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A podcast at the intersection of psychology and culture that intimately explores the human experience and critiques the counseling profession. Your host, Stephanie Winn, distills wisdom gained from her practice as a family therapist and coach while pivoting towards questions of how to apply a practical understanding of psychology to the novel dilemmas of the 21st century, from political polarization to medical malpractice.
What does ethical mental health care look like in a normless age, as our moral compasses spin in search of true north? How can therapists treat patients under pressure to affirm everything from the notion of "gender identity" to assisted suicide?
Primarily a long-form interview podcast, Stephanie invites unorthodox, free-thinking guests from many walks of life, including counselors, social workers, medical professionals, writers, researchers, and people with unique lived experience, such as detransitioners.
Curious about many things, Stephanie’s interdisciplinary psychological lens investigates challenging social issues and inspires transformation in the self, relationships, and society. She is known for bringing calm warmth to painful subjects, and astute perceptiveness to ethically complex issues. Pick up a torch to illuminate the dark night and join us on this journey through the inner wilderness.
You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist ranks in the top 1% globally according to ListenNotes. New episodes are released every Monday. Three and a half years after the show's inception in May of 2022, Stephanie became a Christian, representing the crystallization of moral, spiritual, and existential views she had been openly grappling with along with her audience and guests. Newer episodes (#188 forward) may sometimes reflect a Christian understanding, interwoven with and applied to the same issues the podcast has always addressed. The podcast remains diverse and continues to feature guests from all viewpoints.
229. Karen King & Wesley Smith
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[00:00:00] Wesley: There's a very strong contingent within the leadership within the psychedelic movement, which is enforcing an orthodoxy which seems to go counter to what the medicines could do. If you approach these psychedelics with the right humility to [00:00:15] understand that you're probably going to leave a psychedelic journey with more questions than answers, it should be expanding your mind, not closing it down.
[00:00:21] Karen: I went to the very first cohort of the very first training that is being offered for therapists from the clinical trials, and they're training people to do this modality [00:00:30] that's gonna be super popular, they're hoping. And we spent an entire week dismantling our privilege and talking about oppressor-oppressed narratives, naming our gender.
We did not talk about consciousness. We did not talk about clinical skills. We didn't talk [00:00:45] about facilitation. We talked about this ideology. So that is just a little snippet of why I was so fired up. People need to know what's happening in the psychedelic world.
[00:00:56] Announcer: You must be some kind of therapist?[00:01:00]
[00:01:02] Stephanie: Today I have the pleasure of welcoming to the podcast not one, but two guests. They are co-authors of the forthcoming book, Sensible Psychedelics: Why the Psychedelic Renaissance Needs Conservatives, Skeptics, and [00:01:15] the Politically Homeless. Karen King is a repeat guest you may recognize from episodes number 81 and 97.
She's joined today by her co-author, Wesley Smith, who is new to me and the podcast. Wesley is part of that [00:01:30] politically homeless crowd that the book speaks to. He is a small C conservative who came to psychedelics through a paragliding accident. Karen and Wesley, welcome. So good to have you guys.
[00:01:40] Karen: Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for the invite. Thanks for having us. Yeah.
[00:01:43] Stephanie: So Karen, I always [00:01:45] enjoy talking with you about latest advances in psychedelic therapy, and also, uh, the, the politically homeless therapy crowd. And so here we are with your co-author, Wesley. You [00:02:00] guys have a book coming out on the subject. Wow. Um, take me back to the beginning.
How did you two end up connecting?
[00:02:05] Karen: Well, Wes, I think you should start.
[00:02:08] Wesley: Yeah. Well, I, uh, I saw Karen on a podcast. Uh, actually I think it was the l- I think it was the Leslie [00:02:15] Elliot's, uh, Radical Center podcast. I think, I think that was the podcast. And, uh, I had been writing the book for about a year and a half, and, uh, I'm just a, you know, average redneck Texan, I'm not a therapist, and I thought, I need s- [00:02:30] I need someone with some bona fides in the therapeutic field.
And, uh, Karen's view of not just the therapeutic field, but also the psychedelic culture very much resonated with me, so I contacted her and she joined the, uh, the [00:02:45] writing, uh, journey. And for the last year or so we've been, uh, we've been finalizing the book and it'll, it'll go to publication now August 10th.
[00:02:52] Stephanie: That's very exciting. So it'll be out by the time this episode is available. Will it be on all major platforms?
[00:02:59] Wesley: Yes. Uh, all [00:03:00] the, all the... We're gonna start with Amazon paperback, uh, and Kindle, but then, uh, uh, both Karen and I will be reading the Audible version as well fairly soon, so.
[00:03:09] Stephanie: Oh, very cool. I always appreciate when people take the time to record the audiobook version, 'cause I learn so much [00:03:15] faster that way.
[00:03:15] Karen: Yeah, I can't wait to do that and talk about it. Um, it's such an exciting time in psychedelics, especially because of the executive order April 18th. Things have really been fast-tracked since then.
[00:03:27] Stephanie: Oh,
[00:03:27] Karen: what's that? Well, the [00:03:30] executive order that President Trump signed into existence, which fast-tracked the research for ibogaine and iboga and the use for PTSD with veterans.
And since then, lots of money has flooded into, well, [00:03:45] Texas and other organizations. It just seemed to really speed up the process of clinical research, which kind of makes our book pretty timely because Wes and I have both been very concerned over the past few years about the one voice that's allowed in [00:04:00] the psychedelic world, which is the, the far progressive radical left, and not many other perspectives are allowed or invited.
[00:04:08] Wesley: Yeah, it's the, uh-- What's interesting, it even, uh, prompted Michael Pollan to say, I think it was on the Sam Harris, uh, podcast interview a [00:04:15] few weeks ago, that, uh, you know, you know, Pollan's a, a, a liberal left of center, um, um, uh, perspective on this, although he's considered really-- He, he's considered the The, the person who's most brought psychedelic [00:04:30] discussion into the mainstream in the last five or six years through his New York Times bestseller book, uh, How to Change Your Mind, and the Netflix documentary by the same name.
But even he said, he said the Republicans are way out in front on this with Trump's executive order [00:04:45] and the, uh, I believe it's the Mississippi and Louisiana legislatures, um, uh, just passed, uh, authorizations to use psychedelics for, uh, mental health. The Texas, uh, legislature did as well under the leadership of, [00:05:00] uh, former Governor Rick Perry, who's very, very, uh, involved in this movement, and, uh, the Utah legislature, uh, did as well.
And no, no Democratic legislatures as of yet have passed legislation as comprehensive as, [00:05:15] as those, even though you do have the legislation in Oregon and Colorado that was, uh, passed recently authorizing the use of, of psilocybin for therapy. So it's, uh, there's a lot, a lot of activity going on right now, uh, in this space.
[00:05:28] Stephanie: I'm fascinated to hear [00:05:30] about these, uh, laws and evolving in conservative states, and Wesley, maybe you can give us a picture starting with your own life of the politically homeless, psychedelic-friendly conservative. Uh, that is [00:05:45] an intersection we don't hear of often. But, you know, when I talk to Karen about this issue and my other friends in the psychedelic therapy space, I go, "Wait a minute," you know?
