Mushrooms 101: Everything You Need To Know About The Psilocybin Psychedelics That Are Taking The Health World By Storm.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

The point I want to stress is that these experiences are, I think, best understood not in the drugs, but as in the human mind. And there are many ways of accessing those experiences. If you take them with a sense of trust and intention to confront whatever emerges rather than trying to control and escape, then what opens up sometimes is what we call the death of the ego.

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The Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And you've probably heard me talk about psychedelic compounds before on this show. And I truly believe that psychedelic drugs like MDMA or AKA ecstasy and LSD and psilocybin or magic mushrooms are very likely going to be the next set of drugs after marijuana to get destigmatized and to be potentially legalized. And this is not necessarily because people are say partying more, but I think it's really due to a lot of research that goes, goes way back to the 50s that have shown that these drugs have a pretty positive effect on people with depression and anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder. But there's also a lot of folks like Silicon Valley executives who are microdosing with LSD and people who I know who are doing things like hiking and doing wild plant foraging while microdosing on psilocybin to enhance connectivity with nature. And I will certainly even admit that I myself have experimented quite a bit with many of these compounds and found in many cases for them to be something that have utility, something that have benefit when used correctly. And what I mean by when used correctly is not the way that my mom explains a pretty funny story to me, which is the idea that she and her friends back in college were out in a cow field wandering around harvesting cow patties for magic mushrooms, getting completely high out of their minds and going on a crazy psychedelic trip. And I believe that how the story goes, they wound up driving back to their home, yes, driving and walking into their house. And the entire house had been robbed and was completely empty. And so they were all there at their completely empty house, tripping out on mushrooms and totally freaking out. Hi mom, by the way, if you're listening. So for those of you who are interested in mushrooms, don't do what my mom did, but you may be interested in what my guest on today's show has to say about psychedelics. His name is Dr. William Richards and Dr. Richards, and we'll call him Bill. I've gotten his permission already. He's a psychologist in the psychiatry department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine at the Bayview Medical center. And he researches specifically psilocybin, which is the active molecule in magic mushrooms or what he would probably call sacred mushrooms, not magic mushrooms. And he's a very, very well educated man with graduate degrees from the Yale Divinity School, from Andover Newton Theological school, from a PhD from Catholic University. And he studied all over the world, including Germany, with psychedelic research originating all the way back to the 60s. And he's also published a book which I will link to in the show notes for today's episode. The book is called Sacred Psychedelics and Religious Experience Experiences and it is described as the first well documented, sophisticated account of the effect of psychedelics on biological processes, human consciousness and revelatory religious experiences. So quite an interesting book and I've gone through some of it. It is meaty. It's not necessarily a primer on how to get high as much as it is a primer on all these very cool psychological and physiological things that some of these plant based compounds I think many of us are nervous about or scared of can actually do for us. So first of all, before we delve into the interview with Bill, you can access the show notes for everything we talk about if you just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Richards as in Bill's last name, BenGreenfieldFitness.com richards and I'll link to his book and everything else that we discuss on today's show. So Bill, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you for having me on.

Awesome. And by the way, in an act of complete audio podcasting interview blasphemy, I am actually going to open the can of sparkling water here that I had on my desk. So that's what that noise is. Now that we've gotten the serious editing out of the way, got my BlackBerry flavored sparkling water. I'm ready to delve in with you, Bill, and I actually want to ask you a question to kind of break the ice here. Do you personally being a guy who researches psilocybin molecules, do you have actually use psychedelics yourself?

I certainly have and Value them immensely. Believe it or not, when I got involved in this field back In Germany in 1963, they were perfectly legal and there was nothing controversial about. Was a perfectly rational thing for a professor to offer them to a graduate student. And that's how my career began. So I can talk about my experiences because they've always been able to be in a legal context.

Yeah, I would love to hear a little bit more about those. But actually, you bring up something interesting before I ask you a little bit more about your personal experience with psychedelics and what you use and whether you still use them. Why is it that somebody back in the 60s could have given you something in a research lab or on a university campus or anywhere else, and this wouldn't have been frowned upon? Why is it that. And I know this is a loaded question, and I'm fine with rabbit holing here, but why is it that research into psychedelic drugs now seems to be growing massively in popularity? And why did it kind of wane in the first place or grow out of favor?

I don't think there's any simple answer to that. A lot of us speculate about what went on. These drugs go back thousands of years. The Native Americans probably used them, used mescaline 5,000 years ago. You know, they've been around a long, long time. And when they surfaced in our culture, we didn't know what to do with them. We had no guidance, no cultural framework for them, really. The churches certainly weren't prepared to provide guidance. It got kind of crazy. And I think it also got. Became kind of a symbol in the culture. And it was linked with the Vietnam War, with the women's movement, with the changes in attitudes towards sexuality, race relations. And it became kind of a. Just a symbol of radical social change, condensed into the letters LSD that the society wasn't ready for. And then President Nixon decided Timothy Leary was the most dangerous man in America. And if we could only suppress lsd, we could go back to the good old days before the culture was stretching into new directions.

