PT 639 - Evelyn Eddy Shoop PMHNP-BC: Lived Experience, Qualitative Data, and the Future of Psychedelic Care
Psychedelics Today
Overview Evelyn Eddy Shoop PMHNP-BC joins Psychedelics Today to share her journey from Division I athlete to psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and psilocybin research participant. In this conversation, she explains how sports injuries, OCD, and intensive treatment led her into psychiatry and eventually into a psilocybin clinical trial at Yale. Her story weaves together lived experience, clinical training, and a call for more humane systems of care and better qualitative data in psychedelic science. Early Themes: Injury, OCD, and Choosing Psychiatry Early in the episode, Evelyn...
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PT 638 - Dr Jason Konner - Psychedelic Oncologist
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe Moore sits down with Dr. Jason Konner, a longtime oncologist who recently left his full-time clinical role at to devote himself to the emerging intersection of cancer care and psychedelics. Dr Konner shares how, after more than two decades treating people, he hit a wall. The accumulated grief, constant exposure to death, and intensity of oncology left him deeply , though he didn’t have that language for it at the time. A chance moment in a yoga class, overhearing someone say “ retreat” just before he was scheduled for hernia surgery, became the turning point....
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PT 637 - Genesee Herzberg — Ketamine Truths, MDMA Hopes, and the Work of Integration
Psychedelics Today
Clinical psychologist Dr. Genesee Herzberg joins Kyle to reflect on two decades in trauma work and 15 years inside the psychedelic ecosystem—from early MAPS conferences to running Sage Integrative Health. She traces how personal psychedelic experiences set her on a path of service, research at CIIS on MDMA-assisted therapy, and hands-on roles with MAPS: Zendo Project harm reduction, adherence rating, and ultimately serving as an MDMA therapist in clinical trials. Today she leads Sage, an integrative clinic (psychotherapy, psychiatry, bodywork, acupuncture, and functional nutrition) focused...
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PT 636 - Dr. Ros Watts – Building Communities and Connection
Psychedelics Today
Clinical psychologist joins to share insights from her decade of work with and her evolving focus on community-based integration. As the former Clinical Lead for , Dr. Watts witnessed how psychedelic experiences can foster profound feelings of — to self, others, and nature — yet also how that connection can fade without ongoing support. In this conversation, she reflects on what years of research have taught her about connectedness as both a healing mechanism and a human need. She explores how can transform fleeting psychedelic breakthroughs into lasting change, and why community is...
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PT 635 - Jennifer Espenscheid — Art as a Practice, Psychedelics as a Teacher
Psychedelics Today
Artist, builder, and podcast host Jennifer Espenscheid joins Joe Moore for a rich conversation on creativity, process, and the spiritual dimensions of making art. Drawing from her South Dakota roots and large-scale works like Luciferia, Jennifer reflects on the blend of grit, intuition, and trust that guides her artistic life. She discusses how psychedelics have served as a tool for clarity and healing rather than direct creation of art, helping her dissolve patterns and reconnect to innate creativity. They explore how events like Burning Man catalyze inspiration, why intention and...
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PT 634 - Brad Adams - LAMPS
Psychedelics Today
Brad Adams — LAMPS (Los Angeles Psychedelic Society) joins Kyle to trace his path from PhD researcher to community builder. Brad shares how early work in AIDS, Alzheimer’s, gerontology, and cancer research primed him to notice Harbor-UCLA’s psilocybin pilot for stage-4 cancer patients with death anxiety—where the strongest mystical experiences correlated with profound death acceptance. Teaming with Dennis McKenna, he ran an ayahuasca pilot in Peru and presented findings at Psychedelic Science 2017. From there, Brad founded LAMPS: first as research meetups at UCLA, then as a thriving...
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PT 633 - Dreamshadow - Life and Breath
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Kyle and Joe sit down with filmmaker Mustapha Khan and Dreamshadow’s Elizabeth & Lenny Gibson to explore Life and Breath—a new documentary immersing viewers in the experience and community of Holotropic Breathwork. We talk about why Mustapha was drawn to Dreamshadow, the film’s cinéma vérité approach that places you “in the room,” and how years of facilitation informed what became both an archival record and a living portrait of transformation. Elizabeth and Lenny reflect on 35+ years of holding space, the role of curiosity over agenda, and why genuine...
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PT 632 - Megan Portnoy MS - Ontological Design, Psychedelic Spaces, and Integrating Rigor
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe Moore talks with Megan Portnoy, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Antioch University New England, about how can reshape the environments used in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Megan explains how physical space is not just a backdrop but an active participant in the therapeutic process, influencing emotion, cognition, and healing. She recently for her presentation on this topic at . They explore how design principles that foster awe, play, and flexibility can deepen integration and expand what’s possible in clinical settings. The conversation also...
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PT 631 - Kyle Buller and Joe Moore - Breathwork, Community, Bodywork and more!
Psychedelics Today
Joe and Kyle open with reflections from their first r/psychonaut AMA, then pivot to why they’re building Navigators—our off-social community with book/film clubs, early ad-free episodes, mentorship, and an expanding education library. The core discussion explores touch and bodywork in breathwork and psychedelic contexts: why defaulting to “no touch” and moving slowly matters; informed consent; reading nonverbals; and keeping client agency central. They unpack trauma-informed concepts like the window of tolerance, polyvagal‐adjacent ideas (and critiques), and the ethics of avoiding...
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PT 630 - TK Wonder and Cipriana Quann
Psychedelics Today
Interviewers: Joe Moore & Anne Philippi Guests: TK Wonder & Cipriana Quann (The Quann Sisters) Recorded: June 18 during MAPS PS 2025 Content note: This episode discusses childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, disordered eating, and recovery. Identical twins, writers, and culture-shapers TK Wonder and Cipriana Quann join Joe and Anne for a frank, generous conversation about identity, resilience, and the long arc of healing. Cipriana recounts launching Urban Bush Babes in 2011 to center women of color in beauty and fashion—work that led to a Vogue...
info_outlineIn this episode, Kyle and Joe interview Eamon Armstrong, host of the Podcast, Life is a Festival. In the show, they talk about Eamon’s Iboga experience, the festival culture, rites of passage, ethics and more.
3 Key Points:
- Eamon Armstrong is the host of Life is a Festival, a podcast promoting a lifestyle of adventure and personal development through the lens of festival culture.
- Maya is an intelligence platform for psychedelic therapists to manage their clients and their protocols.
-
Rites of Passage can look different for everybody, they can look like going to Africa to be initiated in an Ibogaine ceremony, to attending Burning Man.
Show Notes
About Eamon
- Eamon is the host of the Podcast, Life is a Festival
- It's not about festivals, it's about how to make life like a festival
- Eamon is very passionate about mental wellness
- After graduating college, he felt very lost
- He was throwing mushroom tea parties, making electronic music with his friends
- The key to throwing a mushroom tea party is to have people drink less mushrooms than they think that they're drinking, everyone just thinks they are tripping harder than they were
- He went to Burning Man in 2010
- He started working in social media for Burning Man’s off playa events
- Psychedelics and harm reduction became core to their editorial voice
- He worked closely with Psychedelic Peer Support, Zendo, Kosmicare, etc
Ibogaine Experience
- Eamon attended an Iboga retreat in Gabon, Africa, and he says it was more about the retreat than the Iboga
- He was in the chamber for 5 days, and he was alone in it
- This retreat was in the Bwiti religion
- He really went there for a full sledgehammer experience
- He felt he had some addicted aspects that were hindering his sexual experiences
- Iboga goes to the root of the trauma and shows you where the addictive pattern of behavior is
- Iboga has a long integration period
- Iboga is a root, and he consumed it in a form of a tangled nest
- He felt very blasted open from the experience
- Iboga took him directly to his anger
- “We have in our modern Western Culture, a lot of lost, young people” - Eamon
- “The value of a rite of passage, is that you are confronted with certain things that you can't get to on your own” - Eamon
- The fact that you can die in an Iboga experience, is part of the initiation
Rites of Passage
- Burning Man isn't a rite of passage, but it can be used as a rite of passage
- Burning Man is a temporary experience in civic living, it is not orchestrated by elders
- There is a growing topic on psychedelic parenting, and taking psychedelics with children
Maya
- Maya is designed in partnership with psychedelic practitioners & ceremony leaders
- Maya is an intelligence platform for psychedelic therapists to manage their clients and their protocols
- Ethics in psychedelics are so important right now
- This does not replace the therapist, it's everything the therapist needs to support their clients in healing
- “The ecosystem itself will thrive when we are all working in service to each other” - Eamon
- “If you want to be a part of the cool kids, and the cool kids are doing it ethically, then you have to do it ethically” - Eamon
Final Thoughts
- The soul is the most beautiful thing
- “Psychedelics as medicine, treat society, beyond individuals” - Eamon
Links
Life is a Festival Facebook Group
Psychedelic Therapy Podcast by Maya Facebook Group
About Eamon Armstrong
Eamon Armstrong is the creator and host of Life is a Festival, promoting a lifestyle of adventure and personal development through the lens of festival culture. He is the former Creative Director and public face of Chip Conley’s industry-leading online festival guide and community Fest300, where he was a global community builder. Eamon’s belief in the transformational power of psychedelics led him to take part in a traditional Bwiti initiation in Gabon, and to become a trained Sitter with MAP’s Zendo Project. Eamon is a passionate advocate for mature masculinity and offers public talks and workshops from mythopoetic men's work to stand-up comedy on integrating masculinity.
Headshot Photo Credit: GBK Photos
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