Everyone that I've ever known who was interested in things like psychedelic therapy [00:06:00] was very, like, crunchy, all-natural, very skeptical of doing anything to disrupt the sacred temple of the human body. And, and how is it that that crowd has been, [00:06:15] uh, succumbed to this ideology that desecrates the body with these crazy chemicals?
Uh, it's just, it's wild to me that the things that we now call liberal or left of [00:06:30] center are almost exclusively associated in the public opinion with openness to things like psychedelic therapy. Um, so I'd love, Wesley, for more of that perspective, 'cause I know you said that you're in Utah, um, and [00:06:45] that you, you found psychedelics almost by accident.
So give us a picture of the, the worldview of the, the conservative in the conservative state who finds themself interested in psychedelic therapy.
[00:06:57] Wesley: You know, politically, I think the world's upside down right now. We have [00:07:00] liberals saying conservative things and conservatives saying liberal things. Um, and in Utah, uh, I, I come, you know, from a, a fairly conservative background, grew up as a conservative in the South.
Uh, parents were Republicans. And, uh, went and worked, [00:07:15] I went and worked for The Heritage Foundation back in the '80s, worked for Reagan, worked in Central America, and, uh, very much, uh- have the conservative credentials, if you will. And, uh, in the last 20 or so years, I haven't been politically active, but I [00:07:30] still have Have followed what I would consider traditional conservative values.
What we would call traditional values now, which 30, 40 years ago were just called average American values, but we would call them conservative now. [00:07:45] And, uh, and so I'm probably someone who would've never taken psychedelics. I grew up in the '80s, and I remember the advertisement of the frying pan, and, um, the voiceover was, "This is your brain," and then an egg was cracked on the frying pran- pan, and it [00:08:00] said, "This is your brain on drugs."
Get the picture. And I had lumped psychedelics in with all of the other bad drugs like cocaine, heroin, opioids, meth. And I didn't know until recently that [00:08:15] psychedelics are an entirely different class for a lot of reasons that we can go into a little bit later. But, um, if it hadn't been for a paragliding accident that I had in 2020 and three years of pretty significant medical intervention and physical therapy, none of [00:08:30] which worked, um, I was at, you know, my wit's end, and someone sent me a Reddit article that said how psilocybin, uh, cured my, my, uh, TBI, my, my concussion, my, my, uh, um, um, tinnitus.
Tinnitus [00:08:45] was what was, uh, what resulted from my accident. And so, um, uh, I was really excited, like, "Oh, this is great," you know, "psilocybin can cure my tinnitus." And then, uh, he, he sent me a Reddit article five minutes later that said how psilocybin made it worse. So [00:09:00] I was at a loss of what to really do, but I was still desperate, so I thought, "I wanna give this a try."
And so I went to a group session. It did not help with any of the TBI, any of the concussion that I had, uh, that, that was the result of the paragliding accident. [00:09:15] But it did introduce me to this entirely new world of perception, and I've been a big fan of psychedelic usage ever since in both a formal therapeutic setting, which I've done, as well as informal, um, what I'll call [00:09:30] ceremonial settings.
Therapeutic in nature, but not officially therapeutic. So the, these are settings which are, I would say for probably every, every person who goes to a clinic, a sanctioned, you know, clinic, like whether it's Johns Hopkins or it's a ketamine [00:09:45] clinic, there are probably 100 people that engage in psychedelic experiences underground.
And it's, it's in that area that I'm most interested in, and one reason why I wanted to join forces with Karen because she knows the therapeutic side really well. [00:10:00] And, uh, I've been more steeped on the, uh, what I call the DIY side.
[00:10:03] Stephanie: So I take it from the fact that you were in a paragliding accident that you're a pretty open-minded and adventurous person.
Um, and, and so it doesn't surprise [00:10:15] me in some regards that someone adventurous enough to try paragliding would also be adventurous enough to try psilocybin. At the same time, I'm imagining if you were surrounded by conservatives and you'd never, you know, partied in your youth, that, that it might be quite [00:10:30] frightening to think of uh, doing something with the potential to change your mind and sensory perceptions to that degree.
Not to mention putting yourself in a state of heightened awareness when you were having, uh, health [00:10:45] problems. And, you know, I know personally when I'm suffering in my body, that's when I wanna be least aware of what I'm feeling in my body. Mm-hmm. I don't necessarily wanna dial up the awareness. So I'm curious, were, were you scared?
What was going through your mind as you [00:11:00] were considering taking psychedelics for the first time?
[00:11:03] Wesley: Oh yeah. I was terrified. Uh, and, and it's, it's a common, it's a common, um, feeling that one has, and, uh, Michael Pollan talks about in his book. Um, he, he attributes it to the ego, [00:11:15] um, not wanting to give up its monopoly position that it has in our lives.
And as you know, when you take psychedelics, the ego gets quieted down, and other parts of the brain light up. And so you end up having a [00:11:30] conversation with your psyche, and the ego is no longer in charge of that conversation. So it will do things like it did with me, where I had repeated nightmares the month leading up to my first journey, where I would wake up [00:11:45] and I was in a dungeon because this hippie couple that was, um, facilitating the group se- psilocybin session had for some strange reason, unbeknownst to me, uh, put me in their dungeon that they had and were torturing me for no reason, and nobody knew where I was, and it [00:12:00] was my own fault because I had allowed myself to go and take psychedelics and be vulnerable.
Uh, y- Wow. None of that happened, of course. I did-- I, I survived the torture. I escaped the dungeon. But it was interesting 'cause that was a nightmare that repeated itself [00:12:15] probably four or five times. It was so ridiculous that I would wake up from the nightmare in a cold sweat, and I would start laughing. It was just so ridiculous because the hippie couple that I was going to the, uh, were, uh-- who were facilitating the, the group session, they, they lived in a townhouse that [00:12:30] had been, uh-- they'd been reco- recommended to me by a friend who had also done journeys with them.
And, uh, they were a completely responsible couple. Um, but my ego was playing out these scenarios. So I was-- Uh, there were a lot of times [00:12:45] where I was thinking, "Okay, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna do-- I could lose my mind. I could go crazy. I could go insane." But now having taken probably 20 psilocybin journeys, probably 50 ketamine, [00:13:00] uh, several 5-MeO-DMTs.
I'm very comfortable with the psychedelic medicines now and altered states, and I understand that those fears may be legitimate for certain people that have certain mental conditions because the psychedelics do destabilize [00:13:15] the brain. And so if you happen to have, for instance, a family history of schizophrenia, you need to be checked out by a doctor to make sure that this isn't going to trigger something, some type of a bipolar episode.
But if you're just your average person that hasn't had [00:13:30] any type of mental illness yourself or, or mental illness in your family, it's, um, the, the risk is relatively low, especially if you're-- if you go through the proper preparation, medical, uh, preparation, as well as kind of, you know, [00:13:45] psychological preparation.
[00:13:46] Stephanie: With all those nightmares, what made you wanna go through with it?
[00:13:48] Wesley: This, uh, the tinnitus that, uh, I have is just nonstop. It's twenty-four/seven. And, um, what's interesting is that it didn't-- it hasn't helped that at all at a physical level, but [00:14:00] it Through the, through the process of these psychedelic journeys, I have gained a broader perspective about my life and what I want to live for, and that has been a counterbalance to [00:14:15] those moments when, you know, I wake up in the middle of the night and the noise is so loud, I think I'll never be free of it.
And, and I prob- I might not ever be free of it. This is-- it's-- I've had it now going on, you know, six years and, um, it's quite [00:14:30] severe. Uh, but the psychedelics have had a way of grounding me in this world and in the present moment that has helped me navigate that otherwise, uh, very difficult [00:14:45] condition.
[00:14:45] Stephanie: And so Karen, for people who are just meeting you for the first time, tell us about your background and association with psychedelic therapy.
Yeah.
[00:14:51] Karen: I am a therapist 20 years now, and I'm licensed in Colorado, Washington, Texas, Oregon. And [00:15:00] I have-- I used to be a Buddhist and, um, a very, like, I guess in the equivalent spectrum, Wes was, uh, Mormon conservative. I was on the other end of the spectrum, Buddhist, liberal, living in Boulder, [00:15:15] Colorado, um, very much the liberal hippie.
And so I studied Buddhism and my, my minor in, uh, college was consciousness. And so when 2017, 2018, 2019, there started to [00:15:30] be talk in the psychedelic, in the psychological world of psychedelics, I started paying attention. And then when the pandemic hit, I suddenly have the opportunity to get trained online, which wasn't an opportunity before that.[00:15:45]
And I did the year-long, um, psychedelic-assisted training with Naropa and MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. I also did MDMA-assisted therapy certification, and I got trained in ketamine as- assisted therapy [00:16:00] and started doing ketamine-assisted therapy, which is the only legal, federally legal psychedelic approved by the FDA in the US.
And so I've probably done Maybe 400, 500 sessions even of, um, [00:16:15] ketamine-assisted therapy, uh, facilitating that. And, um, yeah, I just could-- I knew at that point in 2020 that this was gonna be what it felt like in my bones, was this is gonna be the next thing. And there was so much more to [00:16:30] learn, and it was, uh, it was right up my alley with consciousness and healing.
And also, I'm a survivor of some pretty serious trauma in my history, and so I wanted to be the first one in our clinic to [00:16:45] try ketamine-assisted therapy and create the standards, processes, procedures. I had the right diagnosis, so I, I went through that in December of 2020, and it was life-changing. And instead of making me [00:17:00] more of a hippie, commune-living, New Age Buddhist, I kinda came home to a more middle ground, and I started my, uh, believing in God.
And so it, it had the [00:17:15] opposite effect of what I think psychedelics are advertised to do, which was intriguing to me. And then, um, happened to meet up with Wes, who reached out to me, and I thought, "Yeah, there's really, there really needs to be, um, reassurance [00:17:30] for conservatives," and what I'm thinking of is normies, skeptics, politically homeless.
We, uh, we're trying to come up with the right term to capture this kind of all-American value. Um, I call myself a '90s liberal, like [00:17:45] all-American, where we were believing in things together and Western civilization was good, um, that those people need to not be fearful of these experiences, and therapists need to be trained to be able to handle people that are in the [00:18:00] normie category.
That's my spiel.
[00:18:02] Stephanie: So tell us about your book.
[00:18:03] Karen: Well- Wes, what do you wanna say about our book? It's exciting and everyone should read it- Yeah ... and it, there's nothing out there.
[00:18:12] Wesley: Yeah, it's, uh... Well, it's funny, when you were, when you were mentioning the term normies, I was [00:18:15] thinking, yeah, it's taken us about a year to decide on the title because we could- we kept going back over-- We don't like labels, and we mention that in the preface, that we don't like labels, but we use labels in order to have a conversation about what's going on with what we [00:18:30] perceive as a monoculture within the psychedelic, uh, community.
Um, but, but the book i- the book is about broadening the tent, and right now the monoculture is extremely left of center, [00:18:45] and not in a '90s liberal way, but left of center in a very orthodox way. So, you know- And let
[00:18:50] Karen: me interrupt just right- Yeah ... just, like, the, the small piece here that I think is valuable for the audience to know is that, like, let's-- I went to the very [00:19:00] first cohort, the very first training that is being offered for therapists from the clinical trials, and they are training people to do this modality that's gonna be super popular, they're hoping.
And we spent an entire week dismantling our privilege [00:19:15] and talking about oppressor-oppressed narratives, naming our gender. We did not talk about consciousness. We did not talk about clinical skills. We didn't talk about facilitation. We talked about this ideology. So [00:19:30] that is just a little snippet of why I was so fired up when Wes reached out to me, 'cause the people need to know what's happening in the psychedelic world.
[00:19:38] Stephanie: Well, and I think there is, um, from what I've seen in the psychedelic world, sort of a glamorization, [00:19:45] um, a romanticization of the idea of the indigenous wisdom keepers and the reality-
[00:19:53] Karen: And only one type of indigenous wisdom, right? Like the- Yeah ... the, the non-European indigenous. Like- [00:20:00] Exactly ... 'cause there's Celtic and Viking, you know?
[00:20:01] Stephanie: Uh, that's, that's where I'm coming from, right? Like- I'm okay, yeah ... like, uh, you know, I, I know-- I'm pretty confident that if you go far back enough in my Irish and Welsh as well as Russian and Ukrainian- [00:20:15] Hmm. Hmm ... lineages that there were psychedelic users, uh, because psychedelic mushrooms grow in all of those regions, right?
Yeah. And so the definition of indigeneity has, has morphed [00:20:30] according to wokeness to fit- Yeah ... people of a certain skin color, people from maybe a certain region or certain socioeconomic backgrounds. But, uh, there's a strong case to be made that psychedelics and human consciousness have [00:20:45] essentially co-evolved.
Um, and, and that's not limited to a certain region or culture.
[00:20:52] Karen: Yeah. I mean, it fits the oppressor-oppressed narrative that we are really trying to dismantle, to use a term, um, that, you [00:21:00] know, the, the, the perceived oppressed person is the one who has more value, and there's kind of the romanticization, like you were saying, Stephanie, of the '60s with Gaia and Mother Earth, and, you know, all of that is valuable, but it's [00:21:15] also not the only perspective.
Like grit, resilience, structure, boundaries are also super important and not oppressive narratives, and those are all part of a psychedelic experience. You know, I'm thinking about, um, imagine [00:21:30] having a psychedelic experience and you're at the peak of it, and your facilitator says, "I really want you to look at your privilege."
You know? And maybe not even that overtly, but that p- they're- if they are positioning you from [00:21:45] their narrative, there's a whole loss of psychological material in that, that I don't know- That's- ... how well healing can occur.
