Keys to the Kingdom: Recent Episodes
Dr. Tammy Sanders
As a new era dawns for psychedelics, how do we open the doors to broad and sustainable access? Join the conversation with an eclectic collection of activists, allies, educators, entrepreneurs, explorers, practitioners, and provocateurs.
Steven Huang walks through how he came to intertwine psychedelics from his personal life with the work of his professional life in Silicon Valley. Steven’s career includes stints at Facebook, Square and Culture Amp, where he first stepped into the work of diversity, equity and inclusion. As Steven tells it, psychedelics have unlocked his superpowers as a DEI professional. In our conversation, he shares his deep sense of obligation to destigmatize and normalize psychedelics so professionals, leaders and marginalized identities all have access to the same healing tools.
Resources• Carl Hart’s Drug Use for Grown-Ups• Scarcity Mindset and Mental Health
• “I’m strong, I’m beautiful.”
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Candace Oglesby’s keys to psychedelics access are community and inclusion of therapists of color in psychedelics practice. An active member of the 28,000-member Facebook group Black Therapists Rock, Candace is a clinical research therapist in psychedelics for navigating trauma and the mental health challenges of cancer. In our conversation, we discuss how Candace came to the work of mental health, and making history as Black people in psychedelic healing.
Resources• The 8Cs of Internal Family Systems
• Dick Schwartz on IFS and psychedelics
• Black Therapists ROCK
• Compass Pathways and Aquilanas Cancer Center
• My Grandmother’s Hands
• Sara Reed on Black People, Psychedelics and Liberation
• The Legacy of Henrietta Lacks
• Emory University Psychedelics and Racial Trauma Study
• Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man
• The Black Psychologists Podcast
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Cat Orme’s keys to psychedelics access are defining and anchoring oneself in sobriety, and developing a conscious relationship with substances. A self-described recovered alcoholic, Cat counts 20+ years in 12-step work and is a participating member of Psychedelics in Recovery. In this conversation, Cat shares experience with growing from addiction, grappling with complex PTSD, and leveraging psychedelics for emotional healing and spiritual growth.
Resources• Codependency and addiction
• Betty Eisner: Psychedelic-assisted therapist to Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous
• Symptoms of complex PTSD aka c-PTSD
• Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma by Pete Walker
• The Sanctuary For Spiritual Development and Consciousness Expansion (SSDCE) co-founded by Cat
• The Kink Collective co-founded by Cat
• Can 12-Step Groups and Psychedelic Addiction Treatment Coexist?Vice article
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Vince Kadlubek’s keys to psychedelics access—imagination, exploration, and embracing the unknown—resonate with his life as an artist. Vince is a co-founder and director of Meow Wolf, an arts production company that brings to life immersive, multisensory experiences designed to transport participants into fantastic realms. Inspired by psychedelics, which he first encountered as a teen, Vince joins Keys for conversation on how Meow Wolf in particular and creativity in general can be a kind of psychedelic experience for people don’t necessarily want to do psychedelics.
Resources• Meow Wolf article and film
• Meow Wolf's Omega Martexperience in Vegas
• Lamar Odom: A Black Man on psychedelics
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Maria Camille’s key to psychedelics access is a focus on personal wellness, especially for those of us in middle- and elder-age, and particularly for women. Having survived and thrived in her wildly dramatic life, Maria is now an entrepreneur in her 70s with vision and vitality inspired by psychedelics. She’s working to establish destination locations where you can vacation for your mental well-being, and heal or reset yourself safely and with guided support. In our conversation, Maria introduces us to her conception of a monk break, advocates for reinventing yourself regardless of age, and encourages us to lay down our life burdens and discover our next mission.
Resources• Maria Camille: The Back Story
• Terence McKenna on Wikipedia
• The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yacqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda
• Meet Maria Sabina
• Dao House in Colorado
• The Body Keeps Score Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Danny Motyka’s keys to psychedelics access are educated chemistry and mission-driven business. As a teenager tackling severe depression with psilocybin and LSD, Danny found his calling in psychedelics and is now CEO of PsyGen Labs, a Canada-based manufacturer of pharmaceutical-grade psychedelics for clinical research and therapeutic use. In our conversation, we discuss changing the nature of business with psychedelics, understanding our drug biases, and moving ourselves beyond our default modes.
Resources
• How Psygen came to be
• Erowid and a New Yorker feature on its founders
• Default Mode Network: our brain's guessing machine
• The Coddling of the American Mind• SNL’s “Stop gaslighting me!” skit
• Social media and dopamine addiction
• Blockchain + Psychedelics at Scale
• Silk Road, crypto currencies, and illegal substance sales
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
It's a long road to psychedelic-assisted healing and growth in middle age. This expansive conversation travels that long road as it led to this podcast and my advocacy for broad and sustainable psychedelics access.
Amelia Perkins, my friend of 20+ years, helps me walk through my evolution, and shares her perspective on what it's been like to experience me pre- and post-psychedelics. Amelia is a facilitator and coach who focuses on spirituality, sexuality and creativity. She's been in the personal growth field for 15 years, and her practice includes women's workshops, and guidance for individuals who want to deepen their relationships with their intuition and themselves.