And Timothy Leary was the guy who, I believe he was a psychologist who did experiments under the heart, Harvard Psilocybin project, and also experimented with and researched lsd, Correct?

That's right, yeah. And he did some good research in the early days, and then he kind of went off the deep end, just frustrated and deciding it was easier to talk to movie stars than to scientists. But as in my book, I argue for a more balanced a perspective towards Timothy Leary. He was one human being living the best he could within the social forces of his day. But there were many other researchers that we never hear about who did very significant studies back there in the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s.

And so was it the Controlled Substances act that I think happened back in the 70s that classified a lot of these things as Schedule 1 that was kind of like the knife in the heart of psychedelic compounds? Was it like the growth of almost like, I guess, a more puritanical religious movement? I mean, what would you say was the defining factor that caused a lot of this stuff to fall out of favor and even fall out of research for a time?

Yeah, the scheduling of drugs in Schedule 1 being drugs that allegedly have no known medical use, have a high potential for abuse, etc. The United States took that stance and put psychedelics in that category along with heroin, treating them as though they were identical. And then through the United nations, many other countries adopted that same stance. So the.

Which. Which is ironic, not. Not to interrupt you too much, but it's ironic, by the way, because psychedelics have been shown to cure heroin withdrawal sympt.

That's right.

They're completely. They're completely not the same thing.

Yeah. We actually did a study giving LSD to heroin addicts as part of their treatment. And invariably they claimed the drugs stood in polar relationship to one another. Whereas heroin took you away from your conflicts and problems into kind of a escapist high, the psychedelics took you right into the heart of the issues you needed to confront that you had been avoiding, and then in and through those two transcendental, often religiously interpreted states of consciousness, so radically different in their responses?

Yeah, absolutely. And do you think that one of the reasons for that is because. And this is something I've always wondered, is it because heroin is not as natural a substance as, say, like a mushroom extract of psilocybin? Or do you think there's some other reason that heroin has such a dizzying array of side effects and deleterious issues and withdrawal effects compared to mushrooms?

Well, I think that they're both natural. Poppies have been growing forever. I have relatives in Iran who grow poppies in their backyard, and they call it their heroin patch, you know, or opiate patch. Anyway, but the effects of those molecules on human consciousness are radically different.

And so, yeah, that's true. Heroin is actually extracted. I believe it's a pretty heavy chemical extraction for opium, but it is extracted originally from. From the poppy seed.

That's right.

Okay, interesting. But are you. Are you not a fan of something like that? Something like herin or Would you say, I guess what I'm getting at here is, would you say that heroin is some unnatural substance you shouldn't put into your body because of the extreme chemical reaction and one should instead use something like poppy extract or some other natural opium form? Or would you also say that heroin would be something acceptable for the human body?

Yeah, I would say. Well, I have received narcotics after major surgery and they're absolutely wonderful drugs in medicine to quell pain and help you begin to heal. They have their place. But I think the use of narcotic drugs in the inner cities is basically an attempt to self treat depression. Yeah, it's not, it doesn't lead you to states of consciousness that enhance your life. Yeah, it's a comforting escape from life.

That's, that's. I think we're on the same page there. I think a lot of these things, you know, everything from Valium and Diazepam to antidepressants to overuse of opiates, in my opinion, in my personal, personal experience, I've used some opiate derivatives and you know, I've found that they, they induce extreme tiredness, almost like a lackadaisical attitude towards life. And they, they are an escape. But when you compare these to the psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, there's a distinct difference. The psychedelic drugs seem to cause you to spark action, right. To go into a higher form of consciousness. I mean, when I've used psilocybin, for example, I need a notepad on hand because I have so many ideas and visions and levels of higher consciousness and breakthroughs and thought that I simply have to be jotting everything down. And when, when the psilocybin has kind of worn off, so to speak, I've got tons of calls to action, you know, for myself and my business and my personal life and my spiritual life that I wouldn't otherwise have ever discovered. And I can certainly say that's never happened to me with any type of opiate derivative.

Of course, even with psychedelics, what you respond applies to relatively low dosage or the final hours of a higher dose session. Because psychedelics have the possibility, if you take them with a sense of trust and intention, to confront whatever emerges rather than trying to control and escape.

Right.

Then what opens up sometimes is the, what we call the death of the ego or the transcendence of the usual personality. And when that is happening, you can't write notes. All you can do is lie back and close your eyes and trust and accept and breathe deeply and allow experiences to emerge.

And that that's all in the dosage, right. I mean, because the reason I ask about that is, you know, there's this term of, you know, like microdosing is a term that gets thrown around. You know, I know with, with psilocybin, for example, I'd be taking whatever maybe a gram versus six grams. And I think, as you just alluded to, it comes down to intention. Right. For a very simple example, you can have a glass of wine at the end of the day because you're trying to escape stress and you're stumbling into the kitchen after a 10 hour workday and saying, I need a glass of wine. Or you could be like, I do many nights. You could be sitting in front of your computer with a blank word document open, preparing to write fiction and thinking, okay, I am ready to spark creativity and find a breakthrough in my story. I'm going to pop open this wine and pour myself a glass so that I can begin down the road of fiction writing for the evening. Interesting.

Yeah. I think the whole question of microdosing is waiting for good research. We know with higher dosage whether psychedelics are helpful or hurtful or neutral given basically good mental health to begin with, depends on your intention and how secure you feel and so on. And for people who are capable of trust and courage and curiosity and so on, they tend to have very positive experiences, even though they may sometimes have to go through some suffering, as in reliving, you know, guilt or grief or anger or psychodynamic material that needs to be confronted. But if you try to run away from whatever emerges, then you get into panic and paranoia and confusion. And I don't know if that same principle happens with microdosing, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Yeah.

That for some people, if they microdose, they might just get crazier or more anxious and others might become more creative.

Yeah, I want to get into dosing in a little bit here and ask some of those more practical questions. But we got sidetracked a bit there as you were talking about why psychedelic drugs fell out of favor and what sparked this emerging recurrence of interest in both the research and use of them. Can you continue down that path?

Sure, of course. I have been dedicated to working with these drugs ever since I discovered them in Germany in 1963. And I worked with them basically until 1977 when research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research center became dormant, which was the last place in the United States where research with psychedelics was going on. Then There was a 22 year period of dormancy except for one project with DMT by Rick Strassman at the University of New Mexico. And then in 1999, Roland Griffith Hopkins and I were introduced to one another by Bob Jesse, the founder of the Council on Spiritual Practices in San Francisco. And Bob wanted to see if we could get psychedelic research jump started again. And so we wrote a research protocol and submitted it to the FDA and the DEA and the two institutional review boards at Johns Hopkins. And it was reviewed by the Hopkins legal committee. And by some wonderful miracle, we kept getting green lights. And so psychedelic research came alive again in 2000 at Johns Hopkins. And we're going strong 16 years later. And it has since spread to New York University, University of Wisconsin, University of California in Los Angeles, and now perhaps a study in San Francisco, University of Alabama in Birmingham, and so on. It's a very hopeful time as research is coming alive again, both here and in Europe. Also at the Imperial College in London and in Switzerland, in Solothurn and in Zurich.

Yeah, it's really interesting. Like, I remember a press release. I actually pulled it up before our interview. So I had in front of me because it came. Somebody asked me about it on Twitter. The title is Johns Hopkins Researchers Seek Spiritual Leaders for Magic Mushroom Study. And the actual article says, researchers at Johns Hopkins are looking for religious and spiritual leaders to take psychoactive psilocybin mushrooms so they can document what these people experience while tripping on magic mushrooms. And it goes on to actually say, you know, you need to be a religious or a spiritual leader, I suppose, like a pastor or something like that, and between 25 and 80 years old. And you just go in and basically you what do you do? Do you just give them a bunch of psilocybin and see what happens? Or how are these experiments conducted exactly?

Well, that's the main study I'm working on right now.

Oh, really?

Bringing it up. We're especially in search of Islamic imams and Hindu priests right now. If there are any in the audience, please go to our website, religiousleadersstudy.org we'd be happy to hear from you. Yes, this is a study with people from different world religions to obtain their perspective on what a high dose psilocybin session does for them or with them or how they evaluate it. And the hope is that it will enrich the effectiveness of their ministry, both giving them a deeper appreciation for their own tradition and perhaps greater tolerance for other traditions. Many people posit that these deep mystical experiences are at the origin of all the great world religions, to some extent. That it's intrinsic to human consciousness and it's one thing that unites us all. And if more of us were awake to those experiences, we just might have a more peaceful world.

Now, how does. Let's jump into brass tacks. How does this actually work? First of all, with psilocybin? How are you making, let's say, Johns Hopkins, for example, how are you making psilocybin? How are you getting the psilocybin in the first place? Is this a molecule that you create in the lab, or are you guys growing mushroom spores? Or how does it work exactly?

Well, we use the synthesized form. It's made in a test tube. It's a psilocybin molecule. Actually, our supply was made by a very fine psychopharmacologist, David Nichols, at Purdue University. And the advantage of using the synthesized form is that, you know, the purity of the drug and the exact dosage.

Okay. Where.

If you're working with natural mushrooms, you don't quite know what the dosage is or. And there are other chemicals besides.