[00:21:52] Stephanie: That's abuse, and if I can just skip ahead- Yeah ... to something we said we might talk about, right?
Like-
[00:21:58] Karen: Yeah ...
[00:21:58] Stephanie: we, we, [00:22:00] we're talking about, uh, Wesley, I believe your word was imprinting, um, when a therapist brings their own values and, and, you know, take out the psychedelics, right? In any therapeutic- Yeah ... setting, we're dealing with a power imbalance. I mean, these [00:22:15] people love to talk about power imbalances.
Okay, let's go there. There's a power imbalance- Yeah ... in the room, okay? Mm-hmm. There's an authority figure and a vulnerable patient. So there, there's already a power dynamic. The patient's already vulnerable, suggestible. Mm-hmm. You know, seeing this person as someone with [00:22:30] expertise on the human mind, expertise and perspective on themself, right?
So there's a vulnerability inherent in any therapy. Psychedelics amplify that vulnerability by a lot. So when you talk about a, a patient or someone [00:22:45] seeking care being in that most wide-open state- And then having someone step in and direct that state and say, "Here's how I want you to think now that your mind is cracked wide open," that seems [00:23:00] abusive to me.
[00:23:00] Wesley: There's a, a specific example within the psychedelic, um, experience recently with veterans. Um, uh, and a, a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, uh, he had, uh, given this analogy, which I thought was quite telling. He said, uh, the [00:23:15] culture is very anti-colonial in its orientation, and yet they are taking veterans and putting them into psychedelic experiences hoping, hoping that they become pacifists.
And if that isn't a form of colonization, [00:23:30] uh, he, he likened it to, um, p- uh, was it polio-infested blankets that were given to s- uh, to, to certain Indian tribes? He likened that to, uh, polio-infested blankets, but in this case, you're giving psychedelic-infested, uh, medicines [00:23:45] to veterans on the hope that it will completely change their value system, and they will no longer be warriors and no longer, uh, go fight for this repressive Western imperialist country.
That they, [00:24:00] um, that, that they're in these, these, um, these, these, um They've come into this space with PTSD or with traumatic brain injury because they went and fought in defense of these values that [00:24:15] most of these facil- uh, facilitators find very offensive and very, uh, they're very much against. So they're, in essence, I think, uh, imposing a type of colonialism on these veterans if they're not respectful of the values [00:24:30] that these veterans are bringing into these spaces.
And once again, it's not, it's, it doesn't mean that you cannot have facilitators that have leftist viewpoints. But if, if their objective is to get a person into a psychedelic [00:24:45] experience because they are social justice warriors and they want those people to experience that and come out of that experience as social justice warriors themselves, I think it's highly unethical.
Because these people-- 'cause when you're in a psychedelic, uh, [00:25:00] experience, you are in a very vulnerable state.
[00:25:02] Stephanie: Really calls into question the motives of the practitioner, whether they are capable of truly being patient-centered. And it's ironic that so many people who hold these beliefs we call woke for shorthand, that [00:25:15] they're so obsessed with the idea of power, because that really seems like a projection.
I mean, what-- like, how could a person power trip more than wanting to be in a position of authority over someone who's in [00:25:30] one of the most vulnerable and open mental states of their life? Like, wanting to imprint and impose one's own values on someone in that state reveals that the person holding the desire has some issues with power themselves.
[00:25:43] Karen: Yeah, I mean, I think it [00:25:45] sounds so overtly malicious, and I think what is so powerfully scary about this process is that it's insidious because it's embedded in therapeutic training. So we're, we're talking about, like, a therapeutic culture [00:26:00] that moves into a psychedelic niche, and they're already trained to do broaching and, um, they're not necessarily trained in classical clinical skills like neutrality and, um, you know, s- [00:26:15] objectivity or knowing your own bias.
That they are, um... It's not even conscious, Wes, you know, as you're giving that example, that they want to colonize and make a pacifist. Um, I don't even know if it's that conscious. I think it's just [00:26:30] the position that they're in is, "Oh, of course you are the oppressor." And so, you know, it's like, um, how-- it's like being in the court and saying, "How many times did you beat your wife?"
It's that kind of assumption, you know, that you're like, "Wait, I don't like the frame of this. This [00:26:45] isn't true at all." Um, is how oppressed are you or how, how privileged are you is the positioning. And it-- to me, that's the main concern. Like, the therapist training, this is why you'll see Sensible Psychedelics on our title, is that we [00:27:00] really wanna have some kind of, gosh, I think it'd be so important, evolution of a training where people have the, the training that is neutral.
They have the clinical skills. They don't have the political skills, 'cause right now they're just a bunch of, [00:27:15] I'm reducing them, but they seem to be a bunch of activists. At least the people I was in training with, they're way more concerned with identity than actual psychological transformation.
[00:27:25] Wesley: Karen makes a good point i-in, in defense of [00:27:30] a lot of the social justice warriors that are in this space.
I don't-- I think it's very, a very thoughtless, um, position that they're taking in many ways. I don't-- There are those who are truly, uh, steeped in critical theory and [00:27:45] are extremely hostile to Western values and want to s- want to deconstruct the entire system. But I would say the vast majority of them are just going along because that's what they've learned, and they haven't really thought about it.
[00:28:00] Um, and they would probably bristle at the notion that they're, that they're intentionally trying to imprint a specific worldview on the, uh, on their clients. And yet that is the end result, because if you're going into a facilitation and [00:28:15] you know nothing about what the-- h- how these psychedelics can affect your perspective post-psychedelic experience, and you're, you, you-- They start the ceremony with a land acknowledgement and, uh, and everything [00:28:30] about the ceremony is steeped in, uh, indigenous ways of knowing that are valuable in Western ways that are not, and all the literature that you read, all of the chat groups in the psychedelic world talk, talk this way.
You're going to think that that's [00:28:45] just normal. And then you have this noetic experience, this experience in psychedelics, which is more real than your 3D world. Uh, you're going to come out of that with a much stronger sense of the world [00:29:00] that is representative of that ecosystem that you, that you entered into, that you experienced during your journey.
[00:29:07] Stephanie: So Karen and Wes, you probably have a lot of experiences meeting people who've had a [00:29:15] variety of psychedelic experiences, um, affected by partly what we call set and setting, right? The, the facilitator, the mindset and value system of the facilitator. Um, with [00:29:30] all respect for their confidentiality, could you tell us any, any stories or give us any, like, vignettes to see?
'Cause I, I, I'm hearing kind of both sides, that there's, there's a real danger in these waters, but peop- people keep [00:29:45] going back to them as well or keep looking for new practitioners.
[00:29:47] Karen: Yeah, we have actually a few case studies in our book. Um, and so we've, we have permission from some clients and colleagues, um- I think the thing that [00:30:00] ketamine...
So I, I practice this legal form of psychedelic work, and, um, I had a, a woman who was in her 70s who had a terminal diagnosis and come to me and say, [00:30:15] "I would like to conquer my fear of death." Like, no small feat. This is a brave woman. And so, um, as it turned out, of course, over the... So what my process is, I will meet with someone, like, 16 times.
