My first challenge was how can we possibly work with this substance?

So I was aware there are some psychedelic kind of based churches in the US, Ayahuasca churches are more common.

You know how it is sometimes when you're in a river, you know, this dark, crap filled river, you feel like the turds are in your eyeballs.

You can't pull your feet out.

The psilocybin helps take you out of the river and put you on the bank.

The river doesn't go away, it just doesn't own you anymore.

So you can look at it from a fresh perspective and manage it.

It's not your burden, it just is.

Basically, it's talking taken action.

You think it, you believe it.

It's real.

However, you take action and a leaned action, knowing that the thing is going to happen.

You don't worry about when or how.

You just there focused on the walk and taken action.

You know, mind blowing and expanding and fantastic.

Hare's nothing but beautiful things to say about it.

And then got a very strong message, your journey with the mushrooms is over now, and she developed analogy to a whole mushrooms.

Isn't that crazy, Hey conscious man Semer family.

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Hello, beautiful and amazing people.

Welcome to The conscious Man seven Podcasts.

I am your host, Todd Cave, and today we're pulling back the curtain on one of the most taboo yet transformational frontiers of healing, stilocybun and the rise of America's first psychedelic church.

My guest, Reverend Pam Convoy, isn't your typical healer.

She's a biologist, a clinical laboratorian, a nutrition health coach, and now a doctoral student in neuropathic medicine.

But beyond the white coat, she's also an ordained minister who co founded Setus Seminaries, a grown breaking church where science and spirit collide through the sacrament use of psilocybin mushrooms.

In this conversation, you'll hear how Palm went from the lab bench to leading ceremonies that have helped people overcome trauma, addiction, depression, and isolation in ways the conventional systems simply can't touch.

We'll uncover the rituals, the science, the legal battles, and the stories of transformation that most people never hear.

And here's the promise.

By the end of this episode, you'll either question everything you've been told about healing or you'll be inspired to explore a path you never thought possible.

Either way, you won't leave unchanged.

Buckle up.

This is one of those episodes that will stay with you long after you hite pause.

When truth is blurred by lies and misinformation, perception becomes reality.

What will you perceive your reality to be?

Liberate your fears and walk with me, sit down and meditate, connect with your son.

Be a monster, and then learn how to control it.

And you've got to be.

Willing to do the work.

So it really goes really deep in terms of words and etymology and what they mean.

That's good.

This why it is really hard to really crack matrix, because there's so many levels and layers to it, you know, PM, Welcome to the Conscious Man seven podcasts.

I am really excited to talk to you today.

How are you I'm doing wonderfully and I'm so enthusiastic about this conversation.

Todd.

Thank you for having me.

You're very welcome.

And what really stood out to me when I was looking to reach out to you to come on the show was there were a few words that caught my attention and it was come almost like an oxymoron at the same time having a bit of cognitive dissonance.

It was psilocybin, church reverend, and I was like, these these things just can't go together.

So I had like a brain freeze at the beginning, and I had to reread what you had written a few times, visit your website, and then I was like, ah, okay, this is quite interesting, and I say, you know what, in my fashion, I'm not going to judge.

I'm just gonna have a talk with will open year and see if I learned something and see what's different.

Because clearly, being that you come from medicine, you're talking about being a reverent a church and psychedelic medicine.

I'm like, Okay, this is something going on here, so let's dive right into it.

So you started your career in medical marketing as a clinical laboratorian.

What was the pivotal movement moment that shifted you towards psilocybin healing and funding a church.

That's that's a big question, and it's probably the most important one.

So yes, I came up in conventional medicine, So biology was my undergraduate degree.

I worked in the laboratory.

I eventually found myself in medical marketing.

I didn't even know what marketing was at the beginning of my career, I'll be honest with you.

And from that path I progressed over to more integrative, naturopathic type of medicine, functional kind of medicines, because I was finding that conventional medicine is not all we think it might be.

As we were talking about earlier, our form of medicine is fantastic for critical care.

It's great for surgeries and accidents and all of those things.

But for chronic healthcare, it's awful.

It's really terrible.

We do a very bad job.

It's embarrassing.

So I would say the last ten years of my life, I've been in the integrative medical space.

And for a while I worked in a nutritional supplement manufacturer here in Reno.

I'm based out of Reno, and I worked with a naturopathic position.

At that facility, we became very close friends.

I learned a lot about manufacturing nutritional supplements, what quality is, where to source things, how the manufacturing gets done, all of the regulations that go along with that.

So come to the church.

About three years ago, I met up with my friend, my naturopathic partner friend who is now my partner in this church, and she was describing to me that she had a number of patients that had come to her for advice and guidance on microdosing psilocybin.

At that point, she was unfamiliar with the vast amount of research that's happened in the last fifteen years, and so she really dug into it and really tried to help identify for people what strains might work best for them, what dosages, and then adding on botanical plants, herbs, and other functional mushrooms to help them achieve whatever their goal was for the microdosing, So whether it was a mood or oriented goal, or something about productivity and cognitive ability, or processing trauma or relieving themselves from addictions and that kind of thing.

So how's that going, Leyah, great, Like this is the best medicine I've ever worked with in my life.

Kind of great, why isn't it in the water?

Well maybe it should be, so I kinda dug into what is the status of psilocybin and mushrooms so legal status here in the United States, and as your listeners may or may not know, it is really in flux right now.

There are certain states and municipalities that have decriminalized, but psilocybin containing mushrooms, along with all of the psychedelics, still sit in a Schedule one rating from the FDA, And the FDA says Schedule one drugs have no medicinal value, no therapeutic value, and they say it also in Schedule one high propensity for addiction.

Neither one is true with psilocybin, and we know that very well now because of the research that has been done in the last few decades.

In fact, the FDA itself called psilocybin breakthrough Therapy for untreatable depression in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen that really opened the doors for much more research.

Virtually every academic institution in the US has a psychedelic lab, so this has taken very, very very seriously, and the results are quite stunning.

So I'm thinking, I'm an entrepreneur.

I've been working for myself most of my life.

How can we bring this to people.

It's safe, by the way, It's much safer than an SSRI that your regular doctor would recommend for depression.

It's a whole lot safer than tobacco or alcohol.

Has a very strong safety profile of very low propensity for addiction.

It's really quite interesting and we can go into the mechanisms.

But my first challenge was how can we possibly work with this substance.

So I was aware there are some psychedelic kind of based churches in the US.

Ayahuasca churches are more common.

There are some other churches that work with other substances like psilocybin or you know, even other plant based medicines are antheagens.

So I figured it has to be something to do with this church business.

So in fact it is.

So in nineteen ninety three, the federal government passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

So this is federal legislation.

It is applicable to all of our states, and it essentially says that if you are using these plant based medicines in sincere spiritual practice, that that is protected use doing it under the protection of religious freedom that we honor here in the United States.

The legislation doesn't specify what plant.

The legislation does not specify what practice.

So I built a church taught, and the church is really built on naturopathic medical practices.

So whole mind, body, spirit integration.

And my partner is a naturopathic position, so she is deeply steeped in this type of approach to whole wellness.

So what we see as our role as reverence is that we want to open up those pathways to people that don't have the understanding or the access.

Psilocybin is used as our sacrament.

We use this in both microdosing and macrodo ceremony, and we can discuss that in as much detail as you like.

But really the lasting dura shifts that you can experience with psilocybin comes with integrative practices, and integrative practices depends on you.

So for me, I love my hot box, I love the infrared sauna, I like to ground, I like a body scan meditation in the evening to help me sleep.

I have my toolbox, but there are a lot of tools.

So what we try to do is introduce the tools to members and people who are interested, and then they can adopt these tools to keep them in the shifted space that psilicybin brings them to.

So that was kind of a long answer to your question, but I'm happy to dive into all of those aspects.

Sure, and I am.

I actually learned a few things because I did not know prior to this conversation and obviously doing a little of research on you, that that religious act is sort of like a bit of a loophole.

And also that because when I got into medicine myself in twenty nineteen, there were a couple of American lads that sermon with me and they all said, oh, but we can't get ayahuasca states is illegal x y Z.

So I never actually really like, why would I like, you know, to look into it to see what was the status and stuff.

Then you know, I used to live in the UK for many many years, so like, for sure, like the UK is like the I tend I guess the word if you use like they have push mentality where like, oh that's beyond us.

You know, we wouldn't need to use that, you know, so you would even if you forget about even getting anything like that The closest place maybe would be say Amsterdam that you would fly in, and that would probably even be black market as well, because I think even like the cannabis that they get there is very heavily regulated, so like in Europe, I mean they probably are, but it's very very very clandestine.

That's those things.

So you know, it's quite interesting that you are quotation marks reverent and your quotation marks sacrament is muscle.

So yeah, this is quite interesting.

So tell us how your path as a spiritual seeker an ordained minister intersected with your scientific training.

Ah, So that's another wonderful question.

I grew up my background.

I grew up a Catholic, And if that doesn't put you off of organized religion, I don't know what would.

So you know, I've always had a sort of a jaded eye about religious practices that are man made and man interpreted and very much sort of rule based and oriented on you follow our rules, then we trust you.

You're part of our pack.

And I always thought that was so absurd, because what makes us right as Catholics and the Jews wrong, or the Muslims or the Hindus.

That's madness, that's just crazy.

So I've always, since a young child, thought there is something bigger, whether you'd like to call it Yahweh or God or Jesus or whatever your name for it is, there is something beyond this place, and we're all connected to it, and there are certain ways of living and relationships that can be developed in introspective work and physical activity like you do.

And there are plants that help get us closer to that connection.

And we see this all the time with people, even the most skeptical of people, that how the mushrooms work.

And I'm happy to go into that, but I know you've talked about this before, so it might be a little bit redundant, but it works with our own physiology to give us access to things that are beyond Amazon and our daily to do list.

So the short answer to your question is that I've always had a spiritual inclination that things like entheogenic plants can really elucidate the connection that I thought existed anyhow, and that we as humans are not the stewards of these things.

Each of us have this inside us, and the medicine or the sacrament, or the mushrooms or the psychedelic compound helps you get more clarity to really resonate with the larger spiritual connection.

And we have folks that are very Christian and orientation and they will weave their Christianity into an experience with the mushrooms.

This is not everybody because you know, as we were talking about earlier and what you mentioned about the Brits too, like this is not for us.

That sounds dangerous.

We don't do drugs kind of thing.

Instead of looking at it as an opening, you know, a removal of the veil.

But there are people that are still very connected to their religious roots that use these tools too to enhance their connection to God.

We see it all the time.

So understanding the science behind it as well as we can and knowing what the experience brings to you, it just collides.

It is very very much a synergistic effort.

The medicine, the science, the spirituality, the practices, the community.

You know, I am starting to think that spirituality, consciousness, science, and then religion in its original original form seem to be actually one and not separated.

And it like if they were separated on purpose to compartmentalize people into their boxes.

Because you know, it's it's interesting to talk to you because as a person that comes from medicine, the medical field where you're you're a programmed to think in a certain way, and then to have an introduction to medicine, and you can see the scientific part.

It's almost like if I don't want to put words in your mouth, but for me, it is almost like putting myself in the shoes of a person because I was the bi civil engineer, as like in science, where it's like, okay, this is almost proof of the science.

In the spiritual realm, was it?

Was it something like that for you as well?

Or Am I just putting words in your mouth here?

No?

I think I think you understand exactly.

So I have a fairly good understanding of what this compound does in your brain.

It's it's fascinating, and it works with our own systems.

So for example, just you know three things that the MARSI we'll do.

One is that it grows new brain cells, new brain cells, new connections with a substance called BDNF brain derived neurotropic factor.

This is an intrinsic substance in our own brains and it was there in abundance as infants.

A big burst of it when you're in your you know, developmental teenage years, and then it weighs over time.

But what this does is opens up new pathways of thinking, interpretation, understanding, conceptualization.

That's what it does.

So that's one big piece and that's all It really helps break helps people break free of these habituated issues with like post traumatic stress.

So trauma is that we get stuck in these loops in our brain.

Our brains are really habitual, They use up a lot of energy and they always want to take a shortcut, so wherever there's a well tried road, it goes there.

But the BDNF flooding helps make new connections where you can start to travel in a different path in your brain and look at things from a completely different perspective.

So that's one thing.

Another thing is that it reduces inflammation in your brain.

All mental health issues and all neurocognitive disease have an inflammatory component, and this actively reduces neuronal inflammation in the last thing, well, there are other things, but the top three.

The last one is it balances neurotransmitters, so like SSRIs, selective serotonin reactic inhibitors like prozac, it acts on the serotonergic system.

But instead of blocking reuptake, it actually activates those neurons, so you're making more serotonin innately, and that is our really calm neurotransmitter.

Kind of puts us in a calm, even keeled place.

It also acts on dopamine, so reward transmitter.

Right, So this explains a lot about how people can break lifelong habituations to things like alcohol with a single macro journey of psilocybin.

It's pretty astonishing.

It also works on glutamate, so glutamate is an activating neurotransmitter, and it gives us more energy and more creativity, and it also drives that BDNF production.

So all of the things that are happening to you, you get a whole cocktail of stuff happening in your brain and it all makes sense for It's almost like starting over, right, I have this old problem, but I can attack it now from a new way.

O.

You know that makes sense to me?

Why it's successful in treatment resistant depression on anxiety that's unresolved, you know, stress disorders, addictions, and trauma trauma is this You're stuck in a place that you can't get out of.

The Mushrooms help break you out of those patterns.

So I like to tell people, you know how it is sometimes when you're in a river, you know, this dark, crap filled river, you feel like the turds are in your eyeballs, you can't pull your feet out.

The psilocybin helps take you out of the river and put you on the bank.

The river doesn't go away, it just doesn't own you anymore.

So you can look at it from a fresh perspective and manage it.

It's not your burden, it just is.

You know, as you were talking, just not oh, just smiling, and you reconfirmed things that I had nornable psilo, sabin and mushrooms, because I think, like you know, when you know something you cannot that you forget, but it goes right to the back of your mind.

And I recently took some mushrooms a couple of weeks ago, seven point two grams.

Oh good, one, yeah, because I tend to have to take large amounts.

I could have taken more.

To be honest, I probably can take a ten grams honest with because like even when I do aahuasca, I can take five cups.

When I do bufo, I can do points zero seven milligrams, and I think it's to do with my physique because I'm in extremely good shape.

My metabolism is extremely high, and since I took the mushrooms, I have literally felt more energized, more energy.

I've been working harder, raise a sharp focus, and obviously because I take it all the time, but you know, like I have like breaks, and like when you were saying, it was like, this is why I took it, because I came back to the level that I was at a few months ago.

So I can attest that everything you're seeing I am actually experiencing right now after a couple of weeks of taking it.

Oh yeah, it's incredible.

Yeah, it's incredible.

So why did you choose not just to work with psilocybuin morally or medical medically, but to anchor it within a church context, Because you could have chosen any other context.

So why a church context?

So the church context, The biggest reason for the church is because that allows us protected acts, protected use.

So you know, as we operate as a church, anyone that wants to participate in psilocybin with us, either micro or macro, they have to be a member.

Membership costs nothing at all.

The idea is that if we're ever if we're ever questioned, that we are doing this in a sincere way, in a sincere practice, and we are doing it that way.

It's more a natural, pathic, sort of mine pardy spirit type of practice instead of a deity based religion.

But that's still sincere spiritual practice.

And we do not share this sacrament.

So I say sacrament because it's part of the church and it's part of the practice, but we don't share it outside of our membership.

So then if anyone else was questioned, they can also say, I use this particular medicine or this particular sacrament as a component of my spiritual practice, and that makes this a more solidified protection for all of us the other There are a couple other ways to access psilocybin in the United States.

One is through decriminalized states or municipalities, so Oregon in Colorado or the furthest along, but there are others and many many states are in the process of at least opening the doors for more research.

So there are certain localities that you can access this medicine completely above board within their structure whatever the particular state has structured for it, or you could participate in a research project.

You know.

Uh, the DEA kind of approves all of those and structures that as a clinical research project, so you could access mushrooms through that route as well.

The only other protected route right now is through this RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and to be able to take advantage of that, one must be a religious institution.

So that's what kind of led us to the church.

We are our dained ministers.

But I'll be very honest with you that that didn't take a whole lot.

That's that's available to people.

People especially use those kind of avenues to if they want to perform perform wedding services and that kind of thing, that you can get an ordination fairly easily.

And for us, that particular aspect is more a box checking exercise that we are doing this sincerely and we're we're doing it in a way that is very beyond reproach as much as we possibly can be, because the substance is still scheduled one.

So this is the safest way that we can bring these medicines to people who can really benefit from it.

I mean, there's always going to be underground and you can always actually buy spores.

Those aren't illegal they contain no psilocybe, but you can buy spores and growth them yourself.

Mush thems are a little bit finicky, and you do want to make sure everything's clean.

There are no other unwanted organisms or heavy metals or you know, other kind of fun guy that have yes, so we do, you know, Fortunately, we kind of came from this background, right, We know where to get everything tested, how to get it manufactured.

So the silicet that microdoses, this is what they look like, and I can detail it, but they're capsules and they are manufactured in an FDA approved facility, which that was god intervening Todd.

There should be no way that I can make these products in an FBA facility.

It's a long story, but it's the truth.

So this is like premium, primo clean quality.

We know exactly what's in our our microdose pairings.

We do them as pairings, which I can discuss if you're interested, But they are optimal and they're consistent and they're standardized, and you know, so it is it was our intention too.

If we're going to do this, it's going to be really good.

And they are.

The products are very very very high quality.

Yeah, I think that's divine intobation because to have an FDA approved love how you produce it is like, what are the odds of that?

You know, it's been impossible, It's just been impossible, but it not only happened, but it happened here locally.

I'm anfracturers just a few.

Miles from Wow, awesome, awesome stuff.

So set as seminary is described as bone by soul and science.

How do you practically integrate scientific rigor with spiritual ceremony?

Yeah, so that we talked a little bit about this before.

My background is in science and I am a naturopathic medical student presently at my Ripe old Age.

But my partner is a naturopathic position she's been in practice for fifteen years, and we both have a pretty robust scientific background and we work in manufacturing for these types of products.

So we had all the right tools that came together and we were both very much aligned to that this isn't a one and done.

We don't want to sell drugs, you know, we don't want to sell mushrooms just to sell mushrooms.

We want to give people the tools to use these mushrooms this sacrament toward their end goal, and people come to us with lots of goals, but the mushrooms alone isn't going to do it.

I mean, it's the instigator, you know, it's the catalyst, it's the enzyme.

But all the rest of this stuff is what keeps you on the right track.

And the right track could mean different things to different people, but from a base level perspective, the right track is you're connected with yourself, you're connected with humanity, and whatever God might be to you, the higher power, something bigger.

And if you do mushrooms, I dare you to walk away from that experience and tell me there isn't anything bigger.

I can't believe that would ever happen, honestly.

I mean, so that brings some clarity to it.

You know, Todd, I had never even done mushrooms.

So my first sort of exploration after reading all this wonderful research was like, oh, well, I gotta I gotta go do some mushrooms, right, So Lee and I went down to Mexico and did a beat.

So my first experience it was, and you know, this is divine intervention too, It was perfectly the kind of environment that I would have liked to have had not two hands on.

You know, there's a lot of freedom for people to journey and what feels good to them.

A lot of open space is beautiful.

My first journey was five grounds, and you're right, it does the It's not like a regular drug that we think of a classic pharmaceutical, where weight means a lot.

For psilocybin, weight doesn't mean a lot.

It's actually a metabolic efficiency that is more important.

So if you're very metabolically efficient, then you're going to be potentially more sensitized to it.

So it's interesting that you take a big load and you can bring you know, you can develop some tolerance, so that probably explains some of the increase for you.

But psilocybin itself is what we call a pro drug, so it's not the active ingredient at all for your body to have these psychedelic experiences.

Solucine, it's metabolite is what actually gives us all of those good things and the hallucinations.

So if you have really very efficient metabolism and you convert very quickly, you tend to have a bigger experience and maybe not need as much.

But the other thing that affects us as humans with this particular medicine is that you control in large part how it works for you.

So what we I mean, we see this all the time.

We try to prepare people in the proper way to set an attention.

What is it now?

I'm just talking macro.

You know, what is it you want to take out of this?

What are you looking to find out about yourself?

To kind of get yourself in that headspace and treat yourself.

Well, you should be doing this anyway, but you know, at least take two weeks and try not to drink or smoke, or cut down on your caffeine, try to sleep better, get more sunshine, more light.

Prepare yourself for the information that you're going to get, because you're going to get it.

But what we see is, I would say probably ten percent of people, even with all of the preparation, the medical screening, the whole thing, and our Macro ceremonies are day long here and we provide the transportation food, I get a giant teepee that we do ceremony and it's a beautiful.

But about ten percent of people I call them the white knucklers.

They'll look at you and say, I don't feel anything, Well, maybe you should.

You know, cover your and you know this isn't maybe three grams, it's possible, but that you don't feel anything is a little unusual, and metabolism has something to do with it, and we will boost people a little bit.

But usually if they're telling us at three grams and a half an hour they haven't felt anything at all, it's because they're holding on to something they're afraid, right, they say they want to do it.