Amelia is one of the first people I reached out to after I'd had my early psychedelic experiences. I knew she'd be as excited and blown away by them as I was. Now, if only she had access.
Resources• About Amelia, Erik, and their coaching practice
• Small Foot trailer for monsters like me
• Tuesday global meditation for lasting peace
• LSD in Flirting with Disaster• Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca• 5-MeO-DMT and Mike Tyson
• Blockchain + Psychedelics at Scale
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Authentic community, culturally informed therapy, and deep care for humanity are Sara Reed’s keys to psychedelics access. A licensed marriage and family therapist, Sara is changing the face of mental healthcare as the CEO of the digital health startup Mind’s iHealth and as an advocate for health equity in psychedelic medicine. In our conversation, we connect from the heart about getting credentialed, getting good care, and getting all of us to liberation.
Resources
• Minds iHealth & @minds_ihealth on Twitter
• Culture and Psychedelic Psychotherapy by Monnica Williams, Sara Reed and Jamilah George
• The Shadows You Won’t Face by Sara Reed
• White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun of Dismantling Racism Works
• James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time
• Resources from Chacruna's Racial Equity and Access Committee
• Yarelix Estrada on Psychedelic Harm Reduction, Racism and the War on Drugs
• Psychedelic Therapy Facebook Group
• Black Girls Breathing and Holotropic Breathwork
• The vagus nerve and The Body Keeps Score
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Curtis Chappell’s keys are blockchain, education and innovation. He’s particularly skilled at using real-world examples to make blockchain’s world of cryptographic database technology accessible to everyday people. In our conversation, Curtis demystifies the language of blockchain and digs into how blockchain could make psychedelics safer and more accessible, especially at scale.
Resources
• Australia's Blockchain Collective
• Beef Ledger blockchain for supply chain
• Curtis Chappell: From student to teacher
• LSD and DNA
• AgUnity blockchain solutions for farmers
• Beeple’s $69M NFTs and NFTs on SNL
• Alcoholics Anonymous and psychedelics
• Deepak Chopra and psychedelics
• 2018 CryptoPsychedelic Summit
• Blockchain careers at crypto.jobs
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Sound investment, market intelligence, and balanced perspective are Henri’s keys to psychedelics access. As a venture capitalist, he's involved in several for-profit and non-profit plant medicine initiatives and brings his perspective to our conversation about the lessons psychedelics can learn from cigarettes, why we're unlikely to see a recreational psychedelics investing boom, and the problem with demonizing corporate capitalism in psychedelics.
Resources
• The Conscious Fund
• Smoking in Silicon Valley
• Research on cannabis and cigarette smoke
• The North Star Ethics Pledge for psychedelic business
• New York Times article for an overview of SPACs
• Jay Z sells his cannabis company to a SPAC
• Colin Kaepernick’s social justice SPAC
• Deniro in “Casino”: “I’m watching all the details all the time.”
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
While he’d prefer to dispense with kingdoms altogether, community, discussion and decriminalization are Brian Pace’s keys to psychedelics access. In our conversation, Brian and I discuss the authoritarian psychedelic experience, capitalism’s toxic context, and the problem with pragmatism for psychedelic advocates.
Resources
• Psymposia online and on Patreon
• Psymposia’s Plus 3 Podcast
• Brian Pace on Twitter
• Pysmposia’s Coming Out of the Psychedelic Closet series
• Turn Off Your Mind, Relax—and Float Right-Wing? by Brian Pace
• Lucy in the Sky with Nazis by Brian Pace
• Peter Thiel: Competition is for Losers & the Apartheid Conversation
• “COMPASS Investors Support Monopolies” (Psymposia March 2021)
• Democracy at Work Podcast
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Drug decriminalization, legalization and regulation are Mohawk Kellye’s keys to psychedelics access. If you want to use psychoactive substances to enhance and advance your life, Mohawk wants your drugs to reliable and readily available. In this convo, Mohawk deep-dives on decriminalization, why drug laws don’t keep us safe, and why we might want to rethink how we think about cocaine.
Resources• Mohawk online
- The Rebel Educationist
- Destigmatizing drugs on YouTube
- Understanding U.S. Drug Policy
• New California bill would decriminalize psychedelics (Feb 2021)
• Louisiana Bill to allow younger adults to drink (Mar 2018)
• Scarface: "Cocaine Mountain"
• Dr. Carl Hart on rethinking the utility of “hard” drugs (Jan 2021)
• IDPC: "The war on drugs is built on racism" (June 2020)
• Weed-Curious Politicians Should Look to Uruguay (Nov 2019)
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
Storytelling, rethinking bias, and psychedelics advocacy are David Carpenter’s keys to psychedelics access. He writes about psychedelic trends for Forbes online and destigmatizes psychedelics in his book series Your Neighbors Are Doing Psychedelics. David discusses coming out as a psychedelics user, the big problem with “tiny” traumas, and the upside of changing your mind. Resources• David’s website: www.yourneighborsaredoingpsychedelics.com
• Your Neighbors Are Doing Psychedelics: MDMAon Amazon
• Dr. Carl Hart on Joe Rogan in 2014
Music: Sochiiby Adrian Thomas (2020)
Watch on YouTube
Follow @psychedelicskey
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/psychedelicskey)
