psychosis and all of those things. Um you're just at a slightly lower level in terms of energy for the brain. And what I want to do it's very easy research to do

60:40trepanation because people are doing it in hospitals every day by the thousand with any brain operation first you have to trepan the skull. Right. So, it's happening all the time. Mhm. So, we could very easily actually I work with some very top level um scientists in Mexico and I want to get that study going again. And particularly doing it for headaches, migraine because um it used to historically in my father's encyclopedia which is whatever 19 12. I can't remember when it was something like Look at Um it said trepanation is blah blah blah been done throughout history. And um, it is still currently being done with apparent success for the treatment of mental conditions, migraine, and da da da. Mhm. So, until um, in the First World War they did the first lobotomy. And that stopped trepanation as just an old wives' tale. So, to sense they threw out the baby with the

61:44bathwater. Mhm. And I think that there is something then it's quite easy to do, so I'm um my I'm trying to find the possibilities and I really want to do this research um with trepanation. Um, funny enough, years ago I was at Burning Man and I had a camper van um uh, what was it? Paulo Bartha. He was an old friend of mine and he got a lot of rather important people to sign up that they wanted to be trepanned. And we were going to do and you know, so getting people trepanned legally in a research program. But it never happened. But um what I want to say is that uh, for instance, Jamie, my husband got trepanned. And um How long ago did he do that? How long ago? How long ago did he do it? Um long time ago. I mean, soon after we got together. And very difficult to find. We were looking for someone in Egypt and found a wonderful surgeon there, actually, who did it.

63:01Uh, who's very interested in the kind of mathematics of uh uh, pyramids and things. And um, he had terrible headaches all his life. He lost a day or two a week Mhm. on headaches. After his trepanation, he he doesn't have headaches. Wow. And I think it just gives back to the body and the brain that extra pulsation, which means I mean, you have it from all that exercise you do. So, constantly you're getting that extra blood to the brain through your exercise. Um but it for those of us who don't do all that exercise, it's good to have alternative ways of keeping the blood going. That's got to be a big factor in the runner's high. Yeah. Cuz in runner's high, and they they achieve these states of elevated consciousness through running. Absolutely. Yeah. I met one, and I'm sure you've met plenty. But who runs them I think he said a hundred um

64:0440 or some some enormous number, a hundred miles or something. And he said at a certain point he had a breakthrough where he got into a kind of real altered state of consciousness. Mhm. And I'm sure one day we can do all these things endogenously. Yeah. I mean, obviously that's what meditation is doing. It's training you to do your own way of getting high. And monks and people um they productively spend 30 years of their life doing it. And I think that's wonderful. But for those of one of us who I think there's nothing wrong with learning to use a non-toxic substance Sure. to help us get up there. Yeah. And so, I think it Funnily enough, I think the new how I look on it, it's all about feeding the brain with enough energy mitochondria working away to produce that mental cell energy so that we can keep our function close to the optimal. That's what we want. Mhm.

65:28Or anyway, not allowing it to drop too low. Right. And that's what I think is the purpose in a way. Not the not the only purpose at all because I mean there are other I actually think psychedelics have value in a lot of different non-specific areas. One is self-realizations, experience beauty, love of beauty, love of sound, love of people, love. Yes. I think it increases compassion and empathy and nature love and all of those rather good human qualities. Um so I think it has the sensible use of the psychedelics and by that I also mean cannabis. I mean the consciousness-altering techniques. And I think those people who do it purely by meditation are to be very much um admired because it's wonderful not to need an outside thing to just to be able to do it within your own self. Like a hot bath and then freezing bath or any of those techniques obviously change your level

66:48of consciousness by bodily reactions. Yes. But also I think the use of the psychoactive compounds we can, you know, carefully regulated, I mean self-regulated um operation. You can dial it in. Yeah. You can You can control it. Yeah. And I feel very grateful for many things in my childhood. But one of them was that I was my my companion and he was a diabetic. And he was an artist, so he didn't like his sugar level going high because then you lose your sight. And he was terrified of going blind. So, he always kept his sugar level low. So, every day he was getting short of carbohydrates for falling in a ditch. If he was driving a car, he drove over the center of roundabouts. You know, he did all sorts of funny things when he was short of carbohydrates. And my job was putting the sugar in his mouth. Mhm. And so, I got a very good relationship

68:00of knowledge of how the glucose level con- controls your level of concentration, if you like. And how important it is. So, when Bart, this Dutch scientist, told me his hypothesis of um the psychedelics increasing the volume of blood in the brain capillaries, and particularly if you're doing a cognitively demanding activity, you use a lot of glucose, and the sugar level falls. Therefore, you need to keep the sugar level normal by increasing the intake. And actually, all those years before it was legal, um we lived on LSD. When I say live, I meant on big doses every day. We were Yeah. We We really lived. And I psychoanalyzed myself on myself. I was doctor and patient. Mhm. And I read the whole of whatever, Freud, Reich. Did you make notes? Did you take a journal during that time? Not a journal, but I did diagrams of You know, Mhm. Yeah. And I watched myself. I overcame,

69:11for instance, um I I was very tall as a child. And I took rather kind of hated being taller than everyone else. So, at about 13, you know, I started smoking um cigarettes behind the bushes. So, I was pretty addicted by the time I met Bart when I was 22 or 23, I can't remember. I pretty addicted, and he said, "What a horrible habit it is was mine, smoking." So, then I said, "Well, I'll give up." And so, I took a trip of LSD with the intention I'll stop. It's a horrible habit. Mhm. Just give it up. And I never smoked another cigarette. And so, Do you remember when you did that, when you took the LSD with the intention of giving up cigarettes? Do Do you remember what what happened to you? Do you remember Yeah, I do. What was it like? I remember smoking a cigarette during the trip and thinking, "Yuck, it's disgusting." I remember when I was

70:13a child, young child, smoking. Made one feel a bit sick. Mhm. One had to repress the feeling of sickness. And then I realized, "Gosh, it makes me feel sick." Yeah. And then, yeah, the smell is horrible. sick? Yeah. Yeah. So, I gave up. And 40 years later, whenever when I was talking to Roland Griffiths, funnily enough, I had I think it was $10,000 to to do a research program. So, I went to the um Roland at that time. Said, "I've got this." And he said, "Oh, what would you like to do? What would you suggest?" So, I said, "Well, what about overcoming nicotine addiction? I did that with LSD. We could do it with psilocybin type." And that was the basis of the Mhm. um study, which is I mean, I remember the first with the first lot with the 80% success rate. And then, yeah, 80% success rate. I don't know what it is now, Extraordinary. but but it's an extraordinary successful

71:14because actually nicotine's more difficult to give up than heroin because you're always repeating it. Mhm. Um so, I experimented in those years when we were living on LSD. We We worked. That was our passion. We were studying the human brain and the self and the t-shirt I've got for you is the motto is know thyself and that was what I was doing trying to understand how we work better at that level and how we can enhance our working. And I just think there's a lot more to be learned about how we can um if we concentrate more on giving the brain the energy it needs to function optimally. How can we help that happen? Obviously exercise is one. Yes. Um I've always slightly avoided the Being lazy, you see. Um But um I have to say, you know, there are alternatives which can be used to the health of the person. And I think it's a tragedy that one can't one talk about things

72:45more openly. Yes. It's not easier to carry out research cuz I know having done it for now over 20 years or over 50 years trying to do research into psychedelics how difficult it is. I mean, in order for me to do it, I realized I had to stop being a man of Fielding. No letters after my name, no money, so who am I? And become a foundation. Funny enough, it was a very clever conceptual artwork. Cuz in England it's very kind of liberal England. You pay whatever it is and you become a foundation, 1,000 pounds I think or something. Mhm. Suddenly you're a foundation. You don't have to have any money. You're just foundation. Registered in Scotland, I'm registered. And then I got the top scientists in the world, 10, 15 of them, including Alba Albert Hoffman and Sasha Shulgin, but the more important buttons were the established one ones like um

73:55I will always forget his name. He was wonderful, Colin Blakemore, who was a top neuroscientist in the world at that point. And he very much backed what We were going to start a center at Oxford studying it, but that was going to cost 4 million and we couldn't get it. And various other high-level scientists. So, I had a very impressive advisory board. And so then I gave seminar of series of seminars at the House of Lords where I had presidents and blah blah blah, all the head of NIDA, head of the Russian and people asked themselves if they could come. So, 70 invited people came to discuss global drug policy. That made quite a difference. That went on for 10 years or something. Um anyway, I advised certain governments and things on drug policy. The United Nations, went there regularly trying to change things. So, through this foundation? Yeah.

75:04If you don't mind, when you had your own personal experience with trepanation, what was that like? What What did it do for you? Yeah. Um it was um Sorry, can I jump on track? Sure. Um I remember I mean, no one wants to drill a hole in their head on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I can tell you it did not something I'm a very cautious person. And so I I had a deep interest in it because I had very deep understanding of the hypothesis of um blood supply. Then, um my partner, Joey Melon, um at that time, he was very keen on depanning himself. And he um was second son, so he kind of was a bit more casual, cavalier about it than I was. And so, had quite a few miss shots Oh, no. before he finally got through. And um funny enough, then I did notice a difference. And the difference is very subtle. You really have to know a person to notice it. But how I'd express it is

76:38it slightly lowers the neurotic characteristics. If you see what I mean. Mhm. They become I mean, they don't they don't eliminate them in any way, but it lowers it. And so, having seen the difference cuz Bart was depanned before I knew him, so I never experienced a change. But when I saw the change in Joey, I thought, well, it does make a difference. So, I had thought I'd find a doctor. So, I'd spent 4 years looking for a doctor to depan me. Um and I had people who said they would and nearly and then they said, "Oh, I've got pandas to have our holiness our or, you know, and oh, it could be bad for my career on Harley Street if it came out or if you died or, you know, whatever. Yes. And so, it didn't happen. So, then I thought, well, I'm a sculptor. I'll sculpt my own skull and see what happens. So, I really studied it because I'm very cautious person.

77:40And in London, strangely, the the shop was called Down Brothers. It's off Harley Street. It has all the instrumentation for trepanning. Very uh old shop, actually. And charming staff there who showed me in detail how you trepan, cuz I went in as a interested observer. Mhm. And so, I learned how to do it very cautiously. The three layers of bone, and etc., etc. I learned how to do it. So, I felt competent to do it. And that that took quite a long time deciding I was competent and confident I could um uh do it. So, I decided to make a film of it, because I thought that would kind separate me from the unpleasant part of doing such a silly thing. And so, I made I Funnily enough, my great aunt just died and gave me 70 pounds, and I bought a lovely little movie Super 8 camera. And I set it up. And I had my beloved birdie always with me. So, he was an observer of this thing.

78:48And there's a whole sort of story which I won't waste the time, but it was amazing, cuz because we were asked to a party by rather kind of guardian journalists, top journalists in England, for the Saturday night. I had been planning on doing it on the Sunday. But I moved it forward. So, I thought it would be good publicity for the movement if I I am Anyway, I moved it forward, and then there was the electricity strike in England. So, if I hadn't moved it forward, the electricity would have been cut. Oh. Which was just a kind of good little trick of beating fate to do it. So, anyway, I did it very, very carefully with a hand trepan in the mirror. Perfect little operation. What kind of Was it a drill? Drill. Electric drill. But I use a ball with a flat bottom, so it couldn't damage the membrane, cuz obviously what one's frightened of is damaging the

79:52membrane surrounding the brain. Right. I mean, I don't want to go into detail with the drill, but um all I can say I I did it. I knew the second I was through, because the second you're through there's no resistance. Mhm. And it had a flat bottom. So that was so it couldn't I mean it's not something one wants to do at all. But it's it's a kind of like people go skiing, people go horse riding. Just the same danger. Mhm. You know, it's a danger. Possibly infection is the only danger. That's it. Um and I always say no one should do it themselves. It's the foolish thing to do. Um but then the the when I'd finished, I bandaged up. Uh we went out and had a steak dinner out to replace the lost blood. And then went to this party. And um the photograph which I don't know if you know if birdie on my shoulder was the evening that that came out of the super 8 movie. Um so

80:54I've seen the images. Yeah. Uh but I I I haven't seen Apparently, you never released the video. I never released that. And the person who made the film actually, as always gone one. Um so I I had forbidden to let the images out on public thing, because I didn't want I didn't want anyone doing it. Right. And funnily enough Why why did you not want anyone doing it? Because I don't think self-trepanning is a good idea. But you did it. You know? I took trouble not to And funnily enough then um when I was doing artwork in New York about it at PS1, cuz at that period I was trying to educate the world through art. And I had this exhibition in Pierre Restany of the slides. Enormous great. It was like an Egyptian tomb. It was lovely. Enormous room they gave me. And apparently people were queuing up including people like Warhol and Bernardo Bertolucci couldn't get in.

82:06Blah blah blah. It was a kind of pleasure hot movie at that point. And people fainted it said in the papers like ripe plums falling to the ground. But then 60 Minutes did a film of it of me and wanted to film me back at Bentley with Buddy who was my pigeon who was never in a cage always free. And so they flew me home on Concorde cuz I was pregnant with my eldest son Rocky. And to film me with Buddy. And Buddy was very strong sense of justice. And I had broken the code of love by going away. So if I went away he punished me until the the punishment had been done. So when they flew me back on Concorde he wouldn't come down from the house top. Anyway, they made this film and he was very pleased very nice director. And then it was as always we wanted something which was well done. It was um um not allowed to go out because the lawyers said there'll be a

83:26epidemic of people drowning themselves which is Were you worried about that? Were people copying you? No. No, really. Just too crazy. Yeah, too crazy. What was your personal experience like? What was it like after it was over? Sorry, you asked me that. Um how I described it at the time There was a kind of stillness in the brain. That internal endless internal conversation of basically the ego calmed down. Now, of course one can not explain all of those things could happen anyway just from relaxation of having that finished it not blah blah blah. Um so, what difference does it make? I would say it makes a slight difference. It's slightly like the energy I mean I watch children. Children have that extra energy. Mhm. You know, they do those leaps and bounds and play around and that energy. Energy is a more difficult thing. And when I became 21, I'd had one of my

84:50trips to Egypt where I lived very wild. And I thought I got bilharzia which is a worm you get and drains your energy. And I went when I got I was 21. I I went got myself tested thinking I'd caught it but I hadn't. Then I realized that that was adulthood. Mhm. It's a slightly lower level. And very often that's when people have their first schizophrenic experience or some mental thing after that. It's a down. It's a slight down. exuberance. And that's what I noticed after. But the the difference is so slight I couldn't swear on it at all. How long did the difference last? Well, you don't you only notice the difference. You don't notice the change the Do you see what I mean? So now I can't say have I got any advantages? My whole clothes is it open? Do do do I I can't say. Have you ever got looked at to see if it's closed? Um no. Um I I tried to actually and it was

86:05very difficult to do. I'd like to do that. It's a very small hole though, right? Well, I it was that big. Okay, so quarter of an inch, couple millimeters. It was wide enough. All you need is for the heartbeat to express itself. That is all about the expression of the heartbeat. And it takes half an hour. If if if it was shown to increase cranial compliance, which is what I worked on with this Professor Yuri Moskalenko, who's a leading professor in this in those things. He thought, yes, it increases cranial compliance. And that's just a slightly healthier state to be in. Mhm. And so it takes half an hour to do. In hospitals the nurse does it. The surgeon doesn't have to do it. Do you know what I mean? Mhm. It's it's a nothing operation. Um so if that can slightly raise the level of energy going to the brain for the rest of the life it's a valuable tool.

87:14But do you think that these people that have multiple holes in their head, is there um like a point of diminishing returns when they're doing this? I I should think they had big rain or some terrible Mhm. thing which went on. And they're trying to alleviate it. And tried to all Yeah, I think something like that. Mhm. Um because I don't see the the logic of it says you only need one to get the expansion back. But that's why I actually don't talk about it now because it sounds so crazy. Right. That's the problem is this is optics. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's not good optics. Until you've got it proven, which I actually seriously want to do because what I do it is on on research with people with headaches, migraines, headaches, whatever, some form cuz that's the one of the things that all cultures who did it one of the things they did it for was

88:11headaches and insanity. They in the old days they said it's letting devils out. And another indication is letting light in because often people in the mystical tradition were trepanned. Mhm. So, I would I I actually before I hit the bucket, I would really like to have done that research because uh maybe no one else will be motivated to do it. Right. Has anyone been motivated to do self-trepanation that you are friends with or that you're Yeah, I I know quite a lot not a lot but a few. I mean, and then they started saying uh would I trepan I certainly wouldn't trepan anyone. I wouldn't dream of it. Right. Do you know what I mean? So, that's why I found a very good a surgeon um brain surgeon and team in in Mexico who did it for who did it for certain people. But and people wrote back saying it had if I was asked do I think it has an effect or not, I'd say I I

89:21I wouldn't be humiliated if it didn't but I think it does. Mhm. That's my opinion. For instance, it changed my dream pattern after I'd done it. I used to have very anxious dreams which very often were about Birdy, my beloved Birdy, getting killed or something. After the trepanation, I didn't have those anxious dreams. So, that's something which I couldn't control. You see what I mean? Anyway, I think it makes a difference. So, I'm in favor. But, we need to do the research. Yeah, it's a fascinating subject. It's just fascinating that it's existed for so long. Yes, and very much associated with religious practice. Mhm. Basically. Um whatever, you know, very often funnily enough there's in Mongolia some trepanned skulls and nearby is a very beautiful this is very early, I forget, BC long 700 maybe. A little beautiful basket with cannabis, rather high THC cannabis in

90:33it. I mean, I think they go together. Um the trepanning, you know, like in um Mexico there were there were lots of trepannings. And they went with the the kind of spiritual practices. It's very fascinating to me that from the moment human beings have discovered altered states of consciousness, whenever that was, that it's always been a part of this desire to sort of escape the confines of modern consciousness or of natural consciousness. I yeah, it's to kind of slightly expand. Yes. Slightly get back the childhood experience. Mhm. Yeah. Joy, wonder. Joy, wonder. I do think it's that. And I think it's still that. And I think that's a very healthy urge. Yes. And I think therefore we should I really seriously think we should do research on trepanning, which I can very easily do. It it just needs the ethical approval. That's the only problem.

91:40Do you think that it's warranted? Do you think that the use of psychedelics and psychedelic therapy can replace that? That it's not necessary? Um no, I don't think it replaces it. I think they're as they were in ancient times. They're they're complementary. Mhm. They're both both moving in the same direction of trying to increase the energy supply to the brain. Yeah. Basically. And I think that's very key for uh future survival because at the moment critical time because uh artificial intelligence is getting greater than our own. Yeah. Etc. etc. There's all sorts of forces which kind of build the danger up. Yes. So we need internal growth to balance that technological growth. Yeah, it's it's such a strange contradiction that today in a day where that growth is so necessary, these substances are so demonized. Yes. It's a tragedy. And I really think

93:01it's the time and America is the force which forced it upon us for all the wrong reasons and we all know it and America knows it. Yeah. Um It was during the civil rights movement they were they were trying to arrest the Black Panthers and and the civil rights activists and Yeah. all the anti-war activists and that was one of the ways they could do it. Yeah. And it's the way to enter any country you want to like Afghanistan or Latin America or any country you could go and raid and spray and kill and capture. You know, it was wonderful. The CIA loved it. And you know, and so it was Which is so ironic considering that they did so many LSD experiments. Yeah. And then through the people who were trouble some out of the window and said they wanted to fly. You know, that's such a Mhm. typical Uh I mean it's a tragedy the history of all this stuff. I mean like um

94:00the the what do call them midwives used psychedelics to help stop bleeding. They realized the vasoconstrictive property of these compounds. So, they were used in in childbirth. Mhm. And the midwives who were very often the people who were burned for witchery. And the ironic thing is when the witches were bought burned then the villagers got a plague. They called it the witches' curse of St. Vitus's dance where you shake and then you finally die. And that's um that's ergot poisoning. Mhm. Because the witches went out with their hats at the full moon. And their hats would show the glow of the ergot from uh the light of the moon on the ergot. How did the hats do that? They Well, they were kind of or they hid them. I mean, that's I think where the hat story came. Because they collect the ergot by night because it's phosphorescent. Ah. From the moon. And then

95:16the burning of the witches which you was part of the Inquisition basically. Um um then they had these awful plagues of St. Vitus's dance which was called the the curse of the poor old witch who had been using their So, it's quite ironic how the authorities translate it wrongly. I mean, basically it was because the witch wasn't gathering the ergot off the wheat. So, the villagers were eating the poison and therefore getting sick from the bread. Yeah, that's uh that that was to me one of the most fascinating things about the Salem witch trials Yeah. is that they found out that there was a late frost and when they examined that whatever crops that they could find back then they did find ergot in them. Right. And they think that that was partially responsible for that whole hysteria. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and and it was very much into mingled with the Protestants

96:20and the Inquisition between the religions and the whole thing came at the same time. Yeah. So it has been a kind of tragedy. I mean the point is those in power actually don't want other people taking these compounds like the Americans didn't want their soldiers taking acid because it made the soldiers say, "Gosh, actually I prefer to be in the park with my girlfriend Right. than in some bloody wood far away getting shot." Right. You know, it's pretty common sense. Yeah, they didn't want common sense. Yeah. Um so it's it's a tragedy of the human fate. I mean the tragedy of humanity, us, is that we've developed this compensatory mechanism which has made us the genius that we are and we can do all these brilliant things we do but it also has made us this psychotic animal which is capable of great self-harm. And somehow we need to balance it. Yeah. And that's why I rather

