Latest / In the Valley of Giants / Taking Psychedelics to Heal - and See G-d? | R.Dr. Aaron Cherniak | ITVOG Ep. 19
Transcript
- 0:00Like if, if Hashem, if I could have sworn Hashem appeared to me
- 0:03when I dropped acid. So when I consumed
- 0:06therapeutically approved substance, like what does that
- 0:09mean? And if he said something that
- 0:11was the opposite of what my Rebbe said or what the Torah
- 0:13said, or, you know, if it's in the Gray area of, you know,
- 0:17whatever, Hovis Lavos would disagree with the statement that
- 0:19there's a reshus. But, you know, but if it's in
- 0:21the area of, you know, middle ground, right?
- 0:25So then how do I translate that into my life when I, you know,
- 0:28I'm a member of this community. I have these standards, I have
- 0:32these values. So how do I?
- 0:40Hello everyone. Today we have Doctor Aran
- 0:43Churniak. He's a clinical psychologist and
- 0:45researcher working at the fascinating intersection of
- 0:48attachment theory, spirituality, and psychedelic science.
- 0:50With a PhD from Stockholm University, Iron brings a rare
- 0:54multi dimensional perspective to how our relationship shape our
- 0:56mental health. He is dedicated to bridging the
- 0:59gap between ancient wisdom and modern clinical practice.
- 1:02He's here to dive into the relational side of healing.
- 1:05Know what the future holds for psychedelic assisted therapy.
- 1:08Enjoy everybody. No further.
- 1:10The rabbi gets the smart behind him and the the drug peddler.
- 1:15There's actually a drug that came in right before you.
- 1:16So the guys are, oh, he's here. Doctor Tran, you made it.
- 1:21Thank you so much for coming. Pleasure.
- 1:24So much I want to talk to you about #1 is a hotsy joke, but
- 1:29it's not really a joke at all, OK?
- 1:31Have you taken any of this stuff yourself?
- 1:33I have. OK.
- 1:34And I'll share your experiences. It's not every day that you got
- 1:39like someone in your office and you're like, hey, have you taken
- 1:41acid or psilocybin? In my office, it's quite a
- 1:44regular occurrence, really. Yeah.
- 1:47Most, most of my private practice are are people who are,
- 1:51you know, either coming from experiences that they have had
- 1:55and need to process it in some way or.
- 1:58Meaning trauma. You're not saying they're.
- 1:59No, no. After a psychedelic experience
- 2:02and they want some help, you know, working through it or you
- 2:06know, they're curious. Looking into psychedelics has
- 2:09made them curious about their own mental health.
- 2:12I've had a number of experiences, all in clinical
- 2:16training settings. I've been blessed to work in
- 2:21places that have had the permit to administer substances to
- 2:27training therapists so that they can have a sense of what the,
- 2:31you know, patients are undergoing.
- 2:35So yeah, but I would also, you know, even just to.
- 2:39But you're not. You're not answering my
- 2:40question. Well, I would I would you might
- 2:48think that I'm further not answering your question, but I'm
- 2:51going to super answer your question in that right off the
- 2:55top. I just want to, you know, say
- 2:59that, you know, psychedelic really just means mind
- 3:02revealing. And so, you know, it can refer
- 3:05most people use it to refer to the substances, you know, that
- 3:09we're going to speak about. But it also just is any practice
- 3:13or experience in which the mind is sort of revealed and you're
- 3:17reflecting on the mind. So, so a dream can have, you
- 3:20know, psychedelic nature, right, or meditative state, right?
- 3:25A person can, can meditate and have and enter into a trance,
- 3:29right? So, so I just, and, and I want
- 3:32to just demystify because even when people take psychedelics
- 3:36and, and have a, a, a substance, you know, driven psychedelic
- 3:41experience, it's not divorced from the whole spectrum of human
- 3:47experience, right? And so we have all types of
- 3:50experiences that confront us with, you know, distressing
- 3:55contents or open our eyes with, you know, childlike wonder in
- 3:59ways that, you know, we normally don't have access to or.
- 4:03But but I'm not coming from a stigmatized place.
- 4:06I would say hope I'm I'm just I'm just asking if you've took
- 4:08taken MDMA. And you may know.
- 4:11So, Simon. So Simon, no, I've I've had only
- 4:15ketamine related issue about ketamine being called the
- 4:21psychedelic, you know, when it's dissociative or atypical.
- 4:24But no my my experiences have been with ketamine.
- 4:26OK. And can you?
- 4:27Share with Breath Work, Yeah. Can you share just a little bit
- 4:30of what that was like for you? I I know it's a case study and
- 4:32it's fairly anecdotal, but I find this interesting.
- 4:34As a well, I mean, off the top, the, the, as far as I know, the,
- 4:38the two most supported church findings in the field are that
- 4:43it's not only the substance is that the experience is, is
- 4:47relevant to the effects of the substance, right?
- 4:50So it's not the same way that you take an SSRI and it's just,
- 4:54you know, you know, have a dose response relationship, right?
- 4:58There's no experience. So the experience that a person
- 5:03has with a psychedelic is very predictive of the therapeutic
- 5:10benefit or or negative consequences of that experience.
- 5:15And the second or maybe even stronger finding than the
- 5:19experience is that the context, the extra pharmacological
- 5:24factors are very relevant to scaffolding that experience,
- 5:28right. So, so Anodoma my, you know,
- 5:32taking a drug alone in a stairwell when it's raining
- 5:36outside to being in a clinical training environment, you know,
- 5:40with pillows all around, all my needs cared for, you know, trail
- 5:44mix for right after, you know, with supportive partner, you
- 5:50know, it's as part of a journey, you know, where I've formulated
- 5:54goals. Just like in therapy, right?
- 5:55That you're not just therapy is not just, you know, getting to
- 6:00talk with someone, it's, it's there's an agenda here.
- 6:02What do I want to accomplish? What's my kavana for this time
- 6:05that we're spending together and this experience I'm going to
- 6:07have, you know, and how are you going to do that?
- 6:12Right? So so I've had varied types of
- 6:17experiences. Why don't you give me one?
- 6:26Yeah, choose that one. No.
- 6:29No, no, not that one. So it's interesting.
- 6:32I'm in the moment they feel called to share, not like the
- 6:36sort of most exotic one because I want to impress upon you know,
- 6:43you, your audience, not just what the experiences is like,
- 6:48but what it really means to make a therapeutic process out of
- 6:52these experiences, right? Because I'm not just a
- 6:55researcher of the experiences, but really trying to map the
- 6:58experiences that people have with the drugs on to the types
- 7:01of processes that happen in psychotherapy.
- 7:05OK, so I, I remember 1 experience in particular where,
- 7:16you know, we're LED through a guided imagery meditation.
- 7:20I feel, I'm worried, you know, that we haven't contextualized
- 7:23enough. But at the risk of that we're,
- 7:26we're, you know, we're LED through a guided imagery
- 7:30meditation. Music starts, which by the way,
- 7:34is already enough to get things going in the mind, right, being
- 7:38blindfolded and, and with music. And but then you get the
- 7:43ketamine can be given either as an injection or as a infusion
- 7:46or, you know, also whoever I received the intramuscular
- 7:51injection ketamine. And you know, it's, it's not
- 7:57clear sometimes when right, when does the experience begin,
- 8:02right? What, and what is happening in
- 8:05my mind? And is that Shia to the, is that
- 8:09Keshia to the experience or just my mind generally?
- 8:13And so in, in one particular time, I was very, very
- 8:19preoccupied with when is it going to start?
- 8:21And am I doing this wrong? And the music isn't great and,
- 8:28and Oh no, it's going to be over soon.
- 8:31And for me, even though that wasn't an exciting experience,
- 8:35it was very clarifying in terms of what it's like to be a
- 8:42caretaker of my mental space, of what it means to create sort of,
- 8:48you know, space in your mind in beyond the sort of fleeting
- 8:52thoughts and impulses and worries and rumination, right?
- 8:56And so I think people don't really get a sense of that in
- 8:59their normal life, right? There's so.
- 9:01To be honest, I don't know what you mean.
- 9:02Meaning you there there was a concern when you were having an
- 9:05experience, an episode or however we're going to call it,
- 9:08and you were hyper aware I. Hope I wouldn't characterize it
- 9:11as an episode. You know, the episode we usually
- 9:13use to refer to Depressive romantic episode.
- 9:16But why can't you have a wonderful episode?
- 9:18That's true. I just want to be clear.
- 9:21Yeah, but but you know, and and just you being hyper aware of of
- 9:26how you're doing and how you're feeling.
- 9:27Yeah. I'm not, I'm not sure what that
- 9:30I'm not, I'm not sure how that ties into the what the rest of
- 9:33the things that you're saying. Is it?
- 9:34Is it? Perhaps you're implying that
- 9:36under the influence you're able to be more aware?
- 9:39Yeah, yeah, one of the increases of one of the effects of
- 9:42psychedelics is. Well, tell me if I'm wrong.
- 9:45From the little that I know about it, I think what it what
- 9:47it does is it operationally, it distorts the hierarchy of the
- 9:51mind. And so you have a lot of melding
- 9:53of, of, I believe, subconscious ideas that you're able to bring
- 9:59to the forefront that may or may not have to do with your
- 10:01identity meaning. So since since all of that, all
- 10:04that hierarchy is kind of gone and there's free flowing, I
- 10:07would say focus on information that you have internally.