They may want to do it, but there's something behind that door that I don't really want to look at.

And those people, what happens is they they tend to think that they haven't had an experience or maybe the experience they were hoping for.

Maybe they were looking for colors and beings and you know, talking mountains, all of which are possible, by the way.

But what happens is during integration to follow they will always one hundred percent of the time report, you know what, I haven't wanted to kill my husband in like two weeks.

That's something, right, Or I haven't really been, you know, drinking a half a bottle of wine every night just online from the day, or you know, they're seeing themselves not get triggered, they're seeing themselves sort of relaxed, they're sleeping better.

So then you know, okay, so let's think of what kind of integration tools are going to work for you, and maybe you microdos after that to help keep the neuroplasticity going, or maybe later, you know, six months from now, the mushrooms will tell you maybe you want to try it again, and you won't be so fearful and so resistant because you can block the experience in large part.

It's not quite like ketamine, which is a it's an anesthetic, and you know you dose big on ketamine IV, something's going to happen to you.

Mushrooms kind of knock on the door, but you got to open it otherwise they'll just be hanging on the outside and you're not going to get all the value that you could get from them.

Yeah, it's true.

It's true.

So I'm curious because we talked.

You just talked about the integration part.

So what does spiritual integration look like in your ceremonies?

How does the community participate meaningfully?

Yeah?

So the integration.

The idea behind integration is that once you start to actually experience the shifts that psilocybin create in your brain, all of those lovely things like neuroplasticity and cans, reduced inflammation, rebalance of the neurotransmitters you want to be able to, especially if you only did a macro and you're not kind of, you know, slowly doing micro over time as a whisper, so it's always there in the background.

But if you do one macro experience for two weeks, you're gonna be highly neuroplastic.

You're gonna be like, Wow, this is the coolest thing ever.

I feel so different.

But your brain is a habitual beast, and you have those entrenched pathways, those entrenched behaviors, and if you don't work on and traveling those new new routes, integrating new behaviors and discarding ones that are no that no longer serve you, if you don't keep making progress down that road, then you're gonna kind of go back to your own habits.

That's just how we work as human beings.

So the integration as we see it, and we don't do this alone because it's just Leah and I that are running this whole business at this point, but we work with psychedelic assisted therapists that have a whole other toolbox to work with, like Integrated Family Systems EMD, are various other tools depending on what you're struggling with.

If it's a mental health challenge, we work with other physicians.

So maybe you need to get your hormones balanced, maybe you need to work with a nutritionalist to try to get your diet optimized, or maybe you need a personal trainer like u toadd to get your body optimized.

Or maybe you just need to meditate.

You know, I have to go to an ashram.

You can do this in five minutes every day and make a difference, or go to a yoga studio or have sound healing or energy healing.

So we are very intimately involved with all of those kind of providers in our community and beyond to make sure people have the tools they need to integrate.

Because my toolbox might not look look look like your toolbox or Leah's toolbox.

She likes the cold plunch.

No, that's that's that's not that hurts me.

I'll do it under pressure, you know, but it's not my tool.

But I have a cold lunch here, so we offer that for people.

So what we do is we have two kind of events every month.

One is more didactic and one is more experiential.

And then we have integration circles that just allow people to kind of talk about their experiences, and Leah leads these integration circles and a different topic each month, So the didactic versus the sort of more practical.

For example, say we are talking about meditation, So we would and on the first session we'd talk about all of the wonderful things that might it takes does for you body, soul, mind, everything, and there's plenty of science to be had, so we really dive into kind of Okay, this is why you should care about meditation.

This is what actually happens to your body, and these are the improvements that you will see over time.

It just this is it.

This is physiologically what's going to happen to you if you adopt this practice.

But you don't have to go away for a weekend or two weeks or a silent retreat or nashram.

All those things are beautiful, but most of us don't have the time or energy or money or whatever.

I mean, it's out of reach for a lot of people.

So the second of those sessions would be how do I practically get the benefits of meditation, like in my life right now.

So we might do a body scan.

Body scans are great to kind of relax and peacefully help you ease into sleep and avoids that sleep latency that a lot of people have.

You can meditate while you're walking.

Mindfulness is a form of meditation.

You can sit outside in the sunshine in the morning with your morning coffee or tea rather than being inside, and that wakes up your whole system and it's a meditation with nature.

So you can do these in very small pieces and still get all of the benefits over time.

So that's part of the education that toolbox at integration, and some people say meditation is definitely one of my tools.

I'm going to use that.

And we do the same with you know, sound healing and yoga and all kinds of varieties of tools that are available to people that you don't have to spend a lot of money or a lot of time.

It's just consistency.

You want to keep on that path, that beautiful path that you experienced when you came back to your present self after you know, an experience with psilocybin, and like you were saying right that all the increased focus and the determination, the creativity, and we want you to stay there.

So you don't need to take a big dose of mushrooms every other week, because that's not necessary and it's a little bit interruptive of your life.

But if you integrate these tools, you will keep all of those benefits going and you'll be able to shed the bad habits that got you to the stock place to begin with.

You know, what you're seeing is what I say from us from the other side.

I say to people that if you really want to get into ship, you one of the best things to do is to do psychedelics as part of your journey, because what it is going to do is that it's going to show you the areas of your life that you're self sabotaging, and by default, to get into ship, you're going to have to change one your mindset to your habits as three year beliefs about yourself.

So well, on your side now you're saying, well, you can consider doing fitness to help reinforce the new neurons and the new neural paths that you're building.

And on my set, I'm saying that you can actually aid your development, consistency and habit creation by doing psychedelics, which now will help foster a lot of the burst.

Do that like mental gap or mental blockage that you have that stops you, that makes you start a stop or makes you keep eating cheetos or Mike self sabotage and you know what I mean, just find procrastinate and not do it.

You know.

So it really for me seems like if we are saying the exact same thing, but from different sides of the fence, and there's this real intersection that in reality is the same thing.

But you like chocolate ice cream.

I like vanilla ice cream.

But we both like ice cream.

So this is really what it seems like to me.

You know.

It's if you put.

It's absolutely synergistic and all the parts need to be chugging right, all of it, everything where you get benefit from one side.

You know, I started working out again.

I'm feeling physically a lot better, you know what.

I'm feel mentally quite a bit better, maya.

But if I'm stuck on the couch with the Cheetos, I got to unblock my mind before I can get to that place where my body's engaged with all of these beautiful changes.

And in fact, the research is relatively young, but there's been some really encouraging research about flow states, so athletic flow and recovery and psilocybin and longevity.

So there are things that these mushrooms do that we probably haven't teased apart entirely.

So I always say those three big things because those are the big things, But there's all sorts of other things going on with the mushrooms their nature, right, and they connect everything.

The trees talk to each other through the myceelial network of mushrooms, their magical little beast, and they really support the gut brain access.

As an athlete, I'm sure you're aware of all what's going on in your gut microbiome.

Most of your serotonin is made there, most of your immune system is there, and most of the talk, the constant chalk between your brain and your gut, most of it comes from your gut, all of those bacteria, all the friendly bacteria, right.

So the mushrooms, the fibrous parts of the mushrooms, really support that whole network of gut microbiota that keep our whole systems running.

So yeah, it's a really complex kind of thing, and physical and mental have to work in harmony.

And they can't with these these practices.

Absolutely absolutely, So your ceremony flow includes fasting, intentions set in and musical unification.

How do these ritual elements support the sacred Stillo cyber experience.

So, as I was mentioning before, we try to help people prepare for the experience.

So the fast we do, it's not like the Eta with the Ayahuaska, so it's not quite that strict, and we we don't wish to completely disrupt people's lives.

What we want them to do is to make better choices.

Try to honor yourself in this particular ceremony.

Now again I'm talking macro dos, but we encourage us for doing micro dosing as well, to eat better, to you know, ditch the cheeto, to try not to drink as much, even small increments where you you know, if you need to.

If you're so entrenched in your habits and you're having a real struggle getting rid of them all in a short period of time, set goals on how you can kind of clean your system and prepare your mind to have this experience.

Because we don't want you to be a light nuclear.

We want you to dive deep and really have a beautiful, amazing, potentially life shifting experience.

And we see this all the time.

It happens all the time.

It's not theory.

So we really drink more water, sleep more.

Here are some herbs that can help you with sleep.

Eat better, try to you know, if you're a microwave dinner kind of eater, Okay, how about you promise yourself to eat an apple every day and maybe something green.

I mean, you know, take it in small steps to start to shift toward that person you know, who you want to be.

So you also get a full medical intake.

We get people.

This is the book for preparation and journey and integration.

It's a beautiful book that people can kind of track their own journey.

Journaling is definitely one of the integration tools for sure.

And then the experience for a macro here with our church is that we will bring you.

I live outside of Reno about forty minutes, so Leah lives in town.

She'll collect people bring them up to here.

Which the church is my property.

I have about thirteen acres and I've really set it up for a lovely kind of resort.

You know.

We have a big tpe and we do a nice stretching and initial meditation, and there's always some very lovely coming music in the background.

We take our sacri in a tea.

It's a really, really tasty tea, so that usually shocks people, like this is delicious.

I want to take more of his home, right, so it goes down easily, there's no struggle.

And then because I have so much property, we encourage people to lean into the experience that you and the mushrooms have decided you're going to have to day, because it really is like that.

So you can stay in the teepee and very comfortably and put on an eyemask and put in your earbuds, absolutely if that's the way you want to do it, and that's how clinical trials are conducted in that kind of everybody is consistently in that state.

But most of people, honestly, they want out.

They want to go sit in the grass, or swing on the swings, or sit in the hot tub, or wander around the property and talk to the mountains and the horses, you know they or they sit in a swinging chair underneath a tree.

I have a big tree in my yard.

And he told me his name was Arthur.

Arthur's the sitting tree.

Everybody's attracted to Arthur.

You know, people fight over position for being next to Arthur.

He's a great sitter.

So and I have you know, day beds and couches and all kinds of cozy places because typically once you go into a journey, with very few exceptions, it's a very solo experience.

I mean, you're not alone, as you know, right, you're having a very interesting experience, but it's not like a conversation with your neighbor.

So we try to provide as much comfort and as many options as possible.

Our role is to keep you safe and supported, so we'll make sure you have sunscreen, tissues always the tissues, blankets, pillows, whatever you might need.

We're here to aid you to the bathroom if you need assistance, or find your shoes if you've lost them, because that happens, of course pretty frequent.

And after journey time, so typically three to four hours, we'll have a big home cooked meal, we kind of start talking about our experiences.

Everybody's in a beautiful mood.

Some people are more introspective and want to do some journaling, but mostly it's just this beautiful like wow, all that's so cool.

Where do we go from here kind of thing, and that's how we start talking about the importance of integration.

So whether it's an integration circle with us, it's adopting, you know, any of the many, many tools, some of which we already discussed.

We have the great fortune of having a couple of psychedelic societies close by that have lots and lots of integration circles for different sort of cohorts.

So they'll have one for women and one for men, and one for parents, and one for gay lesbian, and one for veterans and one for you know, first responders.

So they they really try to make people as comfortable as possible among the like minded, which I think has a lot of value, especially when you're starting to dig deep into things like trauma, to be able to have someone sitting next to you that knows what you're going through.

And then then you have the broader based integration circles, and then you have the educational stuff like we offer and the other wellness practitioners and their beautiful sound baths and floating energy healing and so it's all out there the idea and I you know, we contact people afterwards, want to make sure they're feeling, well, what have you integrated into your life?

You know, have you found some community?

Because everyone after macro experience, they're bonding.

There's without exception, there is a bonding there already, which really helps toward doing more community experiences or doing things together with a similar goal is to integrate this beautiful experience I had with the psilocybin mushrooms.

Because we have people that have self isolated for a long time, you know, or are newly isolated because they have so much trauma and brand habitual.

It's going to go back if you don't stop it, you don't keep on track with the new stuff and the people that are kind of walking a similar path to you.

So all of these pieces are definitely important.

We work with medical professionals too.

We have wonderful neurologists Todd here in this area.

He sends us probably six or seven patients a month, mostly cognitivity line because there's some really good evidence that psilocybin really helps with that some parkinsonians, some TBIs on traumatic brain injuries.

He had the good fortune of doing i think fellowship at Johns Hopkins, so he's very well aware of all the research around psilocybin and other psychedelics for neurocognitive disorders.

And he's a beautiful human being.

He will kind of lay out, here are your options for treatment.

Sometimes they're not you know, eligible for certain treatments, and for the ones he feels comfortable with recommending psilocybin as an option, he'll just tell them, yeah, well, here is an interesting alternative.

My own father, his father is a pharmacist and uses our microdosing.

My own father uses this.

I know them, I know the quality of the product.

Here's the research.

If you're interested, here you go.

And I made like a little information card for his patients.

He actually puts it in the medical records.

They referred to set a seminary.

I'm like, wow, that's fabulous.

That's fantastic.

So we have these great angels that are really aware of what this medicine can do that you know, our societies are failing to do that, our medical system is failing to do And it's safe, So why wouldn't you try something safe and natural first?

You know, I really really like that you spend a lot of time and effort of thought into the integration.

Because I've been taking medicine for six and a half years now, and I cannot remember if ever, I mean, I did them all with shaman so or maybe that is why.

But I've never had like anyone check up on me to find out what I was doing, or there was nothing afterwards like integration, or you would have integration in the siense of after you do the bufo or the peyote or the ayahuasca, where you would talk and stuff like that, but you're what you do seems to go further than that, where you actually check up on people.

You give them literature to to to read and to take away, and you give them advice on what to do.

So it's like a complete holistic approach to it where it's like, Okay, if you want to come bringing to screen you and this is what we advise you to practice for like nutrition and habits, then you come in, you take it.

Then you would have the integration everything afterwards, because you have the meal and you know, you talk and stuff, and then afterwards then it's like post integration.

And what I have learned in my journey is that the integration period is the absolute most important part of the entire journey because this is really actual change takes place because I have met people that have done a bunch of medicine, but they're still struggling with the same issues that they had prior to the medicine.

And that is because they're not doing the taking action.

Because it's similar to what Napoleon Hill talks about in his book Think and Grow, which he talks about faith in works or work faith something like that, but basically it's talking about taking action.

You think it, you believe it, it's real.

However, you take action and aligned action knowing that the thing is going to happen.

You don't worry about when or how.

You just stay focused on the what and taken action.

And I find that that's really important because you get shown so many things, have such a lovely experience, sometimes breathtaking experience with the medicine, whichever medicine you use, and then you go away and like obviously you're thinking different, feeling different, But a lot of people they just don't make the changes because you can't have a change in your life unless you actually make a change, right, And it's similar to like I think it was Einstein or Nicola Tesla, one of them said that because I have a bit of a brain freeze here that you can't use the same mind of thinking to overcome a problem.

So basically you can't think the same way to overcome the problem that you use the same thinking to create or to get involved in.

You have to use a higher mind a different thing differently, basically, right, and that's what let you do.

That's exactly opens the door.

Correct, it opens the door.

But then I find that it is the fair part of people that they're still hold onto.

That is, like they don't confront and take the action and say, Okay, well I am going to do this differently or do that differently, and that holds them back, which is I think with your integrative integration process, I think that people would have a much better chance of having breakthroughs and change in their life with that, because I mean I've done ceremonies in the jungle and stuff like that, and me personally, Todd, I've had tremendous results because my journey is that I was shown and it was so clear to me that it was like there was no other choice but to change.

So even if even when it tried not to change, things continue to get worse.

So I was like back in the corner and I was like, and the universe was like, all right, Todd, what are you gonna do?

Change?

And I was like, what to do you change?

So maybe the thing is that I would suggest the people to you don't have to take the road I took because it's a hard, hard one.

But if you can do it by yourself or in a ceremony, the things that you're shown are the things that you need to act on and have confidence of faith in yourself that by making those changes you will actually have changing your life.

So you you as briefly you had previously spoken about, you know, psilocybin's advantages over SSRIs and its role in your plasticity.

So can you dive in a little bit into those mechanisms and the differences and the wants between those two.

I can a bit.

So, I mean two years or three years ago, there was a kind of a landmark paper that really dispelled the idea that depression was you know, an issue with serotonin in general, which is interesting and I believe it.

I think there is there's absolutely impact of our various neurotransmitters, but I think we're when we get stuck.

There's something deeper going on, and the role of psilocybin is not just So what what SSRIs do basically is they they it's called the serotonin selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

So when you have your two neurons and then there's a synaptic gap there and one neuron is releasing serotonin, the other one is sucking it up to propagate, so then you have little guys that kind of take up the extra right that you don't need.

So the re uptake inhibitors are just blocking that activity, so you have more serotonin sort of flooding flooding that synapse.

So it's like a dam almost.

It's kind of an unnatural way to approach it.

With a psilocybin, it's an actual agonist, so it's making the serotonin.

You're producing it as you normally would because it kind of is like a lock and key, so it's acting like serotonin.

Solocin, which is the act of metabolite, is actually acting like serotonin, but it's also balancing you know, the other trans mirror transmitters that I mentioned in a natural way.

So this is not a pharmaceutical issue.

And with SSRIs there are all kinds of complication side effects waking, you know, loss of sexual interest, suicidal ideation.

They're black box warnings on some of these SSRIs.

They were never intended to be lifetime medications.

Really, they were intended to sort of as a short term support of someone that's struggling very deeply with depression.

But it takes like two weeks for it to even come on board.

So then although they're both serratinergic and nature, the mushrooms really act from a native perspective, right, It's a plant being that's working with your body to rejigger things, so you know, get yourself unstuck making these neuropathways, and you need to exercise those neuropathways, integration, whatever those tools are for them to stay the ones that are your go to because you've had years probably of going down the do loop of whatever you're tormented by, right, or just the cheeto behavior and those addictive behaviors and that kind of thing.

So psilocybin addresses sort of all of these things at a very very root cause.

SSRIs does none of that.

They really were kind of a pharmaceutical band aid and have been bastardized into these really really long term treatment plans where you have no no therapy.

People are parked on these things for decades, they have all the side effects.

They maybe aren't as depressed as they used to be, but they also don't care about anything else.

So you have this, you know, unwanted side effect of apathy.

Yeah.

I might not be hurting so much anymore, but uh, yeah, I just don't care about anything.

So I'll get that and you know, kind of just go on with my life.

At least I'm not depressed.

But that's you know, that's not a fix.

Psilocybin can open the door to actually you fixing yourself.

You still have to put the work in, just like you were saying, But this really it is a tool for a very lot of people that can really instigate really meaningful, durable shifts.

You just have to participate and make it stick.

There's none of that with an SSR.

There's none of that.

There's no goal like that.

It's so our pharmaceutical system is it's just off in all kinds of ways, especially in the mental health category.

But that's also true with you know, a lot of the medications for any chronic disease.

They're not getting to root cause at all.

They're not fixing the broken thing.

They're just getting rid of symptoms, and then you take another medication to get rid of another side effect there's a symptom of this one.

So you're on, you know, twenty three medications by the time you're fifty.

It's insane.

Natural medicines can actually help get to root cause and helpful practices, the toolbox, the integration will keep you there.

So it's a whole different philosophy, mode of action.

Everything is different, for sure, for sure, And basically is it just confirms what some people know, not because it's not well known to the normies now that pharmaceutical industry is basically built on profit where you are the customer.

And you know, I can't remember if it was ancient role that this happened or it was the Greeks, but they used to pay doctors to not have to go to them.

So the advice used to be in order to keep well, so they would pay sort of like the doctor fee, but the advice from them to not have to see them.

And I think that's probably a better model, you know what I mean than actually what we have now, because their job is to make sure that they don't see you, right, And I guess in terms of it would give them a lot more freedom to explore modalities that are more in tuned with nature, the human body, consciousness, spirituality, sound, healing, all these kind of different tools that are available to us that are simply not explored because the system is exploitative, parasitic and is based solely on profit and not get into the causes.

So why do you use whole mushrooms instead of isolated psilocybin molecules?

And how does that choice affect outcomes and safety?

Oh, there's a brilliant question.

So the reason, and I agree with you wholeheartedly about the medical system, by the way, and I don't think it's the practitioners.

They're not given the tools, they're not given the opportunity.

If you've come through conventional medicine, you are in the pharmaceutical world, natural paths, functional medicine people, other integrative folks, or a little outside that.

So if you can afford to do that, because oftentimes it's not covered by insurance, another big broad those are better people to go to.

They don't want to continue to see you.

They want to fix you or help you fix yourself.

So small molecule versus whole mushroom.

So the reason the research.

Most of the research is done on small molecule is because of the pharmaceutical system and the scientific method really right, So in the scientific method, you want to isolate one thing for one condition and try to extricate any other possible influences to see if the one thing works for the other thing.

Yeah, but there's also the pharmaceutical companies.

If they have a good candidate drug, they want to be able to patent it.

So to patent it, you can't patent a mushroom, that's not how it works.

But you can isolate psilocybin and then put a biomarker on it something that makes it unique, that's not harmful to a human, but makes it slightly unique.

So farmer company can say this is my molecule, and it's my research.

Because research is very expensive, and that's part of, you know, some of the faults that we're so money driven because it's not this way in Europe.

So the research is done on isolated molecules because of those reasons.

Whole mushrooms are what we should be eating, just like whole foods.