97:33like the phrase the the psychedelic age Mhm. in the sense I don't mean everyone taking psychedelics and having a party. I mean learning the art of how do control your level of consciousness and then how do you control that level so you can keep your concentration. Mhm. I don't go in for Leary, you know, turn on, tune in, drop out. Yeah. I say turn on and drop in. Yes. You know, do be creative. Yeah, that was the problem with Leary that his philosophy and what he was espousing to people was it people felt like it was dangerous to civilization. That people were going to ruin their lives, they're going to drop out, and they were going to become part of these hippie communes and Yes. It was all bad publicity, badly played. Um Yeah. And in those early years, in the whatever, mid-60s, when I started taking psychedelics seriously, we took it for

98:38working. I mean, the Stones would be playing a mile half a mile away from our flat where I lived and still live in London. We didn't bother to go to them because we were having such fun doing our work, which is studying the brain on acid. Mhm. Yeah. um so I think that the use I'm sure you and millions of other people know how incredibly inspiring for work the use of psychedelics can be. Yes. You couldn't see things you wouldn't never saw before. You see because suddenly having more of the brain simultaneously active as our images showed, the two circuits. You can see this is the ordinary brain, this is the brain on uh psychedelics. I've got these beautiful things came from our study. Um the circuits, do you know the ones? I've got a picture of it in my bag. Um you can see the difference in the brain. Mhm. Um and that can be used for whatever you're doing, for whatever

99:48Yeah. creative, thoughtful process. You suddenly got all that extra brain power Yes. to dedicate towards what you feel passionate about. It's a superpower for stand-up comedy. Yeah. For stand-up comedy, so many of my comedian friends Yes. use it to write. Yes. Absolutely. And I I have an intimate relationship with Jamaica and the deep deep divers. Mhm. There's someone on the beach who said the one who wins that prize is his best friend and she can stay down there much longer than the best friend can because he smokes very heavily before he goes down. Mhm. Cannabis. Yeah. And he said that enables him to stop breathing for much longer period. Mhm. Do you know? So I think whatever you do you can got you got more passion or energy. That That's That's the image. So that's the adult brain. That On the left. Um You know. are what are these lines representing?

100:58It's connectivity between different centers in the brain. So Wow. This is when you're on a psychedelic. It doesn't matter if it's psilocybin or LSD. Um when you're on you've suddenly got this much more intimate connection between the different parts of the brain. Mhm. And so I think it needs training to learn to control that increased It's like riding an incredibly powerful horse. You have to learn how you how do you how do you control it? The brain is the same thing. If you just go and take that you can have a wonderful experience looking at the stars or having a love affair or listening to music. All of those things can be wonderful. But if you want to use it for cognitive discipline which actually uses a lot of glucose cuz it's very late in in development. So it's not part of the autonomic nervous system. It's the part of the cognitive

102:01nervous system which burns glucose to get the energy to concentrate. And so that's the importance of taking the vitamin C. And keeping the sugar level normal. Can I ask you a question about that? Um, what about ketones? What about the like the I know many people they get on a ketogenic diet and their brain produces ketones and they feel like intellectually that's a superior fuel. I think probably it is a very good fuel. Yeah. I think there's a lot more we'll constantly be be learning about how you can energize the brain in better, healthier ways. Yeah. But I think a secret, a basic secret which I felt feel I was given the key to in 1966 when I had learned about how one can increase the blood supply to the brain and therefore give it all that extra energy to do have all the brain functioning. And then is a whole new art. How do you how do you use that? Yes.

103:16Productively. But I mean that's like being a magician. Magician brilliant magicians aren't they have to practice. It's a skill. Yes. I I always say to be to to take psychedelics you have to be much more disciplined than not to take them. It's much easier not to take them. Yes. In a sense. I agree with that. Yeah. I think people have a misconception about what you're doing when you're taking psychedelics or when you're taking including cannabis. As I think the common misconception is that you were avoiding reality. Yeah. And that you are somehow or another giving yourself a crutch. Yeah. I don't think it's that at all and I think that with discipline the use of psychedelics through discipline with discipline it it it allows you to experience these states and get something from them. And pull something from them and apply it Yeah. I totally agree.

104:09to normal consciousness. I agree. It gives you an extra power, like riding a more powerful horse. Yes. You've got in your brain power, there's more there. Yes. And so, I mean, I find if I'm in a really beautiful place, if I'm in Egypt or all those wonderful places with incredible beauty. Yeah. It's almost an insult to the place not to be at your optimum. I say that all the time. I say that because when I go to art galleries, I don't I never go to an art gallery sober. No, I quite agree. Yeah, I I always get high. No no point. You don't I also feel that that I mean, it's just people don't like this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I like to be high around my children. Yeah. Because when I'm around my children, I'm fascinated by them. Yeah, absolutely. And things that maybe would be frustrating perhaps if I was sober, instead are charming. Yeah.

105:07And I find them interesting and I'm I'm fascinated by their mindset and talking to them and Yeah. And you have much more in common with them. Yeah. Cuz you're on the same wavelength. So, you stay in contact with them. I adored having my children and they're they're the greatest pleasure. And I remember being at one of those conferences in Palenque or something, psychedelic conference. And I think it was Terence McKenna's wife actually was giving a lecture or giving a talk, very nicely. And how when she was pregnant, she gave up everything and uh And I couldn't I hate public speaking. You know, I remember putting up my finger cuz I wanted to say well, actually when I was pregnant I didn't because I actually think it's good for my health. Mhm. You know, I've taken enough of it that I really think it's actually It's not like alcohol or cigarettes, no.

106:02No. And my children I'm proud of my children. And you know, they are children of parents who understood the benefits of altered states of consciousness. Yeah, I've I've had those conversations with my children. My youngest, who are 13 and 15. And they're at that age where, you know, children want to experiment with alcohol, they want to experiment with drugs. And I have conversations with them about ones that you should avoid. Yeah. And the dangers of things that may be contaminated with fentanyl and Yeah, absolutely. And that these organic compounds Yeah. as long as you know the source that you're getting them from, whether they're psilocybin or Yeah. or particularly marijuana. Yeah. These These are They're not what everybody is telling you they are. Yeah. And that's what's criminal, and I do think criminal, about the government. Because the

106:56the all the governments, the knowledge is out there. These are non-toxic, the the ones which are non-toxic. Yes. And like in England people on the mass can only buy the the illegal market marketing cannabis is taken over by certain breeders who breed only rubbish stuff. An insensible person would never dream of smoking. Mhm. Very high THC cannabis. Yeah. Which is [ __ ] And it's not good for young people to have smoke that. Right. And it's it's um the authorities which are forcing the young people into that if they choose to designed for the the the government saying that if they I have hoped to do regulate cannabis they should make very low tax for THC CBD balance. Mhm. And as it gets more and more strong tax it more. Because that will incline people to stop smoking this extremely high THC there's dangers in smoking a very high THC What

108:10I mean not for grown-ups who know how how to handle it things. Right. But I I I think it can be dangerous. I believe so, too. And I think there's there's also some correlations between that and schizophrenic breaks. Mhm. That people who perhaps have a tendency towards schizophrenia when they have high doses Yeah. of THC, they've had very traumatic experiences. Yeah. Yeah. I think it should be encouraged a nice balance of THC CBD. Yeah. Well, it's one of the good things about the legalization in California in particular because they've relegated these edibles in particular to 10 mg, Right. which is a very sensible dose. Right. It's just comfortable, Yeah. not too bad, Yeah. you know, and that especially in conjunction with all the cannabinoids with CBD and it's Yeah. Wonderful. And and that's such a wonderful step forward. And it's wonderful it's happening in

109:07America, but also quite ironic that America is still forbidding the rest of the world Yeah, it's crazy. to do the same thing. Yeah, it's And it really does need to change because it's holding up humanity in a sense. I'm hoping that with education the younger people are realizing what what it actually is. And as these people go into public service, they will go into public service with this new understanding of it. Yes. Absolutely. And I think I I absolutely commend you on the wonderful information you give to people by having such a wide reach and letting people who you think are right say what they think and slowly slowly it will seep through Yes. and come to the top and be the dominant. Well, there's a propaganda narrative that's just very unfortunate that has permeated our society. Yes. And it's incorrect. Yeah. Exactly. That a narrative of the um brain

110:06um LSD and things a cooking the brain in the frying pan. this is your brain on drugs. once um having lunch with Peter Thiel and he was saying he was brought up with that and he couldn't get over it. Right. I mean, what rubbish. Rubbish. It's a thing which is completely There isn't another compound, I think, which is so powerful which is less toxic. Well, what you're talking about sounds to me that that all took place during the '80s. And the '80s, culturally, some of the worst artwork and music that the American society's ever produced during the influence of the Just Say No era. Yes. And the '60s were a period of cultural growth and change. And people always put down the '60s, but actually all the things we love, not all the things, but a lot of the things we love came out of the '60s. Spirituality, Eastern spirituality, yoga, health,

111:04music, music, comedy, yeah. Even the automobile design. And it was all on LSD. It was fueled that change in And so I promised Albert Hofmann, I said, "I'll I can't remember what those were, but I'll reinstate your favorite child." Mhm. You know, LSD is a wonderful creation because it's non-toxic. It's so controllable. You know, um if the governments were doing what a government should do, which is basically looking after their citizens like a good mother or father looks after their children, and therefore teaching them what they need to know I'm never frightened my children might become addicted because they know that from an early stage they know Yes, then they benefit. They don't. Yeah. You know, Yeah. silly. Right. And also they benefit from you discussing like your addiction to cigarettes and how you got over it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And and they saw how one

112:12when one did when it was legal, you see compounds one was productive with it. And it increased one's passion. I mean, I'm a workaholic. So As am I. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm a user. Yeah, so. It makes one want to achieve the work one can do. Yes. Yes. I'm fascinated with American automobile design. Um I'm a I I collect old cars. Yeah. And there's a time period between 1965 and 1970 where there's some of the most amazing cars Oh, really? How interesting. ever. And it's directly correlates. I understand. It drops off a cliff after 1970. How interesting. It's fascinating because those those cars from 1965 to 1970, to this day, are the most cherished collectors automobiles and the most beautiful designs. Yes, that's very interesting. Funny enough, in this talk I'm giving in a few days' time in Denver, I'm saying you can see um the markings of civilization, you can

113:19see which civilizations had integrated altered states of consciousness, Mhm. and which hadn't, by their creativity production. Rather like in a tree, you can see by the rings Yes. which are the years of drought and which are the years of rain and sunshine. Right. And that's exactly it, what you're saying, in that in the the peak of beauty in cars. I want to show you something, just so you could see this. I want Jamie, pull up a 1969 Mustang, and then I want you I want to see a 1980 Mustang. The difference is so stark. Yeah. It's amazing. And it's so clear that that time period directly correlates with the sweeping psychedelics acts of 1970 Yes. where they stopped Yeah. people using these things, they made them forbidden and dangerous. And that is a 1969 Mustang. It's one of the most beautiful things that anyone has ever designed. Yeah. It's gorgeous.

114:17Yeah. I mean, I look at that thing and I'm like, my god, it's perfect. Yeah. Artwork. Now, now show me a 1980. Now, this is just disgusting. Look at that clunky piece of [ __ ] What is that? What the hell is that? Imagine that you went from that to that. What the hell happened to us? Something's very, very wrong. People attribute it to so I mean, God, it's so gorgeous. And people attribute it to so many different things. One of the things they attribute it to is like gas being, you know, more efficient gas vehicle. But not true, because you could still make it beautiful. That is not beautiful. That's an ugly piece of [ __ ] You're right. And I think that's such a beautiful And you I think you can tell it in culture, I've been like whatever in um Well, the the beautiful cultures. Sure. You can see they were high. They they

115:14had that Those lines in Chevrolet. Yeah. Couldn't have been done by people who weren't high. You know. It's too um Abstract. Yes. It's an intuitive expression. Mhm. I think one of the things that psychedelics do is increase the intuitive part of the brain. And now, I'm I've got a new program at the moment I'm doing, which is looking at LSD both in high doses and micro doses in the best and latest technology in the world can give. So, in the high doses, I'm wanting to do a research on the mystical experience and anomalous experiences. And it will be the first research to use um a Tesla 7. Do you know what I mean by um MRI? Yes. It's usually a Tesla 3. All the research I've done is with a Tesla 3. Is this fMRI, functional MRI? Yes. And then one um does whatever how many people, let's say 20, and one averages the results between the 20.

116:25What I'm going to do in this other one is use a 7 Tesla and personalize the data. So, it will only be person by person looking at the data, and then it will be 7 Tesla and a MEG. MEG is the one which does that electrical. You can see which centers of the brain are communicating with each other. Mhm. And then we'll have a very deep psychological one. So, you'll know when the person has some expression of the mystical experience or some other experience. Mhm. And you can see what's happening in the brain waves and the blood and markers. So, one will have it much more carefully analyzed than ever before. Because apart from just pure fascination interest, it's valuable to know how do we encourage people who are having a psychedelic um assisted um experience to overcome treatment-resistant depression or whatever to have that mystical experience. So,

117:33the more we can learn about how how how how does that grow? How does one How does one help the fruition of that experience? Mhm. The better. Yeah. And then so, well, that's at the top level looking at those experiences. I mean, it's going to be so exciting which parts of the brain to look at. And the whole different areas, hemispheres, the blood supply, the um which parts of the brain are actively activating in the highest way Mhm. in that experience. I once did an experience with a very high-level Indian meditator lady. And she really wanted to help me. And it was in a MEG, one of those ones with her And she told me after she had She came out beaming. She'd had a most wonderful mystical experience while she was in the machine. She said, "The best experience I've had with God a long time. Mhm. Whispered. And it showed a great burst of gamma in the right cerebellum.

