PT511 – The Other Side of Veteran Healing: Secondary PTSD and Post-Retreat Family Dynamics, with Allison Wilson & Dr. Grace Blest-Hopley
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews two members of the Heroic Hearts Project team: Director of Donor Development and founder of The Hope Project, Allison Wilson; and Director of Research and founder of Hystelica, Dr. Grace Blest-Hopley. They discuss how The Hope Project – a nonprofit that supports spouses of veterans, Gold Star Wives, and female veterans with scholarships to psychedelic healing retreats, integration, community, etc. – merged with Heroic Hearts Project, and why this is such a necessary part of the veteran healing story: How does a family hold space for a vet returning to a...
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PT510 – Early Research, Psychedelics in Palliative Care, and the Intersection of Science and the Sacred, with William Richards, STM, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe and Kyle interview William Richards, STM, Ph.D.: senior advisor at Sunstone Therapies, psychologist at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, contributor to Vital, and author of . He talks about the first time he experienced psilocybin in a research study in 1963, his early studies on the psychology of religion, working with Abraham Maslow, how he became one of the early psychedelic therapists, and what it was like for all of that to disappear when Nixon came into office and shut everything down. He...
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PT509 – Music for Psychedelic Exploration, and the First 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Album, with Shahar Amit
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Shahar Amit: psytrance musician who has created what may be the world's first modular album for psychedelic exploration under his project, Held By Sound. He talks about his background in the rave and festival scene, the moment he realized he wanted to make music, and the realization that he could create soundscapes specifically for journeys into non-ordinary states. And he digs into the 'choose your own adventure' framework of the free album: how he actually recorded 3 different albums and figured out how to transition into different moods based on which...
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PT508 – The Veteran Community and Operator Syndrome: Psychedelics and Redefining Pain Management, with Tommy Aceto
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe and special guest, Court Wing, interview Tommy Aceto: former Navy Seal and trauma medic, NCAA athlete, Michigan State Champion Wrestler, and now, psychedelic advocate and ambassador for the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition. He discusses his journey from childhood to wanting to become a SEAL, and the toll that military life and its programming can take on a person: how a life built on high levels of endurance, deprivation, and constantly surviving in a fight-or-flight mindset often manifests in Operator Syndrome, chronic pain, depression, and addiction. Veterans...
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PT507 – Psychedelic Education: Insights, Advice, and Where to Start, with Johanna Hilla & Kyle Buller
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Kyle and Johanna catch up, interviewing each other about psychedelic education and what they’ve learned, the biggest challenges, and what advice they would give to anyone looking to get involved in the psychedelic field. They discuss: How sometimes it’s not about the substance: If you want to be a psychedelic therapist, do you see yourself doing therapy without the psychedelics? How no part of education is exempt, and becoming truly psychedelically-competent can involve studying psychology, neuroscience, somatics, religion, history, etc. How people’s experiences are...
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PT506 – Decolonization, Difficult Conversations, and the Challenge of Merging Spirituality and Science, with Philip Wolf
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Philip Wolf: writer, member of Rolling Stone's Culture Council, founder of Cultivating Spirits (the first company in the U.S. to offer legal culinary cannabis experiences), and founder of CashoM, an education company offering a certificate in cannabis stewardship. He discusses his recent Rolling Stone article about the need to divorce ourselves from the colonial mindset that pervades the psychedelic movement, and he talks about the difficult conversation that came about when he asked a very critical group of psychedelic leaders how they felt about the article,...
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PT505 – Bicycle day Reflections, Quantum Mechanics, and the Value in Studying Philosophy to Understand Psychedelic Experiences, with Lenny Gibson, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe and Kyle interview Lenny Gibson, Ph.D.: philosopher, Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator, 20-year professor of transpersonal psychology at Burlington College, and the reason Joe and Kyle met many years ago. He talks about his early LSD experiences and how his interest in the philosophy of Plato and Alfred North Whitehead provided a framework and language for understanding a new mystical world where time and space were abstractions. He believes that while culture sees the benefits of psychedelics in economic terms, the biggest takeaway from non-ordinary...
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PT504 – Rethinking Drug Education: From D.A.R.E. Scare Tactics to an Evidence-Based Approach, with Joey Lichter, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Joey Lichter, Ph.D.: professor in the Chemistry & Biochemistry department at Miami’s Florida International University, and one of the few professors in the U.S. teaching a course about psychedelics at the collegiate level. He talks about his path towards the course, the challenge of creating a curriculum that covers everything in a few months, and the importance of teaching young minds about psychedelics the right away; shifting drug education from the “Just say no!” D.A.R.E. model to a more balanced, honest, and evidence-based approach. He aims for...
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PT503 – Updates from MAPS: Current Initiatives, Psychedelic Science 2025, and Music as a Bridge, with Devon Phillips
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Devon Phillips: community & partnerships officer for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Phillips works on strategies to tackle the questions: How do we responsibly mainstream psychedelics? And how do we get culture engaged? He's focusing on being the bridge to psychedelics outside of research, facilitating workshops and psychedelic coming-out stories at music festivals and conferences. He talks about harm reduction and drug checking at festivals, the concept of training big names to become trustworthy resources, the differences...
