hello hello everyone welcome to the double blind magic hour where we cover what’s going on in the world of psychedelics from Insider baseball drama within the rapidly unfolding psychedelic movement to the latest news on Research politics and beyond for those of you who don’t know me I’m co-founder of double blind a print magazine covering psychedelics and today we’re joined by our senior editor and a fantastic journalist who has been covering cannabis and psychedelics for a long long time I’m Mary carry on hey Mary hi Shelby how are you thank you for having [Music]

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order I’m really excited to have this conversation and to dive deeply into some of the really interesting stories that you have been reporting and editing for double blank lately thank you yeah I’m excited to talk about it let’s get into it so before we talk about these stories can you just tell people who you are what’s your story I feel like it’s a very unique trajectory to be a journalist that’s covering specifically cannabis and psychedelics there aren’t many of us out there so how did you come to be here yeah thank you um it is kind of a funky trajectory it’s not your typical uh you know University pathway necessarily um I got started I guess technically I got started back in 2011 that was when I got my first internship at OC Weekly eventually years later that morphed into a staff writing job at OC Weekly but even when I got that job in 2016 I was so green and also pun intended yeah I mean for sure pun ined because so green I love riding and I love smoking weed I was so green and so I like got hired because I was so green I’m saying like I had an interview with my editor and I went to I went to the wrong place there were two locations of this Cafe that I was supposed to meet uh my editor at the time who was not my editor you know obviously at the time he was a person I was interviewing with and uh he told me to meet him at a specific Cafe in uh Costa Mesa but there were two but like across town and uh well I went to the one in Costa Mesa and he was on the one in the outskirts near Santa Ana I floored it over there like going 120 miles an hour I swear to God like ran over to him out of breath and was like trying to be composed and was like hi how’s it going you know like I’m marry I’m so sorry for being late uh I sat down with him and we were talking and then he asked me what I could write about and I had I didn’t know I was like oh my God I don’t even know what I can write about and what came out of my mouth was weed and at that moment I was like I cannot believe I just said that like I have ruined this entire interview like I’ve ruined everything I can’t believe I just said that I felt like I showed my cards way too hard way too early but ultimately writing about cannabis and saying that in that moment is kind of what got me the job because they nobody else had mentioned any everybody else interviewing for that role nobody else inter like they didn’t talk about cannabis they that was not something that they had even mentioned however cannabis in Orange County at the time was something that was about to pop off they had already had um the dispensary lotteries which was a source of major drama at the time you know like stuff with mayor pedo at the time he was taking bribes allegedly and there were lots of lots of Juicy topics to be covered and they didn’t have anybody who was dedicated to that to that beat and that was your dedicated beat was weed in 2011 no that was like in 2016 once I yeah once I got the staff job that’s like when I yeah post internship so they had kind of already knew me but I didn’t know this editor at the time like I just didn’t know him from the previous internship but yeah in 2016 that’s when I started reporting on cannabis and that’s what ultimately got me the job at OC Weekly and I of course had to write about other things as a staff writer I ended up also writing about music very frequently I was a constant contributor to the music section at OC Weekly and also uh I also wrote about the environment and I covered like local water politics got deep into local water politics which is like you know trying to uh interact with like the mafia essentially like it is crazy water politics I I know nothing about water politics oh my God it’s fascinating it’s it’s purposefully complex and complicated and designed for people to not really understand but when you find a source who does know what’s going on and they kind of inform you and tell you what the hell is going on it is Illuminating just how sus and sketchy everybody is who’s actually involved in these decision-making like ideas and Concepts and everything uh around the water that moves in and out of our cities and counties yeah 2016 that was very early to be writing about weed um I got my first gig writing about weed we right before it became legal for adult use which was is that 2018 2018 yes 2018 I remember so it’s so funny that you like you met with this editor and he’s like what do you want to write about you said weed because I was actually in the oppos I was I my story is the opposite where I I’ve been smoking weed since I was 15 years old at Music Camp when you know I was in a bathroom and some kids were like want to smoke weed and I was like I love sure I’ll give it a try I love it uh 10 minutes later I’m high out of my mind acting a fool laughing hysterically I’m sure right but I I didn’t want to write about weed I like you I wanted to write about music I wanted to write about art I wanted to write about politics and you know an editor uh Drew tberry who actually writes for double blind now an amazing art writer he was he was an editor at the time at La weekly he had reached out to me asked me if I would write about cannabis and I was like no I don’t want to write about we like I don’t want to just be inter I this is feels so embarrassing to say but at the time I thought it just shows like how I was even you know even though I was someone that was smoking weed the the stigma was seeped into my own perception too of the culture where I was like I don’t want to be interviewing Stoners all day like that sounds so boring totally but then he followed up again um the night of the presidential election and he said we really need someone to go and cover this event where it was a prop 64 event where they were going to be watching the votes come in like oh you were and I was like I was like I was like all right I need work I’ll go and I went and I was like oh it’s not a room full of Stoners it’s a room full of politians lawyers politi totally every single and that’s where we are in psychedelic now right where totally we’re starting to see that every single job that exists outside of psychedelics is starting to exist within psychedelics because we need publicists we need lawyers we need activists we need absolutely journalists all the people that exist in other Industries need to exist within psychedelics too in order to legitimize it as a movement and as an industry that’s been the most fascinating part and the most Pleasant actually part of reporting on starting with cannabis and then from Cannabis kind of shifting into psychedelics which was a very natural shift of events um they you know it was like reporting on one story about veterans in cannabis that I realized that many of these veterans were also eating mushrooms as well and I was like oh got it okay cool but like in this in reporting about these about these plants about fungi about everything I realized so quickly that all of this touches so many other areas of life you know like reporting on cannabis is in turn reporting about politics it’s reporting on science it’s reporting on health care it’s reporting on the war it’s reporting on the drug war it’s reporting on Veterans it’s reporting on senior citizens you know it’s reporting on everything and same with psychedelics it’s the same exact thing and I love being able to use these these substances as a lens to look at our society and also see the injustices that come along with with all of these things which is so that it’s still that way but here we are and that’s why we do what we do I suppose yeah 100% I mean my my story is the same I was writing about cannabis um I was telling some interesting stories I was enjoying it but really that aha moment of this is what I want my beat to be was when I went to a drug policy reform conference I think it was the drug policy alliances conference in Atlanta Georgia and I realized if I talk about drugs I get to talk about everything like I wanted to talk about all the most precient issues in our society and which is why I couldn’t pick a beat right A Beat is for those of you who don’t know it’s the topic that journal if a journalist decides to be sort of an expert in one particular topic and focus on that topic and so I was like oh drugs drugs are my beat and guess what that makes sense because I’ve been smoking weed since I was 15 years old um anyway I’m really excited to get into some of the stories that you’ve been reporting and editing for us lately but but before we do that we’re going to take a quick

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listening so for those of you who don’t know double blind began as a print magazine and it’s still at the heart of what we do I spent my whole career as a journalist before starting double black reporting on psychedelics cannabis and drug policy more broadly for Rolling Stone Vice La weekly courts I did just about everything in journalism I worked at CBS News covering breaking news a major newspaper small media startups and if you haven’t heard journalism is in crisis but we started double blind anyway because we believe in the value of good journalism to educate and hold stakeholders accountable we saw what happened in cannabis Pioneers who put their lives on the line to get patients access access to the medicine they needed getting left behind because they didn’t have the capital to compete in the newly regulated market we’ve seen what’s happened in mental healthare and Healthcare more broadly whereby millions of people are suffering don’t trust their doctors can’t afford proper care and just don’t know what to do to get well in our print magazine we feature essays investigations photojournalism and much more by worldclass journalists who are going everywhere from the iasa tourism industry in Peru to Laboratories at leading universities we’re supporting people like you on their Journey with psychedelics and we’re covering this movement as it unfolds this is all made possible by our members who in exchange for their support get direct access to psychedelic experts to help them on their journeys of healing and growth workshops and a subscription to our beautiful print magazine subscribe today at doubleblind mag.com

membership so first up we’re going to talk about a very juicy story that you wrote for our 10th issue on how psychedelics can fuel right-wing extremism and conspiracy theories and I feel like this is such an interesting and important story I don’t think we’ve ever actually published a story that riled people up more than this one which we kind of knew was going to happen like you were a little scared to put it on social media because I know yeah so just for some context a lot of times people think at double blind that we’re a pro psychedelics organization but actually we identify as a journalistic outlet first and foremost which means that we cover The Good the Bad and the Ugly of the Psychedelic industry we’re not just here to tell everyone to do psychedelics and that if they do psychedelics their lives are going to transform for the better and the planet is going to be saved and all of Humanity’s problems are going to go away because we really don’t think that it’s that simple um so Mary why don’t you you tell us a little bit more about just the premise of this story it’s it’s endlessly fascinating to me from like a case study perspective from a journalistic perspective from a reporting perspective and essentially the piece uh starts off with the premise being that it’s a common misconception about psychedelics that they kind of bestow people with a liberal or Progressive politics an ideology and the story ultimately kind of proves that like no that’s not exactly the case ultimately you know psychedelics are a non-specific amplifier so they’re going to said absolutely and so therefore they’re going to kind of amplify either what is already going on inside of you it’s going to amplify whatever content you are taking in it’s going to amplify the influences that you are experiencing who you surround yourself with Etc and when you’re in a ceremony space often times whatever is being said whatever lessons are being taught whatever your the people who are in ceremony with you your like co- ceremony Partners whatever they are talking about whatever ideas they are sharing are going to kind of enter into your psyche in a very deep way and can deeply influence you on a an intense level and that could be anything it’s not just right-wing ideology of course it’s not just conspiracy theories it could be anything it could be caring about the planet it could be music it could be light it could be love and [ __ ] light could be it could be it could be the live laugh love you know it could be anything it could be whatever and any slogan you see on a bad art at Marshalls yeah exactly and um the Psychedelic ceremony World unfortunately was just particularly rocked hard by conspiracy theories like Q andon or Q andon adjacent conspiracy theories like pizzagate and Hillary’s emails and everything like even even before the pandemic it was already kind of this way but the pandemic obviously set it on fire it created this idea of planemic and you know I don’t know I I like it’s it’s difficult to say I don’t have all the answers to everything I’m just reporting on the situations and things that I saw and that were very common that other people were experiencing too like look maybe it it is all planned who [ __ ] knows but also at the same time we don’t have any proof of that one way or the other we just know how it impacted people’s lives their relationships and how ostracized many of these people became and that’s scary um so one of the largest medicine circles in Southern California experienced a dramatic falling out leaving many people feeling very disillusioned by the people and culture they thought they knew because there was a massive divide as we all experienced in one way or the other but in a ceremony Circle the reason why that’s extra intense is because there are medicines involved that take you to a much deeper crazier place and the relationships that you build with people when you go on these massive Journeys are intimate relationships and you know how it is when something like an ideological difference comes between you and somebody else it makes you see them completely differently so you know that’s ultimately the basis of this story um and yeah The Story Goes very deep into just kind of the history the long sorted history uh between psychedelic use and conspiracy theories and right-wing ideology and basically there is a like a slide essentially like you start at the top of the slide taking the Psychedelic and then you kind of go down the slide into a conspiracy theory and if you go even deeper it can often end up into some area of politics whether that’s right whether that’s left whether that’s completely off of the political spectrum of what we’re used to but often times there is a political agenda attached to many of these conspiracy theories and that is impossible to ignore yeah it is this is such an intense topic and it’s also a really personal one for me yeah um you know all of us for all of us right being being a journalist that writes about these things but also being someone that takes psychedelics that sits in IA ceremonies and you know one of the one of the catalysts for um the illumination of the ideological divides within iasa circles was masking and testing right because a lot of people that thought that covid was not real the plandemic people that thought that it was a conspiracy for big Pharma to make money or you know to control us through vaccinations um did not want wanted to just keep doing business as usual they wanted for people to keep sitting in iasa ceremonies 12 15 20 sometimes more people 30 people Plus in an enclosed environment where you’re vomiting often times and you’re coughing and you’re laughing and you’re crying I mean let’s just be honest iasa ceremonies bodly fluids are everywhere and and and so there were people that wanted to just keep doing business as usual and there were other people that were calling for masking at ceremonies testing before ceremonies putting a pause on ceremony alog together um I thought it was just so interesting when we put this story out on Instagram um because we really saw how this divide this ideological divide lives within the doubleblind community and lives within the internet more broadly so we had people like our friend in content Creator Emily Eagen who does a lot of videos on psychedelics on YouTube um we had her um supporting us saying thank you for this conversation such an important convo DB solidarity with disabled and imuno compromised folks is a t is tangibly lacking in so much of community is what she said and someone else said something similar they said psychedelics are a non-specific amplifier kind of what you’re talking about period whether they create anything else from world peace or Indulgence in iracy is up to the person and how they integrate it their meeting of the phenomenology revealed and what they choose to do with it consciously or not but then we had a ton of people on the other side of the the Spectrum defending their antiox perspectives and saying covid was not real a plan to make money George Floyd’s death was a conspiracy theory even talking about things like how we’ve all been lied to about UFOs so CH got pretty crazy on our Instagram page and we had people saying things we had one person that said um and this is exactly why the pandemic was so important to the powers that be it was a way to disrupt these types of organizations I’m assuming they mean double blind from within brother against brother sister against sister it’s brilliant but Sinister um a lot of people called the article trash they said they lost faith in double blind they said they were unfollowing us so I also want to name that um we had more comments on this story than we had far more comments on this story than we had people who actually read the story so that also speaks to a systemic issue in the world today whereby people are reading headlines they’re trolling media companies on social media and they’re never actually reading the story yes absolutely um you know I my DMs went off that day that it went live on double BL they did oh they went off they went off I was did anyone get mad at you oh yes I mean that’s like many people who commented on the double blind uh Instagram post also came into my DMs to tell me that I am that I need to get out of my default mode Network and that I need to take more psychedelics I need to do many things including uh a few very uh harsh things I mean I don’t know I didn’t really take them offensively because you know like one of the one of the uh messages was for me to go back to the country I’m from but like I’m from the United States I’m from Southern California you know okay I’ll go back to Orange County I guess but you know I’m not you know I’ll go back to orang County the land 30 minutes land of Republicans the Republican Haven amid ex exactly I’m like you