118:38Which is very fascinating because the right everyone thinks the cerebellum is just nothing basic. Um balance and all those sort of things. But actually, I think it's a very highly much more fascinating than that. And so a mystical experience is rather like a toad in the sun sitting on the on the sun in the state of blissful happiness. Mhm. You know, be very fascinating these different experiences that we can as humans experience. Yes. And how hopefully we can map them. Yep. And therefore, learn how to get them more. One of the things I was fascinated about with you is your uh discussions of your experiences on LSD playing Go. Yes. That's very exciting. Which is really interesting cuz you you said it made you a better player. Yeah. And Go is an incredibly complex game. Yeah. And that's why well, for the last 50 years, I wanted to and I will do a

119:42research on Go. But it's very difficult to find Go players who are used to functioning on a high level LSD. Mhm. what because people don't on the whole. Right. So, but I'm I've got that in because Go, as you know, is is a pattern recognition. It's an intuition intuitive game of pattern recognition. I've never played it. It's a wonderful game. Once you get into it, hi, you really get addicted to it cuz it's behind everything. You can play life on the Go board. Mhm. And you have a handicap, so you know exactly where you are with the person you play against. A numerical handicap? Yeah, um the the better player plays with white stone. So, the worst player has black, which is slight slightly slight is more obvious, so it's a better visual, but it's slightly less good psychologically. And um then they have handicaps every three games you win, they get bonus down

120:49put down on the board fast advance. Mhm. So, anyway, we we played passionately in the early '60s when LSD was legal. And um at the end of that, you know, we we were doing brain studies all day or whatever we were doing, and then go was the and we wrote down every game we played, so we knew who won and what the score was. And anyway, I was a slightly better player than my opponent, but if I wasn't LSD and he wasn't, his handicap went up from three to six. Mhm. You know, so that's a lot of that's winning nine games. That's a big Right. um big change. And then it would come down again as he saw the patterns cuz the it's a pattern recognition game. Right. um And it's a wonderful game, but I gave it up because you have to be passionate about it to keep playing. Right. It's very taxing, right? Yeah, very taxing. um There's a similar result with

121:56psilocybin in the game of pool, pocket billiards. Right. You you have more feel and you you know where the ball is going Right. more. It's a Right. And you can understand angles and patterns. absolutely. Absolutely. And I think sportsmen, I mean, like Joe father of my children, he loved cricket, and he said he was the better bowler. Have you heard of the the um the pitcher who pitched a game on acid, a no no-hitter game on acid? No. Who who was that again, Jamie? It's a very famous story of a guy who uh he made a mistake and got just too high. He was and it didn't wear off and he went to the game. Here it is, Dock Ellis. Yeah. He took acid and pitched a no-hitter. So, I can't don't get his ball when he was on acid, which is so so crazy. exactly it. I mean, and do you know that picture of the spider which came out in the '60s? Um the spider's web. Yes.

122:59I'm I'm I'm trying to recreate that study it. So, you're saying that spider they they gave the spider LSD. Yeah. And um you know, the caffeine one was absolutely chaotic. It was so bad. at it. Uh the cannabis one started off rather well, then you're chaotic, just like cannabis does happen. But look at the LSD LSD one was perfect. Better than perfect. Well, look at the normal one though. The normal one's pretty amazing, too. Yeah. But funny enough, now I know the leading web person in the world is a is a Donald Oxford, who I've been talking about 6 years now to do this research, but you wouldn't believe it to give a spider LSD. One has to get ethical approval. Oh, that's hilarious. I mean That's funny. And for eight 6-8 years, we haven't yet got the ethical approval. There's nothing ethical about being a spider. You can't believe it. Their whole existing

123:57their existence is unethical. They're trapping other insects. Exactly. Exactly. Anyway, so so far we haven't done it, but I really want to do it this year. Mhm. Because I mean, maybe they were pulling our legs, but it's a it's a very interesting concept Sure. that even at the spider level it improves function. Yes. Um It would make sense that caffeine would be all over the place, too. Heart rate would be jacked up. Or whatever their central nervous system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's very There's so much we could do. And that's why I I actually feel having lived with these substances as my passion my passion for 50 or 60 years and particularly LSD because I think it's the cleanest and I know it's the best. I I've got a very good instinct how to do it. I've I've designed several studies I haven't talked about because I don't they shouldn't come out. But I can see

125:02how it can help like the old woman with Alzheimer's. So I'd like to just show you not to go on the but to show you. Yes. Because the difference is so big when I showed it to the professor of geriatrics in Switzerland within an hour he said he wanted to do collaboration with me to do an Alzheimer's study. Mhm. With it because you can't fake someone's expression. So from deep apathy it goes to a sparkling little old lady. nothing conventional that that would replace that. There's no no conventional medication that has the same sort of outcome. And actually I'm working with um well I'm very nice man who's a CEO of the biggest care home in England which is national health one. And he'd heard about my research and very interested. He says 70% of his residents have Alzheimer's and there's nothing you can do. Mhm. And the suffering it causes them and

125:59their relations and their carers is devastating and it's getting worse and worse as we live longer and longer. And it's stunning that there's something available. Yeah. Yeah. And well after I'll show you because it is miraculous. And so I've also got a very very good concept for the perfect place because what I would like to do is with these conditions like I'd like to do Alzheimer's. I also want to do autism also Parkinson's. You know, I want to be able to fast forward these researches with the best doctors available scientists. You know, I can design them. I know them. I know that I know how they go. And what I can see is it's very similar to a condition which we know historically, which is called um terminal lucidity. And I've been studying that for the last year or two. It's a well-known fact that people quite often just before death who are in coma

127:05or paralyzed or one of those conditions, out of the picture for years, suddenly will come back and just before they die and make jokes about when they were in the nursery. And people, you know, who know them know they're that sharp. And I think what can happen with a microdose is that you light up the connectivity between these different brain centers. So, suddenly the brain is functioning again. I mean, not probably functioning like um this old lady. She came back. Her children said it was remarkable. It was getting our mother back. Mhm. She had her wit. Wow. Her her love, her dignity. She said, "I feel so wonderful. Let's read some poetry." Do you know? Wow. From having been this vegetative state. Yeah. And I think we can now get that going. And what I want is the freedom to design, to make the um care home called the Beckley Harbor,

128:15where people can go and be treated with these compounds Mhm. to see if it suits them and see if it has the same effect as it had with this old lady. And then we collect the data. And then I would have wonderful trained doulas who entertain them and make it a wonderful place to be. We'd have dogs and children and it would be like home. Incredible. You know, it would be like being at home with lovely people who look after your emotional humor and da da da da and you're given a micro dose personally fitted to suit you. And what is a pure experience that would be to the traditional nursing home? Yeah. And then we'd find out does it suit and then one could collect in a year in a not a very big nursing home and this wonderful man in England said so long as it's legal he'll give me the nursing home to try it. So I want the permissions to be able to do this. Yeah.

129:11And then one could get a lot of people coming through and then one would give them home care. So one would have someone visiting them at home as much as they need to maintain a safe and good program. Yeah. Anyway that we could do that. Yeah. You know, this year. So but it needs one the regulatory passport to do it and two the funding. And both are there. I mean there's so much money around. You know, everyone's getting old either their parents are old or they are and you know, we should do these things speedily. Not not wait 10 years until you know, it takes two years even to get the paperwork done for this research. One year. Didn't I wanted to talk to you about near-death experiences and there's a lot of speculation about what happens in the brain during near-death experiences because many people report things that are very similar to what

130:12what is it like a breakthrough psychedelic experience? Yeah. Well, what I think is near-death the body kind of is in a state of extreme turn on and it naturally endogenously lets out these compounds um oxytocin um you know, all the different compounds in the body which DMT maybe um maybe there's you know, they're probably not than we've even discovered. Mhm. Which gives a shot of something, serotonin, um, which is very similar to a psychedelic. And that's why people can suddenly come out of a vegetative state shortly before death. And that's what I'm saying. I think that what I'm doing with microdosing is creating that effect without having to wait for the person to die, poor person. Yes. Right? One can do his own protocol. Um, and that's what I'd like to research now. Well, that'd be amazing. You know, it's obvious. I've got some I've got proof of the thing that it

131:33happens. You can't fake it. You can't fake someone coming back to life again. And the look in their eyes. So, it's there. And just let's get the space so legally we can I could set it up with the best people like, you know. Yeah. I can set it up and we could do it. And then, if we get successful data, we can set open clinics, care homes which service this. And then hopefully the people can take the treatment home with them. Mhm. One of the more bizarre things that comes out of psychedelic experiences contact with entities. Contact with what seems to be some other form of consciousness. What do you think is That I I love your entity flashing across the ceiling. I have to tell people about that, especially people that have had psychedelic experiences. They think they're having a flashback. Sorry, I didn't warn you. Oh, yeah. But, um, what do I think?