So you have other flavonoids, you have a beta glue cans, you have other you know all kinds of components that feed the gut, that feed the gut, brain access, that reduce inflammation, that elevate mood and cognitive ability, and you know all of these pluses that you get out of a whole mushroom or a whole food, an apple rather than apple juice, a whole different beast, really, isn't it.

That's why we use whole mushrooms.

I understand why research is done with single molecule, but that's just going to lead into that pathway, right, that that medicalization pathway, which I don't think is really the proper way.

I think it's using these kind of very powerful mind altering substances.

It needs support, definitely support.

I'm one of the and you may be this way too.

I'm really a solo flyer.

You know.

I'll do a big journey maybe once or twice a year, and I do it.

I'll completely by myself, completely alone, laying out on the grass.

This is just you know, my zene, peaceful place.

But you know, I do the tools, right, I do the work, the other work and the things to kind of keep me, help keep me on track.

Because I don't know if it's true of you, but I would say three four months after a big journey, I'm like an new human being, no troubles in the world.

Everything the move, and it's it's cranking on all gears, all pistons are firing.

But you know, life gets in the way and that kind of get you get bogged down, and these kind of things, and the tools, whatever your tool bag is, helps keep extending that that good place that you're in.

And then you know, the mushrooms.

I know this sounds a little weird, but the mushrooms will tell you when it's time to come visit again.

You know, I can concur conquer wholehearted because I know I'm juwe to both the ciauasca soon.

When it took the mushrooms two and a half weeks ago, three twenty two, I was just it just said okay, hey, Todd, it's time to come and visit me.

And when it took it, it was a very deep trip.

But it was afterwards because I've had several different types of trips where like when they first did ayahuasca, I more had purging, but then things started to open.

It was like in my dreams and stuff, and it was a similar experience I had with the seven point two gram trip.

I did have a little bit of a travel, but it was literally more afterwards and the dreams that I was having afterwards, that was like the main part for me.

And I just feel so more more focused and I just have a more lease in life.

I'm actually working harder.

I'm back putting out more content like by four, and I just have this new figure about myself where like I mean, people may say it is a bit of a cliche.

Maybe it's all in my mind, but maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

What I do know is that every time you do do it, this happens.

And what you're saying is true, is like every time I do the medicine for a couple of months afterwards, I have like a I started like peak and then you gradual come down and life comes in the way, and then you know, you get to a point where it's like, Okay, something doesn't feel right and I need to get that balanced.

So I would go and visit the medicine again.

And definitely, you know a lite people is like you have to just look out of it.

Is like you know, you rest at night for the next day.

The medicine gives your brain like a bit of a rest to reset, and then when it resets, it comes back now with clarity, more vision, and the ideas start coming out the creativity.

You start to see the blind spots you had for and you're like, oh my goodness, why didn't I see that?

So and that's just life get got into the way, and you know you you instead of being stand up straight inly that you crouch a little bit, you're a bit hunched over and figuratively the medicine like puts you back up, sitting up right in your chair and you have your twenty twenty vision the game.

So I do call kurr of what you're seeing.

We had.

Actually, this is a fun little anecdote because I've only heard it from one person ever.

Because we always get the question, how often do I need to do this?

Well, it's it's not really, it doesn't really work that way.

You'll tell me when you're ready again.

But we did have one person that did not journey with us.

She was just a wellness not just but is an active wellness practitioner in this area.

And she said she did one big mushroom journey one time.

It was very you know, mind blowing and expanding and fantastic has nothing but beautiful things to say about it, and then got a very strong message, your journey with the mushrooms is over now and she developed analogy to all mushrooms.

Isn't that crazy?

Crazy?

That's crazy?

Yeah, definitely, Well normally that's not the thing, you know, people, but it is some it's a relationship.

It sounds a little odd, but you definitely, you definitely develop a relationship with these mushrooms.

It's it's they're like a sentient creature.

Funguses are very interesting and they we've evolved along with them.

I'm sure you know kind of the stone ape theory.

But if you listen, you'll hear exactly what you need to hear from this medicine.

Absolutely, and not only that, it just works so that things shift in the background to align you to have the accessibility or the availability or the money to do it or whatever.

It just like aligns and it's like, Okay, now is the time that you need to come back and see me.

In my case, they always speak to me.

Is like a thought.

I just I always tell anybody that listens to my show, I always talk with the voice, and the voice always comes in and it tells me and that's it.

And like now I don't even question the voice.

Literally, if I'm like just to give context, like if I'm in my car and I'm like, go back, you forgot to do this, I don't even question anymore.

I just get out the car, go and do that thing, Come back in the car and move.

I don't know what was the reason.

I just listen.

I've had too many confirmations.

Do know that the voice is always there to protect me and guide me.

And I just do And so far, so good.

You know, touch with you know everything you know is but so the lesson for me is just listen to the voice.

And since I've been doing that, you know, you still have your challenges here and there, but you always feel like you're moving in the right direction.

And that's the whole important thing, because this is a journey that we're on here, all of us, and it's about, you know, getting close and closer to the destination wherever and whatever that looks like.

Oh, so you mentioned never having a bad trip in the church, So what do you attribute that remarkable safety record to.

Well, you can have a difficult journey.

I mean, there's always lots of tears, and they're happy tears and sad tears and release tears.

We've had good fortune that we'd really try very hard to prepare people.

We want to exclude people who are not clearly ready.

So that might be something as straightforward as you know I have.

I've had psychotic breaks and I'm taking lithium and lithium and mushrooms don't get along so well.

So we would recommend you would you know, speak with you know, a therapist, maybe try these modalities, try to win yourself off of lithium.

We work with the Spirit Pharmacist.

I don't know if you know who that is, but it's doctor Ben Malcolm.

He's fantastic.

He was a psychiatric u pharmacist and has really turned all of the psychiatric medications and interactions with things and whatnot.

He is this is his life now.

So Spirit Pharmacist is his website.

He's a fantastic resource.

So if it's a clinical medical problem, will we will put it off.

We'll try to give people information.

We're a nonprofit, so it's not like I want to drive people to come and you know, donate to the church and make me rich, because I believe me that's not the case.

I am rean, I semn.

I invest in my retire about money to make this thing happen because I believed so much in it.

So it's not a profit making institution.

We really want to make sure you're in the right place to be able to get the most of this, and that you're safe, you're physically mentally well well you know most people come struggling with things, but we don't want to make We want to make sure there are no contracts, clear contra indications, and we involve people with the church beforehand, right so they get to meet the people that they're going to journey with.

We help them with the integration and explain things and sometimes explain things to their moms or their kids or the whatnot.

We try also to focus on the concept of allowing, so even when you're preparing yourself in your intention setting, basically kind of getting your brain into the neighborhood of this is kind of what I would like to address.

You have to allow the process to unfold as the process will unfold, and try that you're going to get what you need out of that, even if it's slightly different than you thought.

So for one example, We had a woman that came to us really quite right.

You know a lot of people that have no experience at all, they're a little nervous.

Of course, this is you know, it would be weird if you weren't a little bit nervous, right, because you're going to go into this altered state.

And her intention was really around addictive habitual type somewhat destructive behaviors, you know, too much drinking, she was very overweight, all those things.

Trying to understand, Okay, how do I control this now?

I would like to improve my health.

What she came out of her experience with was she mourned her father for the first time and had this communion that he was a horseman and I have we have horses here in the valley, and she really kind of connected with her father quite literally through the horses and became a different human being in a day.

She you know, really adjusted her eating without effort, you know, cut way back on the alcohol, really reconnected back with her own children, where she had been so stressed out at work.

You know, she's drinking a half a bottle of tequila and just passing out on the couch.

She was going without instruction, you know, we didn't give her instructions.

Here's what you must do, just you know the check ins.

Oh yeah, I've been walking around the lake with my daughter every night since then.

So the the concept of you know, if you're not clearly ready, you shouldn't do it, not yet, maybe later, maybe when things change.

You want to be open to it.

You need to allow what happens to happen.

There's nothing more scary inside of you than you're already facing.

Actually, you're just going to have a spotlight on it.

You're going to be able to see things more clearly, and we'll be there.

We're going to be there to support you.

If you're like me and leave me the hell alone, don't come near me while I'm on my journey.

We'll do that.

We'll make sure you're comfortable.

If you need to be touched, held, talked to, we'll be there for that.

This is your journey, this is your time.

It's going to be beautiful.

You'll be fine.

So that doesn't mean there aren't tears.

But we've never had psychotic break I mean we've tried real hard to screen that out.

The people that have the potential for that, we've not had a unbalanced experience.

When these bad trips happen, often they are in you know, a festival or an event completely uncontrolled with mixed substances.

Company that may or may not be journeying.

It's just not a relaxed place.

Here is a very relaxed place.

This is what you come to do.

Here, You're just gonna sit with the mushrooms.

There's nothing else going on.

It's just it's your time.

So I think it has a lot to do with very careful preparation and supported intention setting and just you know, being there for the person as the person presents and not trying to force our methods on them.

Okay, that's really good because I think, as we say in Barbados, prevention is better than cures.

So I think the screening probably adds a very high degree of reduction.

Because like, as a civil engineer, we call it risk mitigation, so you're you do like a risk assessment and based on the level of risk to take certain as to mitigate risk.

But that's a word we hear a lot in civil engineering risk and mitigation, so that's really good to hear.

So tell us about your supplements, sourcing, testing and importancy protocols that seed pharmaceutical standards.

Yes, well they are the standard of professional nutritional supplements, which is our background, so they're not quite pharmaceutical standards, meaning the quality process is the same, but for pharmaceuticals they require a high level of clinical trial work.

That's not the case with nutritional supplements.

They are required to abide by good manufacturing practices and testing guidelines and whatnot, but they don't go through the clinical trial kind of process that a pharmaceutical would.

So that is a different aspect.

But we because we came from this industry, we both worked in it, we know exactly where to source for high quality.

So first maybe I should tell you a little bit about this.

The way we do our micro is a little bit different, actually probably a lot different than most people.

So this jar has the psilocybin.

We use a blend of Golden Teacher and Hillbillies for the folks listening in that might not be aware of those two.

They're very gentle and heart opening and happy.

Hillbillies are my faith, they put.

So that's part also actually of no bad trick, right.

So there are things like penis en b and Jedi mind fuck and real intensive mushrooms strains that they're still psilocybin, but they just have a different characteristic.

They're harder, they come on like a hammer.

These more are very gent and uplifting, so they put people generally in a very light, enlightened life.

So we use that blend.

We have them grown in California to our standards, so we have them.

A lot of people that grow mushrooms for mass conception they use plastic, and we don't want our mushrooms grown in plastic.

They can leach chemicals that we have no interest in being in our products.