So we're meeting a [00:30:30] lot before we even consider ketamine. And I got to really know her trauma history and the things that were happening in her life, and she had had just an inordinate amount of sudden loss and some pretty graphically tragic losses of, uh, [00:30:45] relatives dying in front of her and that kind of thing.
And ketamine was really able-- We did four sessions over a period of three months, and she was able to meet her fears in [00:31:00] this symbolic, embodied way and converse with them, get forgiveness from, uh, family members, uh, forgive herself. It was, it was a, um, a [00:31:15] beautiful arc of a process, and it didn't end with her suddenly feeling great about dying.
But it ended with her, like Wes said, there's like suddenly more context that's filled in, much like how we know trauma heals, right, [00:31:30] as it has more communication in the brain. It's so much like this with psychedelic work and the psychological material that I've seen, is that you just have a broader context to put something in, and then you're more at peace about it.
And so that was, that was a process of about a [00:31:45] year, nine months that was-- I was really honored to go through with this client.
[00:31:49] Wesley: And I think the reason that so many people are exploring psychedelics in our day and age, like just average people, what, what Karen likes to call normies, uh, and the reason that [00:32:00] I have gone back time and again to the psychedelic experience is because I am receiving so much value in terms of my personal growth, my relationship with my wife, my [00:32:15] relationship with my children.
Um, I've, uh, I've had incredible experiences around getting to understand my father better, who passed away about seven years ago. Uh, he suffered from severe PTSD from [00:32:30] combat in World War II and the Korean War. And as with most soldiers or most-- He was a pilot. Uh, most, uh, um, people in the service at that time, they self-medicated, right?
So he, he became an alcoholic and, uh, and drank. [00:32:45] Uh, he was alcoholic his, pretty much his whole life until, uh, he got quite old. And, um, and so I grew up, uh, in that, in that world. Um, and because of that, had a lot of really difficult [00:33:00] childhood experiences that in typical non-psychedelic fashion, you know, you, you, you just hunker down, you white-knuckle, you get through life.
And after that first psychedelic experience, I, I like to describe it [00:33:15] as I realized that I had been sleepwalking through my whole life. I, I was kind of a- kind of awake, kind of-- you know, I was awake enough to be walking, but I was really asleep and reacting to things throughout my life rather than [00:33:30] being more deliberate about my life.
And those initial psychedelic experiences and the subsequent ones have really helped me step back from the narrative, that chatter that I wake up with, that we all wake up with [00:33:45] every morning, that tape recorder that says the same thing about who we are, how we need to interact with people, our perspective on the world.
And, um, that default-- what they call it the default mode network within the neuroscience community. Um, that default mode [00:34:00] network is great. It helps us do our taxes. It helps us, uh, you know, go to jobs we don't like, uh, going to. It makes society run. But it can also make us very unhappy if we don't explore other ways in which we [00:34:15] can be more generous, more loving.
And the psychedelics have helped me do that. Even in these, these-- I, I could call them even recreational settings. For instance, uh, my wife and I, we have what we call ketamine dates, where we will titrate ketamine [00:34:30] and have, uh, just beautiful, wonderful conversations and interactions that are-- that would-- that for me would be difficult to have without the ketamine because my ego would be there.
I'd be defensive. We've done similar things with MDMA. I've had [00:34:45] official therapeutic, uh, experiences as well. But I think all of these experiences, if I look back, uh, on my life pre-psychedelic versus today, um, I would give anything to have [00:35:00] those psychedelic experiences because I really do feel like it's expanded my perspective of the world and my-- and, and my role in it.
[00:35:08] Stephanie: Psychedelics are perhaps best known for their influence on neuroplasticity, like you were [00:35:15] saying, right? Shifting out of the default mode network, allowing different parts of the brain to talk to each other, insight beyond ego, um, new ways of seeing things. And so it just seems so bizarre [00:35:30] that, um, that there's this massive blind spot in the, in the, the liberal-biased- Yeah
psychedelic therapy community. Yeah. Right? There's like a, a prejudice that's particularly stubborn [00:35:45] and resistant to being explored there when it comes to political assumptions about, you know, values and what makes someone a, a good person or not.
[00:35:56] Wesley: Yeah, and we, and, and we've, we, we explore this in the book, and [00:36:00] it, there's this big, the big question remains, why, why, why?
And I think it comes down to something as simple as, um, I think it's Bill Maher who, Bill Maher, uh, who likes to quip, um, uh, "We humans are not very nice people." I don't think [00:36:15] we're very logical people either. I think we're at the, at the, at a fundamental primal level, we are extremely tribal. And I think that if you don't go into psychedelics with a bit of humility about [00:36:30] uncertainty and questioning the experiences that you have, you'll come out of a psychedelic experience probably with a belief system that's just a reinforced version of the belief system that you had going in.
And [00:36:45] so that's what-- I think the, the reason that most, uh, people in the psychedelic culture are left of center is because they were left of center before they took psychedelics. Conservatives don't take drugs, right? Liberals are the ones that experiment. They tend to be the ones that will [00:37:00] explore and do things.
It's generally not conservatives that are gonna go to Burning Man. It's going to be those that are left of center. So if they already have that worldview, and that liberal worldview, which Karen refers to as '90s liberal worldview, has become more of a leftist worldview, [00:37:15] a more anti-Western worldview, which is what I th- I would say, like, our-- the common culture today is that left of center is anti-Western, and it used to not be that way.
That's-- You're going to come out of these psychedelic experiences with other people that are [00:37:30] also in that same-- have that s- share that same worldview, and I just think it reinforces itself. And people love to belong to groups. They don't wanna be on the, on the outside. And, uh, because that, that leftist view [00:37:45] carries with it a certain orthodoxy, there's a price to be paid if you diverge from that.
If you, if you go away from that, there's a-- you're, you're going to be ostracized. And I just think there's a, there's a tremendous desire for people in the psychedelic community to wanna [00:38:00] belong, to, to, to belong to a tribe, to belong to a group, and unfortunately, it's created this monoculture within the movement.
[00:38:07] Stephanie: Earlier, you guys were talking about, uh, treatment of veterans, and I'm glad that you brought this up because I think it points [00:38:15] to a question that I've been asking in the back of my mind but never really formulated before, right? Which is that if there are, in fact, lots of people researching and exploring and experimenting with use of [00:38:30] psychedelics, psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, m- maybe it sounds like now Ibogaine, 5-MeO dem- DMT.
If, if there are these experiments going on, um, in which veterans with presumably conservative [00:38:45] values are seeking help for their PTSD and going to therapists where there's, there tends to be this liberal bias, especially amongst therapists who are open to things like psychedelic therapy. Um, you know, we, we would [00:39:00] hope that there's a standard of care that is patient-centered there, and we're, we are, you know, hearing all of these encouraging results of the studies that have been done on those populations, but it also seems like maybe there's this shadow side.
And do you [00:39:15] guys have any stories? Have you heard from any veterans, um, who felt like they were subject to, um, bias when they were in the session? Or what else can you share about that?