- 10:10You can focus on a heck of a lot more.
- 10:12That's so. I'm struggling because I'm
- 10:14struggling because you're sort of mixing together one of
- 10:20several different neuroscientific accounts of
- 10:23psychedelics with some sort of with some philosophically
- 10:30philosophical ideas about psychedelics that are also, you
- 10:34know, one among many. And so, you know, do
- 10:37psychedelics give us access to, you know, the subconscious?
- 10:41Do they, you know, there's certainly, you know, influential
- 10:48theories that are based on a number of different pieces of
- 10:51what you said. But you know, I think for the
- 10:57purposes of this conversation, just experientially, right.
- 11:01So I remember you had an episode with, you had an episode with
- 11:05it. Was a great.
- 11:08Episode with with with Doctor Friedman recently where you're
- 11:12talking about guilt or shame. And so I think a lot of the time
- 11:16our stories around about who we are as people or, you know, our
- 11:21worth, those are so closely intertwined with how you
- 11:27experience the world. You know, it's like wearing
- 11:29glasses that you forget are on your face, right?
- 11:32So you're you're living your life through this prism of, you
- 11:36know, a story about that you tell yourself without realizing
- 11:39that maybe not everybody has that story, or maybe I don't
- 11:42even I'm not a prisoner to to that story, right.
- 11:45And so, you know, whether it's because you have, you're
- 11:48accessing, you know, a pure level of consciousness, you
- 11:52know, and putting that in scare quotes and, and whether it's
- 11:55because you're flipping the weighting of cognitive priors
- 12:00and predicting of the top down and the bottom up.
- 12:03But whatever is happening experientially, what people are
- 12:07reporting is a greater openness. It's unraveling that narrative.
- 12:12No, we're not. Being restricted to the
- 12:15narrative, that's what I mean by that meaning.
- 12:17It's the nature. I would say it's experiencing
- 12:19some level of separation and freedom from that narrative
- 12:22because narrative is a really powerful device, right?
- 12:25We something that one of the things that makes us unique is
- 12:29human beings is the size of our, you know, higher cognition
- 12:32areas, you know, over animals that also have a frontal,
- 12:36prefrontal cortex. But it's not, as, you know,
- 12:38proportionally as big as us. So we have more than animals, a
- 12:43capacity for composing A narrative, having an identity
- 12:48for, you know, higher order values and delaying
- 12:50gratification because of those values and forming community,
- 12:54right? And so that's a tremendous power
- 12:58that we have, right, to cope with life stressors.
- 13:01People, you know, lean on their values or their story or their
- 13:06family identity or all these different or being part of omics
- 13:09throughout, right. And at the same time, you know,
- 13:14it's the same capacities of our brain.
- 13:17That's that that fuse us too closely sometimes with their
- 13:21narrative, right. If I'm, if my, if my narrative
- 13:25is, is so intertwined with, you know, who I am in my job, right?
- 13:30And then I get laid off and I can't find work in that field,
- 13:33right. So then who am I without that
- 13:35thing? Or if I, if my narrative is only
- 13:38right, obviously people's family life is, is super is usually
- 13:42very core to their personal identity.
- 13:46But you know, hospitalized someone, you know, a person you
- 13:49know, is going through a divorce or they lose, you know, their
- 13:53loved one. And then all of a sudden it's,
- 13:55well, who am I beyond that, right?
- 13:59So sometimes the same abilities that help us create meaning and
- 14:08and cope or, you know, make use our experiences for, you know,
- 14:15self development are the same things that get us into trouble
- 14:19sometimes, right, Right. The reason that Michelle a
- 14:23trauma can can feel even worse right is if I could have done
- 14:28something right, you know, something happened.
- 14:32I could have done something prevented it.
- 14:33Oh, I was supposed to. I was supposed to be there,
- 14:36right. Or, you know, if it's tied up in
- 14:38national identity, right. October October 7th wouldn't
- 14:41have been so difficult if we weren't so wrapped up in what it
- 14:45means to be a part of Amisolem, to be a Liam and to be right.
- 14:49That's part those are part of the things that parts of the
- 14:53parts of the processes that on the one hand can give us
- 14:55resilience, right being part of a nation and having a history
- 14:58and a trade and a right although.
- 15:00How does that help by by October 7th?
- 15:03No, I'm saying it's. It's not, it's a what we would
- 15:07call pluripotent amplifier, right?
- 15:10It's it's something that is new when we learn together, it's
- 15:15like the government minded, right?
- 15:16So, so it's a it's like an amplifier, right?
- 15:20So so I on the one hand. What, what?
- 15:23What is? I would say so.
- 15:25So on the one hand, being identifying so strongly with my
- 15:30people, right, with my country, with.
- 15:35Who created that responsible trauma?
- 15:37Ken, on the one hand, helped me be resilient, right?
- 15:40I don't feel very strong, but Bonjour, I belong to people that
- 15:43has a story to tell and a mission to do.
- 15:45And we're here for each other and you know, it's a global
- 15:50community and blah, blah, blah, you know, and a sham will keep
- 15:53his promise about that's on the one hand.
- 15:57On the other hand, like if, if I have no that that same, those
- 16:01same narrative abilities can lead me to well, if Hashem has
- 16:05made these promises, and if we have this mission to do, and if
- 16:09we have this history, then how are we in this place?
- 16:12Right. That can set up for a lot of
- 16:14tension. And you know, it's called the
- 16:16literature of spiritual struggles, but spakos and and
- 16:20you know, hashed there, you know, crisis of meaning, right.
- 16:24So then perhaps it would have been more accurate instead of to
- 16:26say the unraveling of the hierarchy of the mind.
- 16:28Maybe it's just the, the removal of of all rules to a certain
- 16:32extent. No, I mean, it's, it's
- 16:34destroying the narrative, or at least the ability to, to walk
- 16:36out of it. There are no red lines.
- 16:38I don't belong anywhere. I don't not belong anywhere.
- 16:41It's, it's like it's it. I'm just trying to pare back
- 16:43what you're saying. To me, what I'm hearing sounds
- 16:45like I get to walk out of me and and look at everything.
- 16:50To an, to an extent, it's, it's being able to say, wait a
- 16:53second, what you know, what are all these, you know, you
- 16:57experience some sort of distance from your habitual thoughts in a
- 17:02way that gives you a different appreciation for what it's like
- 17:07to exist in your mind. Right.
- 17:09So, so on the other hand, when I'm, when I'm in an experience,
- 17:12so I can, I'm not, I might for a portion of an experience, you
- 17:16know, have what's called an ego dissolution experience where I
- 17:22observe sort of, I feel like there's a breakdown of I'm no
- 17:26longer experiencing reality as me, or maybe I'm being absorbed
- 17:29into a, you know, the universe or Hashem or whatever.
- 17:33But for the 55 other minutes of the experience, you know, I'm
- 17:39hearing the guy on the mattress beside me, you know, groaning or
- 17:42singing along with the music and I'm, you know, feeling the, the
- 17:46breath of the facilitator who's supporting me.
- 17:49So I'm not like, I just, I want to, you know, when you say the
- 17:56mind has no parameter, I can't remember exactly your phrasing,
- 18:00but it's not as if the mind is no parameters, right?
- 18:03And, and if I if, if during the experience, if I'm, you know,
- 18:09why, if we think about why these experiences are meaningful,
- 18:14often it's because they are making us think about, you know,
- 18:19memories or, you know, relationships, dreams in a new
- 18:23light, right. And, and so to, to that extent,
- 18:28I'm not removed from all of what I am ahead of that experience
- 18:36I'm having the experience is not happening in a vacuum.
- 18:38It's happening in my context, right.
- 18:41And so some of that, that was actually some of my doctoral
- 18:44research is, is, you know, do our early relationships right
- 18:48the same, the same way that our our formative relationship
- 18:54influences our parents, our rebbies, our friends or
- 18:57whatever. That can have a really strong
- 19:00influence on who we are, how we develop, whether we are
- 19:04resilient people or vulnerable people, how we deal with
- 19:07rejection, how we deal with connection, all these things.
- 19:10And so my doctoral work really explored, do do the internalized
- 19:16feelings of security, do do all those formative relationship
- 19:22influences on who I am as a person generally, Does that have
- 19:26an impact on how I experience? Like, you know, might I be more
- 19:29likely to have positive or a negative experience based on
- 19:34these sort of core personality factors?
- 19:38Right. And, and there's a lot of
- 19:39research showing that spiritual experiences that, you know,
- 19:42experience with davening, experience with Shabbos.
- 19:44Well, I'm sure, I'm sure it's augmented.
- 19:46So, yeah, so, so if if not that, you know, I'm not.
- 19:54Freud was right about some things and wrong about some
- 19:56things. One of the things that was
- 19:58insightful is that we relate to the world in ways that are
- 20:04internally scaffolded, right. So without detracting anything
- 20:10about Hashem, you know, in and of himself, Hashem Himself,
- 20:15right? We often relate to Hashem.
- 20:20In ways that are highly influenced by our formative
- 20:23relationships or the things that we've learned, whether they be
- 20:28conscious or or, you know, more automatic associations, right.
