PT 654 - Erica Rex - Seeing What Is There
Psychedelics Today
Seeing What Is There is at the center of this conversation with journalist and author Erica Rex, who joins Joe Moore to discuss her book Seeing What Is There: My Search for Sanity in the Psychedelic Era. Rex brings an unusual mix of personal experience and scientific rigor. She came to psychedelic medicine after breast cancer, participation in Roland Griffiths’ clinical trial for cancer-related depression, and a long career in journalism covering science, nature, climate, and technology.
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PT 653 - Dr. Michael Alpert and Peter Alberding - ALS, Existential Distress, and Ketamine Therapy
Psychedelics Today
ALS and ketamine therapy are at the center of this conversation with psychiatrist and , who was diagnosed with in late 2023. Alpert is a Boston-area psychiatrist with experience in MDMA-assisted therapy research for PTSD and a private practice that includes . Alberding shares what it has been like to face a fatal neurodegenerative illness while working with ketamine in a structured clinical setting. Alberding explains that he was not looking for a casual psychedelic experience. He wanted help facing fear, grief, loss of function, and the reality of death. Over time, ketamine-assisted...
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PT 652 - Esme Dark - Psychedelics, Somatics and the Shadow
Psychedelics Today
Dr. Esme Dark joins Kyle Buller for a conversation on psychedelic therapy, somatic psychotherapy, and shadow work. Based in Australia, Dark is a clinical psychologist, somatic psychotherapist, and psychedelic therapist. She shares her perspective on Australia’s authorized prescriber model, the role of psychotherapy in psychedelic care, and what it means to work with the body before, during, and after a psychedelic experience. The discussion stays practical. Dark draws on her work in research settings, including psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for generalized anxiety disorder at Monash...
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PT 651 - Betty Aldworth & Ismail Ali: MAPS Co-Executive Directors on Leadership, Research, and the Future of Psychedelics
Psychedelics Today
MAPS co-executive directors Betty Aldworth and Ismail Ali join Psychedelics Today to talk about leading one of the most visible organizations in the psychedelic field during a period of transition. The conversation covers their move into permanent leadership, how they work together, and how MAPS is thinking about research, education, policy, and movement strategy after a difficult period for the organization and the broader field.
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PT 650 - Joe Moore Psychedelics Today on Leadership, Integration, and the Psychedelic Landscape
Psychedelics Today
Jen Davenport joins Psychedelics Today to interview co-founder Joe Moore about the growth of Psychedelics Today, the broader psychedelic ecosystem, and how professionals are beginning to engage with psychedelic ideas. Davenport is the founder of Iron Thread Partners and a graduate of the Vital psychedelic training program. Her work focuses on executive leadership, decision making, and organizational development. In this conversation she asks Moore about the evolution of Psychedelics Today and the changes he has witnessed across the psychedelic field over the past decade. Moore explains that...
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PT 649 - Melissa Lavasani and Jay Kopelman
Psychedelics Today
& join our podcast to discuss how psychedelic policy is actually moving in Washington, DC. Lavasani leads , a DC-based advocacy organization focused on educating federal officials and advancing legislation around psychedelic medicine. Kopelman is CEO of , which provides scholarships for veterans and first responders seeking psychedelic-assisted therapy retreats, . The conversation centers on veterans, the , and why that system may be the first realistic federal pathway for psychedelic care. Early Themes Lavasani describes PMC’s work on , including hosting events that bring...
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PT 648 - Enamory - Couples Therapy with Ketamine
Psychedelics Today
Enamory is a clinical practice, training institute, and nonprofit research organization focused on psychedelic assisted couples therapy. In this episode, clinical psychologists Chandra Kian and Kayla Knopp discuss their work integrating ketamine assisted psychotherapy with evidence based couples therapy models. Both guests trained as academic researchers at the University of California San Diego Veterans Affairs system, where they worked on large scale couples based PTSD trials. They later co founded Enamory to continue clinical work, train therapists, and conduct research focused...
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PT 647 - Joshua White: Fireside Project and Lucy, an AI Training Simulator for Psychedelic Support
Psychedelics Today
is a nonprofit that helps reduce the risks of psychedelic experiences through a free support line, coaching, education, and research. In this episode, Joshua White speaks with Psychedelics Today about why real-time support matters, what it takes to run a national hotline, and what Fireside learned after more than 30,000 conversations since launch. White shares how his background as a lawyer and his early hotline volunteering shaped Fireside’s model. He also describes how festival harm reduction work, including lessons from Zendo-style support spaces, revealed a major gap: people often...
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PT 646 - Manvir Singh: Shamanism the Timeless Religion
Psychedelics Today
Manvir Singh joins Psychedelics Today to unpack what shamanism means and why the term matters now. Singh is an anthropologist and author of Shamanism: The Timeless Religion. He argues that shamanism is not limited to “remote” societies or the past. Instead, it reliably reappears because it helps humans manage uncertainty, illness, and the unknown. This episode is relevant for the psychedelic community because “shaman” often gets used loosely, or avoided entirely. Singh offers a clear framework for talking about shamanic practice without leaning on romantic myths, drug-centered...
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PT 645 - Oli Genn-Bash: Functional Mushrooms, Hype Cycles, and Mycelial Thinking
Psychedelics Today
(Brighton, UK) joins Joe Moore for a grounded conversation on the boom in functional mushrooms and why the category may be moving too quickly. As the founder of , Oli works with consumers and brands to demystify functional mushrooms, with a focus on education, traceability, and realistic expectations. The conversation begins with a critique of wellness hype cycles. Oli explains how consumer desperation for help with anxiety, sleep, stress, and cognition can create an opening for a rapid wave of products that are not always grounded in careful sourcing or clear science. Using as a case...
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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