132:45Certain compounds create it more than others. DMT Yes. much more. LSD doesn't really produce entities. Right. Strangely. It's It's I think it's uh um Yeah. Anyway. does. Yeah, but that's got DMT in it. Right. Which LSD That's why I love LSD. LSD I think is more like a flower opening up. I it's more of yourself. Mhm. Right. Whereas DMT whether it's ayahuasca or psilocybin to a lesser degree has this slightly boom boom boom slightly dominating sound slightly uh I don't really like the colors as much. You don't? Not quite. There's kind of mauve and browns and I prefer the LSD colors. You see you You see mauves and browns when you do DMT? Well, I'm not a DMT person. I mean I've done it. Yeah. But I don't Cuz I've seen very bright vivid colors. I've not seen mauves and browns. Haven't you seen the darker colors? I find it slightly dark. Really? Interesting.

133:59I was once in quite recently in a room of a um session when people were doing it. There were only 10 people in the room. Three of them were in uh um a battleground. A poor boy had had much too much and was screaming and yelling and getting burnt. Mhm. And the person who looked after him was a very practiced person in these things. He then said to me, "Well, actually I was in a massacre myself." And you know A massacre? Yeah, I mean you know he was um while he looked after the person but he's very well contained with his massacre so he was still managed to look after the other. But I only actually thought I don't really so choose compounds which bring the tendency of those sort of experiences but I know people have wonderful experiences. Yeah. I I've never had those negative experiences like that. No, my experiences have been very vivid and and bright. Right. Yeah.

134:57and enlightening. Right. Yeah, and the the entities are very colorful. Right. Bright colors and wild, beautiful, loving experiences. Right. How lovely. Well, that's that's that's very lucky cuz I knew people who've had horrible ones, too. But I mean, obviously they come come and they go. Do you think that that's people struggling with the experience and trying to control it? I'm sure trying to control it is uh is um not a good detrimental. Yeah. Um and I think people are very lucky who've never had a really bad experience. I had a really bad experience with someone right back in the first year of my taking LSD. Someone who had actually turned Leary on to LSD who was a kind of freak, not a nice person Anyway, I I he he had a vinegar bottle of Sandos vitamin C. I mean, not not LSD. And he offered me some. I said, "No, thanks. I didn't want it." Anyway, I

136:11didn't want him around. And then he poured it into my coffee Oh god. without telling me. Oh god. And thousands of trips. Oh god. And so I had a a dying experience and it was a really bad experience. And you know, once you cut a a thing in the soul or the body, you retain that fear. Yeah, that pathway. Yeah. So, um I think people who've had really bad experiences and have got pathways cut Mm. are more likely, if they're given a psychedelic, are fearful of getting down that route. Right. Do you think that's a memory retention? Like perhaps they they remember the bad trip and then they start manifesting it? Yeah. Yeah. And I think they definitely remember. The question is whether they can remember it, um, in what do you call it? I've forgotten the word. Epigenetics, which says maybe you can go on for generations of memory of Mhm. I don't know if that's Yeah. But

137:25I quite agree with you. I mean, if you're someone who's never had a really bad experience, you're much less likely to have it. And that's a great gift. And that's what we want everyone to be like. Most certainly. Well, yeah. What do you think you're encountering? Like especially on DMT, what do you think the entities are? Do you think that's a figment of the imagination? Do you think it's the consciousness expressing itself in different ways through the visual cortex? Yeah. Like what Yeah. Um I I I know shaman of ayahuasca chair, and he said he always considered in the dime Santo Daime church, they consider entities a deflection of attention. It's better not to go into the world of entities. Really? But a lot of people love the entities. Yeah. And it's I don't know. Um, my son once had an entity experience with ayahuasca. And, um, the entities told him, "Why Why do you

138:33have so many uh, such a collection of, um, sneakers?" I use a sneaker head. Yes. But he does. He's got a passion for sneakers. And then so I don't I don't know. I don't I'm not an expert on entities. Yeah, I I was wondering if maybe that's your own consciousness recognizing that you're obsessing about a thing. Yeah. I I think there's that I I think there's that element about it. I I I think I mean, I think there's I'm hoping this research I'm doing on the mystical experience. I think anomalous experiences like telepathy. Telepathy I know happens to my own satisfaction. I'm in no doubt. How so? Because with my pigeon lover, we were lovers for 15 years, passionate lovers. Didn't Tesla wasn't Tesla in love with the pigeon as well? he was. Yeah. Yeah. Why why pigeons? Well, it just so happened that his mother died on the on the window ledge. Mhm. And

139:39and Joe went to collect her body. We were trying to feed her. And there was a little day-old fledgling without any feathers. you raised it. And he I'm he shouldn't have lived cuz he don't at that age, but I fed him um warm milk and Weetabix on a paintbrush. Ah. And he became I mean, he he was he became just obsessive, and he became the boss. And Joe said to me, "Let's get rid of this pigeon, this creature. We're going to have him I insist let's put him out cuz we're going to have him forever." And he's going to ruin our life. So, I put him and then I thought, "I'm not going to put him out, my beloved papa." And then I went and brought him in again, and sure enough, we had him forever. How long did he live? And he was he lived for 15 years. Wow. But he was then killed. I always knew he'd be killed somehow. And the interesting thing, I won't tell the

140:41story cuz it's too long, but I knew before he died. And I said out loud to him as he flew by, I said, "Buddy, I love you more than anything else in the world." And that was the last thing I said to him. Mhm. And then he died. And I knew he'd dead. I was painting a picture I was on acid painting a picture and I suddenly had this thing Birdie's dead. Birdie's dead. And so I did what I had never done. I stopped painting and went down to look for him. Anyway, it turned out um my father, who was also very kind of in on those sort of things, Birdie was very fond of, had lost his temper with the old car when we had for 50 years and told him to go and cut these effing uh nettles And in the nettles was Birdie's stillborn body. Aw. So, I knew before it happened and he knew within 10 minutes of it I mean, how many dead birds do you get? See, hardly ever. I mean, birds die all

141:54the time. They get eaten. You never trace them. Right. Um Birdie. And then once we took Birdie camping years before that. Anyway, it's another story, but he flew off. And then I did a national I got on English um BBC news. I said he was the hero Antonioni's new film. And cuz I was I had put adverts in the Times and everywhere looked looking for the beloved gray London pigeon. I got thousands of people saying they had him and we went all over England collecting these wretched pigeons which were meant to be Birdie. And then I uh so then I went up to to the television and did this petition for Birdie on the television on the news because I said he was the star of Antonioni's new film. I asked Antonioni if I could do that and he said yes. And so the BBC was jammed with telephones saying people finding saying Birdie. And then I was really upset cuz they

143:05said they never introduce whatever people who ring in to people looking for fear of something. Anyway, so I was incredibly sad cuz I thought what's the point of the whole thing? The whole point was to get Buddy back. And then there was one telephone call which came through which came from the police station. And because Buddy had landed on a washing a man who didn't have a telephone. So he didn't do his own telephoning. He sent his son to the police station saying he had Buddy. And because it was the police's line, it got through to me. And that was Buddy. Wow. Do you see what I mean? The multiple things of telepathy and other things. I mean, I'm in no doubt that telepathy exists. Are you or not? I I think it probably does in some way. I think it's an emergent property of human consciousness that's not quite fully formed. I think it's there, but we

144:06because of our egos and we we don't sense it. Yeah. I mean, because like animals know when there's going to be a third army. No animals die in this third army. They all go up the mountains. Right. Well, humans don't have that sense. Do you know? Yes. Because we've got too much noise in the brain. Mhm. So I think we've got the sense, but we don't use it. Right. If you see what I mean, or don't know how to use it. Right. So I think it's there. And I I I love those sort of things. I'd love to know I think they work with the same centers in the brain as their mystical experience. Mhm. So by learning more about the mystical experience, one can hook on to learn more about anomalous experiences. Mhm. You know, like I know a a Buddhist monk who can shoot electricity. Kind of thing. I mean, strange things which are unexplainable at the moment, but it'd be very interesting to find out.