- 20:35I feel myself a little all over the place right now.
- 20:38But, but you know, I, I really want to situate the conversation
- 20:42about psychedelics within this sort of broader framework about
- 20:47all types of experiences, right? There's research on dreams in
- 20:49the same way research on. I don't feel you being eclectic
- 20:54at all. I think I think that again, I
- 20:56just, I'm repeating it back as I want to make sure I understand
- 20:58it, but I think I get it. It's it's to the extent the
- 21:01ability to view yourself and your own experiences in a light
- 21:06that's maybe less constrained by the things that you usually are
- 21:09constrained by. Yeah, Yeah.
- 21:11You know, but that can have also a rebound effect also, right?
- 21:13Like let's say I have a really, you know, an amazing perm right
- 21:17where I am. We're going to put, we're going
- 21:21to not go into the whole subject of alcohol at the moment, but
- 21:24it's. Funny because I was going to ask
- 21:25that. I'm happy to go there, but for
- 21:29the moment, if we can shelf alcohol, yeah, let's say I have
- 21:31a really, you know, because perm is coming up and it is a good
- 21:34perm, but you know, I can have a really meaningful perm in which
- 21:39I experience myself as liberated from all of the labels that I
- 21:43used to put on myself and all the limitations, right?
- 21:46That's actually one of the understandings of, of Kunidre,
- 21:49right? Also to link the Yom Kippur
- 21:50perm. But is that all the limitations,
- 21:53all the Nidarium, all the, the constructions that I would put
- 21:55on myself, right, That I experienced some liberty from,
- 21:58from those things, right? I, the way I come back from
- 22:03Perim, right? I, I cause ultimately we come
- 22:06back into our normal waking consciousness, right?
- 22:09And so sometimes there's sort of rebound effect or, or there may
- 22:13be a rebound effect of now that I've had this Perim, I'm now
- 22:18more enlightened than everyone else in my sheer right.
- 22:21I know better than, than, you know, this person in my
- 22:26community, right? Why?
- 22:28Would you feel that way? No, so after you, I mean, I'm
- 22:32not pathologizing it, but you know, imagine, you know, being
- 22:35Moshe BAE, No, and you're coming down from RCNI and you have the
- 22:38rays of light, you know, beaming from your countenance.
- 22:42And how do you then come back into the into the mecha, right.
- 22:46And again, not to equate lahave deal between Moshe, I just
- 22:51don't. Understand the Nimshall meaning
- 22:53versus personally, yeah, I find all my perms very, very simple
- 22:57that they're very pleasant, but they're very eye opening.
- 23:00I feel like there's a lot of it's funny, a lot of the things
- 23:04that you mention here about psychedelics personally by perm
- 23:07I feel do come out at least I find it very therapeutic.
- 23:09It's great. But I don't I've never felt any
- 23:13like superiority complex after experiencing that.
- 23:16But you're saying maybe? That you're aware of knows that
- 23:18that I'm aware. Of it could be that I'm aware.
- 23:19Of so I think, but I think that's the you know, and and not
- 23:23every sort of therapeutic experience is an eye opening
- 23:26transformational like life, you know, not just changing in in
- 23:32small subjective ways of my but like really life changing,
- 23:36right. So let's say that, you know, a
- 23:38person you know goes to after the army, they go to Brazil,
- 23:43they go in some ayahuasca retreats.
- 23:45I should say, I don't know if I said this off the top, not
- 23:47giving any clinical advice or instruction or post scanning or,
- 23:53you know, psychedelics or consult your lawyer, consult
- 23:57your therapist. You know, this is a very you're
- 23:59doctor. But let's say you know, after
- 24:02the army, you know, you are, are looking, you know, you're,
- 24:06you're, you're doing your rite of passage of travelling and you
- 24:09have to find yourself in ayahuasca circle.
- 24:11And then you come out of that experience with this renewed
- 24:15sense of, you know, of, of feeling ultimate love and, and
- 24:22that, you know, people are more similar than different, no
- 24:28matter where they come from and all these things.
- 24:31And you had, you know, you come back to Israel and, you know,
- 24:35the reality is a little bit more, you know, we're not in the
- 24:38Middle East. We're not currently on a kumbaya
- 24:40ayahuasca retreat. You have to function in the real
- 24:43world, right? So or you know, you, you or say,
- 24:47you know, you, you come back after a tish or a perm Suda and
- 24:54you know, you and your child wants to play like, you know, a
- 24:58small game and doesn't, you know, frankly doesn't care about
- 25:02the, the tish or the perm Suda and the way that you know,
- 25:05matters to you. And, and so then, you know, like
- 25:08all of life is a balance between sort of the experiences that we
- 25:12have and the meaning and that we make of it and the things that
- 25:15we build around our experiences. So then how do I sort of, you
- 25:21know, integrate the life that I want to?
- 25:25How do I, you know, integrate the experiences that I've had
- 25:27and who I want to be the values that I want to espouse with the
- 25:30sort of life that I want to lead?
- 25:33We often encourage people not to make rash decisions, you know,
- 25:35within, you know, meow meow time of the experience, right,
- 25:43Because, you know, the experience can be euphoric and
- 25:48and and make you less aware of the consequences of changing
- 25:53your life in a dramatic way. There's actually a lot of
- 25:55really, really important research now about insights, the
- 25:57feeling of insights and when this was one of the earlier
- 26:00mechanisms suggested in psychedelic literature to
- 26:03explain why psychedelics can help.
- 26:04Because you go into this experience, you have an insight
- 26:08and you it changes you in some way for the better.
- 26:13And there's a lot of research on like aha moments that
- 26:16psychedelic researchers maybe didn't, weren't aware of when
- 26:19publishing those first articles, that the feeling of aha, I have
- 26:23an insight is not at all. So, you know, correlated with
- 26:28the truth of, of said insight, which is a really important
- 26:32thing to, you know, to know, right?
- 26:34Have you ever had a finish that you thought was like super,
- 26:36super solid? And then you look at your notes
- 26:39the next day and it's like, what was I thinking, right?
- 26:43That's probably partially why the therapeutic process with
- 26:45psychedelics is so crucial. Like you can't just take
- 26:48psilocybin and say, Oh well, the research is out there that.
- 26:51Right, no, so that's what I was saying before about the context
- 26:53and the circumstances are super. You know, the the my colleagues
- 26:59and I are working on this model that sees the experience in the,
- 27:03you know, sort of centre of a broader process of the
- 27:07preparation and. Within the clinical setting.
- 27:10Well, I mean, we could. I'd imagine.
- 27:13Are you telling me not? Well, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not,
- 27:17I'm not encouraging everyone to go and have, you know anyone to
- 27:21go into, you know, underground illegal settings to do anything.
- 27:25However, there's reason to believe that that the way it
- 27:29works in clinical settings is very similar to how it might
- 27:32impact a person in non clinical settings.
- 27:35Right. There's.
- 27:35So, so, so I'll say, I'll say two things back to that.
- 27:38So Pub Med did a umbrella mental analysis review of a bunch of
- 27:43different analysis in 2024. I'll, I'll put the, the link in
- 27:47the show notes for you guys. And they reviewed psilocybin and
- 27:51DMA a little bit of Alaska and one or two other others as well.
- 27:57DMT and I'm missing, missing one more and I don't know what it
- 28:00was, but you'll see it in the study anyway.
- 28:02But they were able to establish that they thought that there was
- 28:05sufficient evidence for short term clinical therapeutic
- 28:08processes for for people that were having severe issues with
- 28:13certainly depression and PTSD. And I believe that for
- 28:18depression and PTSD, for depression, the most effective
- 28:22therapeutic process that they used short term with psilocybin
- 28:25and for PTSD was MDMA. But you can look at it there
- 28:29but. I just want to say for the
- 28:31record, I'm not if you have even the authors of this, this study,
- 28:37you know, but. General pub Med is pretty well
- 28:40respected, but I'm I'm not an expert at all.
- 28:43I just like, you know, knowing which article you're talking
- 28:45about, but I but I would say that I would, I would want to
- 28:48rush to add, you know, psilocybin is now the subject
- 28:52of, you know, phase three clinical trials in the US and
- 28:55and Europe. MDMA.
- 28:59I was recently actually rejected by the FDA this past year but is
- 29:05probably going to be applied for approval.
- 29:07Will probably be applied for again soon.
- 29:10I think maps the main or I can't remember what they're called
- 29:13now. Not Lake House.
- 29:15But the point is that that's in a clinical setting, and even
- 29:17then it's only short term, short term use.
- 29:21Well. But that's like .1 in terms of
- 29:24like just just the data, the little amount, the very little
- 29:27amount of this of this, you know, umbrella study that I saw.
- 29:29But but add on to that your whole your whole narrative, OK
- 29:33here, which I think was was great and makes a lot of sense.
- 29:36And I think is, is definitely much safer than taking on your
- 29:38own is are you in that stairwell by yourself when it's raining
- 29:41outside and you're depressed, right?
- 29:42And it's dark, OK, etcetera, etcetera.
- 29:44Being in a clinical setting with someone who's on who understands
- 29:47this process somewhat, what is actually going to be doing to
- 29:49you and it's a safe space and help you unpack all those
- 29:52experiences. I think it's if anyone's going
- 29:54to go down the street, it's crucial.