So everything is grown in inert glass like pharmaceuticals.

That's the cleanest way to do it, and all of the other components are at very high grade manufacturers that do this for supplement manufacturing.

So the way we have the pairing set up two hundred milligrams of psilocybin containing mushrooms that you take on a protocol because microdos and you always do protocol.

The two hundred milligrams for folks who might not know, is kind of midline of microdosing.

So some people who want very very low they have very high metabolic efficiency, they'll stick to around fifty to one hundred milligrams.

Other people need almost five hundred milligrams to still get in you know, the benefits, and they're not having any psychedelic effects, so we kind of hit midline for that we get.

Those are grown in California in glass.

They are tested in Oregon for everything psilocybin, silosin, because you'll have some conversion from psilocybin to solosin just over time.

So we want to make sure our mushrooms are fresh, that they've been handled and stored properly.

We test for heavy metals, any kind of other unwanted boogers, you know, any kind of fungus that that can easily grow with mushrooms.

We don't want those, athletoxins and various other things.

So these are very well tested.

They're really clean.

The dosage is the same, they're consistent.

The way we do the microdosing in pairings is based on how Leah, my naturopathic partner, was helping her patients initially.

So if you're looking to you know, break out of mood or depression or anxiety, that's a different goal than trying to break out a brain fog and cognitive decline versus trying to address and release strama, trauma.

So we have three different pairings.

This one is called intros fiction, So this one is the pairing for folks that really want to do some deep soul searching.

It's great for trauma processing.

And this here is a supplement that you take every single day.

These are organically grown botanicals and functional mushrooms, so not mushrooms that contain psilocybin.

But each component has scientific evidence to show that it supports things like trauma release and in this case some relaxation, relaxation of tension and anxiety, and they are combined in a synergistic format to help whoever's goal is introspection to balance the psilocybin.

So we have two others.

One called Calm, same two hundred millar grounds of psilocybin, but your daily supplement is a combination more of adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms, so you're helping address stress, anxiety, sleeplessness.

So that come pairing really helps reset the nervous system stress point and let you relax and kind of improve with help being stressed out.

Again, these are all evidence based botanicals and functional mushrooms.

And the third one is called focus so as you might imagine, that is more for folks that are looking for cognitive benefits from the microdosing, and those are more nootropic plants and mushrooms that have been shown to help increase memory, recall, learning capability, focus, and productivity.

So our pairings are really targeted towards what people are trying to do with the microdosing.

Very very interesting.

So guys, we can take an extremely short break here just to see if this conversation is challenging your assumptions or lighting something in you.

Pause and hit shit less, open minds and heal into your circle.

Also, please follow us on Instagram at Adrena Underscore two four six or at the conscious Man seven podcasts and look in the show notes for all of Palm's links and your invitation to join the ongoing healing conversation.

So you classify doses as micro, moderate, and full, how do you guide people through those categories and what does each a lot psychologically?

Yes, so the microdosing is non psychedelic experience, So if you're microdosing, you should be able to work function as well or better than you would without the microdosing.

It's doing all of those mechanisms that we talked about early on kind of in the background.

It whispers.

So as we discussed earlier, the microdosing is typically between fifty five zero and five hundred milligrams per dose per day on a pulsing time type of protocol.

You don't want to take it every single day because you don't want to build up tolerance.

You want it to keep working.

You also want time to integrate the shifts and the changes and the growth and the balances in your brain.

So I would say, as I mentioned, we kind of targeted midline between fifty and five hundred and settled on two hundred milligrounds of psilocybin for our microdose.

I'd say ninety to ninety five percent of people do really well on two hundred.

It's perfect.

They're not having any unusual side effects, they're not feeling in any way odd.

It's just helping them over time.

It's actually usually more energizing, usually sleep better, so that there are subtle shifts, but no psychedelic experience, so no altered state of mind.

For the folks that want a little bit more, we can provide additional capsules because two would be four hundred.

There are very few people that will do four hundred on a regular the microdose protocol, but a few do.

And then there are a few that prefer a lower dose and they just open the capsule and put half capsule into t and that's how they do their microdose.

But our systems, this manufactured kit is with two hundred milligrams, so that's microdosing.

Anything above five hundred usually has some psychedelic effect.

The kind of tend to bucket them in two different ways, more non experiential, so microdosing I don't have the psychedelic experience, and then experiential.

So the kind of gray zone I would say is between five hundred and fifteen hundred, so half a gram to one point five grams.

Now, some people will have a psychedelic experience or they will feel altered at that, but it's usually in that nowhere land, right if I took a gram, maybe if you took a gram, todd, yeah, maybe I feel a little bit off.

Maybe I feel like I just had half a glass of wine or something.

You know, there's something there.

But some people are very fast metabolizers or whatever else is going on in their physiology, they'll have a full on journey with a gram and a half.

Not not only it has to do with your physiology, but also your preparation.

You know, if you've been meditating it, you already have access to sort of these higher levels of self or insights that maybe the average person doesn't have.

You don't need much of a push, but macro journeys are typically two grams or more.

The way we for when we do macro journeys, we we try to optimize the dose for the person.

But again, you know, it's not based on weight.

So what we what we optimize for is experience.

So have you had these experiences before?

What doses have you taken?

And what was your experience with that?

You know, I mean what kind of psychedelic experience.

Did you have any medications that might be on board?

You know, preferably people aren't taking a psychiatric medicine, especially in ss on RI, because you can have blunting response.

So we really do encourage people if they'll let people want to get off their SSRI.

I'm hoping maybe mushrooms could help them, So we'll try to work with them and their provider maybe to taper down a little bit, but they may need a little bit more of the mushrooms to get to a psychedelic place where they can do the work that they want to do.

And then you know other general health concerns.

We're really cautious around cardiac disease.

You know, we will often not allow people to do a heavy macro if they have a history of cardiac events.

There is some literature that show that that can be a risk.

Safety is our primary concern.

And then you have some folks that are like you, seven and a half grams, no problem, I could do ten.

Well, that's not that many people, but we will try to adjust within reason that you will have a fully supported and a fully full experience.

That's what you're coming for.

On average, most of our small group macro small group is we take up to six people with three facilitators typically, so people are very well tended to.

On average, we go at about three grams, so that is for most people ninety five percent plus.

In our experience, you have a psychedelical event.

For sure, you're not off on the planet uranus.

You know, you're not sort of drooling on the grass or something like that.

But you're definitely having an altered experience, and it's emotional and cathartic and really enlightening at around the three gram mark.

If an individual doesn't seem to be getting to a place where we think they should be, meaning on a scale of one to ten, how are you feeling as far as you know alteration on altered state?

If you're not at about three or four and a half an hour, we'll offer a little bit of a booster, like a half a gram to try to push it along.

You only have about a window to kind of boost people up, but it is our intention that you have the experience that you'd like to have.

Although you have this, you know, five percent or so of that hang on, Nope, it's not doing anything for me.

Okay, So you know, try to kind of get them into to go inside because you're fighting, you're not letting it open, and they're already altered.

They say they're not altered, but you can see in their eyes that they're definitely physiologically effective.

And those are the people that integration helps a lot with because they notice the changes over time and are more willing to accept that oh yeah, I mean it has done something to me.

I just I wish I had the colors or something.

So sometimes you have that around three grounds.

Then we will do individual macro journeys.

So if you wanted to go on not a hero's doll, So hero's dose is more around the ten grams that you're talking about, and most people that's really you're on your raine.

You know, you're not talking really very much, You're not of anything around you other than what's going on inside your own skull and the spirit.

So we will typically do for people who want to do a more aggressive macro will dose that typically between five and seven grams and offer a little bit of booster.

But usually for most people five to seven grands.

You're going on a hefty journey.

I mean you can still sort of speak your name and talk and recognize things, but there's usually a big hallucinatory component and you're going on a journey ride.

You're going on a ride.

And we do this only one person at a time, and there's at least two facilitators because again safety is primary, and you know, if you're going to have a difficult journey, we want to make sure there's enough support, whether it be medical support, just emotional support.

There are chirp tricks and tools and techniques to kind of shape people out if they get into a kind of a weird place.

And oftentimes they're very simple things like moving, just moving yourself from one place to another.

And if it's a big guy, you know, having two people is certainly anti to help them move out of their stock.

It's quite a literal, physical, mental kind of connection.

So micro for us is two hundred milligrams, small group macro ceremony is about three grams, and then if you want to do an individual higher journey, that's more in the sixth gram uh scale.

Okay, I definitely every shaman, every facilitated, they're always shocked that I can take so much medicine.

I am one of the anomalies that they all see and they all shot that my body can take you.

I don't know why, but it's just that way.

Like five cups at ayahuasca.

Like the last time I did it, Shamo was like talk man, like you you're a strong guy.

This is I wish I didn't have to take so much.

You get you want, you know where you want to go, and you know you take the amount that you need.

But that is I mean, I'll take seven grants, but I'm that I'm down.

That's why I like I was comfortable.

I was comfortable at seven point two comfortable.

Wow, So I'm actually gonna use a different strain and the Albino strain because I used the Golden Teachers.

Yeah there, Yeah, so I'm going to use the Albina.

Although I did take seven of the albino and it only lasted half an hour.

The actual things.

Yeah.

Even even my guy that I worked with, he was like, Todd, something's wrong with you.

It's a dude, I don't know.

It's just my physique, right, Like, I just have this metable.

It just is strong.

That's the only way I can think.

But once when I'm gone, I'm gone.

I get a lot of clarity after come back, and things make a lot of sense.

I do get that, even if I don't have the experience.

But I do like to visit, to visit other places because you know, it actually feels kind of like it almost makes me feel like I'm in a dream, and it's similar to when you're actually sleeping.

Because now my dreams are like I know I'm dreaming, I know I'm in my bed, but I'm someplace else.

So this is the place where I'm at knowing my journey where when I dream.

Now I know it's a dream, and I know I'm coming back and when I take the medicine, now, whichever one it is, I like to get back to that place because it very much feels like home, right, And it's not like a nostalgic to stuff.

But I do get this real knowing that this is where I belong, this is where I should be, And you know, this is why it works so hard to have conversations like this and what great content, because like, this is what I came here to do.

Right, So I really really love the medicine.

And I only say the medicine maybe twice a year, really, right, Yeah.

That makes sense, complete sense to me.

You know.

The other thing that kind of popped up in my head is that you're I saw a picture of you, so I know your rock solid muscle dude.

But the psilocybin and the breakdown saloc they're both very hydrophilic, right, They love water, They're fat soluble mostly, so maybe it just takes a while to build up in your system because you're so muscle bound.

Possibly, I mean it might be a physiological thing given your build have you did you do these kinds of medicines prior to your physical metamorphosis.

