Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind, and the Pulitzer-nominated global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work. He is the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. His work and ideas have been covered in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., and TED. He has spoken at Stanford University, MIT, the Harvard Club, Imperial College, Singularity University, the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, the Bohemian Club, and the United Nations. Jamie and I talk about the collapse of meaning in the the last decades and how meaning 3.0 could actually look like. What a modern “Alchemist Cookbook” is and why ethical cult building could be interesting. Plus: Jamie explains how flow looks like and what is has to do with the six neurotransmitters. And of course we talk about the current state of psychedelics and how to avoid “bliss junkies and epiphany whores,” as he says. But still, will the future be your and my brain on psychedelics? https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/ https://www.stevenkotler.com/book-pages/stealing-fire Please note also: The New Health Club is now a proud supporter of International Therapeutic Psilocybin Rescheduling Initiative, a global coalition working to reschedule psilocybin under the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. With partner organizations such as MAPS, the Beckley Foundation and Drug Science. ITPRI is working bring down barriers to advancing psychedelic medicine. Please check them out at reschedulepsilocybin.org and consider donating to support their work.
Robert Bent works with the VC fund Vine Ventures and is co-founder and CEO at Othership, a global community to improve mental health in an accessible way. Othership combines beautiful social spaces that deliver peak experiences and a mobile app that teaches breathwork. Prior to Othership, Robbert was Ecosystem Growth lead at the Ethereum Foundation. He graduated from the Richard Ivey School of Business. Roberts story is a modern one. By late 2013, after being super successful, Robert hit rock bottom. He felt burnt out, low, tired from his career in finance, was struggling with a substance abuse problem. He escaped to Israel, tried a ten day Vipassana retreat, finally went to Peru to try Ayahuasca.From here, Robert's life changed: he engaged in breath work practices, joined Vine Ventures and co-founded “Othership". Roberts vision, as he says,” is to create space that encourages openness to the awe, belonging, and interconnectivity that animates the human experience for a more joy-filled life and living.” He is building a platform that includes physical spaces, a mobile app, a concert tour and a global community. Robert and I talk about the Othership Community.how to use ice bathing and sauna to keep reflecting on your psychedelic experience, why people stop consuming alcohol once they engaged in psychedelics and how a future life with an integrated idea of psychedelics looks like. https://www.othership.us/app https://www.othership.us/physical https://vine.vc/
Julie Holland is an American psychopharmacologist, psychiatrist, and author. She is an really important voice in the new psychedelic world, we are just creating. She is the author of five books, including Moody Bitches, Good Chemistry, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych ER, a memoir documenting her experience as the weekend head of the psychiatric emergency room at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. She is an advocate for the appropriate use of consciousness expanding substances as part of mental health treatment, she is a medical monitor for MAPS studies, which involve, in part, developing psychedelics into prescription medication.Holland sits on a few advisory board, for example Palo Santo and to me, she is one of the most inspiring people in the space. What I like about Julie? She is non judgemental, she always sees the bigger picture in the psychedelic renaissance, and she is a lot fun to talk to. Please enjoy! http://drholland.com/
And just like that, there will be a whole new generation of politicians working on integrating psychedelic assisted therapy in the healthcare system and into new laws. How will the BTM (Betäubungsmittelgesetz in Germany) look like? Will we see a decentralization of mental health care? Why is pretty much everyone microdosing, although it is still really illegal? I am thrilled to talk to Mario Brandenburg from the FDP party today about the coming years, psychedelics and yes, Germany. Mario Brandenburg, born in Rhineland-Pfalz, is a spokesman for research, technology and innovation for the Free Democrats FDP (https://www.fdp.de/) Brandenburg is in the German Bundestag, chairman of the Education and Research Working Group, deputy member of the Digital Agenda Committee and member of the german Bundestag, Last year, he was one of the first politicians in Germany, who started to look into the possible rescheduling of psilocybin and made a request, how the old government under Angela Merkel could be encouraged to spend more money on clinical trials in terms of psychedelics. Now, since the election, Brandenburg is part of the new government and might be one of the german politicians engaging in making psychedelic assisted therapy available in Germany in the coming years. In May 2021, Brandenburg and some FDP colleagues submitted a so-called "Kleine Anfrage zu Medizinische Forschung mit Psilocybin und anderen psychedelischen Wirkstoffen in Deutschland”, in which he presented a list of questions to the federal government at the time, on the basis of which the government had to provide information about the current assessment of psilocybin as a therapeutic agent. We talk about legalization of cannabis in Germany and the decriminalization movement in the US, the decentralized mental health models and what would happen if you don't have to wait months to see a psychiatrist or therapist, the War on Drugs, why FDP leader Christian Lindner is talking about ending the criminalization of users and 'draining the black market’, why the Germans are afraid of microdosing and Silicon Valley why after the pandemic and Covid, we might need a speedy decriminalisation of new psychedelic tools and therapy that will help us to really cope with the massive wave of mental health problems.