[00:39:27] Karen: You know, I haven't-- Wes [00:39:30] may have-- He has more connection to the veteran Ibogaine, uh, community. But the thing that I'm thinking of, Stephanie, immediately is how many clients, regular talk therapy clients, come to me and say, "I, uh, [00:39:45] I can't stand the therapy I've had," or, "My therapist told me I was racist," or, um, that are looking for therapists in the conservative spectrum.
I'm on conservativetherapists.com or.org.
[00:39:58] Stephanie: Not
[00:39:58] Karen: because I'm
[00:39:58] Stephanie: con- Oh, on site, conservative counselors?
[00:39:59] Karen: Yeah, [00:40:00] yeah, conservative counselors. Um, not because I necessarily feel like I'm conservative, but I wanna signal that I am not radical liberal and that I won't impose this radical liberal world view, that I hold neutrality.
And so I can just [00:40:15] imagine, um, veterans that are already sort of self-selectively have these American Western civilization values, if they're just going to, quote, "normal therapy," they're running into therapists that are, um, specializing in all these [00:40:30] kinds of progressive things that aren't a match and that they're not family-centered or faith-centered.
And, you know, being pa- I'm part of a Christian network. I'm not a Christian. Um, I believe in God. But, um, I-- because I want to signal that I [00:40:45] am not that left. So I would imagine-- And there are only 3,000 therapists in the US that are trained through the right organization to be able to be part of the clinical trials.
So that is a very small number, and I [00:41:00] would suspect that most of them are captured, so, by the left. But, uh, Wes, I'm curious if you have heard from veterans.
[00:41:08] Wesley: It's important to probably distinguish, uh, you have your clinical trials. Johns Hopkins in, [00:41:15] uh-- is, is kind of the, the leader in, in the clinical trials.
Uh, the, uh, Stanford, uh, is also, uh, heavily involved in the Ibogaine research going on in Mexico. Those tend to not be ideological. Um, [00:41:30] where I think you get the, the ideological bent is when you go to the more informal settings. And I haven't-- The kind of feedback we're getting from conservatives [00:41:45] and veterans is when they hear what we're doing with this book, their response is, "Oh, it's about time.
We really need that." I think what's happened is, uh, the, the, that conservatives or, or people with traditional [00:42:00] values in this movement have done what they've done in the culture at large. They've just been quiet. They've just kept quiet. And so you don't have, uh... It's the absence of alternatives. So for instance, MAPS, which is the, um, which is the Multidisciplinary [00:42:15] Association of Psychedelic Science, uh, it has its conference once every two years, and it's heavily attended by people around the country and around the world.
There is not a single panel on how to use psychedelics to reinforce, uh, uh, to make for [00:42:30] stronger parents, to reinforce the nuclear family. There are all kinds of panels on BIPOC, decolonization, um, uh, panels which would be, which would, uh, tend to be antisemitic in nature [00:42:45] because they're, they, they, those panels that talk about, uh, you know, conflicts in the world generally will have people on there that are critical of Israel.
But there's-- And, and none of those issues are in and of themselves problematic to be [00:43:00] discussed at, at a conference. The problem is the absence of anything on the other side. Um, and that's, and that's where I think- W- the, the kind of feedback we're getting is, "We've been quiet. We don't really have a tribe.
We don't really have a [00:43:15] community within this psychedelic movement that we can call our own or that we feel really comfortable in." So they just, they, they keep quiet, but they still go through the motions and still participate to the best they can.
[00:43:27] Stephanie: Sort of like my complaints about all the other [00:43:30] professional organizations.
Like for example, I've said I don't know how many times on this podcast, but the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists website, you know, top of their menu is transgender resources. What about blended family resources? You're the [00:43:45] Association for Marriage and Family Therapists. Okay, what about blended families?
Something like a third of Americans, myself included, are in blended families. Shouldn't marriage and family therapists be able to help, or is transgender resources more important? It's, it's the overall focus, right? It's like we're not [00:44:00] saying that we can't talk about, you know, niche minority populations.
But what about things that affect the average person who's trying to create stability in society by raising children in a healthy environment? What about that?
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[00:44:52] Wesley: Yeah.
So, uh, no, I just wanted to riff off what you were saying about these, uh, organizations having, uh, uh, you know, uh, talking about, um, [00:45:00] LGBTQIA as the number one, uh, issue in, in marriage, uh, and challenges around marriage and raising, and raising children. It seems to me that, um, the psychedelics, if they've done one thing for [00:45:15] me, they've helped me broaden my perspective.
There, there were two areas in which I was fairly judgmental about other people. One was I used to be a Mormon, and I've-- I left the Mormon Church about 30 years ago, and while I've [00:45:30] maintained very civil relationships with Mormons, I've always had a sense of judgment about them because maybe because they were judging me, and so I felt defensive, and so I was going to judge them.
And it was always a judgment that was going on in my mind whenever I would [00:45:45] interact with Mormons. And, uh, and the other was, um, I was a, as a traditional conservative, I was a Never Trumper back in 2016, uh, very much, uh, concerned that he might end up destroying the Republican Party as we knew it [00:46:00] back then.
And so I was very judgmental about people who were supportive of him, who I knew were conservative like me. But through the use of the psychedelics, I came to A very interesting understanding about both of those groups, and I have [00:46:15] been able to, um, celebrate the faith of my Mormon friends that are still active in the church.
And I've been al- also been able to interact with and understand people who are Trump supporters, even though I, I was [00:46:30] not one and, and still am not one. And those are two, those are two perspectives where I was able to still hold to my values, but really broaden my perspective and interaction with those two groups.
And what [00:46:45] is, what is so frustrating within the monoculture is that the, the perspective seems to narrow within the culture. It's not br- it's not broadened. The use of the more psychedelics, the more New Age. [00:47:00] Not, not exclusively, but there's a, there's a very strong contingent within the leadership within that, the psychedelic movement, which is enforcing an orthodoxy which seems to go counter to what the medicines could [00:47:15] do if you had proper set and setting.
If you ha- if you approach these psychedelics with the right humility to understand that you're probably going to leave a psychedelic journey with more questions than answers. And it should be, you know, as the t- [00:47:30] as the term psychedelic, it's a, uh, or a, a entheogen, they're mind-expanding. It, it should be expanding your mind, not closing it down.
[00:47:37] Stephanie: Wesley, I really, uh, appreciated those examples from your own life of ways that psychedelics have helped you [00:47:45] have more empathy and understanding to- toward people who think differently than yourself. And I recognize you're saying that coming from a conservative background. You were conservative, but you also harbored issues and judgments [00:48:00] towards Mormons and Trump supporters.
And, uh, I would love to see that more from, uh, as a liberal person's takeaway from using psychedelics, right? Like, if, if li- liberals don't have to change their political views, but, [00:48:15] but where are all the stories of liberals who take psychedelics and have more empathy and insight and curiosity toward people they had previously dismissed as "closed-minded," I put in air quotes, [00:48:30] uh, which, you know, a lot of that might be actually a projection, right?