Right. You've got all, all sorts of terpenes, Terpenes and other things mixed in with the, with the psilocybin.

Right. And you don't know how the mushroom grew or when it was harvested, or how long it's been since it was harvested, or whether a raccoon urinated on it or not and whether that would make any difference.

Right. Raccoon urine could throw a wrench in an experiment.

Right. So for science, it's cleaner to use the synthesized substance. We're waiting for someone to do a double blind study with the synthesized form and the natural form. If we can design that adequately, I think we can. And see if anyone can detect any difference between the two. But I doubt it, because the psilocybin becomes psilocin, which is the active ingredient, and that's what opens up consciousness. And it seems to be like a skeleton key that just gives access to these inner worlds within us all.

Now, are you then taking this and injecting it? Are they consuming it orally or how does that work?

It's consumed orally. Okay, let me back up a little bit and say, anyone accepted in the study, any of our studies, for that matter, and there are many different studies, always they receive a thorough physical exam and they do some psychological testing and sign informed consent and all that. And then they usually receive six to eight hours of preparation with the person who's going to be present with them during the period of drug action to just kind of answer questions, establish a Basic sense of trust, openness. So we can prepare people as much as words and relationships can prepare one. And then when we give them the psilocybin, it's just a simple little blue pill that they swallow with a goblet of water and we give it to them in a very comfortable living room type of setting, nice art on the wall and a comfortable couch with flannel sheets and very n high quality music system. And typically through most of the period of drug effects, the person wears an eye shade lying on his or her back on the couch with stereophonic headphones. So the experience is directed inward as opposed to outward, which helps people not be distracted or feel social pressures to interact with the person in the room. And the person is instructed to basically just collect experiences. And if anxieties arise, the guides, there's usually two, often a man and a woman are immediately present to offer whatever emotional support is appropriate. And if everything is going fine, we just back off and are present if needed, but don't interfere.

Okay, got it. And, and so when you're doing this and you're collecting participants for such a study, you know, you mentioned for people to reach out to. Do you have a list of studies somewhere that you guys are currently conducting that people can go, I guess, sign up for or apply for?

Well, there's different websites for different studies. Probably if one just Google the Johns Hopkins psilocybin, you would find studies. If you go to the website of the Council on spiritual practices, csp.org psilocybin there's reports and press coverage of the major studies that have been done in the past.

Okay, yeah, I see that. I'll link to that in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Richards in case any of you want to thrust yourself into research and do this while having access to a high quality music player and a couch. And that actually leads me, before we talk, a little bit more about some of the practical aspects of psilocybin in particular is one I want to focus on because I know that you've done a lot of research on that. Bill, do you, you know, being a guy who researches, being a guy who obviously has, shall we say, access to, you know, synthetic, high quality, concentrated forms of psilocybin. Do you personally use psilocybin or any other psychoactive drugs for that matter? And if so, how and when and why?

Well, personally, at this point in time, we haven't asked for clearance to give the drugs to our own staff yet. That may be coming. It's Sort of reasonable on the job training that used to be taken for granted in the early days of psychedelic research. But these days that's more controversial. In recent years, my own personal psychedelic experience has been limited to ayahuasca in South America. Personally, don't feel a great need to take the drugs very often. I have very vivid memories that I treasure very deeply of the experiences I have had in years past. And I feel the main task is to integrate the insights from those experiences as opposed to running back and seeing if those sacred realms are still there. You know, I trust that they're there now.

Yeah, yeah. And that's really interesting. A point that you bring up is the vividness of memory that one has. I mean, in terms of my own use of, for example, psilocybin, I have found that the. And for me, my intention has always been a deeper connection with nature or, like I mentioned, you know, dwelling upon big questions that I have for myself, for business or personal or family life. I've found that I have very intense, extremely vivid memories that I can't simply seem to even, you know, get rid of if I wanted to, from having been in certain situations on psilocybin. Why is that? Why is it that memories become more vivid when psilocybin is in your system or the memories of an occurrence that happened when psilocybin was in your system stays with you for so long?

Wonderful research question. I think it may depend in part on what type of experience happens to occur and that there's no such thing as kind of the psychedelic experience, unquote. That there are perceptual changes, there are insights into your personal psychodynamics, your early childhood, your emotional life, your interpersonal relationships, et cetera, your own creativity. Then there's this realm of symbolic, archetypal, visionary material, of gods and goddesses and precious stones and ancient civilizations and who knows where all that stuff comes from. And then beyond that, there's these profound mystical states, what Abraham Maslow called major peak experiences of unity and love and intuitive knowledge and content, where it almost makes sense to say that you aren't even there anymore. Sort of the Hindu image of the drop of water merging with the ocean kind of applies here. Atman becomes Brahman. And yet when the everyday self reemerges at the end of the day, the memory of those profound experiences remains. So it's hard to put into words, but it's as though you say I died and I was reborn, but while I was dead, this state of consciousness occurred that I vividly remember.