Journey Clinical, Jonathan Sabbagh and Myriam Barthes, is my guest today. VCs named their company one of the top 15 startups in the psychedelic field. Journey Clinical is a turnkey telehealth platform that enables licensed psychotherapists to include legal, evidence-based Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapies (PAP) in their practice, starting with Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). Their novel decentralized clinic model provides member psychotherapists with unprecedented access to a KAP-trained medical team, as well as a robust care management platform designed to deliver personalized treatment plans for enhanced clinical outcomes. Myriam describes the new clinical system as a triangle. In the first corner is the patient, in the second the journey clinical doctor, who is able to describe and administer the ketamine, in the third corner is the Journey Clinical member psychotherapist, vetted and often independent, who works with the patient after the treatment. Jonathan describes the company as a “one stop shop where all the required treatments get offered to you”. Which means, as a patient, you would not have to run around to physicians, psychiatrists or therapists,who would eventually contradict each other in their diagnosis or where at least one party would not be open to Ketamine Assisted psychotherapy. Journey Clinical is your new psychedelic in house doctor. Both founders have a background in finance and both have experienced how their lives have transformed with psychedelics. Jonathan, working in hedge funds, suffered from a heavy burn out and undiagnosed PTSD and addiction condition, he looked into an ayahuasca and MDMA experiences. Myriam is a firm believer in plant medicine, she had her own psychedelic healing story.We talk about, how therapists join the network, can access educational videos , then join peer consultation groups and then can start referring patients to the ketamine therapy, how Ketamine can support tapering off antidepressants that patients will still need to take, how repressed feelings and underlying topics of patients made their way to the top during COVID, which amplified peoples crisis and depression even more, how with a few Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy sessions things start to bubble up, how the modern psychedelic clinic can look like very soon. https://www.businessinsider.com/list-top-psychedelics-startups-according-to-vcs-investors-2021 https://www.journeyclinical.com/
My guest on The New Health Club Show today is Sa'ad Shah, managing partner of the Noetic Fund. Saad basically grew up all over the world, went to the JFK School in Berlin, worked in real estate banking, corporate credit, and derivative sales & trading.–and he holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University.The Noetic Fund is a powerful investment group in the new psychedelic field, a group of venture funds launched by Grey House Partners GP Inc. to invest in emerging and early-stage wellness, therapeutic and pharmaceutical companies around the globe, The fund has $170 million in assets under management and is one of the venture-capital firms that's deployed the most funding into the psychedelic industry. The firm has invested $56 million in psychedelics since early 2020, when Shah started the fund. (Companies like Beckley Psytech,Gilgamesch, Bexson, ASRI, CaaM/Tech, Eleusis)Sa'ad and I talk about his interest in theology and mysticism as an investor and eventually taking ayahuasca in Brazil: his own classic hero’s-journey type of story. We address how his own interest and fascination with psychedelics became his new path in life, and what he is looking for, when he invests in a company How to nurture the “the scientific advancement of mental, emotional, psychological and physical health by investing in alternative therapies, modalities, and sciences that are committed to optimising our human experience” which is the Noetic vision and no small plan. (https://noeticfund.com/)
Today I am talking about couples and (magic) truffles, and yes, I mean psychedelic assisted couples therapy. So why could this type of therapy be groundbreaking for the coming years? Why could it be a version of therapy 2.0? And if so, what would it look like? Who would you and your partner be, if you met without the trauma you might carry with you? Today, we got two experts, who are executing an interesting version of truffle assisted couples therapy. I talk to the therapist Jeanien Souren and psychiatrist Hans van Wechem, both are in charge of couples therapy at Field Trip in Amsterdam. With an extensive professional career in mental health, Jeanine Souren holds degrees in psychology, psychotherapy, clinical sexology and couples & family therapy. She is accredited and licensed in the Netherlands and has worked as a lead clinician in several mental