realized a liberal uh yeah I’m like you realize you’re asking me to go back to the place where there are a bunch of you here like okay okay so I will say though that I had a journalism Mentor at Colombia named Nick lemon longtime reporter and editor at the New Yorker who often said to us this is not the definitive story and he would always say that to us to remind us that there is no way that one story or even a book or even a series of books can ever Encompass every angle every perspective every quote that being said I will say that there was some feedback that we received from readers and we do appreciate critical feedback because a we’re not a we’re not perfect Absolut B uh you know in transparency you know we’re not I mean in case you didn’t know this we’re not the New York Times so we don’t have luxury of spending you know a year on something and sending Mary into the field to sit with in iasa ceremonies and interview 500 academics I mean she did a fantastic job with what we were able to give her um and the space that she had in the magazine but um one of the pieces of of criticism we got was why are you tying conspiracy theories and specifically conspiracy theories in the Psychedelic Community to right-wing extremism when we see conspiracy theories on the left too and so I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on that was that um we call it a hole sometimes in reporting was that a hole that you sort of identified as you were writing or you just thought it was kind of beyond the scope of the story well it’s interesting because I understand and I recognize that the there are conspiracy theories on the left you know and I know that the right most of most of the uh more right-leaning conspiracies tend to be about the chaos that the left is causing so and and you know there is some element of Truth there is some rice grain of Truth to many conspiracies they start somewhere there is something and it you know there you know there is an Inception point there is a a conception Point even um I would say that in my reporting it was specifically about what was happening in the pandemic specifically in the iasa ceremony world and in that world specifically that I was reporting on it wasn’t necessarily left leaning conspiracies that were rampant through that space and as a journalist you know focusing on one element instead of focusing on six or seven elements which I still had to do you know in that story you know I still had to focus on how the conspiracy theories also kind of meander and everything and how these ideas Meander into many other areas including politics including history including video games including many other areas you know qinon uh the Insurrection you know like it this issue touched many different parts of society as you know kind of what we were talking about earlier you know this isn’t just this story wasn’t just about conspiracies it was about many other things that conspiracies also sort of bled into specifically during the pandemic specifically originating in the iasa ceremony world and in that world again it wasn’t it wasn’t the left uh conspiracy it wasn’t left conspiracies I guess and that’s kind of why that wasn’t really a focus in this piece however that said I am fully aware that there are equally if not more insane people on the left as well you know when we talk about liberals and we talk about conservatives and we talk about the right and the left and all of that uh it’s this it like you know everybody’s existing on the same Spectrum on opposite ends of that spectrum and at varying degrees on that spectrum and both of which are equally insane if you are giving all of your power over to politics and you are giving all of your power over to the powers that be like you are already lost you are already in the greatest conspiracy theory of all time you know and you know at the same time when we look at the things that went down in 2020 I don’t know if I like I just don’t know you know when you look at the Insurrection for instance I don’t know if necessarily that was the left of course of course when you talk to people who are Republican or right or whatever on that side of the political

spectrum they would probably say that it was antifa you know that’s just how it goes and there’s no way to ever convince anybody of you know my of what I’m trying to do or what you know whatever there’s no way to convince anybody yeah right yeah I

mean yeah it’s it’s so tricky because I think as journalists what we really want to do at least what I aim to do based on sort of the gold standards of Journalism um dating back to you know the 19th century when the newspapers first became a thing um is that we don’t want to reinforce ideological Echo Chambers but we really want to encourage people to question their own perspectives and to engage and what we at double blind refer to is compassionate critical discourse and so it’s challenging because sometimes it feels like no matter what you do you’re just going to be preaching to the choir like everyone is is reading through a lens of cognitive bias and they want what they already believe to be reaffirmed by by the media that they’re reading and that’s not really not our job at double blind is to make people happy or to tell them that we agree with them it’s to report on a variety of perspectives and a variety of things that are unfolding within the Psychedelic movement some of which are really tricky some of which are really nuanced um you know like for ex I think one I think one of the trickiest things about this story that we haven’t talked about yet but that we should talk about is H how do we I mean this is really more of an existential question than a journalistic one but how do we know what truth is it’s a journalistic question and it’s an existential one because absolutely because one of the qual so in a lot of the research that’s investigating the therapeutic potential of psychedelics at John Hopkins and Yale and NYU etc etc um I know you know this Mary but for our listeners who don’t um they oftentimes after a person has a psychedelic experience they give them something called the mystical experience questionnaire which is a a survey that was created uh for people actually having mystical or Divine experiences not occasioned by psychedelics I think it was created by a theologian but don’t quote me on it before the Psychedelic Renaissance and basically what it does is it assesses the degree to which someone had a mystical experience which can happen on a psychedelic can also happen through fasting through prayer through chanting through a variety of different modalities that have nothing to do with putting a substance into your body and one of the one of the things that defines a mystical experience is the noetic quality the noetic quality being when you experience something you in your core fundamentally universally think that it’s true and you’re not going did I see God you’re going oh goodness there’s God I see I see him them her whatever your preferred pronoun is for a Divine entity but um and so and sometimes people oftentimes actually when they’re on a psychedelic they have noetic Revelations about their life that people who the status quo would deem to be um it’s just so tricky with the languaging here but people who the status quo would deem to be sort of healthy and grounded again I get I’m like I don’t words to use hard talk about let’s call it let’s call it a um you know your friends and family who you trust um a a therapist who you’ve worked with for a long time who is been is is a sort of generally considered to have integrity um that all of these people would would listen to you say this is the Revelation I had and they would go that’s a great Revelation for example I’ve been smoking I think we most people can get behind this one I’ve been drinking a bottle of wine every night for three years and I haven’t been able to stop even though I’ve known that it’s it’s hurting my sleep it’s hurting my digestive system it’s it’s affecting the relationships I have with people who I love and when I was on mushrooms what the mushrooms told me is that I don’t spend enough time caring for myself so at the end of the day I feel like I need to drink a bottle of wine to relax and now I know that that’s what the root of my alcohol dependence is and so I’m going to sleep more I’m going to drink more water I’m G to exercise in the middle of the day most people are not going to go that’s a harmful Revelation right right absolutely and then there’s Stu all the way on the other end of the spectrum whereby someone has a revelation that’s encouraging them to behave in ways that um are often considered kind of red flags when for someone having joined a cult right and sort of there there are some like criteria that academics agree upon that this th these are these are the criteria that distinguishes this group of people or this ideology from being just a community versus a cult and one of those things is neglecting yourself and your basic needs so you’re no longer sleeping eating drinking water the way you should another is that you are um cutting ties with people who have been in your life for a long time who love you so like your parents and your best friend and maybe your partner because suddenly none of them understand you anymore or none of them know the truth and you do right and then there’s a lot in the middle and that’s where things get really tricky know that there are things that um we should all be critical about that perhaps are considered um like for example we know that that Western doctors doctors within the Western Medical Paradigm overprescribe antibiotics we know that it’s not great to take antibiotics unless you know unless you absolutely have to take antibiotics because in addition to wiping out the bad stuff it wipes out the good stuff and that’s