Did you see this study? I think it was in a. It was in some brain research journal. I think this was in South Florida. They did this study, and it was on mice, granted, but they actually showed a growth of hippocampal brain cells in mice that received smaller doses of psilocybin, I guess what would be considered a microdose. And of course, that's relevant because the hippocampus is where memories are often learned and formed. And so I personally suspect there's some kind of actually enhanced neuronal growth in the hippocampus with the use of some of these psychedelics.

That may well be, you know, the whole language of neuroanatomy and biochemistry goes beyond my training. I often don't even try to speak it. It is just such an incredible mystery as I conceive it. We really don't understand yet what the relationship between the brain and consciousness is. Whether it's a ghost in a machine or a deeper substrate of matter. Something quantum physicists might be able to explain better than we can. But we know that we do experience these incredibly vivid, colorful, intense, insightful states of awareness with our eyes closed.

Now. Now, are you. Sorry to interrupt. When you're doing these studies over at Johns Hopkins, are you doing things like brainwave measurements or FMRI on the brain or anything like that to see what actually happens physiologically in response to psilocybin?

In some studies we do. Like we have a study for advanced meditators now, mainly Buddhist oriented, where we do brain scans. But even some pictures of the brain, we can know that there's increased circulation, more oxygenation in a particular part of the brain. But correlation isn't necessarily causation. And the mystery of consciousness is still there. The whole mind body problem philosophers have been struggling with for generations is still is much a mystery as ever.

Yeah, I'm one of those guys who really likes to consider what could be going on from a chemical standpoint. And I certainly don't want to neglect the consciousness or the spiritual. Even the fourth dimension, quantum physics type of effects that some of these things might be having. Meaning that we do know that the atomic vibration and the protons from an object that can be very far away. Or an object that even retains memory of some previous occurrence can actually affect. Affect the human body. You know, this is why one person who's like a twin that's dreaming somewhere across the globe. Might have another twin somewhere thousands of miles away having the same dream. I certainly believe that some things like that are due to a quantum physics Interaction between the signals of those people, as woo as it may seem. But I also, you know, I don't deny the neurochemical effect of some of these things. And one other thing I wanted to ask you about. With serotonin, I know the body breaks down psilocybin into psilocin and that's very similar to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Have you guys studied at all how this might have an effect in terms of neuronal connections or higher levels of awareness or clarity or perception, just basically like a huge dump of serotonin into the body?

We haven't, but it is true that the serotonin molecule is very similar to the psilocin molecule and the DMT molecule. Dmt? Dimethyltryptamine, which is the powerful psychedelic used in the South American religions in their ayahuasca preparations. We know that the chemical is naturally secreted in our bodies, although in very minute quantities. And one hypothesis is that when these spontaneous mystical experiences occur, the body itself may be generating essentially a psychedelic substance that is a biochemical substrate of the experience that is occurring.

Now on the flip side, is there actually any damage that you guys have noted from the use of psilocybin, whether in low or high doses? You know, for example, I know that some studies on marijuana have suggested that high dosing, especially in younger individuals, may influence, for example, a shrinking of gray matter in the brain or may influence short term memory, for example. Have you noted any deleterious effects of psilocybin use?

No, we have not. That doesn't mean there couldn't be any. But one reason we use psilocybin is that it has a very long history of natural use in different religions. It has a very good safety profile from everything we know, especially physiological safety. The psychological safety requires some training and preparation. Nice thing about psilocybin is that the duration of action is only about six hours.

Yeah, it has a relatively short half life. So it's not like you're tripping for days.

That's right. So it works into a typical work day. One of the first applications legally of psilocybin is likely to be in hospice and palliative care to help people live more fully with less depression and anxiety and interpersonal isolation and so on. Our studies on that will just be coming out in early December, but you'll find them in the press and they're very hopeful.

Yeah, and I know that in terms of toxicity there's a very, very high. I know they talk about what's called the median lethal dose, which is like the half dose of what could, I guess kill a lab rat, I think is a poor explanation of toxicity. But either way, I do know that the lethal dose from psilocybin toxicity is, is pretty dang high in terms of there being very few cases documented of psilocybin use recreationally or medicinally causing actual death or actual organ failure or even, and I know it's metabolized somewhat by the liver or mostly by the liver, but even liver toxicity in terms of elevated liver enzymes, it appears to. I know they did one study where they gave people psilocybin in increasing doses for 21 days and there were zero deleterious signs on liver toxicity tests, for example. So it's kind of strange. I think a lot of people think it's just like going to poison you. But I'll link to this paper in the show notes if people want to read it. There's a really interesting paper called the Pharmacology of Psilocybin and it gets into how we really haven't seen much deleterious effects from psilocybin at all.

That's true physiologically. From all we know, it's a very safe substance. The danger is psychologically when people take it kind of cavalierly, without serious intent towards either personal or spiritual development. If you just want to have a good time, psilocybin is probably not a wise choice because it takes into very powerful experiences, sometimes in serious intent and openness and being grounded in a good interpersonal relationship really helps promote safety.

Yeah, and I personally feel that in most situations that these type of things should not be used as party drugs. I'm just personally not a fan of that approach. I think that the cons outweigh the pros in terms of everything from driving home to finding yourself in unfortunate situations with strangers, to all sorts of things that can occur when you're taking things that might affect your decision making processes in an uncontrolled party like environment versus say camping in nature in microdoses, preferably still with a satellite phone nearby just in case. But yeah, it's really interesting in terms of the very, very low amounts of toxicity. Now if I could, I want to ask you a few questions. I know that your book is very much about religious experiences and about consciousness, but I also wanted to ask you about a few other kind of like nitty gritty things regarding the use of psilocybin. For example, a lower dose I know is around 1 gram and a higher dose around 5 or 6 plus grams. Do you know what it is that causes your vision to begin to be influenced when you use psilocybin in higher doses? This whole kaleidoscope type effect on vision, for example, when you use a high dose and you close your eyes and all you see are just a dizzying array of colors.

Personally I haven't a clue as to what is going on or even if it is vision in that the eyes are typically closed, or if you close your eyes you see the colors and the geometric patterns much more vividly. But there are very commonly reported these multi dimensional geometric patterns, are they microscopic neuronal substrates that were somehow able to perceive with some kind of inner directed perceptual system? That's the hypothesis of Jeremy Narby in his book what is it? The not the Sacred Mushroom.

What's his name? Jeremy Narby.

Jeremy Narby. He has a book out there that has some very intriguing hypotheses to try to explain what might be going on.

It's called Mushroom Wisdom. Is it that one?

No. Secret Serpent, perhaps.

Okay, I'll find it and link to it.

If you google Narby, you'll find it.

Okay. The Cosmic Serpent.

Yeah, the Cosmic Serpent, that's it. It's a very fine book.

I'll link to it in the show notes. That's interesting because these patterns, are you familiar? I suppose you probably are since you've written a book called Sacred Knowledge. Are you familiar with this idea of sacred geometry?

Yes.

Do you think that many of these patterns that we're seeing are. Well let me back this up. For people who don't understand sacred geometry. Can you explain what sacred geometry is and then how patterns like this might be associated with something like that?

Well, all I know is people first kind of seem to see these geometric patterns and are impressed by their vividness. They kind of have a neon like in intensity and they're multi dimensional and they're moving and unfolding and they're exquisitely beautiful to look at. But then it feels almost as though you, you as your field of consciousness are moving in and through those. Almost. This may be poetic, but as though instead of looking at those patterns, you're becoming those patterns and that those patterns are almost like electric currents of energy flow. Then it leads beyond looking at geometric designs to often scenes of cathedrals and the domes of mosques and landscapes from other civilizations and so on.

Things that actually exist and it like pyramids and things like that that actually follow these geometrical shapes. It's really weird because I've experienced This I've been on mushrooms and I've closed my eyes and I can see all these visions of actual buildings that exist. And this hasn't just happened with mushrooms. There's also this concept, and this sounds super woo woo to folks, I know, but you can purchase what are called sacred geometry posters which are based on this fact that certain. Well, give me a few examples, Bill, of what would be like a well known architectural artifact or building that's fashioned after sacred geometry concepts.

Well, one theory is that Gothic cathedrals and the domes of great Islamic mosques are attempts to create the visionary world in this reality.

Right.

Architects who designed those had experienced these abstract lines in their visionary worlds.

Yeah, they're golden.

They're called rose windows and sense of sacredness. And then they attempted to construct them. It's an interesting theory anyway. But you know, most people, when they enter a Gothic cathedral, say Washington Cathedral, even if they aren't members of any organized religion, kind of instinctively feel a certain sense of awe and reverence.