- 29:56I wouldn't just give someone some psilocybin.
- 29:57Be like enjoy buddy. Right.
- 30:01No, Absolutely. Absolutely and again, there's
- 30:04different aspects of these experiences that, you know,
- 30:07might be more closely associated with short term improvements,
- 30:11but other things that are, you know, tied to longer term, you
- 30:15know, improvements. Look, we if we zoom out for a
- 30:17second, we have a big problem in the world today that more people
- 30:22than materially we're much better off obviously than than
- 30:26previous generations. But there are unprecedented
- 30:30levels of, you know, mental distress, you know, whether it's
- 30:34depression, anxiety, whatever. And not everybody responds to
- 30:40the treatments that are available.
- 30:43And so it moves us, you know, in the mental health field to
- 30:46explore, you know, other candidate treatments.
- 30:49And so I want to be clear, psychedelics are not the only
- 30:51one on the on the horizon. And there's, you know, other
- 30:55treatments that are being studied, but even a short term,
- 31:00right? I mean, the, the, the research
- 31:02about Academy for depression, for example.
- 31:04So one of the advantages cadamine may have for depression
- 31:09and suicidality over SSRIs, you know what's been conventionally
- 31:14used to treat depression is that instead of needing 6 to 8 weeks
- 31:19for the SSRIs to have an impact and one of the main side effects
- 31:24in the immediate aftermath of starting SSRIs maybe being
- 31:27suicidal ideation, which is interesting because it's the one
- 31:30thing that you write. So ketamine has immediate or or
- 31:34or rapid acting effects. However, if I recall correctly,
- 31:43work about ketamine shows that suicidality, but there are
- 31:51persisting effects for suicidality after ketamine
- 31:56treatment but without psychotherapy accompanying it.
- 31:59The depression, the mood, the mood difficulty comes back
- 32:03within like 2 weeks, right? So I mean, and this is one of
- 32:08the things I try to tell my, my patients and to communicate
- 32:11whether I'm, you know, discussing psychedelics with
- 32:14them or not. My job as a therapist, as a
- 32:17psychologist is, is not to help them, you know, feel better,
- 32:22right, but to help them better feel like investment does that.
- 32:26Like it's not, I'm not Therapy is not about, you know, getting
- 32:30an infusion of good, good vibes, right?
- 32:33It's about understanding what's important to me in my life,
- 32:39making sort of implementable ways of, of building a life
- 32:44that's meaningful and, and valuable, you know, worthwhile,
- 32:48that feels worthwhile even when it is not pleasurable, right,
- 32:52Right. And developing like good habits
- 32:55that are in my control, right? My mood is not people's mood.
- 32:59We are horrific at predicting how we will feel in certain
- 33:03situations, and our mood is not in our control.
- 33:08Our brain is not wired to necessarily help us feel good
- 33:14and you know, sustainable ways unless we do specific things to
- 33:17cultivate, you know those things.
- 33:19One of one of the most robust predictors of mental health is,
- 33:26or I should say one of the most robust predictors of suffering
- 33:29is the rigid expectation that I should want to feel good, right?
- 33:36So, so I think it does because if you are, if you are, you
- 33:40know, narrative is, is, you know, life is, is meant to, life
- 33:44should be about maximizing pleasure, right?
- 33:47Whether that's hedonistic pleasure or, you know, even
- 33:50every day should be like a overwhelming spiritual
- 33:53experience, right? So you're set up for
- 33:56disappointment and frustration. Sounds like a horrible life like
- 33:59that's not I feel like life, and I tell this to my students all
- 34:02the time. Life is the story of a hero.
- 34:04That's what you want life to be. Life is about is is becoming
- 34:07Moshe Reveno. It'll have to off of Dallas.
- 34:09It's Fredo from the beginning to the end.
- 34:11Lord of the Rings. OK, it's Luke Skywalker at the
- 34:14beginning and the end of the films.
- 34:15It it's it's about it's about being a better person and and
- 34:18for life to have meaning. That's not it.
- 34:20I don't think I don't think that's a hedonistic experience.
- 34:23I I don't think that person should be trading, playing with
- 34:27their infant daughter. OK, which maybe not as hard
- 34:30heading as, you know, maybe taking a whole bunch of LSD,
- 34:33right? No, but I mean that.
- 34:34I I would point out though, that, you know, the sort of hero
- 34:39journey, which by the way is some is a framing that people
- 34:45bring to psychedelic experiences as well.
- 34:47But if I were to live my whole life, you know, you know, trying
- 34:55to emulate Moshe, Frodo, Luke Skywalker, I think that's a very
- 35:00sort of egocentric way of, you know, what's that?
- 35:03Because the world is much more complex than my story and.
- 35:11You know, why do you say that? No, it's not.
- 35:13You have a story. You have you have a hero
- 35:15process. Because you have a hero process,
- 35:17and I have a hero process and Joshua has a hero.
- 35:19Process. Why can't everyone be hero?
- 35:22We're only not great because we make ourselves not great.
- 35:26I'm not, I'm not commenting on, I'm not trying to say that
- 35:29people shouldn't strive for things and, and you know, have.
- 35:38I'm really curious what you mean because I actually have no idea.
- 35:40Why should not everyone be no? No, I'm not saying people
- 35:44shouldn't be a Europe. You should.
- 35:45People should. People should strive for
- 35:47greatness and develop, you know, replicable.
- 35:50That's what that's what life is. There's nothing else.
- 35:53It's following God and God requests everyone to try their
- 35:57best, which is to be the most to be the biggest version of you.
- 36:02Now that might be working in the back of a pizza shop.
- 36:03This may be but but it there's there's a hero process.
- 36:06It's not about looking where I will feel the best.
- 36:08No, but I'm just, I'm just commenting on what the
- 36:11experience of someone is who right a a narrative, right that
- 36:15we were talking about glasses as a muscle for a life narrative,
- 36:17right? And so and so it's really easy
- 36:20to see the dangers of having of not knowing, noticing the
- 36:24glasses of self criticism, of shame or whatever.
- 36:27But there's also glasses of I'm a hero.
- 36:29And and so I'm not commenting. I'm, I'm not saying people
- 36:32shouldn't strive for greatness, but I am saying that if the, if
- 36:36the mode that I'm living my life and relating to other people is,
- 36:42and I'm not aware of this narrative that I'm a hero.
- 36:45And you know, you could easily get into a place where other
- 36:49people are obstacles to my hero's journey, right?
- 36:53Or you know the small details in life are you know are.
- 36:58Give an example. If my if my life story is to be
- 37:07a world eminent expert in, you know, psychedelics and mental
- 37:12health and I in order to do that I, you know, you just.
- 37:16Spent 17 hours in the office. What's your wife?
- 37:17Doing no and I need to and I need to, you know, get on time
- 37:22to a podcast interview and then my car, you know, my car
- 37:25decides, you know, it's not it's not collaborating with me in the
- 37:28way that I would want it, right. So I, I try to be punctual and
- 37:36that's part of my, you know, but at the same time, I, I still
- 37:41have to sit with myself, live with myself in my car as I am
- 37:45make as I'm arriving late to a set meeting, right.
- 37:50And so if I, if I'm so fused with my, you know, pursuit of
- 37:56greatness that, you know, I don't know if your viewers would
- 38:01have seen the movie Leo, it's great animated family movie, but
- 38:06there's a song from that family movie called You're not that
- 38:09great. You know you're great, but
- 38:11nobody. 'S Oh, I think nobody is.
- 38:13I understand so great, so let. Me.
- 38:16Let me. Open up a little bit more what I
- 38:17was saying, Yeah, A person isn't Moshe Rabeno.
- 38:20A person should strive to be whatever his Moshe Rabeno is.
- 38:24That's what I'm saying. I think a moment that someone
- 38:28believes that they are God's gift to, you know, the universe
- 38:31and there's nothing else there, I think that that's quite
- 38:34damaging. If that's if that's what you got
- 38:35out of it, then I agree. I agree with that.
- 38:37What I am saying is that I think life is all about I am where I
- 38:40am right now. I'm I'm 13 and narcissistic and,
- 38:44you know, I'm late to everything and I eat too much or whatever
- 38:46it is. And and yeah, it's not OK that I
- 38:49feel those things, but that's OK because I'm at the beginning of
- 38:51my life and I have my whole life to climb up this ladder of being
- 38:54the best version of me possible, and then that's nothing.
- 38:56You're just talking about growth and a process.
- 38:59Yeah, but that's but that's what that's but that's what a hero
- 39:00is. No one's born a hero, right?
- 39:03Every, every, every hero story that means anything to us.
- 39:05And, and I mean this in a, in a, in a story way as well, Like any
- 39:09hero that's meaningful to us is because they became that this is
- 39:11one of the reasons why people don't like, but you know, these,
- 39:13these, these biographies of Gadolin, which I actually really
- 39:16do like for a separate reason. I do think there's a lot,
- 39:18there's so much that we can learn from the Gadolin, even if
- 39:20it appears when they were so young, because it it really is.
- 39:23Whatever. We'll talk about that just for a
- 39:24time. OK.
