- [Charles]: So humans, you know, I think many of these ancient practices that induce
heightened states of awareness, evolved out of strategies, unique human strategies for
survival and reproduction.
But then they become fascinating on their own.
Exercise is one of them.
Another one that I’m particularly interested and involved with is psychedelics.
If you say, “What’s another thing that humans all around the world did repeatedly
and for extended periods to alter consciousness?”
It’s psychedelics.
It’s much older than just humans.
You know, mammals have a tropism, a craving for drugs that make them hallucinate and go
crazy.
You can make a list.
Many mammal species have their psychedelics: cats have catnip, elks have a certain kind
of moss.
So there’s something about mammalian brains that are drawn to substances that induce the
sort of altered states of consciousness, and widespread use of psychedelic medicines, psychedelic
substances around the world.
You know, you say, “Well, what do these things do?”
Well, they tap into this interesting human evolved capacity for transcendent states.
You know, they can be induced in all sort of other ways.
One of the most species typical human behaviors is trying to put yourself in a whacked state,
you know, a trance state.
Dancing, I mean, there’s a whole list of these things.
The urgency with which these were pursued in indigenous groups is really highlighted
nicely by people that were indigenous in my part of the world, which is up about 200 miles
from here.
I grew up in Fresno, in central California.
Prior to them all being wiped out, the Yokuts, that were the indigenous groups in Central
California, they were one of the world’s great shamanistic cultures.
But they didn’t have good psychedelic substances and so they felt so strongly about the need
to induce these types of experiences at puberty, that they would have their young people at
puberty, you know, strip naked and lay on these ant hills.
Their bodies would be completely covered with ants and bitten, bitten, bitten, bitten.
And the ants, I don’t know whether formic acid, I’m not sure what it was, but there’s
a substance that if you get, you know, just hideously bitten, it will induce a psychedelic
experience.
I mean that’s the length...
- [Rhonda]: That’s crazy.
- [Charles]: Yeah, that’s the length people would go to induce these experiences, because
they were so integrated into certain societies.
- [Rhonda]: Why puberty?
Was it like a coming of age?
- [Charles]: Yeah.
Well, in cultures that have a strong shamanistic emphasis, there’s a very powerful feeling
that you want to identify a spirit guide for a lifetime.
So, you know, psychedelic experiences, or transcendent trance-like experiences, on a
repeated basis, were usually just the province of a very small group of specialists, shamans
that had very complex relationships with the rest of the population.
Very ambivalent.
It’s fascinating stuff.
But most of these cultures, everybody would at least have one experience, and if that
happened, it would be at puberty.
And yeah, I think basically, that’s the time where you sort of have a transcendent
experience that points you to the spirit world so that you can have, you know, you’re not
going to have the same potency of the spirit guide help that you would have if you’re
constantly moving into the spirit realm like a shaman would, but it was sort of... people
would, you know, everybody sort of wants one of these in those sort of cultures.
So I think that’s why they were used there.
Now there’s some evidence that “The Eleusinian Mysteries” of ancient Greece, which we know
very little about because they were all kind of hush-hush.
But there’s some suggestion now, I think in the last 20-30 years, some researchers
suggest that they may have also ingested psychedelic substances, that was sort of at the core.
Because these were really the core of spirituality, especially esoteric spirituality in a Greco-Roman
world, you know.
And we know so little about because it was so secret, but they were very widespread.
Another example of these things being used, not just at puberty, but for these sort of
transformational purposes, and I know you would, off camera you told me you interviewed
my colleague, Roland Griffiths.
- [Rhonda]: Yeah.
- [Charles]: And so a number of us are now involved in this work of looking really rigorously
at psychedelic substances as treatment for depression, because Roland and Steve Ross
at NYU, Roland at Hopkins, showed that, you know, a single exposure to something like
psilocybin, which is a psychedelic substance in magic mushrooms, you know, tends to induce
you to very unusual states of mind, that often have a kind of mystical characteristic to
them.