I'm actually very intrigued with this whole concept. There's this idea about the Fibonacci sequence, which is like a Hindu numeral system that I guess has its roots and I think like Arabic mathematics. But each number in the sequence or the ratio between each number gets closer and closer to a figure which most people are probably familiar with, with the number PI, which they also call the golden ratio. And if you look at everything from like Noah's Ark and the way that Noah's ark is built in terms of satisfying this ratio, these cathedrals that you were talking about, even. And this is really weird because I just read a book about this called the human heart, cosmic heart, even the heart itself. The shape of the heart is what's called a chestahedron. And it's actually very, very close to this sacred geometry shape as well. All of these are fashioned using the mathematics from this Fibonacci sequence, this golden ratio, or what's also known as a sacred geometry. And what I was mentioning before he got sidetracked once again, which we seem to be doing quite a bit in this interview, was the fact that I actually had someone send me a bunch of sacred geometry posters and I experienced something very similar to what I've experienced when using psilocybin, which is in my room. When these posters were hung, when I would close my eyes, I would see this dizzying kaleidoscope of colors and all these different structures that were very, very much like a cathedral or like an ark, or like the flow of blood through the heart, or like the shape of a heart, or even the shape of, as I know this book that you just referred to, the cosmic serpent, the shape of DNA. It's super duper interesting how it seems that these compounds, these psychedelic compounds, seem to somehow wire us into these mathematical or geometrical sequences that we otherwise might not be aware of in our modern culture of Starbucks and McDonald's and Teslas.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Also, the abstract patterns are often claimed to be very similar to Arabic letters and Arabic script, you know, and in Islam, the letters themselves are believed to be very sacred.

Yeah.

You know, the very shapes of the letters are intrinsically sacred.

Which is. Which is why when you read a book like that on a computer where the text is often digitized and pixelated, it's actually a far different experience than when you read it on paper where, where it's in. In less of a. It doesn't flicker as much. There's actually a slight interruption of the way that your brain interprets the frequency thrown off by that font. And there's software you can install on your computer. There's one piece of software I use, for example, called Iris Tech, that renders fonts in their natural ways when you're reading on the computer, for example. But it is really interesting how even words can influence a reaction to the psychedelic nature of font. And again, I know all this stuff, to people listening in, it sounds kind of woo woo. But it's very interesting things to think about. Now I've got a few other questions for you, Bill.

Sure, lead the way.

The first is there are a lot of people out there getting spores and growing their own mushrooms. Obviously you have access to pretty advanced equipment at Johns Hopkins where you guys can create synthetic derivatives, but have you ever grown your own mushrooms? Do you have any opinion on, you know, ordering spores off the Internet and creating your own psilocybin forms for the do it yourselfers? Any thoughts, any tips, any. Any feedback on this, this whole idea of, of getting your hands on psilocybin or making your own psilocybin.

All I can say is I'm sure there's information on websites like arrowwed, erowid.org, arrowwid.org arrowwood. Yeah.

Okay.

It's a wonderful collection of just information about psychedelics without judgment either way. I've always had access to the synthesized form of the drug through our laboratories through fully legal access. So as a spokesperson for FDA approved research, I really can't talk much about how to go and grow your own when it is legal and then I'll feel more at ease about talking about that.

Gotcha. And so Arrowid, I see this is a website where you can go and you can click on everything from ketamine to cannabis to kratom to psilocybin. And it looks like there are a ton of different forums and you could take a pretty deep dive into this stuff as far as books, resources, articles, writing your own tips, all sorts of stuff that might be an interesting one for folks to look into. Yeah, yeah, nice. Arrowid.org, e R-O-W-I D.org, for those of you listening in. Now, the other thing that I wanted to ask you, I don't know if you guys have researched this at all over at John's High Hopkins, but for example, when I spoke with Dennis McKenna on our show, we talked about how things such as, such as nutmeg and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy placed over the middle of your forehead can all kind of simulate a very similar effect. What one might experience if they used DMT or ayahuasca. Are there things that can enhance or pronounce or reduce or increase or affect one's response to psilocybin, known compounds or herbs? I guess another example would be mango can enhance the effects of cannabis. That's a well known example of why a lot of cannabis plants have a mango additive or flavoring added to them. Can you say the same about psilocybin?

There's nothing I'm aware of that would improve upon the psilocybin. The pure psilocybin response doesn't mean there aren't things.

By the way, the one thing I am aware of that does this to any compound, including a pharmaceutical, you need to be very careful with this stuff is grapefruit juice. Interestingly, for just about anything on the face of the planet I've ever heard of, grapefruit extract or grapefruit juice seems to highly decrease the half life of the compound in your bloodstream, but highly magnify the effect.

Yeah, we do request that our volunteers do not use grapefruit juice the day before their sessions. And also no alcohol use.

So I would imagine then alcohol and grapefruit when mixed with psilocybin may actually cause either. Well, we know with grapefruit it'll probably enhance it. I don't know what alcohol would do, but I would recommend if you try this experiment on your own. Go with organic, no sugar added grapefruit juice, just so you're not getting a huge blood sugar spike. But it Is interesting how grapefruit juice can interact with a lot of these compounds. Now the other thing that I wanted to ask you about was if there are any other psychedelics that you're currently researching that folks haven't heard of. A lot of people have heard of micro dosing with LSD or using 1 to 6 grams of psilocybin, or, you know, experimenting with cannabis and even sacred geometry posters and ecstasy and things like that. But are there any psychedelics that you think fly under the radar?