- 39:25But but, but here usually is they're born and then they
- 39:28become something. Moshe Rabina wasn't born.
- 39:30Moshe Rabina. Yeah, there's Madrasham that
- 39:31there was light, but Moshe Rabina at age 85, it's not
- 39:35Moshebeno age 35, right, right. So I I feel that that life
- 39:39really is, it's all. It should be.
- 39:41I mean, Moshebeno is a great example for this because
- 39:43Moshebeno, right? Often we are, you know, Hashem
- 39:48calls us life calls us to be heroes in ways that we wouldn't
- 39:52have anticipated, right? And so I can have a really
- 39:55strong narrative that, you know, my top kid is XYZ, right?
- 40:02And. I mean, there's a great, you
- 40:05know, the, the, the Hassid goes to the rabbi and the rabbi says,
- 40:07you know, at the Tisch. Is that a?
- 40:09Real word hassid. Hassid.
- 40:12Oh, Hassid. I thought you've seen some
- 40:14talent. You're about it, You know the
- 40:15Hussi, the. Hussid goes to the fibrangen,
- 40:18and the rabbi says the fibrangen life is a waterfall.
- 40:22And the rabbi and the Hassid is, is, you know, meditating on, on
- 40:27this, you know, Imrah of the Rabba.
- 40:29And he's trying to flip his whole life on his head and, you
- 40:33know, live his whole life by this statement.
- 40:37And, you know, the years pass on and the rabbi is, you know, ill
- 40:41and going to pass away. And so the hassid, you know, is
- 40:43zoku, the athitas with the rabbi in the hospital.
- 40:46And he's a rabbi. I've been, I remember what you
- 40:49said this Tish many, many years ago.
- 40:52And I've made my whole life about, please, before you go,
- 40:55just clarify for me what the meaning of life is.
- 40:58A waterfall, you know, I want you to know I've lived my whole
- 41:02life by my understanding and like I want this is my last
- 41:07chance to imbibe all that Rebbe has to offer and the and the
- 41:10Rebbe goes, OK, so life isn't a waterfall, you know, so so
- 41:15Mosher Beno, you know, I don't this is one of the things that I
- 41:19love about learning Tanakh is, is like, what is the experience
- 41:23of Moshe Bennu growing up in meets him?
- 41:25I'm not knowing, you know, maybe he knew, maybe he thought he
- 41:28knew what his tough kid was and then being totally, you know,
- 41:32surprised by. So I think many people have an
- 41:35experience like that, you know, where they they live their life
- 41:37in a particular way and they have some experience or.
- 41:40I completely disagree with you, although I wish you were right.
- 41:42I think most people just live through life just.
- 41:44Experiencing the moment people who are in this, you know
- 41:47Yuhenis Gula subset of. We all should be that though.
- 41:50That's my point. Like life is not about just
- 41:53getting day by day, it's just getting through this day.
- 41:55Life is about this day is so important because it is.
- 41:57It is one more step in climbing up that mountain.
- 42:01And there's tops of that mountain and you plan to get
- 42:03there even though you won't, but you plan to get there.
- 42:05But but I think again, the the the it's so important to bear in
- 42:12mind that, you know, even climbing up the mountains are
- 42:15not linear, right? Mountains have, you know, side
- 42:17twists and turns. I remember my family went on
- 42:21home. I hiked this one mountain that
- 42:24it sort of twisted around and you on one side, you were
- 42:26exposed to really strong winds that made you feel like you were
- 42:29going to fall off. So, so you know, even growth is
- 42:33so not linear. In this way.
- 42:38And, and we have not just one mountain, right?
- 42:40I'm not just trying to be great as a professional or as a
- 42:44learner or as a family person. I'm climbing several mountains
- 42:48at once, you know, and, and, and at the same, you know, and this,
- 42:53these pursuits, these strivings for greatness are not severed
- 42:57from, you know, having experienced the war, global
- 43:02pandemic, you know. And and they all pay into that.
- 43:06I wouldn't want people to hear you know what, what you know,
- 43:09Rebbe, you know is is is is saying and you know, start to
- 43:13experience the people in their life as obstacles in their, you
- 43:17know, mimosh. It's me and their Tafgid and it.
- 43:22May also be that. Easy to fall into that trap.
- 43:24I, I, I do agree that, that, that absolutely, but I think.
- 43:28And, and I also don't want to there.
- 43:30There is a lot of dignity in, you know, especially during
- 43:34parts parts of our life just getting by day by day, right.
- 43:39In other words, I might experience myself right now as
- 43:43getting through a very difficult kufa and you know, I, you know,
- 43:48I feel bad that I can't, you know, do more, learn more, have
- 43:53more patience, whatever. And my, you know, spouse and my
- 43:57children might not be aware of any of that and still be able to
- 44:01experience me as, you know, as a wonderful, you know, father or
- 44:08you know, that my Co workers might still experience me as a
- 44:10valued member of the team. And so I can be so inter, I can
- 44:19be so fused with my narrative, right, that I'm not even
- 44:23thinking about, well, how do other people perceive me, right?
- 44:27I might have one, you know, we, we have an internal dialogue,
- 44:31right? And we usually, usually our
- 44:35inner voice feels very authoritative, right?
- 44:37That's how I make my decisions in life, right?
- 44:39As I follow my inner voice of, of what I think Hashem wants for
- 44:43me or, or what I think is important.
- 44:46And I think it's important to realize every once in a while
- 44:49that my inner dialogue is not, is not is, is influenced by the
- 44:58experiences that I've had, right?
- 45:00And so maybe because of the experiences that I've had or
- 45:03whatever, or if I'm under, you know, if I'm under.
- 45:06That's who you are, though. Who is who you are?
- 45:08You are who you are. You are your inner dialogue.
- 45:11You are your. Class.
- 45:13You are you are. You are your.
- 45:14Well, you're, you are your experiences.
- 45:17You're your experiences, right? That that inner voice.
- 45:19No, I'm not my experiences. To to some extent, I think you
- 45:22are, I mean, you experience certain things which do color
- 45:25how you view the world. This is true.
- 45:26OK. But the way that you make
- 45:28decisions in life is what is the I hope is what is the best way
- 45:33for me to follow Ratanosham. Nothing else really matters.
- 45:35Other people matter because they should come into that decision
- 45:38on how we're going to further a connection to, to, to get
- 45:41closer, to get closer, to got to be a better person.
- 45:44Everything else is ancillary. So, so yeah, you, your
- 45:48experiences help color your world.
- 45:50That's true. But it does all come down to
- 45:52what do I think is the best way for me to get close to God?
- 45:55You can ask advice, but it comes down to you.
- 45:57God is not. How could you?
- 45:58How could you expect to make a decision to be better in life
- 46:01and it not be based on what you think is best ultimately,
- 46:04because you are yourself, right? I'm, it's not, it's not rosacea
- 46:07that's trying to be me or my wife that's trying to be me or
- 46:09my kids are trying to be me. I'm responsible for being the
- 46:12best person I can be. Yeah, so I'm trying to say that
- 46:15that, you know, there's cognition and metacognition,
- 46:18right? So there's the thoughts that I
- 46:19have and then there's the metacognition is thinking about
- 46:22my thoughts, right? Not just what do I, you know, I,
- 46:29I come away with, I come away from an interaction with someone
- 46:32with a certain interpretation of, of how the interaction went.
- 46:35And that's the cognitive thought.
- 46:37That's the cognitive right. And then I think, well, what do
- 46:39I think about that thought? Okay, yeah, yeah, sure.
- 46:41I had this interpretation, the interpretation, A reflexive
- 46:45judgment rather than for sure, really what I believe, right.
- 46:47Yeah. So I think that, you know, we
- 46:54are sometimes so bought into the fleeting thoughts or the
- 46:57cognition, right? The sort of nephesh level,
- 47:01right? The sort of, if we were to say
- 47:03that, you know, that the nephesh right, is a product of anything,
- 47:10that an animal also has feelings, basic thoughts,
- 47:15drives, impulses, right? And my intellect, that which
- 47:21animals don't have, right, is I'm able to create a space
- 47:24beyond my immediate experience, right?
- 47:28Something that can help a mental space that can help me regulate
- 47:31my drives, can help me reappraise my thoughts, can help
- 47:37me, you know, all those things. So then I can.
- 47:49You'll get it. You'll get it back.
- 47:51Habits. That's what I'm trying to say,
- 47:52that we're not our experiences because because like, you know,
- 47:57if you think about any people who have any of these famous
- 48:00stories. We tell singularly, singularly,
- 48:02of course, we're not just our experiences, but I think you're
- 48:05look, a person has a person has an inner voice and that inner
- 48:11voice. I'll go even a step deeper.
- 48:13There's a oh man, Spastamus, you know me, I'm not going to quote
- 48:19Hasidim, but this, this has said I'm I quote, I quote this all
- 48:22the time. Yeah, and this is Meet Gabeira.
- 48:24It's always. OK, there we go.
- 48:27So the SAS Ms. has something amazing and it's so true.
- 48:30So true. So he says by by Avram when God
- 48:36tells him Levika Lyrica. So so now we have Avram
- 48:41receiving an Avua go to Eric T So this is it wasn't an Avua.