A single exposure in a couple of studies induce these powerful anti-depressive responses that
last for like six months, longer.
I mean, I know from Steve, you know, that he’s followed up on people, these are depressed,
anxious people with cancer, that those who are still alive two years, later many of them,
most of them are still un-depressed and not taking...
- [Rhonda]: After one experience?
- [Charles]: Profoundly life transforming.
- [Rhonda]: That is phenomenal.
- [Charles]: Oh, it’s fascinating.
- [Rhonda]: Yeah, I mean...
- [Charles]: It’s one of the most fascinating things going in our world right now.
- [Rhonda]: I know with my discussion with Dr. Griffiths, he was mentioning, again, he
did say that this mystical experience seemed to be important for the antidepressant effect.
Of course, he doesn’t really know the mechanism why, but parallel to that, there are also
some studies looking at a part of the brain that’s involved in like rumination, forgot
what it was called.
- [Charles]: The default mode.
- [Rhonda]: Yeah, the default mode network.
And how that was changed also.
- [Charles]: Oh, absolutely, yes.
- [Rhonda]: Of course rumination, that’s a big part of depression.
- [Charles]: Huge, huge part.
And it’s interesting to link back, there are studies linking rumination particularly
to inflammation.
- [Rhonda]: Oh, really?
- [Charles]: Yeah.
So inflammation probably, preferentially drives rumination.
We know from interferon studies that one of the places that inflammatory molecules most
change in the brain is the rumination center in the anterior, dorsal anterior cingulate,
right?
So there’s a beautiful sort of story there.
Now why you should ruminate, when you’re...?
That’s an interesting question that I don’t think we know the answer to, why should inflammation
make you ruminate?
But it does.
And yes, rumination is a big problem.
- [Rhonda]: Yeah.
And that also sort of leads to this, you know, you’re talking about these transformative
experiences which also are brought about by meditation.
And I know you’ve, you know, there seems to be, at least Roland was talking about some
overlap between meditative state and there is something that’s happening with this
mystical experience.
You know, there are sort of mystical experiences that are like calming to nerves.
- [Charles]: Absolutely.
It’s very much like sauna versus my $50,000 fancy machine, right?
It’s not the machine, it’s the heat.
- [Rhonda]: Uh, huh.
Right.
- [Charles]: I am utterly convinced it’s not the psychedelic.
We know it’s not psychedelic, it’s the experience.
Because we know, every study pretty much that’s looked this shows that the more intensely
you have one of these sort of mystical type experiences, depending how you define mystical,
there’s other ways.
Spiritual is almost the better word, because people also have these very difficult personal
experiences but that it makes them feel like their life, they see their life in a different
way that produces a transformation.
You know, that realm of response, it’s just been repeatedly associated with antidepressant
and anti-anxiety effects.
And not just that, but also these agents seem to have anti-smoking effect, they help people
quit smoking.
You see the same thing there, right?
So we think that exactly, there’s nothing special about the psychedelics other than
the fact that they can take a wide, wide range of people and on cue, induce these sorts of
experiences.
You know, just like if you wanna study inflammation, it’s great to have interferon because I
can just wait around until you get inflamed, you know, God forbid, but I’m going to wait.
I’m going to wait, you know.
Or I can just give you interferon shot and away you go, right?
So in the same way, I could wait around for you to have mystical experience.
There was a wonderful study done a number of years ago, that I unfortunately, wasn’t
smart enough to put in my file.
I just read about it.
Where they did this huge sort of, you know, anonymous survey of Americans.
And I don’t know, some crazy percent, 15%, 20% of people said, “I’ve had a powerful
mystical experience that changed my life, I just never talk about it.
I was at the kitchen sink, you know, and I boom, the world looked like it was interconnected
in ways I had never mentioned.”
So it happens, but it doesn’t happen predictably.
Whereas believe me, if it wasn’t illegal and unethical, I could give you a big old
dose of psilocybin right now, put you on the couch over there, and it would be very likely
you’d have a profound mystical experience, right?