not so great for your microbiome and you can build up resistance term right so how do we sort of when we’re doing psychedelics and just more broadly questioning um critically our ideologies how do we how do we do that where what where where does truth lie how do we what is the barometer for reasonability and when you add psychedelics to the mix and people are are having these moments where they’re like I am so deeply sure of my truth even if no one else agrees with me what are you supposed to say nothing like nothing I don’t know like and that’s also why I wrote this story too because it’s it was a way for me to also explore this fundamental issue of what is truth you know because everybody at the end of the day is also looking for this right way you know there everybody’s looking for the correct path to walk down and maybe everybody’s truth is different multiple truths can exist also at the same time I think that in terms of like personal safety for your mental health and there are there is something to be said about the impact of some of these conspiracy theories on people’s mental health and how that is starting to impact your relationships with other people how that is impacting the way that you are caring for yourself how that is impacting the types of content that you are consuming and how that is making you feel everything all of that needs to be taken into consideration if you have a revelation feel that something is your truth there needs to be time sat with that I think as a way to care for yourself and to ensure that what you’re feeling is real because sometimes something can feel so real and then two months later you look back on it and you’re like I don’t really care anymore or like oh I don’t I don’t really want appreciate you yeah I really appreciate you bringing that up because that’s sort of tripping 101 right and we’ll get into more of our trip tips later in the later in the episode but tripping 101 what sort of the gold standard is that the industry psychedelic movement agrees on from underground facilitators all the way to therapists and principal investigators that are working at universities is integration is the name of the game integration being that period of time following a psychedelic experience where you are processing what happen for you and you are integrating the lessons of the experience into your life and so you know they basically say unless you realize that um you know something that is happening in your life is acutely harmful like you’re in an abusive relationship and you need to get out of it right away um don’t make any big decisions right after a psychedelic experience and certainly not during it’s like don’t call Mom don’t call your ex just s chill just chill take care of yourself EX some water have some water and chill have some water no one’s going to tell you having some water is a bad idea or going to the beach or just like you know chilling on that or writing it down writing it down on paper however you need to process it start processing it you know and I think also what is another practice that isn’t really talked about too much but something that at least helps for me when I’ve Done big Journeys and I feel either unsettled afterwards or I feel very confused about a situation that I had previously gone through or maybe my role in a situation that made something worse or made a relationship go sour or something you know like different different viewpoints can often come come to you during a psychedelic experience about different situations that you’ve gone through in the past and it kind of makes you see things a little bit differently which can be super confusing but also if other things come to you like about I don’t know the mainstream Media or whatever it possibly you know whatever triggering crazy ideas or whatever comes to you it’s important to also talk to people with differing opinions than yourself to try and get to that truth like you know if you feel one way about vaccines if you feel one way about masking if you feel one way about the planemic if you feel certain ways about I don’t know whatever else it could possibly be that was going on during the pandemic talking to people who have differing opinions than yours is going to help you kind of move closer to to the truth a little bit because there’s always something to be taken from the other side no matter what and it’s hard to talk to people with differing opinions especially today because on social media where many of us spend our time we are in Echo chambers that only reinforce the things that we already believe and it makes us feel good which is part of the whole addicting quality of social media however what the hell we’re not expanding our minds we don’t need like we don’t need psychedelics to expand our minds necessarily but we can expand our mind by talking to other people by interacting in person or over the phone or on FaceTime talking to other people our friends family members whatever who have differing opinions so that we can learn and that has been something that I have been endlessly trying to do literally since the pandemic trying to understand like what the [ __ ] is going on excuse my language but truly like you know there was no way that even me as a naturally extremely critical individual wasn’t also feeling like WTF like WTF tattooed on my forehead you know like that’s how I felt and many of us felt that way and my journey with psychedelics has also been accompanied by talking to people who have differing opinions in mine so I can at least understand try to understand begin amen amen and I just want to kind of wrap this topic up too by saying um we are not trying to diminish or minimize anybody’s perspectives and you know I I might get in trouble for saying this but I’ll say that um I really do try to put myself in everybody’s shoes I know the vaccine stuff is really uh touchy um but I’m not um you know I understand like I understand why people were skeptical of the vaccine it’s hard not to be because it was because it was rushed through the FDA and the FDA does have a history of approving things that in retrospect they shouldn’t have approved meanwhile psilocybin cannabis and other substances that we know have therapeutic and medicinal potential are still on schedule one of the Controlled Substances Act with no medical use and a high potential for abuse so I’m I understand and and we really are here to have critical conversations critical comp passionate conversations with everybody that is at the heart of why we’re doing what we’re doing with that said we have a couple more stories coming up in a moment I’m looking forward to getting into those with you but first we’re going to take a quick

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checkout okay so next up a study was published in nature scientific report reports recently and it found that psychedelics like mushrooms and LSD May improve sexual function the findings are mostly based on a survey of 261 participants before and after taking psychedelics and researchers from Imperial College London’s Center for psychedelic research combined those responses with results of a separate clinical trial that compared psilocybin and a commonly prescribed SSRI for depression the authors say it’s the first study to explore the effects of psychedelics on sexual functioning and the authors found that respondents typically experienced Improvement in sexual function for as long as 6 months after a psychedelic experience including enjoyment of sex sexual arousal satisfaction with sex attraction to their Partners their own physical appearance communication and their sense of connection and interestingly there were also significant changes in people seeing sex as a spiritual or sacred experience so we recently published a story on this Mary you edited it uh what do you have to say about about this I would like to shout out marijuana moment because this is a story where it originated from shout out to Kyle joerger everybody over there shout out to y’all um I actually have many thoughts about this one is that an important facet of this study and what the researchers noted is the fact that the study was not looking at people on psychedelics having sex like at the same time it looked at the effects after a psychedelic experience on people’s sex lives so a week after they had their Journey that that was the point in which uh the researchers were looking at how their sex people’s sex lives were affected so understand that perhaps uh consent can be an issue on psychedelics when you are going to have sex you know yeah absolutely consent is an issue there and also I don’t think that would be an e ethical like study model so there’s that so I just want to put that forward for everybody to understand that like if you are trying to improve your sex life perhaps waiting till after the journey is done then you can start kind of trying to manage or replicate um any of these things or seeing if psychedelics impact your sex life in that way for you you know moving forward but another aspect of this study that I also found interesting is just the fact that this isn’t really a topic that is studied too much in the media um or in the scientific literature and reported on in the media oftentimes all of this information just kind of is overlooked and that’s why double blind is awesome because double blind is one of the only places that does report on it and also again shout out to maramana a moment also reporting this and yeah there are there are many aspects of this study that I found interesting also just um that like depression like anxiety it’s afterwards it’s a it’s the after effects of the Psychedelic and also one of the main reasons why people’s sex lives were improved is because of a reduction of anxiety long term is because of the reduction of depressive symptoms long