- 48:44I have a movie now. It's a boss call that comes out
- 48:47every day that calls out all of us to go there at this all
- 48:50because that's where we belong. And the question is, is the Jew
- 48:52going to tap into it or not? Which I think is the explanation
- 48:55of these awesome Birthright trips where you have like a guy
- 48:57with the Mohawk, you know, with like all these like tattoos, you
- 49:00know, all. And he's just after two days
- 49:02like, yeah, I'm gonna live in Israel, man.
- 49:03Right. Like where does that come from?
- 49:05I think people called the Pentelid.
- 49:07I think that's that boss call. That's that's.
- 49:09That's what I'm saying is, is that no matter what.
- 49:11Let me build, that's fine, but let me build that.
- 49:13So you know, I say I use the same thing to explain Dorham
- 49:17Abel. Like they didn't Hakush Broku
- 49:19punished the entire universe, the entire world for not acting
- 49:23ethically or morally, even though they didn't have any
- 49:25direct code. There was no Torah Bible given
- 49:27to them to tell them what to do, but yet they were liable.
- 49:30And one of the answers multiple, but the answer that I like to
- 49:32believe is based off of this fasemas, which I personally say,
- 49:35which is they should have known better.
- 49:36Like, you know that, you know, excuse my language, but you know
- 49:41that raping your, your friend's wife is wrong.
- 49:43It's horribly wrong, It's messed up.
- 49:45You know that stealing is wrong. You know, that night not being a
- 49:48cut is wrong. There's certain things that are
- 49:49just so basic right. And, and I think that is that
- 49:52inner, that's by inner voice that, that knowledge of truth
- 49:56that God put within us. So when we're trying, when we're
- 49:59trying to make decisions in life, I think that the trick is,
- 50:01is we should be tapping into as much of of that of that of that
- 50:05voice as possible. Now experiences I just want to
- 50:08keep clear. I just want to clarify.
- 50:09Yeah, sure. When I say inner voice, inner
- 50:11dialogue, I'm not talking about sort of this intuitive sense of
- 50:13morality like you're, you know, conscience.
- 50:16That's what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the sort of way
- 50:19we narrate our lives and self talk and and that's what I'm
- 50:23referring. To OK, fine.
- 50:24So then I completely agree with you.
- 50:28That's yeah, that's what to me that.
- 50:30Is I try to make that my inner voice though this thing that
- 50:33I'm. Talking about, right?
- 50:34Right. I feel that other ways of
- 50:36looking at the world are just are in my way.
- 50:39Right, But also some moral questions are less obvious than
- 50:45not. You know, assaulting my
- 50:48neighbor. 'S wife for sure for.
- 50:49Sure, right. And so when it comes to that, so
- 50:52the way that my moral sense, the way that my that my higher
- 50:56cognitions will come into my experience of myself like these
- 51:03deserve deft management of the complexity, right.
- 51:09So it's not if I, I don't know, you know, someone is, is
- 51:15thinking about making Aaliyah and they have, you know, elderly
- 51:18parents that are dependent upon them, right?
- 51:20So you have conflicting priorities here, right?
- 51:23And so that person deciding right now, I'm not making
- 51:27Aaliyah because I'm devoted and I'm, I'm, you know, embodying
- 51:31this other value that is also important, right?
- 51:34And, and everyone should speak to their post sake or whatever.
- 51:37But, you know, I don't think it's, it's desirable for a
- 51:45person making that sort of complex decision to view
- 51:48themselves as an Avarian because they couldn't do what they're
- 51:53no, obviously no. No, no, it's again.
- 51:55But that's what it goes back to us saying before.
- 51:57It's all about trying your best, my father always said.
- 51:59And it's like the wisest thing he's ever told me.
- 52:00It's guide in my life is don't do better than your best because
- 52:05you can do your best. Yeah.
- 52:07But don't do better than your best, because you can't do
- 52:11better than your best. God is not demanding perfection,
- 52:13and if he is, what perfection is, is trying your best.
- 52:15So I don't think. I think, I think I could go the
- 52:18rest of the day trying to understand what what you just
- 52:23said. I think that one within at
- 52:25least, you know, DBT dialectical beta therapy, we take it as like
- 52:32right as a basic assumption that everyone is always doing the
- 52:36best that they can with the tools that they have.
- 52:38Yeah, I don't think that at all. So, so I think that, you know,
- 52:43if someone is not doing as best as they, you know, in other
- 52:48words, if someone is not doing better than they're currently
- 52:52doing Kaneera, they don't have the Kaleem to do better than
- 52:55they're currently doing, right? If they had the Kaleem to be
- 52:58doing better right then they would be doing then they would
- 53:01use those caleum to do better. I don't know if.
- 53:04It's I really don't OK, could be I've I can't think of a
- 53:07statement I disagree with more, but that's just me right That
- 53:11you know, precise I think. No.
- 53:12But also, but also this, this whole framing of the
- 53:14conversation of like, you know, doing our best as if best is
- 53:19sort of an aggregate score of the projects that I'm engaged in
- 53:25or my. Not necessarily.
- 53:26Some of those things might have to fail, meaning MIT look as a
- 53:30personal example. So on a deep level, I love
- 53:34learning, I love, I love shining, I love the Gemara, I
- 53:38love the Rishonim, I love the halafa.
- 53:39There's so much that I want to be doing.
- 53:41I can't think of a year that I've learned less recently after
- 53:45becoming a Roshi Shiva and a rush Cole and all these other
- 53:48things which I don't need to say right now.
- 53:49It's like, it's like I feel like I'm constantly being pulled out
- 53:51of the basement and sometimes I lose sight of that and I get
- 53:55frustrated because I'm like, I wish I was, but it's not about
- 53:59doing best in learning, which is 1 particular project that I
- 54:01have. It's about doing what I think
- 54:03God wants me to do in the grand scheme of things.
- 54:06So it's less, it's less about balance.
- 54:08I don't really like balance. It's more about doing exactly I.
- 54:11Don't know if I say balance. No, no.
- 54:13I. Didn't need it.
- 54:14I was preventing. I was performing something that
- 54:17I was going to say, which sounds like balance.
- 54:19Yeah. So what I'm saying this is it's
- 54:20not about, it's not so much about balancing because
- 54:22balancing implies like there's the right level of something
- 54:26objectively, right? OK.
- 54:27And some of it's about doing exactly what God wants you to
- 54:30do, which which means that there's an infinite amount of
- 54:33something you could be doing practically or not doing.
- 54:36It's all what God wants you to do.
- 54:38So I'm, I'm not trying to balance, I'm trying to do
- 54:41exactly what God wants me to do. Doing more than that is
- 54:43completely inappropriate for me. Doing less than.
- 54:45That's completely appropriate for me.
- 54:47Well, so you asked me about my psychedelic use.
- 54:49I'm interested in the psychedelics you've taken to
- 54:52understand exactly what God wants from you, you know, other
- 54:56than what's in the, you know, clinician.
- 55:01So, so that's what I'm saying is, is, is you know, you haven't
- 55:03had. That experience, I feel like
- 55:05most of the time I can tap into this.
- 55:07It took a bit for me to get used to it, but like, you know what's
- 55:11right? A lot of the time we try to
- 55:13shove it out and we try to think a lot, but we don't.
- 55:16I feel like one of the things that we ignore the most is like,
- 55:18what? What do we really feel is right?
- 55:22There's a lot of hush bonus we make, but we never listen to
- 55:24that inner voice. So, so even even now, the sort
- 55:29of like, you know, a lot of this conversation has been framed
- 55:35about doing, you know, doing our best, growing in this way.
- 55:39And I think, you know, especially because of how fast
- 55:42the world moves nowadays. And also, I think culturally
- 55:47there's some elements about, you know, being from where there's,
- 55:51you know, more of an emphasis on sort of doing right, being being
- 55:57goal oriented. And where as I think part of our
- 56:01ability to do and maybe something even a little bit more
- 56:05vital is first learning how to be and like observing your
- 56:10facial expressions. Why?
- 56:11I'd say this, but I think. That's a huge thing to say.
- 56:14But I think that I think I. Love Christina, by the way.
- 56:17To be to be able to have clarity about what we're doing and how
- 56:22to do and and then to savor the fruits of what we do and even
- 56:26just to like exist as a person, you know, with a mind and and be
- 56:30sane, but. But that's is that be what
- 56:35you're saying is by the way. Crucial.
- 56:36It's. What you're saying is totally
- 56:38crucial because yeah, if you get a lot, look.
- 56:40I think that's, you know, coming back to, I think that's
- 56:42something really not just psychedelics, any therapeutic
- 56:46processes is learning how to exist at the Nexus of, of all
- 56:50the, the, the projects that we're engaged in, right?
- 56:53Like, like, you know, the, the mode that you have to be in as a
- 56:56Rasha Shiva is very different than the mode that you have to
- 56:59be in as a parent, right? There's a spouse, you know,
- 57:01being a spouse is, is, is about way more than you know, did we
- 57:05pick up the kids from school? Hopefully, right.
- 57:08Did we I'm looking at them, you know, did we, you know, balance
- 57:12the the budget? Did we, you know, get groceries?
- 57:16Did we avoid fighting? Right, Avoiding fighting is also
- 57:18not the same thing as Shawn Bias, right?