[00:48:33] Karen: I was thinking about the, the strange bias that has infiltrated therapy. I mean, that is really my obsessive interest because it expresses itself so [00:48:45] obviously in the psychedelic world. And Wes and I have been talking about how interesting it is that therapy is now more about deconstructing civilization than it really is about [00:49:00] helping people heal intrapsychically, interpersonally.
Um, and so it makes sense somehow that the, the people that are using psychedelics in the therapeutic world are talking about, um, deconstruction and dismantling, [00:49:15] and there's like, l- like again, like you said, there's no celebration of the family, um, celebration of whatever faith you have, like the things that are cohesive and cohere civilization.
I'm thinking about, we were talking about the memes [00:49:30] of the World Cup and how it was that refreshing perspective all of a sudden of these people who had this gratitude and this pure enthusiasm and joy about the, the positive things of our culture, and it, I think it woke a lot of us [00:49:45] up to realize how, just how the all-pervasive negativity of how bad we are and how ashamed we should be.
And psychedelics are like that, that soccer World Cup meme. Like all of a sudden, poof, oh, there's this whole new [00:50:00] perspective, and then we can all be in it together. That was so striking. Who
[00:50:03] Stephanie: knew? Who knew it was gonna- Yeah ... all come down to ranch dressing?
[00:50:07] Karen: I know. Ranch dressing and Walmart and the things that we aren't necessarily proud of, but we've, you know, we've achieved.[00:50:15]
[00:50:16] Stephanie: And the, the task of dismantling civilization, first of all, can never just fall on one person. Um- Yeah ... a- a- and, and- Yeah ... uh, the, the psychotherapy is typically the realm- Yeah ... of the individual- Yeah ... right? At, at biggest, the [00:50:30] family, um, as, as the unit. Um, and uh, I mean, never mind the fact that if you're gonna dismantle civilization, like what are your plans to build a better one?
How do you know those are better plans? Like, have [00:50:45] you thought about what went into building the one that you're taking apart before you take it apart? You know? Has, have you gone through the Chesterton's fence math, right? So it's, there's a lot of hubris in that, but also powerlessness, right? Like-
[00:50:57] Karen: Yeah
[00:50:57] Stephanie: like, a- and this is where the traditional [00:51:00] definition of psychotherapy is much more useful to the average person, 'cause it does boil down to what you can Control. And- Yeah ... and I, I've seen people really stuck in chronic powerlessness watching their [00:51:15] lives go by feeling like they can't change what is actually theirs to control because of these factors so far outside of their control.
I don't like this definition of therapy. I think it's, it's- Yeah ... got a lot [00:51:30] of hubris in it, and it to me kinda points to the maybe some grandiosity on the parts of the therapist themselves, right? To think that you have this mission that's so huge as transforming society. It's like, well, [00:51:45] you do have a job to do, and if, if you're humble enough, that job is actually a sacred honor, right?
The task of helping this one flawed person in front of you is an important job, right? Do you need it to be bigger though? Is it [00:52:00] not, is it not good enough for you? Do you need to feel like you're doing something bigger than helping this one person? You are transforming society. You are dismantling white supremacy.
Is that what you need to feel in order to think that your life has worth? 'Cause that sounds like a you problem [00:52:15]
[00:52:15] Karen: Hmm. I think that was very well put, Stephanie. You've been thinking about this for years, obviously. I have.
[00:52:20] Stephanie: I have.
[00:52:22] Karen: Yeah. And
[00:52:23] Wesley: in, in some ways- Yeah ... the, the informal structure, the, the fact that, that psychedelic [00:52:30] usage is still primarily an underground endeavor might be healthy in the sense that the people that are in that space are going to be more susceptible [00:52:45] to changing than therapists that need to- Yeah
face the certification boards. And, uh, b- Yeah ... in other words, without that formal structure that's been, uh, taken [00:53:00] over by the critical, by the, uh, you know, postmodernist critical theory people, uh, th- there may be more room for entrepreneurial, you know, free marketplace of ideas as more and more people begin to look for solutions for [00:53:15] their mental health and their growth.
Uh, I think that we'll see more and more psychedelic facilitators that won't look like the traditional facilitators that we've seen in the last 20 years when the movement was much smaller and more [00:53:30] insular.
[00:53:31] Stephanie: Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Wesley. That's my hope anyway. And, and, and that your take on it is so optimistic, because I'm thinking about the same thing, but from a more pessimistic angle.
Which is that, you know, I mean, the benefit of, um, a service being [00:53:45] legal is that it can be, um, spoken about, right? There can be reviews and forums and, you know, customer experiences and all of that, and, and that's what [00:54:00] psychedelics lack, right? Uh, I mean, there are states with structures for doing it in a quasi-legal manner.
Um, but, uh, as one or the other of you said an hour ago, I can't remember which, sorry, [00:54:15] um, uh, you know, for every one person who does it according to one of those structures, there are 100 doing it underground. And so people are very reluctant to share their experiences as, as a patient, as a [00:54:30] provider, and it's all very, you know, word of mouth, somewhat hush-hush, and I feel like that darkness creates the optimal breeding environment for some black mold, if you know what I'm talking about.
Yeah. Right. Right. [00:54:45] Yeah. That's, that's, this is... that's what fungus loves. Um- Yeah. And, and I mean, fungus can do amazing things and, and fungus- Yeah. Okay ... can create rot as well.
[00:54:54] Karen: Yeah.
[00:54:54] Stephanie: Um, I'm a little all over the place with my analogies, as usual, but you get what I'm saying, like- It works ... like, [00:55:00] how, where's the accountability, right?
On the one hand, I don't trust the system, so to speak. Like, I don't trust regulating bodies and certification boards to have the right- structures. And [00:55:15] so there's a little bit of like, yeah, maybe it should all be underground, whatever, screw the system. But at the same time, if people can't talk openly about their experiences with something, like how do you know who the good providers are, right?
If [00:55:30] all the providers are criminals, well, you get what I'm saying?
[00:55:35] Karen: Yeah. Yeah. It needs, it needs light. Wes, what are your thoughts about what Stephanie said about bringing light in to the [00:55:45] underground?
[00:55:45] Wesley: Yeah. It's th- th- this is the, you know, $6 billion question, uh, which is there's this All of these drugs, except for ketamine, were made Schedule 1 substances back in 197- [00:56:00] actually, MDMA was made Schedule 1 in the ni- in the '80s, and ibogaine, um, I believe in the '90s.
But they're all Schedule 1 substances, so even in places like Oregon and Colorado that have, uh, legalized them, and 30-some, uh, other states that have [00:56:15] decriminalized the use of cannabis, they're all still Schedule 1, meaning that it's a felony to take them. There are some exceptions. Under the religious, the na- the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Supreme Court has indicated [00:56:30] in one Supreme Court case and in several circuit court cases, um, federal circuit court cases, that, um, the use of psychedelics in, for religious purposes is protected under the, under the, uh, freedom of religion clause, [00:56:45] uh, under the US Constitution.