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PT502 – Preserving Psychedelic Legacies: Shulgin Farm and the Shulgin Archive Project, with Keeper Trout
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Keeper Trout: archivist, author, photographer, co-founder of the Cactus Conservation Institute, and creator of Trout’s Notes, a website compiling personal research and collected data to help ethnobotanical researchers. From an interest in cactus taxonomy, Sasha Shulgin urged Trout to go through his files, resulting in a friendship, and eventually, an 8-year project of digitizing all of these files into the ever-evolving Shulgin Archive. Trout discusses: His relationship with Sasha and The Shulgin Farm project, which aims to make the farm a community resource...
info_outlineIn this episode, Kyle and Joe sit down to cover questions from listeners of the show. They discuss topics that include psychedelic use for exorcisms, cluster headaches, athletic performance, processing grief and more.
3 Key Points:
- There are a few examples where psychedelics are used to increase athletic performance. Psychedelics can also be used to help realign those who are using sports as a form of distraction from internalized issues.
- When eliminating variables for psilocybin consistency in mushrooms for therapeutic use, freeze drying helps. But there are so many variables in mushrooms versus synthesized psilocybin.
- When addressing the sustainability of the Toad, according to the data, there isn't a real difference between 5-MEO-DMT from a toad and synthesized 5-MEO-DMT
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Navigating Psychedelics
Show Notes
Kratom Warning
- Joe brings up an issue that was brought up to him by a physician from the Wholeness Center, Dr. Craig Heacock, out of Fort Collins, CO
- Dr. Heacock warns about Kratom
- It is safer than opioids, but it can be physically addictive and getting off of it can be horrible
- Kratom withdrawal closely imitates opioid withdrawal
- The receptor site activity is the same as opioid pills
Using Psychedelics for an Exorcism
- Kyle thinks of shamanic uses for plant medicines, and with the idea of purging and spiritual emergence, working in non-ordinary states can exacerbate these states and maybe help with this kind of work
- Joe and Kyle go into writings from Stan Grof, explaining the physical appearance of those going through LSD psychotherapy or breathwork, and how it assimilates to an ‘exorcism’ of releasing the bad
- The purging during a psychedelic experience may feel evil, or alien
- Joe and Kyle say, do not perform an exorcism, leave it to the trained people
Treating Cluster Headaches with Psychedelics
- Cluster Busters is an organization for the research on cluster headaches
- LSD works for some as well as oxygen treatments work for others
- We know a lot more about migraines than cluster headaches
- The migraine is where neurons in the brain start misfiring and create a firing storm
How can Psilocybin Mushrooms be Standardized in Production for Therapeutic Use?
- Joe says the practical solution is to have a really large amount of psilocybe cubensis, all blended up, and then split in even doses
- There are potency differences between species, strains, etc
- There are so many variances with mushrooms versus synthetic psilocybin
- Freeze drying also promotes close to 0% loss of psilocybin when drying mushrooms
Psychedelics and Athletic Performance
- There may be psychological blocks that are getting in the way of a person reaching the peak performance of their genome
- It could be trauma, or psychological blocks
- Athletic performance could be a distraction from what you're really here to do
- Athletes have a lot of dysfunctional behavior
- Psychedelics may show us our bad behavior and help us align
- Kyle says he had this passion to snowboard and dedicate his life to snowboarding, and then he received a message in journeywork that told him snowboarding is simply a hobby and he needs to focus his life on other things
- “Sports are a great way to cover up our emotions” - Joe
- Kyle mentions tow other episodes that cover similar topics
Ben Eddy
Shane Lemaster
How to get the Ball Rolling on Psychedelic Liberty
- Start a club
- Joe says he’s been incubating a Psychedelic Club in Phoenix
- Clubs are great for harm reduction
Is There a Humane or Conservative Way to Harvest the Toad Without Disrupting its Habitat?
- Joe says yes, roadkill, pick them up off the road
- If you touch a living one, there is a chance you'll be doing harm
- Even touching the toad can transmit harmful fungus to them
- According to the data, there isn't a real difference between 5-MEO-DMT from a toad and synthesized 5-MEO-DMT
How Psychedelics Might help with Processing Grief
- Kyle says when he thinks about grief, he thinks about trauma
- Psychedelics may be really beneficial when treating trauma
- Kyle says he loves breathwork, because it creates the container to process things and even just simply cry
- Kyle recommends a really great book on grieving, The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
by Martin Prechtel
- Our culture does not contain grief very well
- A lot of people internalize it instead of breaking down and letting it go
by Martin PrechtelLinks
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About Kyle
Kyle’s interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle’s life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, “Stanislav Grof’s Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences,” and the other one which he co-created, “The History of Psychedelics.”
Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops.
About Joe
Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado.