True Patriot Love


Mike Wixson with Sa’ad Shah ｜ Psychedelics, Healing, and the Future of Mental Health


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Graham Hancock Prozac Luis Eduardo Luna Brian Murorescu Gabor Mate Andrew Coe Entheogen Mike Michael Winklejohn Terrence McKenna Queen Victoria Charles Manson Saad Shah Stan Groff John Cade Florianopoulos Shakespeare Covenant Ibogaine Demiurge and 7 more

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Saad Shah is the Co-Founder of Noetic, a venture fund focused on psychedelics and the mental health industry. In this episode, we talk about psychedelics, psychedelics as medicine, and the role crypto-currencies play in the space.

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00:00:00.160 Cuckoo, ca-choo. 0.98
00:00:01.500 All right, well, there's a lot of debate out there.
00:00:03.880 What do psychedelics do for trauma and in the way of medicine?
00:00:07.900 And then on the other side, there's all of these psychedelic shops opening up.
00:00:11.560 I don't know where you are.
00:00:13.360 Within a kilometer of where I'm recording right now here in Toronto,
00:00:16.880 there must be five or six psychedelic shops that are open
00:00:19.420 that are under the guise of indigenous medicine, of all things.
00:00:24.960 There is a wide drift between what is happening on the street
00:00:29.720 and what the realities are when it comes to psychedelics as medicine.
00:00:33.740 And today, we're going to dig deeper and go a little bit further on the discussion
00:00:37.860 because if it's really important to medicine and our mental health,
00:00:41.780 we really should look at it, shouldn't we?
00:00:52.600 All right, here we go.
00:00:53.720 This is a deeper conversation than probably you've ever had about psychedelics.
00:00:59.640 And by the way, please feel free to write in.
00:01:02.960 And if you have questions, I'll make sure that today's guest gets those questions.
00:01:07.200 I'm sure that you'll get the answers that you need.
00:01:09.500 Saad Shah, thanks so much for joining us.
00:01:11.300 Thank you, Mike.
00:01:11.920 It's a pleasure to be here.
00:01:13.080 You're joining us from Noetic.
00:01:14.780 Now, you guys have, and you're one of the co-founders?
00:01:17.320 That's correct.
00:01:17.760 You guys have created a fund that is now doing very well, as I understand it,
00:01:23.120 that gets behind the mental health industry, that category, that sector, as it were.
00:01:30.900 And part of that is the development of, I guess, psychedelics for treatment.
00:01:36.180 Right, that's correct.
00:01:37.680 Yeah, yeah.
00:01:38.160 We're a fund.
00:01:39.100 It's a venture fund that is focused on officially, or technically speaking, the central nervous system.
00:01:45.620 And the central nervous system comprises of, you know, your parasympathetic system.
00:01:50.220 And it comprises, it incorporates or includes mental health and mental health issues, but also pain and how to manage pain.
00:02:00.000 And so that is where we are focused.
00:02:03.180 We've broken the world into its various components in terms of understanding, well, how many people around the world are suffering from various distinct mental health issues,
00:02:13.020 be that treatment-resistant depression, major depressive disorder, PTSD, anxiety, all the way down to schizophrenia, bipolar, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, traumatic brain injury that a lot of our athletes face, and so on.
00:02:27.520 And then looking at what is currently working, what is not working, and how can we disrupt that?
00:02:35.340 And all that's been transpiring in sort of the underground movement with psychedelics has given us so much profound anecdotal information and evidence to suggest we need to look at this more seriously.
00:02:50.060 And so we decided to set up a fund six years ago to get into this, predominantly our own capital, and that belonging to our friends and family, and the rest is history.
00:03:01.180 I mean, it's been a very difficult ride, but we stuck to our knitting, and we're very excited about the future, very excited.
00:03:11.120 I'm excited for you, first of all, from an economic standpoint, to see a company here in Canada breaking waves and doing well financially, that's amazing.
00:03:22.540 And then to make a departure from the standard, I guess, or the traditional pharmaceutical world, kind of also makes me feel good.
00:03:32.400 And the reason for that is, I think I'm now being trained that ancient medicine, organic medicines, plant-based treatments are starting to be really verified.
00:03:45.560 There's veracity to the research, and has that just become more and more apparent on your journey?
00:03:52.760 It has.
00:03:53.620 It's really fascinating, you know, because I was having this discussion just yesterday with a very interesting group of individuals, very learned individuals,
00:04:01.460 which is that I felt that there's a very distinct zeitgeist that's taking place overall, especially more so in Western cultures, also in Eastern, but more so in Western cultures,
00:04:11.740 where there's this inherent distrust of institutions, okay?
00:04:17.000 So when you take a look at what's happening in the crypto space, which I know very little about, but...
00:04:22.660 I know enough to lose thousands at a time, so consult me anytime.
00:04:26.760 So it's a space that, you know, I was trying to understand the philosophy behind it, and it's very simple.
00:04:32.640 You don't have faith in the central banks.
00:04:35.760 You don't have faith in the fiat currency.
00:04:38.140 You want to decentralize all of that.
00:04:41.020 And that's really the crux behind what's, you know, really driving crypto and the potential for crypto to get to where, you know,
00:04:49.040 everybody's expecting it to potentially get to and how that's going to take over in some cases.
00:04:52.800 In the same way, there is a distrust for our medical institutions and our doctors that are trained in certain ways.
00:05:00.280 And it kind of actually surprises me that at no point in medical school do any of these soon-to-be doctors ever learn about the importance or the role that trauma plays in our life.
00:05:12.280 It's true that we now know, I mean, it's scientifically proven, that parts of the brain retain trauma, that then this is the operating system for everything else in your body,
00:05:27.580 your organs, your heart, everything in that central nervous system obviously is connected.
00:05:34.100 And so that we don't look at that is very interesting.
00:05:39.320 We don't.
00:05:39.620 We don't study it.
00:05:40.360 We don't understand how some people are better able to cope and, you know, kind of, you know, have regulate their parasympathetic nervous system and others are not.
00:05:49.380 We also don't really, truly appreciate and understand, you know, how distinct trauma that happens at different points in your life have, you know, bigger impact, lesser impact, so on.
00:05:58.100 So we're not studying trauma and, you know, when you take a look at, you know, the phenomenal work done by people like Dr. Gabor Matty and there's so many others, it all stems from trauma.
00:06:09.580 It starts from trauma.
00:06:10.500 Even Stan Grof was considered to be one of the father figures in psychedelics in just in terms of understanding the importance of it and what it can really show us about who we are.
00:06:20.080 There is a lot of his research is based on the trauma that we face just coming out of the birth canal, and he can show it scientifically that if you had struggles coming out of the birth canal, that actually impacts your parasympathetic system and, you know, can have an impact on the way you operate and view life.
00:06:39.860 Well, even generational trauma seems to be another good example of that.
00:06:44.260 That is a, that's a, that's an excellent one to highlight, right?
00:06:47.520 Well, epigenetics has shown us that it's not just nurture, right?
00:06:52.740 It's not just, it's, it's, well, it's not just nature.
00:06:55.480 It's also nurture.
00:06:56.440 It's, it's what we picked up from being in the environment that we are and the surrounding that we are and the way we've been raised and the way we've been conditioned, right?
00:07:03.560 Right.
00:07:03.820 I think it was in Francis of Assisi that said, give me a child underneath the age of 12 and I'll give you a Catholic for life.
00:07:08.700 Right.
00:07:09.100 Right.
00:07:09.280 So, so much of our conditioning takes place at such a young age and we're told to wear different masks.
00:07:15.500 And so most of our life, we're, we're learning to put on different masks for different people.
00:07:20.640 You're a husband, you're a, you know, a spouse, a partner, you're, you're a sibling, you're a coworker.
00:07:26.880 I mean, it goes on and on and you put on different masks with different folks.
00:07:29.940 And in some, at some point you lose who you really are.
00:07:33.820 And there's a beautiful line from Aldous Huxley in, in, in one of his books where he talks, we toil away in our everyday lives so that we can avoid facing ourselves.
00:07:42.560 And that is the most difficult thing to do is to face yourself in the mirror.
00:07:47.120 That being said, the beautiful thing about psychedelics that we've seen is that it allows you to do that in a way that doesn't scare you.
00:07:55.640 There's like a, uh, I guess a force field between us wanting to do that and having the ability to do that.
00:08:04.400 It is a frightening bridge to cross to take a look at yourself.
00:08:08.400 You know, I've made these errors.
00:08:09.980 I've had these regrets.
00:08:11.180 I could have done better with this.
00:08:13.140 I, I, you know, I'm 110 pounds overweight, whatever the case might be.
00:08:17.600 Yeah.
00:08:18.140 Um, having a look in the mirror is the last thing it's.
00:08:22.820 And I think human nature might have something to do with that.
00:08:25.900 No, no, it very much does.
00:08:27.180 It's the last thing we want to do.
00:08:28.280 And, you know, people don't realize again, that a lot of our addictions stem from that because you're trying to escape something.
00:08:34.680 You don't want to look at something.