term as well so all of these things as we know do impact our sex lives they can impact our ability to connect deeply with other people and when you take mushrooms or you take a psychedelic of times those are the things that can start being healed or being treated in in our mental health that impacts our ability to connect with others so I love that and I think that there’s a lot of healing benefits that do come with consuming the correct dose of mushrooms and the correct dose of LSD and obviously in the right set setting and everything and yeah connection is everything and that’s one of the best things about psychedelics is that they are the ultimate connectors so you know also be careful be careful with that you know be careful with how you are using these things to connect and yeah I I like this study I think it’s really great that people are looking looking at this stuff and um I can’t wait to see how this study progresses forward and how further studies uh build on this yeah I mean so firstly I think it’s interesting and also kind of funny that the lead author I wrote down the quote here because I thought it was funny he said quote we found a relationship between increased sexual functioning and overall well-being I’m like I mean sometimes scientists sometimes scientists just say things that are so inherently obvious I’m like we don’t need a survey we don’t need a clinical trial to know that if you have a better sex life you’re going to be happier and healthier um but I do think this point about the Psychedelic isn’t necessarily directly treating the sexual functioning but what it’s doing is it’s treating underlying mental health conditions that cause people to have difficulty um connecting sexually with themselves and others is important because I remember um it was in 2019 that double blind actually launched at the World iasa Conference in jerona Spain and I I ran into Rick doblin there who is the founder of of maps for folks who don’t know the multidisiplinary association for psychedelic studies is one of the primary organizations that has been researching psychedelics they’ve placed a big emphasis on MDMA and getting MDMA approved for post-traumatic stress disorder and I approached him at the conference and I said you know well what about iasa because here we are we’re at the World iasa Conference and I said how would someone why would someone do iasa versus psilocybin versus ketamine when all of these substances are showing promise for many of the same conditions substance dependence depression anxiety also how is it that like one substance mushrooms LSD ketamine can treat so many different conditions right because that’s not typical that we see that sometimes a drug is approved for one thing and then it’s prescribed off label for something else but we don’t often see one drug treats 12 different conditions or an infinite number of conditions and you know basically he what he said to me and what I’ve heard a lot of other people say in the Psychedelic Community is it’s because mental health diagnosis as we understand them in the DSM which is the kind of the manual that psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose people with conditions like anxiety depression and Etc are kind of arbitrary like actually what’s happening on a deeper level is some kind of internal distress that’s manifesting as symptoms that we saying ah well you have depression you have anxiety you have sexual dysfunction so if we can treat the root cause of the internal distress then it has potentially outward positive impacts on on all the areas of our lives and of course human beings most of them I don’t want to diminish that there are some people who are asexual and they don’t have a desire to connect with people in a sexual way but most human beings sex is a very important part of of living a healthy whole happy life um so that’s that’s something that I that I thought was really interesting something else I wanted to talk about that you had addressed early on was um what was it my brain’s not working you said I remember now you said um you wanted to make sure people understood that this study is about the impact that that a psychedelic Journey has on sex after the journey well I just want to say yes yes yes on consent and we have done if you’re going to combine psychedelics and sex and we’ve done um workshops and seminars and things on psychedelics and sex at double blind because we know it’s something people are interested in and that they want to explore and they’re a lot of places they can get information on it and they’re doing it already um most of the experts we’ve spoken to about this have um pointed to actually sort of like principles from the BDSM Community around consent because the BDSM Community has a lot lot of uh you know amazing sort of principles values processes for making sure that you and your partner or partners are on the same page and that if at any time you’re no longer on the same page that there’s easy ways to communicate that and that those boundaries are respected but I’m not going to say psychedelics while having sex is a no no for everyone because we know that some people do it and we know that some people benefit from it but what I will say is sex makes you vulnerable psychedelics make you vulnerable soing them probably gonna make you super vulnerable which means you really have to think about who you’re doing it with make sure that you feel 100% safe with them make sure you’re on the same page about what your intentions are and intentions are important always but especially when you’re thinking about doing psychedelics for the purposes of improving your intimacy with another person whether that’s sexual emotional psychological or all of the above because often times what we find out when we’re on a psychedelic is that we thought the problem was the other person or we thought the problem was our relationship and our Dynamic with the other person but actually it was just something that needed to be healed Within and especially when it comes and so again we don’t have a lot of clinical data backing this up um this is the first study that we’ve really seen that’s trying to put some kind of science to all of the anecdotal reports about combining using psychedelics for sexual intimacy whether it be during sex or just you know hoping to see benefits afterward but we do know that at least from the anecdotal reports that a lot of people struggle with sex because they have trauma around sex and being touched or they are dealing with some kind of repression that is inherited from our culture right like specifically in the United States as we call it today another discussion um our culture has our culture is imbued with puritanical roots that have caused a lot of repression specific spefically within folks that identify as women yeah um so there’s a lot happening there psychologically for people around their inability to relax and enjoy sex that psychedelics I’m not going to say can help with or will always help with but may be able to help with in the right set in setting with the right intention I’m going to stop there because I’m rambling Mary no that was good I like it thank you for that sermon I loved it um I agree I I think that like we can’t just sit here obviously and be like don’t have sex on psychedelics you know like that’s insane uh I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I said that but like I won’t ask you more about that please please don’t thank you also I have a very I have a very difficult time actually having sex on drugs that’s like not something that I typically do because of just a lot of people do I have a hard time I’m just like where do I put my hands like it’s confusing for me I’d rather be like out are these my hands I’m like where do I put my feet where’s is my hair where’s my hair what’s happening yeah I’m just exactly like I’m just like confused I’m like are my teeth in my mouth I’m just kidding like I have no idea so it’s you know but like at the same time it’s you try everything once you know what I’m saying but like um yeah I think that people are already doing it and I also think that you made an excellent point about the vdsm community and I think that in general Beyond sex in terms of just relationships in general there is so much that we can take from the Kink communities and we can take from BDSM in terms of like communic the communication boundaries how to set them without being feeling awkward Etc and that you know in heteronormative relationships those types of communication mechanisms don’t exist it’s awkward when you try and Implement them in so yes yes all the way to studying BDSM and understand ing kind of these communication uh strategies that you can Implement in your own relationships and also in your sex life and also if you’re going to be utilizing psychedelics as a way to connect with your partner while tripping you know like having sex while on a drug of any kind actually but I think that that there’s there’s a lot there there’s a lot there for us there’s a lot there for us to learn and so thank you for bringing that up I love that yeah totally and I’m looking forward to getting into this in future hot Goss episode hopefully with journalist and double blind contributor nle Hodes whole thing our whole world is psychedelics and BDSM and kink and that is something that we’ve written about at double blind because we like to you know ruffle a feather every once in a while and we’re not going to just talk about politics and Drug development folks there’s a lot of interesting things happening in psychedelics um there’s so much more to say about that but I want to make sure we have time for our final story of the day um we recently published a story written by reporter Randy Robinson Matthew shout out to Randy I think this is the first story that they reported for