Well, there may be countless psychedelics out there and chemists are making new ones all the time. Personally, I've worked over the years with lsd, dpt, dipropyltryptamine and psilocybin primarily.

What was that, what was that middle one that you said?

Dipropyltryptamine?

What is that?

It's a short acting substance, very similar to psilocybin that after working with lsd, we chose to work with for a while, just looking for something with a shorter duration of action, very valuable, promising substance. But the point I want to stress is that these experiences are, I think, best understood not in the drugs, but as in the human mind. And there are many ways of accessing those experiences. And there are the different psychedelic substances. Almost hesitate to call them drugs because drug has connotations in our culture. That almost seems inappropriate for them. But they also, these experiences occur in meditative states. They occur in times of sensory isolation and a sensory overload. Symphony concerts and rock concerts. They occur in natural childbirth for some lucky women. They occur sometimes in creative performance or in athletic heights like the runner's high. And they seem simply intrinsic to the human being and we seem capable of creating our own endogenous psychedelic substances, if you will. So I kind of play down the differences between, you know, LSD and DMT and psilocybin. There may be some that controlled studies might bring out, but the range of content in experiences seems pretty much the same with all of them. Where the drugs differ from one another is in terms of duration of action, how rapidly they come on, how rapidly they terminate, how slowly they build up to the peak period of activity and so on, but not in the experiences that they give access to.

Gotcha.

Those seem just simply those inner realms are just part of our legacy of being human. Yeah, and I think it's kind of empirical confirmation of what Carl Jung posited in his concept of the collective unconscious. Whether, I don't know how to understand it, whether it's in our DNA or spiritually accessed, whatever that means. But There are these inner worlds that are part of being human that many of us go through life without even realizing that they're there.

Yeah.

But they seem to be part of a potential functioning of most, if not all, human beings.

That's really interesting, because I think that, and I think that that's kind of a perfect place to wrap up this discussion, is that if you're listening, you probably tuned in because you wanted to know how to use mushrooms. You wanted to know a little bit more about psilocybin and what it does in the brain, and perhaps you want to know just a little bit more about the safety of psychedelics. And hopefully you've picked up a little bit of that information here. But. But, Bill, as I know you get into in your book Sacred Knowledge, and as you just expounded upon, many of us are walking around simply too busy and not silent enough and not immersed enough in both our intentions and in nature to be able to tap into a lot of these things that we can naturally tap into with our own minds without necessarily being on a bunch of psilocybin. And so I want to throw in there for people, for any of you listening in, go out in nature, be quiet, go for a forest walk like Shinrin Yoku is what they call in Japan forest bathing. Go for a walk without your cell phone, without your MP3 player, and yes, without a joint or any psilocybin in your system or anything else. And just try to tap into some of the sacred geometries in nature, some of the intense memories that you might form, some of the vividness, some of the color, without these type of things. And I personally, as I hope you know, and Bill, too, has expressed this, we don't not endorse the use of these compounds outside of research, but we certainly appreciate the human body's own innate ability to tap into some of the same psychedelic effects without necessarily the use of psychedelics, if that makes sense. Is that kind of what you're getting at, Bill?

Yes. And I would stress, whether spontaneously or in meditative states or with the facilitation of psychedelic substances, for example, if someone senses anxiety and maybe has a mental image of a dragon or a monster or a boogeyman or a devil or whatever, you know, if you go towards that in your mind essentially with an intention of, well, hello, you ever look scary? What can I learn from you? Why are you here? What are you made of? You know, when you go towards the source of the fear, inevitably there's insight and resolution and understanding. You know, the monster turns into the alcoholic father in the middle of the night or the abusive babysitter or some guilt or grief you've been avoiding, you know. Yeah. Conversely, if you try to run away from it, repress it, ignore it, then the anxiety grows and you start to feel paranoid. You know, it's like you're running away from your own shadow and the faster you run, the smaller you get, the bigger the monster becomes and you're really running away from an opportunity for spiritual and personal growth. Yeah. That's why it's so important to take psychedelics in a trust filled environment, you know, where if you start to get scared, you can hold someone's hand and go towards what's threatening.

Yeah.

And then there's insight and then it's life promoting instead of taking you into a emergency room for psychiatric care.

Yeah. Well, Bill, this is a fascinating discussion. I'm going to link to everything that we talked about in the show notes for this episode, which again, if you're listening in, are going to be over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Richards that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Richards and that'll be everything from the Arowid website to other psilocybin research pages where you can apply to be part of a psilocybin study, to Bill's book and beyond, including 100% sugar free grapefruit juice in case you should want to get your hands on some of that. So, Bill, thanks so much for coming on the show today and sharing this stuff with us. It's fascinating.

All good wishes to you and your listeners.

All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. William Richards signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com, have a healthy week, be responsible and remember, go for that nature walk. You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting.

Edge fitness and performance advice. Sam.