00:08:35.680 Right.
00:08:35.820 So whether it's work, there's, you know, we, we don't talk enough about work addiction and being a workaholic and how that impacts your family life and your own life and so on.
00:08:45.180 There's all these other addictions to substances.
00:08:48.100 There's also addictions to certain sex addictions.
00:08:50.540 Those are, those are all addictions because you're trying to avoid something and not look at yourself.
00:08:54.960 Not water, not margarita.
00:08:56.780 I'm just kidding.
00:08:57.700 It's, it is margarita.
00:08:59.480 Uh, but you're right.
00:09:01.600 I can understand that.
00:09:02.840 I think that's all become part of the general science of understanding ourselves and mental health is making these breakthroughs every day.
00:09:11.560 I see it.
00:09:12.520 I think we all see it.
00:09:13.760 Um, which is fantastic.
00:09:15.380 And now you, what you say is some of that journey can be an easier journey, I suppose, or it can actually begin with psychedelics at the helm.
00:09:29.540 Yeah.
00:09:29.860 You know, we, we, we've, we've been so used to being led, right?
00:09:33.820 You trust the government, you trust the institutions, you trust, trust the establishment.
00:09:38.940 And I think that there's been a massive trust deficit that's built over several years, of course.
00:09:45.620 And so what does that mean?
00:09:47.500 The point is that we're starting to take agency back.
00:09:50.620 Right.
00:09:51.060 Which is again, why the crypto world is there.
00:09:53.580 Why in, in, in, in, even in medical science, they'd be starting to do their own research.
00:09:57.860 Even looking at history through a different lens, finally, or, you know, the universe overall.
00:10:04.120 Yes.
00:10:04.480 Yeah.
00:10:04.700 Yeah.
00:10:04.900 No, exactly.
00:10:05.580 And so that zeitgeist has allowed us to kind of go to electric vehicles.
00:10:10.460 There's another example.
00:10:11.500 Okay.
00:10:11.940 We had electric vehicles back in the seventies.
00:10:14.140 That is true.
00:10:14.920 Right.
00:10:15.180 Yeah.
00:10:15.740 And today, I mean, yesterday I could argue with you perhaps and said, you know, um,
00:10:21.060 if as an auto manufacturer, you're not going into the electric vehicle space, you're probably
00:10:25.220 going to lose out today.
00:10:27.000 I'm not entirely that sure anymore, just the way things are going, but I still think that
00:10:30.940 for sure, electric vehicles are here to stay.
00:10:34.100 Oh, I think so.
00:10:35.040 But I don't know that they are going to be the dominating vehicle, right?
00:10:37.400 No, I, that's where I would agree with you.
00:10:39.040 Yeah.
00:10:39.620 Yeah.
00:10:39.840 Yeah.
00:10:40.240 And maybe more so if Elon didn't involve himself in politics, but, uh, you know, I do think
00:10:46.840 that there are some limitations to that kind of thinking.
00:10:49.160 However, once again, saying we're going all electric, sometimes you have to over ring
00:10:55.520 the bell so that people hear it.
00:10:57.360 I think.
00:10:58.060 Yeah.
00:10:58.940 However, that agency for us to use our own judgment is coming back.
00:11:03.680 Don't over ring the bell.
00:11:04.940 If we want to do this, we're going to do it.
00:11:06.640 That's right.
00:11:07.140 We're going to weigh all the odds.
00:11:09.100 We're not going to be pressured into a policy.
00:11:11.700 We're not going to, we really want to understand how this operates.
00:11:14.880 And I think you're right in, in a lot of ways, the world is changing that way.
00:11:18.340 It totally is.
00:11:19.000 And the reason is we have information at our fingertips, right?
00:11:22.380 It's at our disposal.
00:11:23.700 It's all there now.
00:11:24.860 Yeah.
00:11:25.260 We're, we're, we're soon going to see a world where, for example, in AI, this ability for
00:11:32.280 AI to inference at profound levels is going to be more of a factor we need to take in,
00:11:38.940 which what all that means is now things are going to be way more demarketized.
00:11:43.340 So a villager sitting in Mali that may have access to the internet is going to get a lot
00:11:52.080 of information and has a lot of tools at their disposal to be able to do what somebody sitting
00:11:57.340 in, you know, Bensonhurst, you know, or, or, or Scarsdale, New York.
00:12:02.540 In fact, if it's a natural method, they might have closer access to the things that they need.
00:12:07.380 So to find out, okay, based on what is in your surroundings, what can be done for these
00:12:13.420 symptoms, for this malady, for this problem.
00:12:16.080 And that's the other beautiful, that's personally, that's really important for me, which is that
00:12:20.500 this, this notion that, Hey, are we forgetting something about our past?
00:12:25.140 Like, do we need to revisit the ancient cultures?
00:12:28.340 Do we need to better understand what they knew about life, cosmology, their role in it,
00:12:34.120 their place in it?
00:12:35.400 The herbs that they used, the food that they ate, the way that they interacted with each
00:12:40.420 other.
00:12:41.120 That's all starting, you know, was getting lost, but we're going back to it now.
00:12:45.420 Yeah.
00:12:45.520 We seem to be scratching at our history to find the answers more and more every day.
00:12:50.920 Yeah.
00:12:51.100 And now, so psychedelics, when do we start seeing psychedelics used in humanity?
00:12:55.160 Let's go back and say, okay, psychedelics have been used, uh, in this manner, uh, by
00:13:00.980 humanity in this positive way, because I think a lot of what we hear, and there are stories
00:13:06.120 everywhere.
00:13:06.720 We've all experienced somebody in our life who's had an issue with psychedelics.
00:13:10.840 You know, they jumped off a bridge or they went into a state of psychosis or whatever the
00:13:16.240 case might be.
00:13:17.020 But let's go back right to the beginning of when we understand psychedelics being used,
00:13:22.860 because I have a feeling it wasn't used ever in that way.
00:13:26.500 You know, psychedelics have had more of a profound use throughout our history than we care to
00:13:31.560 understand and realize.
00:13:33.100 I mean, it goes way, way, way back.
00:13:35.440 And I have, you know, on our website, I list about 50 books that I recommend that people read.
00:13:40.560 And, and a lot of it is about our history and not understanding the role in psychedelics.
00:13:44.800 But the first ever mention of psychedelics came about by a mention of something called the Soma,
00:13:50.040 and which was in India.
00:13:51.840 And there's debate and argument whether the Soma is a mushroom or a plant.
00:13:56.280 Okay.
00:13:56.720 That debate continues.
00:13:58.240 But what was the key thing about the Soma was that it gave you purportedly, um, it made you 0.91
00:14:04.800 immortal.
00:14:05.220 Now, immortal people feel that you live forever.
00:14:08.680 It's not that you physically live forever, but it gives you a glimpse into something so
00:14:15.280 profound that it allows you to part the veil ever so slightly and realize without having
00:14:22.200 to prove to anybody, you know, that there's so much more to heaven and earth than is dreamt
00:14:28.080 of in our philosophies.
00:14:28.980 And that's a Shakespeare quote.
00:14:30.140 That glimpse into that, that profound unending, you know, nature of what we're all part of
00:14:41.460 gives you that confidence to kind of come back and go one, two things.
00:14:46.020 I'm not alone.
00:14:47.020 Right.
00:14:47.600 I'm part of something really big.
00:14:49.280 And ergo, my depression shouldn't really be there.
00:14:52.620 I'm not alone.
00:14:53.340 There's no need.
00:14:54.120 There's no need to be alone.
00:14:55.040 And you saw something and you realize your role in that.
00:14:58.260 And this is not finite.
00:14:59.340 No, it's not.
00:15:00.560 And as such, your fear of death goes away.
00:15:05.220 The death, the way we understand death, right?
00:15:08.060 And your fear of holding onto your ego.
00:15:10.900 By the way, ego is very important.
00:15:12.160 I don't believe in this notion of ego death. 1.00
00:15:13.980 I think it's bullshit. 1.00
00:15:14.900 Your ego is there to protect you. 1.00
00:15:17.140 It's there to make sure that you're okay and you're protected.
00:15:20.400 Question is, who controls you?
00:15:22.160 Is it your ego or do you, can you put it in the closet for when you need to put it in
00:15:26.440 and take it out when you need to?
00:15:27.420 It's very difficult to do that, especially in our society, because everything is really,
00:15:32.140 we're climbers.
00:15:34.700 I don't care what anybody says.
00:15:36.560 I don't care what guru you are going to.
00:15:39.320 We're all climbers in this world.
00:15:41.680 That's the mentality that we've been given.
00:15:43.900 Yes.
00:15:44.140 And the ego is required.
00:15:46.840 Maybe I'm wrong, by the way.
00:15:47.840 I have no idea what I'm talking about.
00:15:49.060 But it feels to me like the ego is required to make that engine operate.
00:15:54.140 Absolutely.
00:15:55.040 Absolutely.
00:15:55.640 It's a protective mechanism.
00:15:56.920 It's protected you from get-go.
00:15:58.820 It's a very important part of your thing.