us and you knew them previously anyway they did a great job you headlined the story perfectly Matthew Perry’s death proves we don’t know much about ketamine was the name of the story and as a recap for people who don’t know in October Matthew Perry most famous for playing Chandler on the sitcom Friends unfortunately tragically died in his pool and the Los Angeles coroners report concluded that he died from the quote acute effects of ketamine and in the following days nearly every news headline that we saw at double blind about his death focused on ketamine which people may or may not know has shown a lot of promise for treatment resistant depression among other mental health conditions and is being administered in therapeutic context across the United States and the world so we were paying very close attention to how this news was covered and we saw headlines like an an NPR headline that read what is ketamine the drug tied to actor Matthew Perry’s death the Tampa Bay Times ran Matthew Perry died from the effects of ketamine autopsy report says and then the headline at the medical news site Med page asked a medical site if ketamine is so safe what happened to Matthew Perry now we’re not diminishing that what happened to Matthew Perry is tragic I just want to say that again because but this story really isn’t about Matthew Perry what it’s about is what happens when the media perpetuates oversimplified and sometimes inaccurate narratives about drugs especially when they’re big news because they’re tied to the death of a celebrity and everyone is reading the headlines and they’re not reading the stories because we’ve already talked about what is going on with that in our culture um so you edited the story for us Mary and um I’d love it if you could tell us a little bit more about it I know it was a hard one to edit you did a great job it was definitely a difficult story to edit because well first of all I am not a ketamine expert and I just want to put that out there and so you know to help Randy report I had to go find some experts to really make sure that I was filling in filling in the holes here and also utilizing the proper language around ketamine and what potentially a lethal dose of ketamine is which according to experts is still not totally known it’s not known with certainty which is difficult because there are situations out that have happened in our country in the United States where people have died from very high doses of ketamine H it’s complicated it’s hard but it’s not something that has been scientifically proven one way or the other or scientifically agreed upon rather but you know it’s yeah so that so that was difficult because people are assuming that Matthew Perry died specifically from an overdose of ketamine because when people read acute effects of ketamine people are like oh he ODed on ketamine okay great and granted you know he Matthew Matthew Perry was on a very high dose of ketamine one that people are assuming that he he reached that high dose of ketamine through oral supplements of ketamine um whether that’s through a lozenge or whether that’s through a pill kind of thing that he potentially received from a tella Health provider which there are many you know there are they are controversial double blind I believe has also written about that yeah it’s a whole separate conversation about these these tella Health companies that are mailing people ketamine lozenges and whether that is or is not safe and yeah you know a lot of experts were saying that they were you know if if mat if Matthew Perry was assessed properly people probably wouldn’t have sent him home with ketamine AKA a tella Health provider maybe not sending him a a lot of ketamine essentially um but it’s also unclear as to whether or not he actually received that telea Health Medicine and was consuming it orally yeah he could have just bought it on the black market I shouldn’t say black market because that’s not really the appropriate term these days but on the street yeah totally I mean he could have uh is it in insation he could have put it in his nose you know it’s it’s unclear they did find they did find ketamine like traces of ketamine in his digestive tract which is what leads people to believe that he was consuming a lozen or an oral form of ketamine however again still unclear but he had a lot of ketamine in his blood at the time that that the toxicology report was taken I don’t have the exact figure in front of me but it’s like it’s it’s high it’s it’s very high um it’s in the thousands of nanograms but it’s very difficult to look at the nanogram measurement of the amount of ketamine that was in his blood versus what experts are um hypothesizing is a lethal dose of ketamine so because it they are measuring it in milligrams and the coroner’s report measures his ketamine amount the amount of ketamine in his blood in nanograms and there is not a clean um conversion there I tried I was trying to do the conversion but it doesn’t match up the math isn’t mathing and I don’t think that I’m the right mathematician to be putting this together also I suck at math but I was I was you know utilizing all the tools that I possibly had to try and figure that out but realized that it was uh Way Beyond the scope of my abilities and also one of the experts that we spoke to for the story said that it’s a very complicated conversion formula so yeah so so the jury is still out on what a uh lethal dose of ketamine is however like Shelby was currently or saying prior to this was that usually when a celebrity passes away or some big big well-known individual passes away from drugs or drug are just involved in their death that’s what the focus is and for Matthew Perry specifically it wasn’t necessarily the ketamine that put him under many of the or that you know that that took him out essentially many of the experts were saying that had he not been in a Jacuzzi had he not been in a body of water there is a chance that Matthew Perry would still be here with us it was the fact he was in a pool on an anesthetic dose of ketamine that put him under that essentially you know took his life and that’s a harm reduction like message to everybody that if you are going to do high doses of ketamine do not go in a bathtub do not go in a Jacuzzi do not don’t go in the shower either just lay in your bed lay on the grass outside maybe lay on your side have someone with you someone with you maybe don’t lay on your back in case you get sick lay on your side you know like there are just certain things that you have to do if you’re going to take a very high dose of any drug honestly but especially ketamine because it’s anesthesia at the end of the day so that’s yeah you know and and also reporting or Randy’s reporting on the story was really excellent and he T they talked about other celebrities who have died from consuming drugs or as you know died from the consumption of drugs along with other things too that contributed to their death and you know he brought up um Michael Jackson uh there was also we discussed um talking about Whitney Houston Whitney Houston didn’t make it into the story just because it’s a little more complicated than just her at consuming Xanax and being in a bathtub but again very similar thing don’t get in a body of water if you’re going to be on downers just do not do it um and yeah rappers you know yeah just read the story highly recommend reading the story yeah I mean I I remember yeah you made so many good points and um I just we say I remember bringing this story to you in the editorial meeting um after talking to my dad who’s a doctor I don’t know if I told you that that was the impetus for the story but um he brought up um how something he was the one who brought up how something similar happened in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death whereby Michael Jackson died from a mix of benzo diip stimulants and propal um and my dad was like as a doctor I administer propofol all the time and it’s fine and yet a lot of the headlines were just focusing on propop fall to this day when patients come in and he wants to prescribe propofol they are concerned about it because they remember the headlines around Michael Jackson I also heard what kind of really uh was the Catalyst after that conversation was shortly thereafter I got a call from um Sam Mandel who’s the CEO of ketamine clinics Los Angeles which is one of the leading ketamine clinics in the country run by his father a prominent physician and Pioneer in the Psychedelic space named Steve Mandel and he basically told us like this is having a negative a real life negative impact on our Clinic where we have nurse practitioners that are there monitoring people’s s monitoring their blood pressure we’re doing a screening of their medical history we’re making sure they’re not on any contraindications we don’t let them get into a car until they’re like able to walk you know and so um it’s important yes for there to be harm reduction information out in the world um so that if people decide to do these substances on their own which at double blind we often say you know we’re not necessarily opposed to people doing these substances out outside of the clinic which is a controversial perspective we can talk about some other time but you have to do so with care and you have to do so with the right information um but it’s also having a real impact on patients who want who might benefit from these treatments in a clinical setting um so this is why we’re so passionate at double blind about demystifying false information around drugs because a lot of people do drugs a lot of people do them and are fine a lot of people also do them in benefit right yeah absolutely I feel that this this story really is harming patients or the the all of the media hype around Matthew Perry’s death really is harming patients and