No, that would have been that have been interesting to you know, know if you had a whole different experience with a different physique.

I'm sure it has something to do with it.

But those are pretty heavy doses, and I can tell I know it's not the white knucklers that are yes.

But I do want to go, but no, I don't.

I don't want to see you know, I know that's not the case for you.

You know what is funny, no, you think about it.

In every single ceremony, there was no one that had the physique like me, no one, And typically talking to people, their experiences are that they don't have people in harmonies that have my physique.

So I don't know.

If it's because people that tend to be very much into fitness and stuff don't really embrace so much on the physical side, I don't know.

But what I do know is that I've done more ceremonies and it can count on my hands and feet, and I've never had anyone ever that was even close to my physique.

So I think it has to do with my physique because you know, I'm pure muscle, right, So you know, if anyone that's listening to this show that has done medicine and has a physical like me, send me a DM and I'd be interested to have a conversation to see if you've had a similar experience with me, or maybe I'm just the neo and the matrix where I just need that.

But you know, it's an interesting, interesting and really if you hear from people, I'd be super fascinated.

Yeah, I'm sure what they say me if anyone reaches out to me, and I'll let you know what they say, because it's just that that's the way from the For the first time I took medicine, I rememberhen I did.

I was the first time I had two cups and I was like, this was like nothing to me, you know, but I hear you want to hear something that's very the irony.

Ye.

I have a very, very very low tolerance for alcohol, extremely low.

Yeah, So that's one of the reasons why I hardly hardly drink because it doesn't really agree with my body.

Now I will have a glass of wine here and there, but honestly, the last time I had any sort of alcohol was like eight weeks ago, right, and that was one shot of tequila.

And that was it.

So I mostly enzymes with alcohol, so it's it's it's enzymes in your liver and and some folks genetically, like I'm Irish, I unfortunately have a very high tolerance for alcohol.

And it really kind of is a thing that's passed down genetically.

I mean, the indigenous peoples don't have this enzyme that breaks down alcoholic causes them all kinds of problems.

So that's more I think enzymatic.

But you know, our liver enzymes also break down psilocybin, so you but there are a different set of enzymes.

So it could be that it could be your build who knows, but that you can tolerate a Look, that's a lot.

That's a lot, for sure, for sure.

So you've shared some powerful stories of members having hiden trauma or addiction and stuff.

So what's one story that continues to shape your mission?

Oh, you know what my favorite favorite one is.

So we have lots of beautiful, lovely stories with microdoc micro doos whispers again, so you see these great sort of improvements over time and people really do shift into this more beautiful form of themselves.

But one of my favorite stories is a woman that was in her early fifties.

She was terrified to try this, but had been through a lifetime of sexual abuse through her childhood into adulthood by a family member that nobody admitted to, and apparently it was you know, sort of the known but unspoken, you know, family secret, and she was torn by you know, but I thought I loved him, and this person has been abusing me this all of this time.

And she had developed this beautiful mask of a very outgoing kind of the you know, fun loving kind of the comic of the family, was drinking an enormous amount of alcohol every day her she had broken relationships with her own children, but really wore this mask, you know, of the friendly person and had it all together in a fun, loving human being.

And she came just wanting to make some peace with her past, you know that was still clearly tormenting her again.

She was terrified, but you know, we did the thing that we do with the preparation and the support, and you know, this is going to be fine.

And she was one that it was alone.

So she was on a higher dough.

She was maybe five or six grams and she sat under Arthur my sitting tree the whole time.

Not only did she not fall apart like she thought she would, but she almost didn't move tears streaming down her face with a big smile at the same time.

Right, And you know, as she's starting to come away from this experience, she looks at the two of us and says, who am I now without this burden?

Look them home.

Holy shit, that's what we're looking for.

And within two months she quit drinking all together.

She called out her abuser and everyone else that knew it or she suspected did, and just kind of swept it under the carpet.

Her two teenage sons came back to the house to live with her, and she got a job after being unemployed for almost two years within two months of this one excep wow yeah, wow wow.

So she did microdosing probably for another six months after that and really just started shifting into those healthy patterns, working those tools.

And I actually haven't talked to her in several weeks, but we keep in touch because we're really interested.

And you know, how are you doing?

Uh, you know, things going well?

And you should come by and come to one of the classes or whatever, because don't forget that you still have community here.

You know, but that was one of the wow.

Wow that that is an amazing story.

And you know, there are a lot of people that have very big, preconceived ideas about the medicine.

And this is one of the reasons why I love to have these conversations on my platform because I think that almost every person that listens to my shore as a friend or family member that is completely misinformed about the power and the transformation and change that can take place in someone's life when they get accessed to in medicine under the right circumstances.

So anyone that's listening to this show here, that has any friends of family that is on defense, send them this show because what part am it sharing with us here is very very enlightening, and that story will touch, move and inspire anyone because you know, there are other people that have similar stories with that deep level of trauma that need to hear this conversation.

So, given early research suggesting psilocybin's potential against newer degenerative illness and endocrime stabilization, what excites you most about these horizons?

I will have your questions.

I love your questions.

Yeah, so we talked touched on just a little bit, but there I would say in the last ten years, we have some very compelling research clinical research.

This is done at you know, leading academic institutions on things like Alzheimer's, on multiple sclerosis, on traumatic brain injuries, Parkinson's disease.

These are all chronic neurodegenerative disorders.

And because of the mechanisms of the mushrooms that we talked about, where you're actually growing new neurons, so you're growing new connections, new dendrites, new synapses, you're reducing inflammation, and you know, rebalancing all your neurotransmitters, which is usually what you feel first, and I'll explain that in a second.

You're actually getting to the root cause of some of these problems.

It's not you know, it's not like psilocybin eats up all the towel proteins or other plaques that build up in your brain.

But what, as I understand it, what you're able to do is kind of get out of those those trapped neurons, those sort of encased plaques in your brain and use different aspects of your brain and the new brain that you're growing, so you can use yourself to repair and renew your cognitive ability.

So we have again, you know, we work with this particular neurologist that's you know, a sign from God, the universe or whatever that he happens to be here in this area and has the training he has.

And as we have probably fifty people that have come from him that use microdosing that have various types of cognitive neurocognitive disorders.

That's majority are more Alzheimer's type, but he's he's been sending more Parkinson's this way, and we had this is quite the story too, Todd.

So he sent one guy, this poor man, I would say, mid forties, healthy guy.

He somehow was doing some repair work or something and fell down some concrete steps, severed at C three, became a quadriplegic.

Like oh, you know, in a moment, I so feel for him.

And this particular doctor said, hey, you know, I have this patient blah blah blah.

He's right now.

He's just trying to calm down his nervous system.

He's on paid medications and whatnot.

But I don't really have anything to treat him.

And I've read some interesting early work with TBI, and I told him if he was interested, he should contact you, and he did.

He has been microdosing for probably six months.

But that the really cool part of this story is that so I think it was maybe three or four weeks after his injury that he started.

He wasn't he had really no movement and uh within certainly.

But so this is a two month supply and I think maybe in three or four weeks he was able to move his feet, he was able to move his feet.

It's so excited.

Well, I get so excited.

I stand on a trampoline, but at my desk, so you know, the dog was like, I yeah, there's I mean, I guess it could have happened spontaneously, but this is the only explanation.

That I have, right well, so, I mean I never even knew that that was something that came alone from the psilosipment as well, because I've done some reading on it.

But that particular thing is quite interesting because if you think about where they're trying to steer humanity now, with like things like you'll relaying and certain shipping brain and stuff, it may be possible, under the right sort of maybe intentions or setting or guidance or even dosage, to have that new Because I mean to be fair, the mushrooms do create new neurons and neural pathways, which are what the brain needs in order to the function for the body and stuff.

Is like the network that the body taps into functions.

So in theory, I guess, and a theoretical scenario, you could have regenitive pathways for movement of limbs and stuff.

So yeah, that's very exciting that, you know.

I mean, the frontier is for researches is like fast where just a natural plant can have an effect like that.

So that's a really really cool story.

Isn't it.

It really is well so, but most of his patients are more on the cognitive decline kind of pathway and what we see.

So in our experience, we've been operating INN operation for just over a years, so we're quite new still.

But the patients that come from the physician with cognitive decline stay on the microdosing protocol.

On average, people will use our protocol for maybe six months and maybe they take a break, or maybe they want to explore macro, or maybe they'll come back to it and try a different one, you know, So it's kind of a little bit all over the place.

About six months is kind of the program and then something shifts from what I've seen so far, But the cognitive people stay on it.

And the first thing we always hear is that the moo food in the household has been enhanced dramatically.

The stress, the anxiety, I mean, because when you're losing your cognitive faculties, it's very stressful.

So that's the first kind of thing that that action of rebalancing transmitters really calms down, sort of that anxious, tense, angry affect of somebody that's struggling with cognitive decline, and that impacts whole house.

So what I typically will recommend for folks that are trying this modality, and this is true not just for those patients, but anybody that's trying microdosing is to journal.

So I can recommend a journal specific to microdosing.

But you don't have to do anything that elaborate unless you like to do that, and that's part of your toolbox.

Just keep a little notepath, so you keep a little notepad wife of Sam, and you and Sam start taking uh, maybe keeping track of Sam needs to do these three things today and he only needed a reminder seven times, and then maybe in a week he only needs two reminders.

So you can see the progress.

Because you know, when you're right on top of someone and things are changing softly and slowly, sometimes it's hard to really pick up on those shifts.

But they will see it if they do see it, if they kind of take the effort to track it.

But they always see it in the disposition, the changed environment of the household.

So that alone keeps them on the program.

Wow, very very interesting.

And this is something that I tell my clients as well, like when they're working with me, is that may observe like if it takes you, say, for example, if you want to know if you're improving a level, and if your goal is to say, meditate three days in the week and you do too, okay, good, that's a win because you're doing zero before after a couple of weeks.

Then so if you can get the three, if you can to chain, that's a win.

Celebrate that.

So that shows that you're improving.

So you can keep records on that as well.

So that's very in line with a white coach as well.

Yeah, so we spoke in the beginning about some of the challenges you had so operating legally under religious freedom at is groundbreaking.

Now, what were the biggest legal and cultural challenges you've faced?

Established set US seminary.

It was surprisingly easy and complex at the same time.

So there's actually a bar association attorneys that specialize in this.

So the RFRA type protection, what the limitations are, what the risks are.

So I did a lot of heavy risk assessment initially, and to all the attorneys that I spoke to, you know, assured me, yes that this is considered protected use under that federal legislation.

Some states can be a little bit more hard ass so to speak, and could give you a hard time potentially, but we are a country that is very much respectful of religious freedom and that's what the legislation was put into place for for indigenous peoples that have been using these medicines for literally thousands and thousands of years.