00:16:00.180 The key thing is knowing when to bring it out to help and protect and when to say, hey,
00:16:07.500 I got this.
00:16:08.260 You're good.
00:16:09.520 Right?
00:16:09.900 So right back to an ancient era, essentially, this was used as a way to give us, to take that
00:16:21.560 ego element away.
00:16:22.820 By the way, if I'm saying anything wrong, go ahead, correct me.
00:16:25.160 Just to give us enough of ourself to see what else is beyond this plane, this existence?
00:16:32.840 Yeah.
00:16:33.620 So Soma was the first sort of depiction of it that we learned through literature, and that
00:16:38.980 was in the Rig Vedas, right?
00:16:41.240 In Hinduism, in the Rig Vedas, where we go, hey, what's that?
00:16:44.820 And then the first ever piece of writing that really came out in Western civilization was
00:16:53.420 on the Sumerian tablets, and that was the Epic of Gilgamesh.
00:16:57.380 Beautiful story.
00:16:58.400 Amazing story.
00:16:58.940 Right?
00:16:59.400 And in the Epic of Gilgamesh, again, Gilgamesh is out there trying to search for that plant
00:17:05.180 that grows at the bottom of the river, which, again, gives you immortality.
00:17:08.360 So there have been clear suggestions, okay, of the importance of some of these plant medicines,
00:17:14.820 that are playing a very pivotal role.
00:17:17.980 Now, you go back and you take a look at cave art, and this is, by the way, what first got
00:17:27.900 me interested in this, was a book that was written back in 2004, 2005 by Graham Hancock.
00:17:33.720 Love Graham Hancock.
00:17:34.620 Yeah.
00:17:35.580 Ancient Apocalypse.
00:17:37.020 Exactly.
00:17:37.500 Ancient Apocalypse.
00:17:39.040 There's a, you know.
00:17:40.080 He's very, his books, he has one that is, or several about psychedelics as well.
00:17:49.420 There's one which is the really profound one.
00:17:52.960 He mentioned psychedelics and others, but there's one that was originally titled Supernatural.
00:17:57.560 Supernatural.
00:17:58.200 That's correct.
00:17:58.500 That's the one, yeah.
00:17:59.020 And that had a name change very recently.
00:18:01.740 It's now back on the market.
00:18:03.820 It's called The Visionary.
00:18:04.500 And, you know, Graham was a journalist, you know, and he covered Africa and so on for The
00:18:13.380 Economist.
00:18:14.040 I believe we can double verify that, but I'm pretty sure it was.
00:18:19.800 And, you know, the initial books that he wrote were about certain mysteries that we misunderstood.
00:18:24.860 The Sign and the Seal was a profound book about where the Ark of the Covenant actually is.
00:18:30.920 And he discovered it was in Ethiopia, and it's there.
00:18:32.940 It's been there all this time.
00:18:34.520 We actually know it's there.
00:18:35.680 It's been guarded by the Masa tribesmen, and these Masa tribesmen, once they get to the
00:18:41.360 doors and they're guarding it, invariably all get cancer and pass away at a certain period
00:18:48.880 of time.
00:18:49.140 The last expedition there, there's not a surviving member of?
00:18:56.840 No, there isn't, right?
00:18:57.940 Even the camera crew.
00:18:59.700 So now it's really important from a theosophical standpoint, especially when it comes to Judaism,
00:19:07.480 that the Ark of the Covenant gets returned to Solomon's temple.
00:19:11.420 That's part of the whole Armageddon school of thought, right?
00:19:15.160 You've got to get the 10 lost tribes of Israel to come back. 1.00
00:19:17.800 You've got to bring this back and so on.
00:19:19.460 So he covered that.
00:19:20.860 Anyway, I digress, because the point is to talk about supernatural.
00:19:24.660 And his mission was very simple.
00:19:26.800 He was just trying to understand that there's cave art that's 25 to 50,000 years old that's
00:19:32.680 found in Australia, South Africa, again, vast distances, and Europe, and France in particular,
00:19:39.220 in the cave of Lusso.
00:19:40.140 And what's interesting is that it seems like the same artist has just been going around
00:19:47.140 doing these cave art, because they're all similar.
00:19:50.440 You've got pictures of chimeras and therianthropes.
00:19:53.760 Chimeras are half one animal, half another animal. 1.00
00:19:56.420 Therianthropes are half man, half animal. 1.00
00:19:58.680 You've got a lot of concept of death and rebirth.
00:20:03.700 You have hands, you have eyes, you have these geometric patterns that are drawn.
00:20:11.160 And so he was just trying to find out, how is it similar?
00:20:14.060 Yeah, why are they so similar?
00:20:15.440 What's going on?
00:20:16.040 From all these points on Earth.
00:20:17.220 That's correct.
00:20:18.100 And he ultimately came across this.
00:20:20.480 He read all the different theories.
00:20:21.840 It didn't really make sense.
00:20:22.680 People weren't really sure.
00:20:23.460 But then he read this one theory from this professor at the University of Witswater-Srande
00:20:27.700 in South Africa that posited the theory that it was done by individuals that were, be that
00:20:34.740 shaman or not, that had taken a hallucinogenic substance, plant medicine.
00:20:40.060 And these are the distinct things that they all saw.
00:20:43.160 So regardless of your ethnic background, your religious background, where you were brought
00:20:46.700 up, who you are, what you are, what color you are, it doesn't matter.
00:20:49.600 When you undergo an experience with hallucinogenics, with entheogens, I should rather say, as opposed
00:20:55.380 to hallucinogenics, because it's probably scared a lot of you.
00:20:57.940 What's an entheogen?
00:20:59.100 Entheogen?
00:21:00.060 Entheogen.
00:21:00.620 An entheogenic substance.
00:21:02.120 These are entheogens.
00:21:03.220 So they have been, by virtue of what the word suggests, they've been touched by God.
00:21:12.660 Enthusiasm.
00:21:14.060 The word enthusiasm.
00:21:15.160 Enthusiasm.
00:21:15.840 Yeah.
00:21:16.040 E-N-T-E-N-T-E-N-T-E. 1.00
00:21:16.920 Okay.
00:21:17.540 That means you are, you know, kind of, you've got the spirit of God in you when you're
00:21:21.300 saying something, like, hey, I got to say something.
00:21:22.920 Right.
00:21:23.280 Kind of like the way I am right now.
00:21:24.480 Yeah, yeah, yeah, well done.
00:21:25.780 So, entheogens are plant medicines, plant substance that have been touched by God.
00:21:32.820 So that's a better way to, I'd like to, you know, typically refer to them as entheogens
00:21:37.820 as opposed to hallucinogenics.
00:21:40.180 But they're plant medicine.
00:21:41.860 And so...
00:21:42.780 Ancient plant medicines of all kinds have always been attached to deities, to process of religion.
00:21:53.540 Oh, this goes even deeper, Mike.
00:21:55.140 It's so fascinating because you've got tribes in West Africa that have been ingesting and using Ibogaine from the Iboga plant that grows indigenous in Gabon.
00:22:09.000 And they've been using it to, in their, in sort of, according to their narrative, to communicate with the Sirius constellation, which is the dog star, right?
00:22:21.280 The dog constellation.
00:22:22.400 Their deity.
00:22:23.020 Their deity because that's why they're called the Doggone Tribe. 1.00
00:22:26.860 And they knew about the exact makeup of the Sirius constellation before we had telescopes.
00:22:36.380 They knew about the dwarf star. 0.99
00:22:38.040 And everybody said, you're foolish. 0.99
00:22:38.980 There's no, there's only two, whatever. 1.00
00:22:40.120 And they said, here.
00:22:40.900 So how do they know?
00:22:43.140 Why do they communicate with, with the dog star?
00:22:46.400 They say they're communicating with their dead ancestors and so on.
00:22:48.920 But that's their history.
00:22:50.020 That's that tribe's history.
00:22:51.200 That's their narrative, what they've done.
00:22:52.680 With psychedelics, this is their experience.
00:22:55.120 That's correct.
00:22:55.420 Their application.
00:22:56.160 That's correct.
00:22:56.560 And the result.
00:22:57.320 Yes.
00:22:57.600 And what we figured, what we discovered was that, wait a second, Iboga, Ibogaine from the Iboga plant,
00:23:03.580 Ibogaine has profound, profound impact on those that are suffering from any kind of addiction,
00:23:09.980 especially heroin addicts.
00:23:11.460 Okay.
00:23:11.760 Because once you ingest and have that experience with Ibogaine, the, there's something called
00:23:17.620 nor Ibogaine that stays in your system for up to three months and it fights the cravings.
00:23:22.000 If you can get a heroin addict off heroin for even a day, that's pretty miraculous.
00:23:26.460 It is an incredible feat.
00:23:28.000 But we're talking about like six months to a year that they're off it.
00:23:31.500 And then you've got to, you know, of course have other sort of, you know, programs.
00:23:35.500 But in that time, you figure that they have detoxed.
00:23:38.500 That's right.
00:23:39.040 They've got a program underway.
00:23:40.520 That's right.
00:23:40.860 They started to get their life back.