specifically it’s because of the lack of nuanced reporting and also the lack of nuanced reporting is an effect of the fact that most people in this country are not educated in drugs or drug policy or how to use drugs safe like more safer they don’t they don’t know these protocols and things to do because all of that is removed from the education system and process here in the United States oh yeah oh yeah I mean totally and don’t get me going on what’s happening with all of these Google algorithm updates that they are burying all of the information that Us and other sites are publishing on harm reduction and instead soaring sites like the DEA and Rehab clinics and basically anything that has a sort of dare narrative just don’t do it to the top of Google because guess what happens if you tell people to just not do it they do it anyway and then they don’t have their in a hot tub that’s what happens which is really unfortunate yeah so it’s heartbreaking actually what happened to Matthew Perry because he didn’t have to die and it also shows that even if you are celebr even if you are a celebrity and even if if you are someone who has used drugs for many many many many many years like Matthew Perry you still sometimes don’t know the protocols and safety around how to use them better or in a harm reduction way or even just considering harm reduction at all so it’s it’s unfortunate and it’s sad I wish he had a coach like I wish he I wish he had red double blind it really wouldn’t have taken he would have just had to Google how like what is ketamine how to take ketamine and scroll down a little bit since know double blind might not be at the top of Google anymore but um you know it really it wouldn’t have taken a lot and I wish I wish that yeah I just wish that that generation of people who are typically kind of branded with the drug or the the drug war dare narrative would study a little bit more and I think that everybody who does drugs should study if you’re going to do these things they are dangerous inherently like you have to kind of study and know them before jumping all the way in you know so and the need for harm reduction is why the next segment on this podcast is all about answering people’s tripping [Music] questions first we have to provide a little disclaimer which in case you didn’t pick up on this yet from the last I don’t know 45 minutes or so of us talking we are not doctors we’re journalists um so yes we have reported a lot on psychedelics yes we also have done psychedelics um but we’re not giving you individualized medical advice and we still recommend that you do your own homework and read double blind where we have interviewed lots of people that actually are doctors um anyway Mary why don’t you kick us off with some questions from the community today okay perfect so question number one is I have been micro doing shrooms for a while now I feel like it’s helping but I’m not really sure should I try acid should I take more shrooms and that’s it that’s the question and that’s an age-old question actually I feel like yeah is my micro do actually working right I think many many of us always wonder that I think right right right yeah sorry I was gonna say p personally I am someone who can feel small doses of mushrooms um so I feel them I feel small doses which in turn kind of lends me to feeling my mcro does but I’m not tripping I’m not experiencing something that is Lifting me off the ground taking me through the Stars it’s not like that um if you are wondering if you should continue I think there is like just the way that things are in the Psychedelic space I think there’s room for experimentation if you’re wondering about LSD if you are wondering about mushrooms and you’re wondering what works best for you the only way really to discover that is to try and also assessing what your um what your what Your why you want to micro do in the first place is it because of anxiety is it because of depression or is it because you want to be more creative or is it because you just hear everybody doing it and you are interested all of which are perfect reasons to discover and explore but it’s worth noting that sometimes these substances work better for different things like if you have anxiety maybe maybe LSD isn’t something that you would want to take it for if you are trying to enhance your creativity maybe LSD is something that you would like to micro do if you are depressed perhaps small doses of mushrooms every day or every other day or on some sort of protocol with one day one day off at least you know is something that you can can do but It ultimately is up to you and it’s ultimately um you know you you can figure you figure it out upon exploration to figure out what works best for you yeah I I really appreciate the emphasis on experimentation and playing because with psychedelics in general and micro doing is no exception it really is about figuring out what works best for you which is a little frustrating because there’s no uh plug and playay uh with when it comes to this stuff every single person is different and has different needs um but we definitely yeah it’s definitely very common for people to say I don’t know if it’s working and so uh just kind of reiterating what Mary said which is that if you’re like whoa It’s Working you’re not micro doing um Jim fatan who is a friend of double blind and is considered sort of the the the father of modern micro doing um has often said yeah if you’re seeing Stars if you know yeah you’re seeing anything that is remotely classically psychedelic uh visually or anything really um sort of profound is happening on an emotional and psychological level um is it’s not a micro do um so really the best thing you can do if you’re unsure about whether it’s working for you is probably first to slowly increase your dose but um you know obviously the risk you take um is that one day you uh mean to micro do and whoopsie took a little too much and it’s not a micro do a micro do typically considered oneth to 12 12th of a full dose so on mushrooms that’s going to be I mean some people go under 0.1 grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms but usually you’re going to have to start around 0.1 and then they say they say um you know blogs Etc that a micro do goes all the way up to 0.5 grams of mushro yeah I don’t think most people at 0 five that’s not a micro do um so should start with 0.1 you know 0.15 point2 three and you know if you’re if you’re stretching up above that3 range and same goes for acid if you’re going up over like a third of a full dose of acid you better like have nothing planned that day and be somewhere safe and at home where you’re comfortable like don’t plan to go pick up the kids or have a zoom meeting because yeah I mean I been there been there done that on a zoom call where I’m outside talking on on a zoom call I’m like the clouds are not there’s no way the clouds are actually doing that um um so also been there yeah been there done that but um also uh you know I think that uh if you’ve increased the dose and it’s it’s just still not really what you want it to be and it’s not working for you then sure you can try acid um you know and and kind of go through that same process but generally speaking as with all changes that you’re making in your life you want to do it for a long enough period of time that you can feel what the effects are think of your body like a scientific experiment we all learned about that in like elementary school right you don’t want to mess with too many variables at once or you don’t know like what’s doing what so generally like sticking with whatever you decide you’re going to do uh for like 30 days maybe six weeks and journaling and paying attention to what’s happening for you um is is a good thing to do um otherwise it’s going to be really hard to track uh what’s benefiting you what’s not so there’s a lot more to say about that but I will also just say that double blind has a micro doing class so if you’re interested in actually going through the whole process of figuring out what substance figuring out your protocol increasing over time tracking all of that um we’ll we’ll walk you through it and um you you know the the wonderful thing about signing up for our class is that the proceeds are going to go to making the podcast and the magazine and the other things we do possible so question number two I feel like my partner would really benefit from tripping she has so much anxiety and stress and it seeps into our relationship psychedelics has changed my life but she’s resistant how do I convince her to trip we hear this all the time from people and it’s not oftentimes it’s about a romantic partner but also it’s like I think my mom should do psychedelics I think my best friend should do psychedelics you know who really needs to do psychedelics my boss most people’s bosses need to do psychedelics um don’t tell your boss to do psychedelics though you might get reported to HR uh unless you work for double blind um anyway um I I think my boss needs to do LSD a little bit more more just saying rude um you’re not wrong um so what I’m going to say about this um is that unfortunately I know it’s really really hard uh to accept this when you love someone and your life has been changed by psychedelics and you just like want to help someone you love and you see that they’re struggling and they’re coming up against themselves again and again and again because it is true that one of the greatest things about psychedelics is that they can break patterns that we can’t seem to get out of ourselves habitual ways of thinking and feeling and being right um which oftentimes is what is the kind of the source of suffering for people that they know that they think too much or they obsess or they this or they that or whatever or they’re anxious or they worry but