And so there's this gray area. I would say, I am actually optimistic that, um, an ecosystem can be developed, whether it will be or not is another story, but can be developed [00:57:00] that is self-regulating and, um, reduces, it will never eliminate, but reduces some of the abuses that we're seeing in this DIY space today.
'Cause even with the abuses that we're seeing in the DIY space [00:57:15] today, there's not a lot of transparency, so it's hard to really, really know how much abuse there is. I still think that anecdotally there isn't more abuse taking place in the unregulated psychedelic therapy and [00:57:30] coaching space than is probably taking place in the formalized therapeutic space.
If you think about, uh, these certification bodies, at least from what Karen's been telling me, how they've been taken over by the affirming care crowd, and [00:57:45] how much damage is that doing? And this is all under the guise of completely authorized, government sanctioned, certified therapists. So I don't, I'm not, I'm-- and this is probably the libertarian coming out in me a bit.
I'm not as, I'm not as concerned [00:58:00] about there not being government oversight. I'm much more concerned that there is not transparency. And I think that if we get more adults into the conversation and into the movement, we can have, we, we can [00:58:15] develop a private sector self-regulated ecosystem similar to what we have in other areas in our society.
[00:58:23] Stephanie: That's a good distinction. And,
[00:58:24] Wesley: and, and in that way we're not, we're not We're not relying on the government as a gatekeeper
[00:58:29] Stephanie: I like [00:58:30] that distinction between oversight and transparency. Um, what did-- what were you saying about religious protections? So what, what religion d- must one belong to, to have- So- ... the government respect their right to use [00:58:45] psychedelics?
S-
[00:58:45] Wesley: yeah, so and I, I would actually pull out my card. I have a card in my wallet that I use at cocktail parties for conversation piece. I belong to the Divine Assembly, which is a psychedelic church here in Utah. And, um, there are about 100 of these churches around the [00:59:00] country that, um, some of them actually administer psychedelics as their sacrament.
Others, um, just organize. They're more like associations. They're, they're, they're religious, uh, they're religious [00:59:15] organizations, but they do not actually handle psychedelic substances. They require the members to get those psychedelic substances on their own. But one particular case, um, went all the way to the Supreme Court, and it was a unanimous [00:59:30] decision by the Supreme Court, which is rare, uh, these days.
Unanimous decision in support of that church's-- it was a, uh, a church out of, uh, Brazil, uh, uh, based here in the U.S., but they, uh, from, from Brazil, [00:59:45] that they could use ayahuasca, uh, in their, in their, in their church, uh, for, uh, sacramental purposes, for ceremonial purposes. And there have been about four circuit court cases that have come down with similar [01:00:00] decisions.
The most recent one was a, is a psyc- psyco- uh, psilocybin, uh, church/clinic here in Utah that everyone thought, including the legal experts, that the court would not Uh, [01:00:15] provide a religious exemption for, and the circuit court not only provided a religious exemption, but, um, issued a, uh, injunction against law enforcement to interfere in the affairs of this, [01:00:30] of this church.
Uh, it's called, uh, s- the, uh, s- uh, Singularism is the name of the church. They look and operate like a clinic. They charge for their services, but they have a creed and, uh, you don't have to be a member to go to the clinic. [01:00:45] But they have enough of the trappings of a religion to where the circuit court, and, and this conservative Supreme Court in particular, is very reluctant.
And so I actually think, um, my-- And it could be, it could be too, uh, uh, [01:01:00] too pollyannish on my, on my, uh, in, in my view about what, what could happen, but I think that churches are great organizations for scaling the use of psychedelics for [01:01:15] wellness and for spiritual health and human development. I think that there, there are already existing structures, uh, and then I'm talking obviously almost exclusively Christian religions, but we have good examples within the Jewish, uh, [01:01:30] tradition, both, um, uh, Hasidic Jews as well as Orthodox Jews and Reform Jews have been able to have a very positive and constructive conversation around psychedelics.
And in many instances, they, they serve as a very good model. They've been [01:01:45] fairly deeply enmeshed in psychedelic culture for the last twenty years, and I think that the Christian churches could use that as an example of how, um, a religious organization or [01:02:00] set of religious organizations have incorporated psychedelic usage into their religious practices.
And I think that if there was, if there were a melding of, of Christian churches and psychedelic uses, it could potentially also reinvigorate, uh, [01:02:15] Christian, uh, church membership, church involvement, which we all know has been, has been on the decline over the last 30 or 40 years.
[01:02:23] Stephanie: Well, this has been a fascinating conversation.
Wesley, I'm aware that you have to run, so [01:02:30] let's go ahead and wrap up. Tell us where people can find your book. Um, I understand that we're recording this before your book is, um, available everywhere, but by the time this episode comes out, it should be. So, um, where will people be able to [01:02:45] find your book?
[01:02:45] Wesley: So, uh, look us up on, on Amazon, Sensible Psychedelics.
Uh, and also you can go to our website, sensiblepsychedelicsbook.com.
[01:02:53] Stephanie: Great. And, uh, we'll start with you, Wesley. Can people find you on any social media, on any [01:03:00] personal website?
[01:03:00] Wesley: In terms of what Karen and I are doing, we're on Substack, Sensible Psychedelics Substack. We also have a podcast on YouTube called Sensible Psychedelics.
And then in terms of my personal, I think I have a, a, a stunning 23 [01:03:15] followers on, on Facebook or something like that. I, I don't have many followers, but I am getting more engaged on, uh, in posting issues around health and, and in particular aging, aging energetically and aging more deliberately, which is somewhat an outgrowth of my [01:03:30] experiences, uh, with psychedelics.
[01:03:31] Stephanie: Good topic.
[01:03:32] Karen: And I have a new community called Nuance Therapist Network, and right now it's free to join. It's a private, vetted, um, place where heterodox therapists come and talk about [01:03:45] everything. And we do workshops and trainings, and pretty soon we're gonna have a, a presentation from a specialist in, um, the wives', well, trans widows basically.
So I can't wait to have that. [01:04:00] And so nuancetherapist.com is where you can go and find out about that network and, um, and me and our group.
[01:04:07] Stephanie: That's a really great resource for my audience. Thank you both- Yeah, yeah ... so much for coming here and joining me today. It's been such a pleasure.
[01:04:14] Karen: Thank you, [01:04:15] Stephanie.
Thanks for having us.
[01:04:17] Stephanie: Thank you for listening to You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist. If you enjoyed this episode, kindly take a moment to rate, review, share or comment on it using your platform of choice. And [01:04:30] of course, please remember, podcasts are not therapy and I'm not your therapist. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for this awesome theme song, Half Awake, and to Pods by Nick for production.
For help [01:04:45] navigating the impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to check out my program for parents, ROGD Repair. Any resource you heard mentioned on this show, plus how to get in touch with me, can all be found in [01:05:00] the notes and links below. Rain or shine, I hope you will step outside to breathe the air today.
In the words of Max Ehrmann, "With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful [01:05:15] [01:05:30] [01:05:45] [01:06:00] [01:06:15] world."