145:15So, you think that these are probably abilities that we have, but they're stifled by ego. They're stifled by noise. They're stifled by anxiety. They're stifled by Yeah. I think they're they're probably skills that you have to design. I mean, it is a funny thing that animals aren't ever killed by this army. Right. They just have their instinct to go up up out of the way before it happens. But they have some Something some sense. Yeah. of I think things like telepathy happen with two things, passion, love, love, passion, I connection and threat. the um tendency, the the the sense of more likely to sense it if it's like that. Mhm. I mean, that's why I had passion for Buddy and it was when he was in danger on several occasions. I found him when his wings were trapped. Mhm. Do you see what I mean? Right. Like you sensed it. Yeah. You had this connection with him.

146:30Yeah. And I've had it with humans, too. But it's usually a threat Mhm. to life. A kind of adrenal threat, which obviously sends a a message. Yeah. If you're there ready to receive it. One of the things about ayahuasca was when they were first recognizing it, they they tried to call one of the compounds of it telepathine. Yes. Yeah. But then they realized that it had already been named. It was already harmine. Right. Yeah. Right. We did the first I did the first research with harmine, which I won't call Jordi Riba, who's a wonderful Spanish scientist on harmine and um on um neurogenesis. We showed that it increased neurogenesis. As does psilocybin, right? Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, we're going to find out so much. Mhm. And he committed suicide Oh. which is a tragedy cuz he was a great scientist. But yeah, there's so much to understand. And I think we're at such a incredibly

147:46interesting sphere of investigation. Yes. Because these things are all on the on the cusp of where we are and where we can go to in the future. Yeah. And think that's why it's so wonderful that someone like you is out here with this passion for it, doing this research. wonderful that you're also spreading information about these things to people cuz when it has to get out there that people are actually interested. And then in a nice way. But you know, to change it's it's it's really needs to be changed. It does. And because I I do think I mean, I think the use of cannabis and psychedelics can enhance one's relationship with one's partner. One can can help see the other viewpoint. It helps kind of get over difficult periods. Yes. I think it can do that with warring countries. Yes. I think you know, empathy increases empathy. It increases the possibility we know from

148:58research we've done and other people have done, too, that the amygdala is lowered, particularly with MDMA, that the fear. So you can approach things which are fearful, like trauma, better. I mean, there's so many different pathways that these compounds can help enable humanity to get to their healthier, nobler, more creative expressions of themselves. I mean, the number of people I know, and I bet you know many more, who said it changed their lives, their experience. Changed mine. Yeah, and mine. And mine. I mean, I don't think I I know I couldn't have done what I've done without what I got from these compounds giving me that extra energy and understanding. And And that's what I think should be there. I I passionately think psychedelics are a gift of the gods, in inverted commas. It's It's a It's a natural gift. It shouldn't be expensive. We must

150:12keep it so it's affordable Yes. to the poorest in the rest of the world. And And it shouldn't be difficult to do. nothing. I started I've twice started a legal um Beckley Labs to make top-level um compounds. Which I'd But both times something happened. I never had the money to have a legal So, I never had a legal agreement. So, actually, the person who was did the dirty on me when it just got going. So, it never happened, but I wanted to happen. Cuz the purpose would to keep it low price. Do you know? Yes. I mean, people have to make money getting a a compound through phase three cost hundreds of millions. So, as governments aren't paying, one very lucky to have people who invest money to do it. Yeah. But then one wants to try to make sure that the investment doesn't stop other people being able to have benefit Right. So they don't have monopoly over

151:23it. Yes. They can raise the price. how we work out how you do the research, get it done, and the whole thing is maintained in a ethical sort of way. So it's not going to be a sport of the rich people only. Right. It's going to be democratized. And that's to the benefit of the rich people as well. And the benefit And the rich people are the ones who hopefully are those who take the risk of as the governments don't do it, of putting their money in to make the studies happen. Yes. But really governments should be encouraging. I mean, to give the British government, they did fund uh depression studies second time round to give them their due. And I and I know that now it is it's now funded. But I mean, it's a pittance. One's needing a lot of money to allow I mean, I do studies. I do them fantastically cheap. I think since I started at Bethlem 25 years ago, I think

152:34giving my It's been with her 20 years. I think she said it's I've had about I the Bethlem has had about 5 1/2 million pounds in total. So For 25 years, that's amazing. Yeah. And I've done a lot of the breakthrough research. But I'm now the age I am, and you know, I can't go on forever working 15 hours a day. Right. And I would like to be able to do what I can do now, which is a lot, cuz I know the compounds so well. I know well their strengths, where to use them. Do you know? Yeah. And it's such fun doing. Yes. It's like playing golf. Yeah. One loves playing, yeah. Yeah. And it's a much more interesting game, because then maybe one can help um deal with Alzheimer's. Maybe one can help deal with with there's all these conditions, which I think these compounds can help. Just elevate humanity in general. Yeah, exactly. And not only for treating

153:29people, but elevation. I think that's absolutely as important. And that's why it has to not have to be only be a medicine. It's a medicine, which is essential, but it's also an elixir. Yeah. To make the human animal the upright talking ape a bit less of an Yes. Yes, I think that's a great way to wrap this up. Thank you very much. I really really appreciate you being here, and I really appreciate everything you've done. You it means uh so much to just to to the whole world. Well, thank you very much for asking me. Um if someone wants to learn more about your research, where should they go? Well, um to the Beckley Foundation, but I have we have, you know, we're a tiny organization, so we can never I mean, I hardly ever look at the website, and do you see what I mean? Yes. Um I what I would they can help because I can do a lot of wonderful research.

154:27I've got a very good tiny team, but I want to do more research and make things happen. So, you want people to contribute. So, there's a donate button. If you go to the beckleyfoundation.org, in the upper right-hand corner, there's a donation button. You can support psychedelic research. You can donate from anywhere in the world. UK tax-deductible donations, US tax-deductible donations. Donate via bank transfer, cryptocurrency, Apple Pay. Amazing. seen it, but well done. it's really comprehensive. But but it'd be lovely if it starts to work, because it particularly difficult now that it business, cuz people think, "Why put money in a bottomless well, when one could put it in a well which can sprout?" Yes. But I think there's an advantage in um philanthropy, cuz one's not guided by profit at all, and rather guided by the knowledge we can get. And I said,

155:23and then that can become profitable. Yes. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. And thank you for asking me. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. Bye everybody.