- 57:20So and and learning right. So, so there's the the the doing
- 57:25of did I do my, you know, daily, you know, goal?
- 57:30Did I you know, did I understand the, the Rashonda that I
- 57:35learned? Did I did I whatever find an
- 57:41opportunity to to not just learn, but you know, did I do
- 57:44all these things right? And also what is the sort of
- 57:47organic, you know, sort of in the Revolt B center building?
- 57:50100%. Right.
- 57:51Of of of what? How?
- 57:53Who am I becoming? But that's not Kosovo Bravos
- 57:56like being Kosovo. No, the whole thing, he spots it
- 57:59up in the in the introduction. I love this the way he, I mean,
- 58:02I love everything that he does, but this is amazing.
- 58:05This Hovis hive arm, which you focus on a lot, which I think is
- 58:07really important when we're younger because you need to have
- 58:09rules. You can't live in the life of
- 58:10anarchy. You have to have a Lakos.
- 58:12But he says, but that's not the ICAR Decker's Hovis Olivos,
- 58:15which is like your understanding of a Karish Barako and his medos
- 58:17and how you act and how you think.
- 58:19So for sure. Yeah.
- 58:20It's like learning the Rashona is is crucial.
- 58:22But what did the Rashona mean? No, really.
- 58:25Well, what were they coming from?
- 58:27Like that's so. That's definitely was a pioneer
- 58:32in this, you know, discipline of, you know, character
- 58:35development and, and working on midos and and, you know, real
- 58:40subtleties of a vote as a sham. OK, you know I have to interrupt
- 58:43you because we're running out of time and we got derailed with an
- 58:45interesting conversation. I have to ask you the stuff that
- 58:47only you can answer, at least right now.
- 58:49Landing around OK. Let's go from so I understand
- 58:54why psychedelics you've explained in a therapeutic
- 58:58process would be incredibly beneficial as it helps further
- 59:01analyze your life in a an augmented way.
- 59:06I understand why that would also perhaps serve in a religious
- 59:09setting as well, as it helps you analyze your relationship with
- 59:12the Cutters portal and and perhaps some.
- 59:13Things Maybe, maybe not. Maybe maybe it's, you know,
- 59:17setting you up. Maybe it's sort of a type of
- 59:21walking into the parties experience that, you know, did
- 59:25not leave everyone unscathed, right?
- 59:27No, but that, but I would imagine that goes both ways.
- 59:29No meaning meaning just like there are dangers it within the
- 59:33religious realm as you analyze yourself also therapeutically.
- 59:37Like you could look at yourself as an evil monster from hell
- 59:39like you know there's but is that not true?
- 59:41Did I get that right, that in the sense that whatever pluses
- 59:45and minuses there would be in the therapeutic process?
- 59:47Yeah, I would imagine that you'd be able to mirror those things
- 59:49in a religious setting as. Well, I'm not advocating for,
- 59:53you know, the name of Shevatova style kabura where people are,
- 59:58you know, imbibing illegal things without support etcetera.
- 1:00:04However, I think that. You know, especially when people
- 1:00:07grow up and they feel like, you know, that the concept of God is
- 1:00:11being loving and compassionate is alien to them, right?
- 1:00:14For whatever reason, this would be an experiential way to
- 1:00:18potentially have a type of experience.
- 1:00:20But people also on these substances have opposite
- 1:00:23experiences where you know, you did this thing wrong and God
- 1:00:29appears to you and you're always going to be, you know, you're
- 1:00:32condemned for this thing. Shiva Bonham Shiva.
- 1:00:34Right. I mean, I was right, right.
- 1:00:39So, so, so, so I would also say that, you know, and especially
- 1:00:44because some of these substances are used in contexts that have
- 1:00:49ideological, not ideal, like a theological framing, right?
- 1:00:53So, so, you know, consuming ayahuasca is off is sometimes
- 1:00:58done together with sort of ritual elements that, you know,
- 1:01:02maybe are conflict with, you know, Torah.
- 1:01:05And, and even if not right there, I mean there are, I
- 1:01:10worked in Bnebroch for a couple of years there, you know, there,
- 1:01:12there are things happening there and in other places.
- 1:01:14And you share that at the end of the episode.
- 1:01:16OK, great. So so no, but you could, you
- 1:01:24know, the same way that you can have a, a perm experience that
- 1:01:28you come away from it and say and have a, a, a false insight,
- 1:01:32right? You feel like you're on cloud 9,
- 1:01:34right? And that sham really wants
- 1:01:35whatever from you. And it's something that's, you
- 1:01:39know, like a shop that's a material material isurium type
- 1:01:42of conclusion, right? So I think one of one of the
- 1:01:46things that makes me passionate about being in this space, not
- 1:01:48only as a, you know, as as a mental health professional, but
- 1:01:51also as a musmach, is that I think that there's a schleicos
- 1:01:56of if these therapies are going to be accessible, right?
- 1:02:01If if the market is going to have now new therapies where
- 1:02:05people are meeting God, So there should be an understanding of
- 1:02:08like what are the needs of an observant Jew, right?
- 1:02:12I published a paper last year about what is the likelihood of
- 1:02:17people converting, you know, to a different religion if they're
- 1:02:21a lifetime psychedelic user, right?
- 1:02:23And so, and how does that differ from other life events, right,
- 1:02:26that make that, that might cause a person to to convert.
- 1:02:30And so I think that what's really crucial is, you know,
- 1:02:36like we did a couple decades ago when we sort of understood that
- 1:02:42CBT and other therapies need to be translated to different
- 1:02:47cultural frameworks, right, to make them tolerable by niche
- 1:02:51populations. So, you know, this is also
- 1:02:54mental health intervention that needs to be ignoring for a
- 1:02:57second the party scene and the naturalistic use.
- 1:03:01But in the therapeutic framework, people need resources
- 1:03:04to understand, like if, if Hashem, if I could have sworn
- 1:03:07Hashem appeared to me when I dropped acid.
- 1:03:09So when I consumed therapeutically approved
- 1:03:13substance, like what does that mean?
- 1:03:15And if he said something that was the opposite of what my
- 1:03:17Rebbe said or what the Torah said, or, you know, if it's in
- 1:03:21the Gray area of Russia, you know, whoever Hovis Lovos would
- 1:03:23disagree with the statement that there's a but, you know, but if
- 1:03:26it's in the area of, you know, middle ground, right?
- 1:03:30So then how do I translate into my life when I, you know, I'm a
- 1:03:34member of this community, I have these standards, I have these
- 1:03:38values. How do I Right, right.
- 1:03:42You have. A question.
- 1:03:47We can shift it now a bit anyway, so, but I mean the
- 1:03:49question really was. I want your listeners to know
- 1:03:53that was sort of my background before coming to psychedelics.
- 1:03:55It's been about a decade studying the connection between
- 1:03:58religious beliefs and behaviours and their connection to mental
- 1:04:01health. And psychedelics really are sort
- 1:04:04of the intersection of my interest in in that and in
- 1:04:08psychotherapy, right. If you think about sort of
- 1:04:10meaningful experiences that may or may not have a therapeutic,
- 1:04:15you know, effect like that's, that's the framing that I that I
- 1:04:20come to this. To repeat the question though,
- 1:04:23and I think you answered it quite well, No, no, just want to
- 1:04:25make sure was are there just like they're pluses or minuses
- 1:04:28in a clinical setting for therapeutic process
- 1:04:31psychologically for religious use as well?
- 1:04:33Oh definitely. I'm not advocating for the yet.
- 1:04:38Wait again, the question was are there pluses and minuses?
- 1:04:41Oh yes, absolutely there are pluses and minuses to
- 1:04:44experimenting with drugs. But it's.
- 1:04:47For religious exploration. But it seems that there are more
- 1:04:50minuses in the The way that you make it sound is that it's far
- 1:04:52more dangerous in the religious realm, but in.
- 1:04:54I don't know how to make a calculus, you know, especially
- 1:04:58not knowing who's listening, but there are.
- 1:05:01Well, I'll make it simple. There are potential benefits and
- 1:05:03potential risks and to to embark on this path requires a lot of
- 1:05:10support and a lot of awareness and and you know, yeah, is what
- 1:05:22is what I would say I don't know if.
- 1:05:25Are there more dangerous in in this realm than than the
- 1:05:29therapeutic? Realm.
- 1:05:30Oh, absolutely. That's that's what I'm after.
- 1:05:32Yeah, the answer is absolutely. OK, well, because you're not
- 1:05:34only playing with, I mean, again, I think I think that
- 1:05:39assuming that, you know, that you were in therapy with a
- 1:05:44competent professional, we're already in a different, you
- 1:05:49know, kufa about how much the average therapist knows about
- 1:05:53culture and religion and all these things.
- 1:05:56We're we're not still in an age where there's a therapy culture
- 1:06:00of anti religiosity. My humble opinion, I don't view
- 1:06:08the therapy as a dangerous place for if that was an implication.
- 1:06:13I don't view therapy as a dangerous thing for religious
- 1:06:17spiritual exploration. I think that that especially the
- 1:06:26way that psychedelics are most of the time practiced, there can
- 1:06:32be a a lot of hazards. I want to shout out my, my
- 1:06:37friends and, and Rabbi Abrams, Zach Kamenetz, who in the United
- 1:06:41States has an organization, Shaffa Psychic Jewish
- 1:06:44Psychedelic Support and without what's the word, without
- 1:06:50pushing, you know, any agenda about psychedelics.