00:23:41.880 That's right.
00:23:42.460 That's right.
00:23:42.760 And they may never go back again.
00:23:44.820 They may not.
00:23:45.820 The key thing is to also understand the plight of the heroin addict.
00:23:49.200 And the best way it's ever been explained to me is by way of Gabor Matty, who said, listen,
00:23:53.980 when heroin addicts take heroin, here's how they feel in two different ways.
00:23:59.040 One is they feel that their mother has just come around and most of them don't even remember
00:24:04.460 their mothers.
00:24:05.140 Right.
00:24:05.260 And it's given them a warm blanket and a hot bowl of chicken soup.
00:24:11.000 Right.
00:24:11.200 And, and they're feeling loved and nurtured.
00:24:14.480 That's how they feel when they're on heroin.
00:24:16.240 The other ways in which heroin is explained is coming out from the cold, bitter cold, and
00:24:23.160 standing under a nice, warm, hot shower.
00:24:26.900 And that sensation of the shower hitting from your head down, that sensation going all the
00:24:31.740 way down, down to your body, that is what they associate with that experience of being
00:24:38.440 under heroin.
00:24:39.060 So all it is, is, is allowing them to substitute heroin for something else that gives them the
00:24:47.440 kind of dopamine trigger.
00:24:48.900 All right.
00:24:49.860 And, um, the serotonin experience to kind of feel that they've got their, the quick fix or
00:24:59.060 high, because it's coming through natural means, love, support system, confidence, knowing that
00:25:06.760 you've got, people got your back.
00:25:08.240 And then of course, also, you know, looking at the world from a little bit more of a blissful
00:25:12.420 standpoint, you say that instead of scratching at your insides to get out.
00:25:16.460 That's right.
00:25:17.120 That's right.
00:25:17.680 Uh, okay.
00:25:18.660 So now what, sorry.
00:25:20.560 No, no.
00:25:20.780 I just wanted to finish that one story about the, the, the cave art.
00:25:23.520 So went to the professor and said, listen, how is the assembly?
00:25:26.780 He said, well, this is how it is.
00:25:27.740 And he goes, well, did you, have you ever taken it?
00:25:30.620 How, how do you know that this is the case?
00:25:32.380 And the professor said, no, I would never take it.
00:25:33.920 Of course the professor would say, right.
00:25:35.220 I would never take it.
00:25:36.160 So in the book, Graham undertakes this experience of having an experience with Ibogaine, having
00:25:42.280 an experience with psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms and having this means with ayahuasca
00:25:46.540 all under medical supervision, all documented.
00:25:50.860 And he talks about, he breaks it down in terms of, you know, what he's seeing, what he's experiencing.
00:25:56.460 He breaks it down and compares it to what he saw in the cave art.
00:26:00.140 And so we know that psychedelics have played a role that goes way, way, way back.
00:26:06.800 And throughout history, you take a look at Egyptian hieroglyphics.
00:26:10.020 There's so many instances of the blue lotus flower being put on your face or the mimosa flower being put on your face.
00:26:16.300 Those are all, you know, very strong, sort of, they have strong entheogenic properties.
00:26:21.520 Okay.
00:26:21.720 So, but why were they used?
00:26:24.900 Who used them?
00:26:26.000 What was the purpose?
00:26:27.340 And the little bit that we know is that in many cases, they were even kept away from nobility.
00:26:33.180 They kept away from the masses, right?
00:26:35.220 It was just for nobility to use as a means to either communicate or to have downloads or visions.
00:26:43.060 It gave them a certain connection.
00:26:44.460 That's correct.
00:26:44.820 That's correct.
00:26:45.940 Even we found in sort of what they uncovered in China, they were little kind of vessels, a little, and they had a hallucinogenic substance in there or an entheogenic substance.
00:26:57.360 And that was drunk at distinct gatherings.
00:27:01.360 So we know it's being used.
00:27:03.500 We know it goes back.
00:27:04.500 It goes way, way back in history.
00:27:06.080 And there's a profound book written by Brian Mororescu and Andrew Coe, which is called The Immortality Key.
00:27:13.200 And all he did was, and Andrew Coe is at MIT.
00:27:16.620 Brian is a phenomenal, phenomenal, you know, journalist slash author.
00:27:21.240 And he spent 11 years, they spent 11 years writing this book.
00:27:24.080 And all they did was, they went back into sort of the museums of antiquity and they scraped the bottom of the vases and sort of, you know, and these pots to just see what was the, you know, archaeochemistry in there.
00:27:38.200 And their view was that, you know, most of all these, all the wine was laced with psychedelics to the extent that they have made a very strong case that the Eucharist, as we understand it, had that layering of psychedelics there.
00:28:03.380 It's all in the book.
00:28:04.140 On the tongue.
00:28:05.140 That's correct.
00:28:06.200 Interesting.
00:28:06.760 Another one that gets my attention is ayahuasca, where it's comprised of a root and a leaf that have nothing to do with each other from two different parts, from a great distance apart from one another.
00:28:22.160 How, how did any, and by the way, ayahuasca, maybe a quick two minute description of what ayahuasca is and how it's being used.
00:28:30.980 Yeah.
00:28:31.400 And then maybe, unravel that one for me.
00:28:34.200 Who ever discovered, okay, if you put this and this together and you cook it at this, how did humanity find this, what seems to be a very effective cure for trauma, drug addiction, and many other mental illnesses in many people?
00:28:49.600 You know, this, this started with, with me going down to Brazil in 2009 with Graham and a few other academics.
00:28:59.300 There was Michael Winkleman there and Luis Eduardo Luna.
00:29:03.800 It was his place in Florianopoulos.
00:29:07.320 Luis, who taught Spanish and anthropology at the Swedish University of Finland, which is, it's a thing.
00:29:16.280 Okay.
00:29:17.300 And was there for close to 40 years.
00:29:19.860 Bought this 16th century Jesuit monastery up on a hill.
00:29:23.580 It was all looking to bay.
00:29:25.660 And a beautiful spot.
00:29:27.360 And he created a garden around it, even grew ayahuasca and other entheogenic plants.
00:29:33.660 And I went and had an experience there to truly understand and appreciate the ways of the Shipibo tribe, which he's a master at.
00:29:41.220 And so the, this is one of those bizarre kind of situations where you go, listen, there's a hundred thousand different species of foliage in the Amazon.
00:29:50.240 But only if you take this vine and you come, and you combine it with that particular plant, do you get ayahuasca?
00:30:00.300 So analogy I use is you're seeing a tornado or some sort of a, yeah, you know, whatever wind tunnel thing, kind of going through a junkyard and creating a Mercedes C class to the D.
00:30:11.060 It's amazing.
00:30:12.280 Like to really, this is the thing about many psychedelics that I find fascinating.
00:30:17.660 Yeah.
00:30:18.320 That somebody had to figure this out.
00:30:20.700 Somebody pulled a mushroom out of the cow pool and thought, I'm going to ingest this.
00:30:27.240 Yeah.
00:30:27.680 That was the stone ape theory, right? 0.94
00:30:29.140 That's Terrence McKenna's stone ape theory, which is that there was a massive shift in our consciousness, in our cognition, in the way we operated as humans 200,000 years ago. 0.94
00:30:40.180 And that was because somebody decided to follow the shit and pick the mushrooms for me and go, this is doing something for me, we've got to have this. 0.88
00:30:49.120 And it changed, right? 0.99
00:30:50.540 And that was a paradigm shift.
00:30:53.520 Now, with, you know, in this particular case, when you ask these indigenous communities, so first of all, ayahuasca is a vine.
00:31:02.020 Ayahuasca itself is just a vine.
00:31:03.660 Right.
00:31:04.020 Okay.
00:31:04.320 It's just a vine.
00:31:05.480 There's no hallucinogenic properties to it whatsoever.
00:31:08.640 If you just have that vine on its own, you boil it, you drink it, nothing happens.
00:31:13.800 Okay.
00:31:13.920 Now, there's incredible properties to ayahuasca.
00:31:17.320 It's got 124 molecules that we've now discovered, which are all very important.
00:31:21.700 It's got harming in it.
00:31:23.060 It's got other.
00:31:23.760 So it does have some great benefits.
00:31:26.980 And in fact, in the Amazon, they make a syrup out of it.
00:31:30.100 They give it to children.
00:31:31.460 They make eye drops out of it.
00:31:33.360 There's other things that they do with it.
00:31:34.600 Oh, fascinating.
00:31:35.120 But there's nothing hallucinogenic about it, right?
00:31:38.640 What it has, a core part of its makeup as one of the molecules it's got, it has monoamine oxidase inhibitor, which basically means it has the ability to suppress your stomach acids from eating anything or digesting anything.
00:31:53.900 So when you combine the vine with the chacruna plant, which is where DMT resides, dimethyltryptamine, right?
00:32:03.420 That's, you know, that's, that's, that's, all living things have that.
00:32:07.660 It gets secreted in copious amounts close to death.
00:32:11.540 I've heard this, yeah.
00:32:12.420 It's in your lungs, in your heart, in your brain.
00:32:13.900 Which some believe is the invitation to this eternal existence.
00:32:22.140 Right.
00:32:22.420 Now, you know, looking at it from, you know, one perspective, you would say, wow, I guess it's opening a portal up and your soul is going.
00:32:31.460 Now, that may well be the case.
00:32:34.480 Let me just have that one.
00:32:35.140 No, no, no.
00:32:35.680 It's, you can definitely have it.
00:32:38.060 But what we've also discovered is that what DMT does in a profound way is it oxygenates the system.
00:32:44.440 So the reason why your body releases it, it's your body's last ditch effort to oxygenate and keep you alive.
00:32:50.540 Because at the end of the day, you get shot, you get this, you fall, it doesn't matter.
00:32:54.860 You die of hypoxia.
00:32:56.240 That's the ultimate cause of death.
00:32:59.360 Oxygen stops.
00:33:00.400 Exactly.
00:33:00.880 That's it.
00:33:01.640 So now, if your body's oxygenated and it's still there, you have that ability to, you know, fight it or go through it.
00:33:08.080 So why isn't there a, you know, kind of like a vial or whatever of DMT in every operating room?
00:33:13.980 That's a good question.
00:33:14.740 I was going to ask that.
00:33:15.500 Yeah.
00:33:15.660 Somebody, I was going to ask that.
00:33:17.080 Let's write that one down so it looks like I did it.
00:33:18.760 Okay.
00:33:19.640 But we have yet to prove, although the scientists all know that DMT is a neurotransmitter, but we have to technically kind of prove it.
00:33:29.840 We still live in this world where you've got to go through all these different processes, you know, and just kind of loops and hurdles and to get stuff done.
00:33:39.620 Although we all know that it is what it does.
00:33:41.660 Because I am very hopeful that at some point, not in the too distant future, we will have that ability to recognize that there should be a vial of DMT in every operating room.
00:33:52.460 Imperial College in London is doing some profound work into this as well.
00:33:55.900 But anyway, the chacruna plant, again, has the DMT.
00:33:59.280 When you combine the monoamine oxidized inhibitor, which suppresses the stomach acids from eating the chacruna leaf.
00:34:05.500 Because if you just had the chacruna leaf on its own, it would do nothing.
00:34:08.640 That's the other thing.
00:34:09.360 Because your stomach acids would eat it.
00:34:11.000 Okay.
00:34:11.660 So it would do nothing.
00:34:13.220 So the vine stops that process.
00:34:15.540 You eat the DMT plant, chacruna, and it's activated.
00:34:19.540 That's correct.
00:34:20.160 It allows itself to activate.
00:34:21.340 Right.
00:34:21.900 Now, how they decided how to beat the vine into a pulp and then combine it with the chacruna leaf and boil it for three days and condense it.
00:34:31.120 It's kind of like how we probably figured out maple syrup, you know.
00:34:35.360 There was a process involved.
00:34:36.700 Now, when you ask the indigenous community, how did you know?
00:34:40.680 Let me guess.
00:34:41.380 Yes.
00:34:41.560 Yeah.
00:34:42.380 God told us.
00:34:44.280 Close.
00:34:44.960 Oh, really?
00:34:45.840 Close-ish.
00:34:46.280 Because it just seems to me that that's how.
00:34:47.640 No, no, close-ish.
00:34:49.300 This is part that fascinates me.
00:34:52.240 They said, well, the master plant taught us that.
00:34:55.160 And then you're like, what's the master plant?
00:34:58.800 Exactly.
00:34:59.420 What's the master plant?
00:35:00.880 It's the tobacco plant.
00:35:03.480 The tobacco plant has always been the master plant.
00:35:06.640 The way it grows, the way it grows, the way it sort of rules, wherever it's growing.
00:35:13.160 Right.
00:35:13.380 And now, you know, I'm not, I don't want to take this into a different direction entirely, but there are distinct benefits to not smoking nicotine.
00:35:28.020 Okay.
00:35:29.000 Oh, you're talking about those Zin patches.
00:35:30.820 No, I'm talking about the NAD things and, you know, NAD.
00:35:34.300 And so, you know, so that's coming into, you know, more and more.
00:35:38.040 But the point is.
00:35:38.820 Nicotine in itself is a good thing for the body in many ways.
00:35:42.840 That's correct.
00:35:43.420 That's correct.
00:35:44.180 It's still controversial because when you say something like this, you're going to probably get a lot of your viewers going, what the hell are you talking about?
00:35:48.900 But look at the science.
00:35:51.620 Look at what the doctors are talking and saying about nicotine.
00:35:54.640 Look at what NAD and NAD plus is all about.
00:35:57.260 Right.
00:35:57.780 So we know that.
00:35:59.840 Now, the tobacco plant, how the tobacco plant told the guys, don't ask me that, please.
00:36:04.960 I have no idea.
00:36:05.540 Okay.
00:36:06.260 I don't know how the tobacco.
00:36:07.820 You saw that question coming.
00:36:09.200 Yeah, of course.
00:36:10.140 But they say tobacco plant taught us and they told us this and you go, okay.
00:36:14.480 But now we've established this is an ancient possibility.
00:36:20.140 Thousands of years.
00:36:21.380 It's amazing to me that somehow we lost that a little bit.
00:36:26.180 Maybe in the Western world and it existed elsewhere for some time or it hid quietly in the jungles or whatever.
00:36:33.700 But we seem to have disconnected from the idea of psychedelics being.
00:36:37.220 And in fact, we've done the other, we've, we've stigmatized it with it undoes mental health.
00:36:43.880 It undoes your health.
00:36:45.480 It, you know, I think that the stigma must be part of the battle.
00:36:51.180 Of course it is.
00:36:52.580 And, you know, this is where my own theory on this gets maybe a little wonky.
00:36:58.500 But when you take a look back at, at, at our history, the relationship between, you know, us humans and something numinous, God, consciousness, whatnot.
00:37:13.060 There were certain echelons in society that really want to protect that.
00:37:17.820 So you can't have a relationship with God one-on-one.
00:37:20.520 Okay.
00:37:20.880 You got to go through a middleman.
00:37:21.860 Right.
00:37:22.440 You know, talk to the middleman, middleman will get your message.
00:37:25.440 And then the middleman will come here.
00:37:26.860 One-on-one relationship.
00:37:28.300 No, no, no.
00:37:28.680 That's just for nobility.
00:37:30.000 Right.
00:37:30.200 And nobility was always linked to God.
00:37:33.880 Always.
00:37:34.380 You were anointed as the king and the king, right?
00:37:37.300 That seems to be the case.
00:37:38.540 Yeah.
00:37:38.660 It was always like you were anointed, even to this day, you know, when we, we take a look at, you know, how all these processes took place, the commemoration and so on. 0.50
00:37:46.380 And, and, and I'm, I'm, I'm, anyway.
00:37:48.520 But Queen Victoria is another good example.
00:37:50.180 She became a vessel of God.
00:37:51.940 That's right.
00:37:52.180 Yeah.
00:37:52.360 And, and, and again, with, with, you know, the Protestant Reformation and so on, it was, there was also a direct link between how much you earned.
00:38:00.040 And how rich you were, which meant you were closer to God.
00:38:03.340 So when you paraded down these avenues to show your wealth, it wasn't to show the wealth.
00:38:08.800 It was actually to show how close you were to God.
00:38:12.020 Right.
00:38:12.480 Right.
00:38:13.160 And so I think that there has been a deliberate attempt to try and, you know, keep some of what I call this technology by way of plant medicine away from the hoi ploi. 0.95
00:38:27.040 You know, and you want to keep it away from the masses, keep it in ability.
00:38:31.000 We have the direct interaction with God and so on.
00:38:32.960 Well, it also keeps everybody in check.
00:38:34.900 Yes.
00:38:35.020 You know, by way of God, I tell you this, by way of God, you should behave this way.
00:38:39.040 That's right.
00:38:39.380 But if you have that connection, you have your own freedom.
00:38:41.740 That's right.
00:38:42.140 And now what we're seeing is that notion is being democratized, right?
00:38:46.960 I mean, even just the first rendition of Christianity, which came about a hundred years after Christ passed away, was Gnosticism.
00:38:52.780 And Gnosticism was very plain and simple.
00:38:54.960 This planet is a prison planet.
00:38:57.700 There's something called the Demiurge, which is the false god.
00:39:00.680 Right.
00:39:00.920 Which is ruling the roost, everything.
00:39:03.500 And it's got a whole bunch of archons.
00:39:05.620 The Demiurge has these archons or generals that are kind of managing what we're managing.
00:39:10.520 Now, that pretty much is the basis of the movie The Matrix.
00:39:14.040 It's the basis of so much that we know.
00:39:16.120 Yeah.
00:39:16.460 Prison planet.
00:39:17.240 It is. 0.93
00:39:17.880 Demiurge, false god.
00:39:18.840 There is a real god, of course.
00:39:20.080 But the only way to find salvation, you know, is through the system.
00:39:26.080 It's through.
00:39:26.680 Oh, through yourself.
00:39:27.940 Yes.
00:39:28.540 Go in, know yourself, know thyself, and that will allow you to escape the prison planet.
00:39:34.140 But we've created a preventative wall around that just because it's not good for power to have that in society.
00:39:42.000 No.
00:39:42.400 No.
00:39:42.660 It's because what Gnosticism is saying is you can very much have a direct relationship with God.
00:39:48.380 It's the same thing with Sufism, which is the mystical side of Islam, right?
00:39:53.020 Which mainstream Muslims would consider Sufis as not Islamic, not Muslim.
00:39:58.220 And what the Sufis did, you've probably seen the whirling dervishes. 1.00
00:40:01.580 Yeah.
00:40:01.800 Right?
00:40:02.180 Right.
00:40:02.380 You know, a tilt, like the axis of the earth, one hand up, one hand down.
00:40:07.680 Yeah.
00:40:07.980 Right?
00:40:08.460 And they've got a black robe on, which signifies your body.
00:40:11.780 But then that black robe goes off, and it's everything white inside, which is your soul, which is your spirit.
00:40:16.000 And you're whirling.
00:40:17.840 It's beautiful.
00:40:18.720 You're dance.
00:40:19.840 You're always going to be in the dance with consciousness.
00:40:22.380 You're one.
00:40:23.800 And there's a very popular belief that because the Gnostics were completely kind of wiped out
00:40:29.600 and they were persecuted against by the Roman Catholics, they kept moving east.
00:40:33.720 They were in France for a long time, but they ultimately moved to North Africa, which was
00:40:37.760 really ultimately kind of like the birthplace of Sufism.
00:40:41.140 And so my theory is, and this, a lot of people talk about it, is that Gnostics are, Sufis are Gnostics in hiding.
00:40:48.860 Okay.
00:40:49.420 Because it's, it's, you go into a trance and you have that direct relationship with God, whether you do it through music or dance.
00:40:56.300 Yes.
00:40:56.740 And the real you.
00:40:57.720 Yes.
00:40:58.140 Emerges.
00:40:58.660 Emerges.
00:40:59.140 You then realize who the real you is, which has always been, you're just a simple drop from the ocean, but you're part of the ocean.
00:41:05.840 It's hard to believe I'm having a conversation with somebody in the pharmaceutical industry of the new age.
00:41:12.140 And, and by the way, I didn't leave that conversation behind.
00:41:14.500 I do appreciate us getting this perspective on modern medicine, like where ancient medicine becomes modern medicine to me is fascinating.
00:41:24.760 And I think to many people, it's becoming more and more accepted.
00:41:27.620 Yeah.
00:41:28.160 What, what psychedelics are being used and for what?
00:41:32.160 So, so, so I'll, I'll, let me give you one really important piece of, of, of historical information here, which is, which is critical to this, which is that in 1949, a guy called John Cade in Australia realized that lithium salts were game changing for people that were suffering from mental health disorders and issues.
00:41:52.900 Because back in the forties and the fifties, if you had a very serious mental health issue, you were institutionalized.
00:41:58.860 We all saw those movies, right?
00:42:00.920 Shutter Island.
00:42:02.160 All of that.
00:42:03.440 And, and very, a lot of very famous families are noted for having had a family member that was institutionalized either in the home, they're up in the attic, you know, they're JFK, like the Kennedys, you know, the, and JFK sister.
00:42:16.880 So absolutely.
00:42:19.220 Now that was game changing that, that, that, that really was able to solve a lot of these problems.
00:42:27.060 And a guy called Gershon brought it into the U S in the fifties.
00:42:31.280 And by the time the sixties rolled around, hospital beds freed up by over 70% when they administered lithium.
00:42:42.020 Okay.
00:42:42.740 Fast forward from the sixties to the eighties, mid eighties, when Prozac came about, Prozac is literally a slight design improvement to lithium.
00:42:52.320 Okay.
00:42:52.500 Nothing more.
00:42:54.000 Okay.
00:42:54.800 It's an SSRI.
00:42:57.020 SSRI.
00:42:57.620 I've heard this.
00:42:58.120 Yeah.
00:42:58.160 So the antidepressant selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
00:43:02.100 Okay.
00:43:02.820 Okay.
00:43:03.280 So now what, what, and then everything thereafter in antidepressants is a slight improvement to Prozac at the end of the day.
00:43:10.920 Okay.
00:43:11.780 So for a long time, we thought, Hey, we found the Holy grail.
00:43:15.160 The hospital beds are freed up by over 70%.
00:43:17.420 We didn't understand the long-term implications of this and, and, and, and the metabolic impact and the effect, by the way, there is a piece of literature that's out there.
00:43:27.980 That was done by two journalists that actually talked about the fact that, um, a lot of these, um, um, shooters that go into schools or movie theaters or whatnot, two very distinct things about them.
00:43:40.620 Either they got off their meds over the last two weeks and did not take them or they couldn't metabolize it.
00:43:48.880 And within the first month of taking it and couldn't metabolize it, they went off.
00:43:52.880 Right.
00:43:53.560 Okay.
00:43:54.360 And in fact, Eli Lilly knew about this.
00:43:57.380 It's all documented.
00:43:58.460 It's all case there.
00:43:59.700 Um, and there was a big case that took place because there, there was a son that, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a, a young man that was suffering through this, couldn't metabolize it, loved his father, but shot his father.
00:44:12.200 Shot his father.
00:44:12.880 Right. 0.98
00:44:13.200 Yeah.
00:44:13.400 So, you know, the story and anyway, but my, so, you know, coming back to, to the history here and why it's important that we started to look into other areas is because we soon realized by the time the nineties rolled around that this stuff is not working.
00:44:24.780 The side effects are egregious.
00:44:27.080 Um, people don't want to take them.
00:44:28.820 They don't feel anything.
00:44:30.100 They feel completely numb.
00:44:31.220 That's the one thing I've heard is that you don't feel anything.
00:44:33.440 And I mean, okay, so we've zombified you.
00:44:35.800 That doesn't mean we've given you your life.
00:44:37.500 That's right.
00:44:37.960 That's exactly right.
00:44:38.800 And you know, I, I'm always trying to connect dots and we've never been able to figure out for the life of me.
00:44:44.440 Why is it that you have so many zombie movies and zombie episodes and shows it's saying something about us.
00:44:53.900 It's telling us no matter what it is, you're watching it again and again.
00:44:56.540 Exactly.
00:44:57.300 Well, it's wild.
00:44:58.020 I was recently in Calgary and, and I am sorry to report that the, what I was seeing on the street as a result of fentanyl, for example, it is a zombie March.
00:45:08.880 It's really, and it's, it's very sad.
00:45:12.940 It is.
00:45:13.580 So now we start to discover that these drugs aren't all that they're meant to be.
00:45:19.300 That's correct.
00:45:20.000 And now we're looking for alternative means.
00:45:22.500 Yeah, we're, we're, we're starting to explore areas and they're, they're folks that have been working on the fringe specifically with better understanding how psychedelics have played a role with, you know, shaping and, and, and helping us mentally.
00:45:36.100 And with our psyche, the CIA knew this well ahead of time, the whole MKUltra, exactly.
00:45:42.540 And, and stuff that was going on with the CIA connect, you know, distinct links to Charles Manson and his tribe and his crew, you know, they were using LSD to bring it.
00:45:52.500 And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, get folks to do certain bidding in certain ways.
00:46:00.020 And so we knew that, that, that, you know, in, in certain areas they were playing with and, and, and better understanding, you know, how to use psychedelics for distinct means.