health settings. She is passionate about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in combination with psychotherapy. Jeanine believes that by tapping into the deep psyche through psychedelics, suppressed patterns, emotions and beliefs can be made conscious again, allowing for healthy change. Hans van Wechem has almost 30 years of experience in psychiatry and started his career as a registered couples and family therapist before specializing in (group) psychotherapy of patients with early childhood trauma and attachment disorders. After a life-changing psychedelic experience, he recognized the potential of psychedelics in therapy. He now contributes to projects such as MAPS in their efforts to investigate MDMA for the treatment of PTSD and has a wide network in the psychedelic community. His main interest lies in contributing to a future in which the use of psychedelics will become widely accepted, both as an evidence-based treatment and as a powerful catalyst for personal and spiritual growth. https://www.fieldtriphealth.nl/
My guest today is Onur Yildirim, Director of Field Trip Health Amsterdam, a place that offers legal, safe and vetted experiences and possibilities to rediscover life through psychedelics. Field Trip Health stands for scientifically supported, legal psychedelic experiences that liberate and inspire you, and works with a step-by-step, professional approach to the use of psychedelics. This includes preparatory sessions and integrative therapy sessions. In Amsterdam Field Trip is working with truffles, in The US and Canada with ketamine. Onur, who leads a team of experienced therapists and psychiatrist at FT; was originally trained in clinical psychology and worked as a psychologist during the first years of his career. Later, Onur earned his PhD in neuroscience from Radboud University and worked in the R&D and MA of established pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Novartis, where he championed the research of psychedelic molecules as potential antidepressants. After his time in the pharmaceutical industry, he began his entrepreneurial career which eventually led him to Field Trip. Onur and I talk about what happens if you make the decision to engage in a psychedelic journey at FT, who are the people that are interested in this and why the times of Covid are encouraging people to look into psychedelic support systems, if possible. And full disclosure, I have done a guided Truffle experience at Field Trip in Amsterdam and it brought me many new insights. I decided to engage in a truffle experience twice year - a tool to support my own life's and founder's journey.
My guests today are the architects Ester Bruzkus and Peter Greenberg and you might wonder: what will we talk about in a podcast like this one, if not about psychoactive compounds and psychedelics? And where does architecture comes in?Founded in 2002 in Berlin, Ester Bruzkus Architekten is an internationally established architecture and interior design practice with global ties, but based in Berlin. They are well known for extensive experience with design at many scales: from the design of tables and furniture to exquisite residences and workspaces to international theatres, restaurants and hotels. Ester was named as one of Architectural Digest’s “Top 200 Influencers in the Design World,” Growing up in Berlin, she studied architecture at Berlin’s Technical University and later at the School of Architecture in Belleville, Paris. Before founding her own Berlin office in 2002. Peter received his Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and graduated cum laude...
My guest is Patrick Moher, CEO at Microdose Psychedelic Insights and creator of the Wonderland Psychedelic Conference in Miami. Patrick is an entrepreneur working in Psychedelics and Cannabis. He is a passionate and unapologetic environmentalist, founded Ethical Image, co-founded a couple of companies. I have met Patrick many times last year, mostly on Air Table, where he hosted the Micro Dose conference virtually. With Microdose online, one was able to see, what was happening in the incredible new field and the big names of the psychedelic renaissance all made their appearance.But now, Wonderland is near, the first big IRL conference in Miami, where most people in the psychedelic world will meet the first time. (Who knows, maybe Wonderland might become the Art Basel Miami for Psychedelics? )The event will certainly be an important meeting of science, capital and entertainment, meaning names like Mike Tyson and Lamar Odom speaking about their personal healing with the support of psychedelic therapy. A new development in the recent entertainment world, that I think is becoming very interesting, helping to destigmatize the psychedelic topic. Patrick and Wonderland are providing the first IRL experience for the psychedelic world in years.