- 1:06:53They're creating resources for supporting people who have had
- 1:06:57psychedelic experiences for them to not feel like they're outside
- 1:07:01of the Jewish people or outside of, you know, Yadus, you know,
- 1:07:06and to, to try to integrate these, these worlds, you know,
- 1:07:10because I think, I think you can feel very lonely when someone
- 1:07:14has had an experience, you know, with a drug or without, you
- 1:07:18know, without a drug. And then they feel like not
- 1:07:20understood by the people in their life or by the world and
- 1:07:23socially. So, you know, kudos to Rebezac
- 1:07:25and everyone you know working in in the field of helping people
- 1:07:29find resources. Are are any of these
- 1:07:32psychedelics addictive? This is a sheer in and of
- 1:07:39itself, so. So there's different categories
- 1:07:43of psychedelics. Ketamine probably has among this
- 1:07:48like, you know, it's the highest addictive danger.
- 1:07:54And then there have been recent, you know, media articles about
- 1:07:57it, the clinics where I, the clinic where I've worked where
- 1:08:01ketamine is administered, you know, has very clear guidelines.
- 1:08:07And we specifically mentioned these dangers and we, you know,
- 1:08:10structure the therapy in ways that diminish this risk.
- 1:08:14But it's a risk and even when sort of right to distinguish
- 1:08:22serotoninergic psychedelics, mushrooms, zealous tea from
- 1:08:25alcohol or heroin or cocaine. So there isn't the same
- 1:08:30biological, you know, chemical dependence on these substances,
- 1:08:35you know, But if you, if you could take a substance and be in
- 1:08:39a blissful, right, imagine your framing of psychedelics is that
- 1:08:43you take a substance and you're feeling bliss.
- 1:08:46So, you know, there's this like a type of psychological
- 1:08:49dependence where I I can only when we were talking before
- 1:08:53about am I looking for a way to, to feel better or better feel
- 1:08:59right. And so if I, if my life is
- 1:09:01about, I need to, in order to do this thing, I need to enter this
- 1:09:07place. I can't do anything unless I
- 1:09:09ever once in a while re up my spiritual bless, right.
- 1:09:14I need AI need a re dose, right. So then that can be especially
- 1:09:18when it's very dangerous. Yeah, yeah, it's very dangerous
- 1:09:21to you know, the Rambam talks about, you know, when the Rambam
- 1:09:24talks about being habituated to things, right.
- 1:09:28So it's best not to be right. There's, there's addictions like
- 1:09:31illicit drugs and there's addictions to things like, you
- 1:09:35know, caffeine and, and you know, cigarettes, as well as to
- 1:09:38food and, and behavioral addictions, you know, but you
- 1:09:42shouldn't be an avid to anything.
- 1:09:45You know, but it, but it sounds like what you're saying about
- 1:09:47ketamine, there's a, there's a chemical addiction.
- 1:09:49There's yeah, there's a real risk with with ketamine, you
- 1:09:53know, especially there's a real risk that ketamine can raise,
- 1:10:02you know, behavioral avoidance, right?
- 1:10:05So, so if you think about like what is a acre of mental health?
- 1:10:09So a lot of it is whether you are approaching, pursuing
- 1:10:12things, right? You're going towards your
- 1:10:14values, your goals, whatever, or you're avoiding things, you're
- 1:10:17avoiding situations that are, you know, causing tension,
- 1:10:20right? So, so we would want to be
- 1:10:22healthy. To be healthy doesn't just mean
- 1:10:25to feel good. It means to pursue long term
- 1:10:30goals and values that are meaningful, that make my life
- 1:10:32richer, notwithstanding tension that I feel when I do it right,
- 1:10:38right, even in the presence of right learning.
- 1:10:41Learning confronts you day in, day out, many, many times with
- 1:10:46difficult emotions, right? And yeah, it's a healthy person
- 1:10:50is able to not back away from their goal and value in the
- 1:10:56service of right. So ketamine and, and, and and
- 1:11:02and alcohol and cannabis and other things have a risk of
- 1:11:06increasing experiential avoidance.
- 1:11:08This tendency to back away from or, you know, either to, to, to
- 1:11:12not bring myself to situations that feel difficult or even when
- 1:11:18I'm in that situation to sort of my.
- 1:11:20Capacity, that's the anti. Hero is shrunken the anti.
- 1:11:23It is. The anti hero isn't the anti
- 1:11:25hero. The I mean, whatever, there's a
- 1:11:26helo between the anti hero and the villain, you know, but but
- 1:11:30the it's interesting because the villain often believe the the
- 1:11:33villain is a hero with a warped sense of the mission.
- 1:11:36If you think about. It.
- 1:11:37Yeah, that's what I mean. I think so.
- 1:11:38That's the danger of, of buying into my My Hero Journey
- 1:11:42narrative, right? By the way, the hero of the hero
- 1:11:47of Lord of the Rings, I should have met, but you know, but the
- 1:11:51the hero of Lord of the Rings humbly I would suggest is not
- 1:11:54Frodo, Oh, come on, but Sam. OK, Because without Sam, Frodo
- 1:12:01would not have had the courage. One might suggest.
- 1:12:05Maybe there are legitimate views, but I've, I've, I've seen
- 1:12:07this discussed in the scholarly literature, but but you know,
- 1:12:12Sam is the one who, you know, the mission isn't.
- 1:12:15I mean, the mission is whatever. That's another episode.
- 1:12:20But but yeah, there is a real risk to to to return to the
- 1:12:23original question of being addicted to, to cadmium.
- 1:12:28I would not advocate for the, you know, unsupported use of
- 1:12:35these substances. There are resources, but on a
- 1:12:39serious note, there are resources available.
- 1:12:41Their organizations. I'm on.
- 1:12:46I can, I'm on the. Board you can you can send it to
- 1:12:48Don. Show notes Yeah, yeah, I'm on
- 1:12:50the board of an amazing nonprofit in the US that gives
- 1:12:53support to people who have suffered abuse in psychedelic
- 1:12:56settings. Right.
- 1:12:57Especially if you think about where boundary, right?
- 1:12:59If the, if the ego boundaries are less tangible.
- 1:13:01I don't even know where myself ends and God begins, right?
- 1:13:05So, you know, whatever, but I can, you can also foresee that
- 1:13:09sort of ethical boundaries could be readily, you know, violated.
- 1:13:14And there's also a muta in Israel that is promoting
- 1:13:19resources, good information about psychedelics and therapy
- 1:13:25that are legal called the ACPT Israel.
- 1:13:28So I'll send those in the show notes as well.
- 1:13:31Unfortunately, you've run out of time, but I want to say two
- 1:13:33things. One of them is to be clear, this
- 1:13:36is a neutral conversation. As you said multiple times, and
- 1:13:39I'll say it now very clearly, I'm not advocating for anyone to
- 1:13:43be taking any of these these drugs.
- 1:13:44What I do think is important is having open conversation
- 1:13:48information for the masses of just, there are pluses and
- 1:13:51minuses and there is research out there and there's what to
- 1:13:53discuss, which is what we did here.
- 1:13:54And I think that they need to talk about a lot of that.
- 1:13:56I think there's more to open up and maybe we'll do another
- 1:13:58episode sometime. There are two questions I wanted
- 1:14:00to ask you though, and I just, I'll put them on the table.
- 1:14:02You can't answer them now. I'm sorry.
- 1:14:04OK, but no, but don't worry, they're not, they're not like
- 1:14:06that. You'll see.
- 1:14:07But I think it'd be great for our viewers to think about it.
- 1:14:09I'd love to hear your opinion also, and maybe we'll discuss it
- 1:14:12the next time you hear. But number one, I find it
- 1:14:14interesting that in the Talmud and the Gemara, drugs come up
- 1:14:19all but one time and Rashi quotes in Hamish, if I'm not
- 1:14:24mistaken, OK, by loved, which is alcoholism.
- 1:14:26There's no, there's no Gamar's that talk about augmentation
- 1:14:31like of the abstract, except for that Gamar's I find interesting.
- 1:14:35And we do know that that knowledge of, of psychedelics
- 1:14:39is, is it's not, it's not something that's new.
- 1:14:41I mean, people knew about it for a long time.
- 1:14:43I'm just interested and I might even be saying this out in the,
- 1:14:47you know, by Veer, but why wasn't it?
- 1:14:49Why wasn't it something that we knew more about back then?
- 1:14:52I also do want to wanted to talk a little bit more about the
- 1:14:54differences and similarities between alcoholism and and
- 1:14:57psychedelics, but maybe next time we'll have an opportunity
- 1:15:00to talk about those things. Thank you so much for sharing
- 1:15:02with me a lot of wisdom. I learned a lot.
- 1:15:03I can definitely say that I learned a lot and it was great
- 1:15:05to to sit down with you. Thank you for having me and
- 1:15:08everyone should be me, Kazak and their heroes sounds good.
- 1:15:12I'll see you at the top of the mountain.
- 1:15:15Maybe along the way OK. Sounds good.
- 1:15:17Yeah. See everybody?