00:46:10.700 but there was you know a lot of work that had been done starting in in the 1870s and 1880s by
00:46:18.120 hefter on mescaline synthesizing mescaline and looking at all these various you know psychedelics
00:46:25.860 and the impact that it had on the various receptors and what was the mechanism of action
00:46:30.020 you know what was it interacting with with receptor was it the serotonin receptor the
00:46:35.660 dopamine receptor right and which of those specific receptors was it triggering and so
00:46:40.840 those were all coming into learning and then we had enough anecdotal evidence to also show
00:46:46.380 that a lot of people that were you know distinctly suffering from you know mental health ailments
00:46:50.920 were so much better as a result of this and we started to then learn that hey when you ingest
00:46:57.240 some of these there is neurogenesis that takes place which means your brains are creating new cells
00:47:02.100 that there's neuroplasticity which is really important to the equation because we often
00:47:07.420 think about the same thing in the same way all the time especially your problems right now all of a
00:47:12.520 sudden what we're doing is we're saying we're going to shut off the default mode network okay and you
00:47:17.620 can't think about that problem that way anymore now you're forced to think about it to come up with a
00:47:22.440 different solution that's correct and a different yeah perspective so somebody gives you you're you're
00:47:26.660 in a jungle there's a path there that's well-trodden everybody takes it and now that path is
00:47:31.780 it recontext is yes the recontext on this is i think how you reposition i think yourself mentally
00:47:38.840 is that the the end result very much so you're now sort of forced to to kind of take the machete
00:47:44.120 and create a new path for yourself down down to the same you know place that you want to get to
00:47:48.320 but now it's a new path and you're going whoa this is this is better much better path that's correct
00:47:52.940 and and so that's what it forces you to do another way to explain it and understand it is that
00:47:58.060 let's say you know you're dealing with your proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room
00:48:02.800 through the use of distinct psychedelics again done responsibly i want to be very careful that i
00:48:10.160 explain this very carefully right this notion that yeah man i took mushrooms in high school and we were
00:48:15.680 doing beers and funnels and upside down that no i remember you okay now that you said that yeah okay
00:48:21.220 yeah yeah so so it's you got to stay away from you know there is you have to revere these things
00:48:29.660 these substances there's a protocol in which you take it you have to prepare for it in advance
00:48:33.960 there's also work you need to do afterwards but that being said that's important actually very
00:48:38.920 important that's an important incredibly important part of this and also i will say to those that are
00:48:43.780 listening that are under the age of 25 including my daughter that your brain is developing to the age of
00:48:49.600 25 right okay beware of that yeah be mindful of that don't mess with it let it develop let it develop
00:48:57.160 they say the same thing about cannabis and just about any other uh okay so now uh it's funny because
00:49:04.380 i have this discussion with people i i will tell you sad that i am a proponent because um we have a
00:49:10.180 mutual friend who has your your partner actually in in one of your partners in this business has really
00:49:17.460 kept me informed over the years what's going on scientifically with this and i asked you to talk
00:49:22.640 about the history of it and the ancient element of it today to to make people realize that this is not
00:49:28.120 new discovery that we're not just messing around with with uh the 1970s chemicals now that there is
00:49:35.100 an application and the comparison that i make is and i and i actually brought this to the table at home
00:49:39.820 the other night was fentanyl's terrible drug right we've got a fentanyl problem don't we it's also the
00:49:46.400 number one way we treat pain in measure according to the prescribed amount and it can be used effectively
00:49:55.880 but when it is put to the street and synthesized and mixed and made of an escape mechanism that's when
00:50:05.360 it becomes a problem just like any drug you know the dead or all pure definition of poison is about
00:50:12.660 dosage that's what it is poison is always just about how much of what you're taking you could be
00:50:18.840 taking copious amounts of anything good even and it'd be bad for you right it's about dosage at the end
00:50:24.200 of the day and so we're you know fentanyl has a purpose in science and anesthesia in pain management
00:50:32.460 um but once the commercial aspects get in and you realize wait a second you know we can you know
00:50:38.600 this is just a quick way to make money in such a profound way it kind of takes over and and the
00:50:44.160 reason why none of the big pharma companies have been focused on cns more broadly but also cns away
00:50:50.940 from ssris this again cns being the central nervous system and all their focus has been on you know
00:50:57.720 again cancer cardio immunotherapy immunology is because that's where the money is and they seem
00:51:06.280 to tamp down symptoms with uh with pharmaceuticals that can be no because because here's what it is
00:51:14.200 it takes on average about nine to eleven years to be properly diagnosed with the kind of you know
00:51:21.440 mental health condition that you have okay there's a long waiting line and then by the time you get in
00:51:26.780 the system there's a process to truly understand it okay then you get on these meds and you realized
00:51:31.460 i i don't need to be on these i hate these meds they're ruining my life okay but you can't get off
00:51:37.420 of it now because if you do fast and furious you'll be one of those guys that walk into a movie theater or
00:51:44.420 the the school and so you know whatever or it can have a very adverse effect of course so there's
00:51:49.720 something called a taylor horowitz method and um uh which is that you've got to decrease to the tune
00:51:57.500 of six to eight percent every six weeks okay so you're you're reducing your dosage okay but that
00:52:04.120 takes another bloody 11 years that's that's a long process yes because percentage is so minuscule and
00:52:11.000 and because because of comorbidities you know that you know most people are not just on one medication
00:52:16.140 they're on six right because because of pdst they're also dealing with major depressive disorder
00:52:21.200 because of ptsd and major depressive disorder they may be dealing with fibromyalgia which is simply
00:52:26.180 you know pain plus ptsd that's right kind of the definition of fibromyalgia right i've got pain in my
00:52:33.000 body it's some it's trauma related typically it's because of some ptsd and now my body is is showing
00:52:40.720 well if your central nervous system is reacting badly to trauma of some sort it's going to have
00:52:46.460 some sort of nerve related effect absolutely whether it's fibromyalgia or something else so now
00:52:52.120 how uh you're out there uh putting money behind companies that are breakthrough not just in in
00:53:02.360 in psychedelics but in many areas but where on the psychedelics end are these applications being made
00:53:10.080 in with what psychedelics the key ones are psilocybin which is magic mushroom okay and um and the the
00:53:20.940 work that's being done there like first of all you know that ketamine is already out there ketamine
00:53:24.720 typically gets talked about as the first real psychedelic that's already legal out there and
00:53:30.960 there's so many clinics and they've only got one thing on the menu which is ketamine right and
00:53:34.840 regardless of what your problem is it's kind of like you know i have a hammer everything looks like a
00:53:38.220 nail right so ketamine will solve the problem come in you know no matter what your ailment is which
00:53:41.920 is is not the case now um there's nasal sprays there's intravenous and so on um but it isn't ketamine
00:53:49.080 has been is a horse tranquilizer that's been legal for 50 years okay and um but with true sort of
00:53:56.820 psychedelics which is magic mushrooms or psilocybin which is lsd um iboga or ibogaine from from the plant
00:54:05.040 and in west africa those are the key ones where the focus is right now and more so on psilocybin
00:54:11.680 um and the the ailments that they are going after include treatment resistant depression
00:54:18.480 major depressive disorder alcohol use disorder and pain management as well um so and pain management is
00:54:27.960 again the opioid crisis the fentolin crisis you know the oxycontin crisis right um that's
00:54:35.040 you know you you get on on on these pain meds and to try and alleviate a little bit of pain and next
00:54:40.420 thing you know you're hooked you're done you kind of you can't get off of it so you know with all due
00:54:45.160 respect and and why are financial guys leading the way on this uh obviously needed advancement in
00:54:53.400 medicine why aren't the pharmaceuticals that are already there making these advances 10 15 years ago
00:54:59.800 when obviously as we just discussed that the results of the science was already in results of the
00:55:05.960 science have been in for a long time pharmaceutical companies love a product that just keeps getting
00:55:11.160 used and used and used and used and used right so once you're on an ssri i got you yeah i got you for
00:55:17.840 a very long time and hopefully you're also taking my other meds or your other ailments in mental health
00:55:25.900 because they're comorbidities right you're not just ptsd or also major depressive so you're taking
00:55:30.920 other things for those things too i hear everything you're done yeah there's no there's no exit yeah
00:55:35.720 you know i i love listening to to certain sort of uh philosophers and by the way i find all these
00:55:42.940 philosophers rascals and one of them was osho okay and he talked about the fact that why can't we turn
00:55:49.440 our entire medical system into into some into a construct where you find your family doctor
00:55:55.260 you pay the family doctor regularly as long as you're healthy right as soon as you're not healthy
00:56:01.400 stop being the hospital take your foot off the pedal that's it i'm not paying anymore right get
00:56:06.120 me healthy again i'm gonna start paying you right ours is the other way around it's like you know
00:56:10.460 it's so it's designed it's incentivized to keep us unfortunately unhealthy because that's the business
00:56:19.200 for pharma the more unhealthy you are the better it is for pharma and we go there now what happens then
00:56:24.780 is that you know they start to realize and they're always looking for from their sales team
00:56:30.060 where is it in the marketing team where is it that we can generate more revenue what are the areas that
00:56:34.440 we need to look at so we've exhausted oncology we're starting to exhaust and we're exhausting other
00:56:39.040 areas the central nervous system mental health is taking on a big focus why pandemic had a huge part
00:56:45.120 to play in that right all of a sudden people came out and started to talk about it a lot more the amount
00:56:49.620 of ceos that i've heard of actually come out and say i suffer from bipolar yeah you're like holy
00:56:54.500 wow like you know so people are talking about you know the discussions are the acceptance of us saying
00:56:59.360 okay absolutely you know you still be part of my friendship still be part of my company still be
00:57:04.620 part of my world that's right we are going to be part of the nurturing that you need that's exactly
