This is an important discussion about harms, and what we should be doing about them. Josh and Roman are working on a major study at Emory University to answer some of the basic and outstanding questions we have about psychedelic risks and cases that can be challenging to recover from. We have a lot of work to do characterizing these experiences, and developing appropriate treatments for helping people bounce back more quickly. 

This is a special episode featuring two of our favorite organizations. DanceSafe and Shulgin Foundation. Listen to Joe Moore record with the heads of these orgs and learn about how you may be able to buy some art to support them. This is a singularly important history and partnership. 

My friend Mareesa joins us again on PT to discuss art, integration, psychedelic experiences without drugs, the heros journey and her smaller sphinxes that may start touring the country! Enjoy! Here are some machine generated shownotes if you find them useful! Show Notes Sphinx Gate began as a pair of monumental 34-foot sculptures at Burning Man. Now, Mareesa Stertz and her collaborators are developing smaller, portable versions that could bring the experience to festivals, conferences, and communities around the country. The installation is designed as a sober rite of passage—one that draws on psychedelic experience without requiring anyone to take a drug. Participants move through four portals centered on the mind, body, heart, and destiny. Along the way, they are invited to identify a recurring personal story, notice how it lives in the body, meet it with greater compassion, and consider what might exist beyond it. Mareesa and Joe explore how the project draws from the Hero's Journey, Carl Jung's concept of individuation, participatory art, ritual, somatic awareness, and the riddles traditionally associated with the sphinx. They also discuss the importance of community in psychedelic integration, the stories and inherited beliefs that disrupt self-trust, and why healing is rarely the result of one dramatic experience. The conversation expands into peer support, the Global Psychedelic Society, the risks of presenting psychedelics as a quick fix, and the challenge of remaining fully human as artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in everyday life.  

Kyle and Joe interview Rachel Turetzky & Douglas S. Wingate about their perspectives on the Wilson\Leary 8 Circuit Model of consciousness. They recently released a CE approved program on Psychedelic Education Center to train therapists on this model and how to integrate the 8 Circuit Model into your clinical therapy practice. In this episode: Maybe Day and maybe logic: Honoring Robert Anton Wilson and learning to hold beliefs, models, and interpretations more lightly Reality tunnels: How biology, experience, culture, and conditioning filter our perception of reality Robert Anton Wilson's legacy: Guerrilla ontology, stand-up philosophy, Prometheus Rising, and using humor to destabilize rigid beliefs Timothy Leary beyond the caricature: His early work in psychology, the development of the Eight-Circuit Model, and the parts of his intellectual legacy that are often overlooked The first four circuits: Bodily safety, emotional territory, language and symbolic thinking, and social and relational conditioning The upper circuits: Sensory and somatic intelligence, metacognition, archetypal and transpersonal experience, and unitive states of consciousness Metaprogramming: Identifying the beliefs, imprints, and automatic patterns shaping our lives—and developing the capacity to revise them Circuit Zero and Stanislav Grof: Prenatal and perinatal experience, the basic perinatal matrices, and the lasting influence of early development Normalizing unusual experiences: Archetypal encounters, ancestral material, entities, out-of-body experiences, synchronicities, and other phenomena that conventional psychology may struggle to interpret Psychedelics and re-imprinting: How expanded states may loosen entrenched developmental patterns and create opportunities for psychological change Pleasure as therapeutic material: Anhedonia, chronic survival states, the "hedonic intelligence" of Circuit Five, and learning to experience joy without treating it as a distraction from the work Clinical applications: Using the model during psychedelic preparation to identify intentions, developmental imprints, and material that may emerge Medicine and dosage selection: How MDMA, ketamine, psilocybin, LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT may produce different experiences depending on the intention and dose Integration and verticality: Grounding expansive, archetypal, or unitive experiences through the body, emotions, relationships, and everyday life Chapel Perilous: Understanding destabilizing experiences, ontological shock, spiritual emergencies, and the process of reconstructing meaning afterward Beyond psychedelics: Connections with yoga, meditation, occult practice, Chinese medicine, chakra systems, and other psychospiritual traditions The new course: The structure of The Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness: An Integrative Framework for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, including its 14 lessons, practical exercises, assessments, certification, and continuing-education options

Denver mushroom decriminalization changed the national conversation around psilocybin access, personal use, and grassroots psychedelic reform. In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Joe Moore speaks with Travis Tyler Fluck, an autognostic mycologist, educator, activist, end-of-life doula, and longtime Colorado mushroom community organizer. Fluck was involved in Denver's 2019 psilocybin campaign, which made adult personal use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms the city's lowest law enforcement priority. The campaign passed by a narrow margin and helped open the door for later reforms in Oakland, Washington, D.C., Oregon, Colorado, and beyond. This conversation looks at the people, ethics, and tensions behind Denver mushroom decriminalization. It also explores what happens after a law changes: how communities educate themselves, how personal use spaces develop, and how grassroots access fits alongside regulated psychedelic services.

Aspen Psychedelic Symposium is the focus of this conversation with Martha Hammel of the Aspen Psychedelic Resource Center and Tasia Poinsatte of Healing Advocacy Fund. They join Joe Moore to discuss this year's symposium, how it fits into Colorado's evolving natural medicine landscape, and why Aspen has become a strong setting for serious public conversations about psychedelics. Hammel explains that the symposium is now in its third year and is designed to bring major psychedelic voices to Colorado's West Slope. She also outlines the local roots of the Aspen Psychedelic Resource Center, which grew out of education and outreach work around decriminalization and the Natural Medicine Health Act. Poinsatte describes Healing Advocacy Fund's broader role across Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico, where the group works on safe access, implementation, affordability, and public education.

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.

ALS and ketamine therapy are at the center of this conversation with psychiatrist Dr. Michael Alpert and Peter Alberding, who was diagnosed with ALS in late 2023. Alpert is a Boston-area psychiatrist with experience in MDMA-assisted therapy research for PTSD and a private practice that includes ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. 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 psychotherapy became a tool for processing those changes more directly than talk therapy alone had allowed.  

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 University. She explains that Australia has not decriminalized psychedelics. Instead, psilocybin and MDMA can be prescribed in limited cases through a psychiatrist-led system. That distinction matters, especially as public discussion often moves faster than the actual clinical infrastructure. Kyle and Dark also explore what happens in the therapy room. They talk about nervous system activation, body-based awareness, co-therapy, breathwork, and the challenge of knowing when to intervene and when to stay out of the way. The episode also turns toward creativity, self-expression, and the parts of the self that often remain split off or underdeveloped.

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.