they just can’t seem to stop unfortunately if you convince someone to do psychedelic they will probably not have the trip that you want them to have um you just it just has to be a personal calling um and so that means you can like talk to them about your experiences and you can buy you can give them a copy of double blind um but yeah don’t don’t convince someone you love to do psychedelics um I ALS I also think that there is an element of resistance that comes with trying to convince someone to do anything at least for me anytime anybody is trying to pressure me to do anything I’m like [ __ ] you no so even even if it’s going to be good for me it’s just like my nature and I’m not saying everybody’s like that human nature to be honest yeah like the more you push the more there’s like a yeah yeah push pushing and yeah it doesn’t yeah like opposite magnets you know opposite ends of the magnet or whatever the [ __ ] that is yeah so I think I think there is no way to convince somebody to do anything not do their taxes not do a psychedelic not walk their dog you know like there you can’t convince anybody to do anything but what you can do is talk to them be open and there when they have questions and maybe they will come around you can create the environment for somebody to want to come around and that’s like all you really have and there’s also a limit there you know don’t be manipulative either but you know you can talk to them about about it you can talk to them about your experience and answer questions honestly and fully and truly that you have you can even express that you think that it would help them but I think also being compassionate and just being like whenever you are ready I can’t wait you know and being excited about that and yeah know that I here for you if in when you are ready and like be like I you know one of those be kind like have it a have a aura an energy about you that’s like I cannot wait for that day but also it is so okay that you don’t want to do it right now when that day comes like I’m your girl I’m your guy I’m your friend you know whatever like I’m your lover let’s [ __ ] go you know kind of thing and and and make it exciting for them when they do come to you or if they do come to you and they do want to do it you know make it a thing make it exciting make it lovable make it enjoyable be excited don’t you know meet them with like oh finally you know kind of thing or any weird attitude that sometimes can come out or like oh now you’re ready or like who finally came around you know like be very excited like meet them with that that like child Wonder as well because ultimately you are going to be with them when they are doing something for the first time and you know when you become an adult there are a few things there are a few first times anymore so celebrate it and celebrate your partner for where she’s at or where they are at sorry don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl but or anybody else but yeah meet them where they’re at meet them where they’re at and be excited about it and I think that with the proper enthusiasm and support and knowing that they can trust you and that you’re ready to go whenever they are you know is all you really can do and I think that that creates a nice environment for them to know that they’re not being pressured and yeah maybe they’ll come around completely completely that was great advice um thanks so much to our community for submitting questions and um if you have a question that you want us to answer about tripping or about psychedelics in general then you can submit your questions email us at Magic hour doubleblind mag.com we would love to hear from you Mary before we wrap up I’d like to invite you to do a little bit of meditation with us um is that something that you’re you’re up for I would love to Shelby thank you yeah of course so just for some context you know we begin all of double blinds workshops with meditation and we actually begin all of double blind’s internal meetings with meditation we jokingly say that um we jokingly call our chief technology officer Max our chief Transcendence officer because he leads us in meditations before our meetings um but the reason we do this is because um what we learn again and again on psychedelics is that um you know we are comprised of mindbody spirit maybe you don’t believe in spirit but certainly mind and body regardless of what your sort of uh spiritual Outlook is on on the world and um we’ve talked about a lot of things and we want to take a moment to digest digest all of these ideas and just become aware of of what is alive for us before we go back into our day so um yeah let’s let’s just breathe for a couple minutes together and then we will wrap [Music] up hello welcome I’m Sky Weaver resident facilitator at Double blind I invite you to come into your body for a moment here so we’re going to just allow our spine to move a little bit so see if you can just kind of wiggle wiggle your spine that’s it back and forth yeah and then on your next inhale see if you can bring your heart open opening that heart pulling those shoulder blades back and arching the back and on the exhale allowing that heart to fold forward stretching the back of the body nice and inhale coming up good next inhale lengthen the spine engage the belly and twisting the shoulder and the heart and eventually the head towards the right deep breath here exhale softening back to the front nice wiggle a little bit that’s it inhale engage the belly and we’re going to twist to the left this time spine heart shoulder neck that’s it deep breath [Music] here and your exhale release that’s it and if you feel like it maybe making little circles with your spine around to the right nice like your spine is a big jump rope nice and gentle that’s it and exhale wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle that’s it welcome back to your body thanks for being [Music] here you know I’m really grateful for these moments that we’re able to take it double blind that help us reenter my life needs it badly right now so thank you I appreciate that that’s a part of all of this Shelby yeah of course of course and we live in a culture and an economic Paradigm that places so much emphasis on productivity and I don’t think that everything has to be a means to an end but I will say for those of you out there who think you don’t have time to meditate or breathe that actually uh Studies have shown that even just a minute or two of breath work in meditation can increase creativity increase Focus increase all of these things that we might have difficulty accessing when we’re moving 500 million miles an hour girl that’s so true [ __ ] so true thank thank you seriously thank you yeah thank you my my body thanks you like being able to tap back in put my spirit back inside of my body feel embodied again you know yeah thank you yeah yeah so we’ve covered a lot of ground today and I know you’ll be back but is there anything else that you wanted to share before we jump off um you know anything else that’s sort of alive for you now regarding the Psychedelic movement stories that you’ve been editing conversations you’ve been hearing in the field and if not then that’s fine and you just tell the people where they can find you yes well my my tip always my the last thing always on my mind are if you are looking to try psychedelics just start low and go slow you can build from where you start but if you start too big not retract right you can take more but you can’t take less absolutely so just keep that in mind when anybody is offering you anything also test your drugs I know it’s a pain in the ass but we live in a world where powdery substances and I mean shoot gummies everything they’re not totally they’re they don’t contain what maybe you think they contain so test your stuff be safe start logo slow and uh if you would like any more of those tips you can find me on social media you can find me at Mary prankster that is spelled m a r y y prankster thanks so much to everybody for listening and if you want to reach out to us you have thoughts about what we talked about today you have suggestions about who should come on there are many ways to hit us up email us at Magic hour doubleblind mag.com or visit us at doubleblind mag on Tik Tok Twitter Youtube Instagram Facebook all the socials I also want to give a shout out to the amazing Folks at human content who are producing this podcast and helping make it possible they do a lot of great podcasts other than this one so if you’re an audio file check them out on Instagram and Tik Tok at human content pods thanks to all of the great listeners leaving wonderful feedback and awesome reviews if you subscribe and comment on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube we might give you a shout out you can watch full video episodes of this every week on our YouTube channel at double blind our executive producers are Aaron Corney Rob Goldman Shany Brooke and Alex field from the double blind team who also edits the show our engineer is Jason porzo to learn more about the double blind magic hour program disclaimer and ethics policy and submission verification and Licensing terms you can go to doubleblind mag.com slmag hour or reach us at Magic hour doubleblind mag.com with any questions concerns or inspiration quotes double blind magic hour is the human content and double blind production and now let’s take you out on a way by Fabiano nasimo

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by [Music] thanks for watching and if you’re thinking gosh I really need more doubleblind magic hour in my life well you can start listening now by clicking on that playlist button right over there new episodes are out every Monday so please subscribe and join us each week on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts oh