00:57:09.220 that's happening that is that is happening and that conversation that discussion that really came
00:57:14.580 from grassroots and that's a beautiful part of it has kind of forced the hand again of another
00:57:20.280 institution another establishment in our ecosystem which is the pharmaceutical industry to kind of go
00:57:25.060 okay well let's keep an eye on it let's see what happens okay so right great question why the hell did
00:57:30.360 some finance bros decide to get into this space i don't see you as bros by the way but i don't you're
00:57:36.660 saying you know no but but you know what i mean like i mean i i i personally i'm a little
00:57:42.740 shocked as to why the government hasn't taken more of an initiative i'm definitely disappointed
00:57:48.140 with some of our bigger institutions here the likes of the canada pension plans ontario teachers
00:57:53.380 the hospitals of ontario i mean these guys should have been in this in a bigger way to kind of go
00:57:58.640 you know we've got huge portfolios 600 billion plus that we're managing why can't we put less than
00:58:06.000 half a billion to work in trying to discover do the research but also own the ip fine the intellectual
00:58:13.960 property that is the patents on some of these things but let's research this area mental health
00:58:18.160 is such a big issue no no no no no no no sad we have to put that money into the downs view park
00:58:23.360 to build a stadium and do something with the airplane hangers yeah but i i know that misdirection
00:58:29.660 of thought i do believe that you're in the right space at the right time because we are making a big
00:58:35.200 change uh certainly in the in the west maybe in other parts of the world they've been there for a
00:58:40.100 while yeah but to see that this is doing well for you guys i mean this is not this is not a a venture
00:58:47.060 that fell on its face immediately the results were staggering yeah no look any which way you would
00:58:53.760 have sliced and diced it it was a dumb business move it made no sense you're going into an area that is 0.90
00:59:04.080 absolutely new there's not much research in it there's all the stigma against it and it's you
00:59:10.340 know starting to get better understood but it's not there yet any you know warn warn wright who's my
00:59:16.560 business partner my best friend my brother and um we've worked together for over 21 years and
00:59:24.680 collectively between us we've raised over 20 billion in our careers from institutional investors for
00:59:29.680 hedge funds and for the businesses that we ran in the hedge fund and fund of hedge fund space and
00:59:34.480 remind me i have an idea to pitch you for my new hydro flask nice nice it's actually they have
00:59:40.580 already been invented but anyway i digress but that's that's a that's an impressive portfolio no we you
00:59:46.220 know we and we've always been canadian we've always been here we've always been domiciled in canada
00:59:50.620 and one of the things that we always kind of like you know scratched our heads about
00:59:53.540 was it why is it that canadians are not resonating with us as much we've got all these investors very
01:00:00.040 high-flying investors institutional investors from around the world but our own canadians don't
01:00:05.400 really kind of they go well how good can you be here in toronto right wow and and and and i come back
01:00:10.340 to this notion that you know there are two countries in the world that really you know understand this
01:00:14.540 notion of a tall poppy syndrome that's australia and canada they understand it as soon as one poppy
01:00:20.600 grows taller than the others you cut it off gotta be like the rest so that's a different discussion
01:00:25.040 and that's why i also feel that please come back for that discussion oh man i don't don't get me
01:00:29.120 on that discussion that's like why have all our best comedians left our best actors left people in
01:00:33.620 the entertainment industry sports industry we cannot wait to stop ourselves right so so anyway so the the
01:00:39.520 the point is and i forget my point actually but uh but coming back to oh just the acceptance of
01:00:45.420 of this is from a business perspective yeah it it made no sense for us to be in it okay
01:00:49.880 we saw a few opportunities at that time compass pathways was private um um you know we had siben
01:00:58.300 that was private uh we had a few that were private that we were that we felt that given the data that
01:01:07.220 they're suggesting and showing given the path that they're on whether the pharma companies will come
01:01:12.740 into it or not people will want it they will want that solution i don't care that makes sense i'm
01:01:19.920 going to i'm willing to give it a try because everything else has not worked for me right okay
01:01:23.520 and as such we made a bet so warren and i put our own money to work we put money to work from friends
01:01:29.880 and family because they were interested it was a mission driven exercise for us and more and more
01:01:35.720 people started to find out and we're we're you know we ended up being we're we're we're modest
01:01:40.180 organization when i talk about billions before i mean our our assets under management are over 200
01:01:45.300 million in this space but we are one of the largest in the world that's still impressive perhaps the
01:01:51.160 largest in the world and we've made a lot of investment in psychedelic drug development now i went
01:01:57.180 to the institutions institutions and i said guys i'm not understanding why you're not looking at this
01:02:02.060 you have all these constituents be that shareholders employees that are suffering from all these various
01:02:09.160 mental health ailments this could be a real thing in four to five years why aren't you looking at it
01:02:14.420 well they would come up with all various reasons oh you know talk to this department maybe our
01:02:18.300 philanthropy department look at it or maybe a charity department like wow like you know so fine we decided
01:02:24.580 to do it anyway and the last five to six years have been brutal brutal they've impacted our lives have
01:02:34.320 impacted our waking and sleeping they've impacted our relationships with our kids with our spouses
01:02:40.380 with our partners it has been brutal it has not been in fact i would have to double kind of think about
01:02:47.880 it if you came to me six years ago and go okay here's what you're going to look forward to
01:02:51.860 is what may happen after the double it and i'll think about it yeah yeah exactly yeah so but that
01:02:58.580 being said was i'm so glad we stuck to our knitting and we're now at a point where um these companies
01:03:05.160 that we seeded that we went in at valuations of 8 million 10 million 12 million are now being acquired
01:03:12.900 um for well north of 1 billion and and by pharma by big pharma because they're realizing wait a second
01:03:22.920 you just showed me results just through phase two trials like in fda trials you go through three
01:03:29.900 phases phase one two three phase one is to see if there's any toxicity right phase two is to see if
01:03:34.640 it's efficacious with a smaller pool phase three is to see if it's efficacious with a larger pool
01:03:39.340 and just in phase two they're being shown results that have never been seen in the history of 0.79
01:03:45.780 psychiatry history of psychiatry you put any ssri up against this and you're going holy shit how can 0.85
01:03:54.540 you ignore this now the ottsukas well also you they don't want you out there making noise that might
01:04:00.620 actually light a fire against them almost better to be part of the societal change even if only by
01:04:09.320 perception sorry to be skeptical but you know that seems to be their mo oh true true okay well 0.98
01:04:15.660 we'll do it because there's a trend there's a but a more nefarious a more nefarious pathway that
01:04:22.060 they've often taken is to quickly go in buy it shelve it yeah never see the light of day i heard a
01:04:30.500 funny story uh and i won't keep you much longer by the way uh if people wanted to find out more about
01:04:35.660 noetic you can get one of these wonderful hats i'm sure uh where could they find out more well
01:04:40.560 you can go on to our website noeticfund.com and we've got a lot of resources there i mean
01:04:46.120 we're very mission driven for us it's so important to get the word out there that
01:04:51.800 look there are solutions that are coming you know and that are underway that we all should get very
01:04:58.360 excited about and as i mentioned major depressive disorder alcohol use disorder pain management are the
01:05:04.040 key things that are front and center right we've also got general anxiety disorder that is being
01:05:09.360 tackled in a big way treatment resistant depression just by virtue of the term there's no treatment
01:05:15.200 that impacts that form of depression it's it's resistant to all treatments right it's the key but 0.98
01:05:21.540 we're done with treatments we set out on a mission to find cures why not because we were stupid and 0.91
01:05:29.980 just woke up and said let's find a cure it's because there was enough evidence to show that 0.53
01:05:34.180 cures in this area are possible it's the one area of science and in medicine that never finds a cure
01:05:41.300 right you you break your arm you go to the hospital you get a fix whatever everything at the heart or
01:05:44.460 whatever whatever mental health it just you're seeing a shrink for the next 20 years plus years
01:05:48.500 or you're on meds or whatever you never get better we're done with that the holy grail for us
01:05:54.020 is to see a future and this i credit entirely to warn it's a beautiful analogy that he has and a way
01:06:00.420 to explain it is that you know you go to we go now to a dental hygienist for preventative means
01:06:08.040 right before you used to go to a dentist every time you had an issue right but then you started
01:06:12.720 to see the dental hygienist twice a year three times a year four times a year depending on the condition
01:06:17.120 of your teeth and your gums and they cleaned it up and made sure that it was healthy so that you
01:06:22.840 wouldn't have to have these issues you didn't need to have a root canal or cavities or whatnot
01:06:26.760 and that'd be great to see in mental health space so that you know if you and i were neighbors mike
01:06:33.940 i'd walk out and you'd walk out and you go hey how you doing have a good day and i'd say yes mike and
01:06:37.860 i'd say oh mike by the way i can't make it to the barbecue tonight because i'm going into the clinic
01:06:41.680 for my you know annual or biannual you know treatment for with with psilocybin with whatnot that you
01:06:49.100 know i really need to have a reset and to understand my place and just to function better
01:06:54.960 and everybody would be okay with it because it's a normal thing to do that would be beautiful to see
01:07:00.700 i wish a world like that absolutely you know sad thank you so much for joining us
01:07:06.260 sad shah uh noetic and uh thank you very much for to warren your good friend for lining this up as well
01:07:13.200 indeed for nia for joining us uh for nick and brady i'm mike uh we'll talk more about this uh in the
01:07:21.300 coming days and an upcoming episode about uh and we didn't even touch on it too much today but we will
01:07:26.540 in the future um there's a gray market out there for psychedelics that's happening across the country
01:07:32.240 seems dangerous and we'd like to know who's behind it more on that in an upcoming episode meanwhile
01:07:38.280 today we learned a lot about the history of psychedelics and and where we're going with
01:07:42.880 the medicine uh thank you for joining us we'll catch you next time right here on tpl