So they wouldn't be harassed because you know, different leadership, you know, you'd have crackdowns on these people that we're using ayahuasca and in ceremony, that kind of thing.

So I had a pretty good understanding of what my risks would be.

You know, Nevada could crack down on me, I suppose if they wanted to but they are one of the very very many states at are working toward not quite legalization, but decriminalization and having these medicines available for research use, and so there's much more open mindedness.

Now.

I knew that I had to be very buttoned up, like take this very seriously.

Again, I'm not selling drugs.

We are offering a route of wellness that can be extremely powerful, and we're doing it in the safest, most supported method possible.

So if you want to put me in jail for that, I will go to jail for that.

I feel strongly that it makes a huge difference in people's lives.

You know.

The one thing that I do that's probably the biggest risk is that I will ship these boxes.

I ship them by private carrier.

But if you're a member of my church and you want to use non psychedelic microdosing to help you for your wellness goals, I'm going to get it to you.

So you know, potentially you're shipping across state lines.

Could be a problem, but it's my problem.

So again I'm willing to take that risk.

Actually creating the church itself was an exercise and paperwork and attorneys fece you could do.

You can do this.

You know, we have the right as Americans to do this.

So I have a five on one three C.

I am a federally recognized That was just time, money, and you know, advice really more than anything.

Yes, there are some risks.

I think we're in a really positive place in the country to look at the broken aspects of our conventional medical system, the power and root cause kind of real cure shifts that we can get from natural medicines.

And if you offer this in a very responsible way, I just can't imagine that I would be persecuted or crucified for doing it.

But if you want to do that, okay, all right, we'll just elevate it.

Maybe we speed up the process of decriminalization.

There have been some because there are other churches.

I don't know all the details, were the only one that I know of in Nevada.

But there are people that operate with ayahuasca here in Nevada and in California.

For sure.

They don't go perhaps as far as building the legal structure.

They rely more on the indigenous shamanistic kind of approach.

Are we kind of considered that, But honestly, I believe that mushrooms are here for everybody, and you don't necessarily need a big, structured type of ceremony.

You just need some support and the ability to be able to engage with these medicines as you feel called to do.

So, you know, going a more formal shamanistic route was not really something that I was interested in doing.

So the church the way we have it structured being this more naturopathic root cause kind of mind body spirit unification, unification with the spiritual intelligence.

However you perceive that, and you can come with your own established religious convictions, that's perfectly fine.

You can come as an atheist.

But again, if you are taking you're really having an experience with mushrooms and don't believe there's something beyond this, that baffles me, But that's okay.

If you get a benefit out of it, that's okay.

If you're just getting physical benefit and the ability to break ties with destructive, addictive behaviors, that's enough.

So it was really just a process, and then of course sourcing of all of the materials and finding the right people to test with, and the blessing of this manufacturing support that I have that is ultimately it's the best available.

I mean, it follows all of the good manufacturing practices that the FDA requires, so time, money, research, passion, luck, spiritual guidance, know, a little bit, a little bit of everything, and you know, the uh I think wanting to do it for the right reasons.

You know, I'm not This is a funny thing, Todd.

Sometimes I call myself a misanthrope.

Right, I'm not a very I'm very introverted.

I'm not a real big social person.

Hence, you know, I do my journeys alone.

But this is quite social type of work, right, And people come with some hesitance, and you have to.

It's a very high touch kind of operation.

And people who know me are like, wow, that's just a real weird choice for you.

I said, well, yeah, kind of, except that, you know, if people really embrace this, they're much nicer people.

I tend to like them a lot, right, They're happier in their own skin.

They're just they're you know, more connected to the world, in the universe and that things beyond it, and just better people.

This is a great thing.

So yeah, I can.

I can do social format.

So how do you navigate skepticism from conventional medicine and spirituality communities?

As a church choosing psychedelics, so.

I don't try to you know, I will share scientific information with the medical community, and there are some conventional practitioners clearly that are very open to that.

I typically we typically kind of educate about this topic in integrative medical conferences.

So this is something I have a history and my partner does as well.

We're actually talking at the Integrative Mental Medicine Integrative Medicine for Mental Health conference in two weeks less than two weeks in San Diego.

You know, we talk a lot about these medicines at the Naturopathic Physicians conference and some other functional medicine conferences, and as well as wellness practitioners.

These people are typically more open to it, may already have a foundational understanding how these things work.

And telling them or at least kind of giving them one option for safe and supported access to this kind of medicine if their patients are asking for it, if they believe it would be helpful, is a useful tool.

But I never absolutely never force anything on anyone we had.

You know, there's a lot of religious type of practices that as we were talking about before, No, it's only this way.

We only do things that you can only do things this way, and drugs are bad and you know all the things.

Well, that's you know, I'm not here to convert anybody.

But on the other hand, about a year ago, I had a young pastor, Christian pastor here in Reno that you know, had a had been kind of in the ministry since really since teen years, and had a bit of a crisis of faith maybe in his late twenties, early thirties, and did a journey and he says, I saw the face of God.

I think, you know, I would love to integrate this into Christian followers because he still holds a Christian faith that are open to it.

It's not going to be for everybody.

Again, we're not here to convert anyone, for sure.

The information is there.

You can take what you wish or just ignore me completely.

Okay, that's fine.

That is fascinating that a religious person would integrate psychedelics into I guess his ministry for people that are seeking.

I mean, I guess.

This is my personal opinion.

I could be wrong, and I'm happy to be wrong.

I think if that happens on a bigger scale, I think religion the way it is now will ultimately die the way it is now, and it would go back to probably how it was in the beginning of spirituality, the church being just a place where people come together to share energy, healing, real key, help people take remove fears and traumas, counseling, all that kind of stuff.

So I am I'm very intrigued to hear how that progresses with him, because anyone that listens to my show and my views on religion, I think it's the biggest scam that's ever been given, biggest scam and con that's been given to humanity.

But I mean being open minded to even suggest that shows me that there is probably a shift going on that we may not be able to see, maybe even if it's just on a very very small level.

But as we know, when anyone gets introduced in medicine, they tell other people, and other people get involved and then they start to have their own shifts, and this is how we make a change in the world.

So I'd be very interested to hear a few years what what what that looks like.

I think that'd be quite interesting.

Yeah, So we've talked about having a Christian ceremony, so he would be the lead facilitator we would support him because neither my partner or I are well, we're not friendly with religious practices, maybe like you, but I honor if this, you know, if this gives you peace and strength and you're not harming anybody about it, you know, So he would he would lead would be kind of a Jesus maybe experience.

I don't know how it's going to pan out, but I'm really open to it because in his experience he got closer to his God, to God.

To Jesus.

So what are the ethical responsibilities you feel when guiding spiritual scientific healing through altered states.

Yeah, it has all of the things that we talked about, so proper preparation, adequate support, you know, freedom and structure balance so people don't that they feel free to express themselves and explore the things that will come up in journey.

You know.

We we're trained to be facilitators.

We're trained to deal with so called bad trips, but we don't really have them because we try to eliminate that at the beginning.

But I agree with you as earlier you said that integration is the big thing.

Yes, it is, It's absolutely the big thing.

The door and the windows have been opened you cannot unsee what you saw in your journey, but you must stay on that pathway.

Because we're humans, we you know, we tend to go back to old habits.

Our brain wants to go back to old ways of thinking.

So it's really important for us to be able to both offer ourselves directly and through a larger community the types of tools and relationships that will help people stay on that path in that integrative mindset.

Okay, and oh my, set a seminary model, set a seminary's model skill, or inspire broader reform in mental health care or spiritual heating.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be.

We're just one little cog in the wheel.

We're one little tool the big shifts are going to come from, and they're happening now a lot of research.

We have to be cognizant of the unintended consequences of maybe going down a medical model like we talked about before.

We also have to be cognizant of the unintended consequences of maybe making things regimented or safe or consistent, but in the process making the access so expensive that people who really need it and could very much benefit from it will not be able to access it because it's not covered by insurance.

They don't have the disposable income to be able to go on such a journey.

For example, when I was putting the church together, you know, I didn't know how to price any Everything that comes through the church is a donation, but I just had no basis.

I don't know, I hadn't been selling mushrooms in my past, So I looked to Oregon, who at the time was the one state that was fully decriminalized.

And the way they have it structured, it's not a medical model.

It's kind of a supervised type of model that is a legalized model, but through their system.

So the way they set it up is they have they're not clinics because it's not a medical model, but you go to a place like a room maybe has a couch and office of some sort, and then you have a facilitator, not a therapist, but a facilitator or someone that's been trained to you know, identify risks and be able to get someone help if they have it, and maybe you know, have some interactive capacity as you would get with facilitation training.

But there's sharks or pricing structure.

They were charging into my knowledge still are about eight hundred dollars for someone to come to one of these facilities to sit on a microdose microdose, no psychedelic effect, there's no need for this at all and sit there for like three hours.

This is silly to me, and it's insane insanely expensive.

And that's just microdose.

How are you going to do that?

Go three hours like every other day or three days a week or whatever, which would be a typical microdose kind of regimen.

That made no sense.

That's crazy.

So it's just nuts.

And then for you know, a larger scale experience like we offer here for an individual, so higher dose, more upscale kind of more stuff like we have here with the pool and the cold lunge and the different things that the range there was like three thousand to over seven thousand depending on how fancy can forward that.

I mean, that's just makes it inaccessible to people.

So you have these unintended consequences that are stumbling blocks on the pathway to get the medicine to the people.

So when you have you know, conventional docs that really strongly support it to their own potential detriment, right because they can't they can't handle schedule one substances, they can't be seen to dispense them.

That's going to put their license at risk.

That's true therapists too, by the way, not just a medical doctor.

So we need, you know, this ground upswell from people who understand the benefits and a structure where people can act as this medicine either maybe through through insurance.

So there's probably going to have to be some medical access for people.

You know, we get a lot of homeless people and veterans that are taking their lives and these medicines are known to help with drama and a variety of mental health conditions that could potentially be addressed, but they certainly don't have the means to participate themselves, so there'll have to be some kind of supported route.

But then you need, you know, things to be relatively reasonably affordable.

So for this, you know, I told you eight hundred dollars for one sit at one dose one SIT in Oregon.

This is two months worth, and we request a two hundred dollars donation and that helps us with our operations.

It pays for our manufacture.

I mean, it's not all being paid for quite yet, but you know, this just keeps us operational and then for the small groups six people around three grands, but that whole process that I mentioned to you.

We request a five hundred dollars donation, and we are starting to build a scholarship fund to try to help people who really could use this, but that's a little beyond them, so we'll set up payment plans or you know, try to offer scholarships if they want it.

And it's a struggle for the individual one offs that you know, range three to seven thousand dollars or whatever up in the organ's model.

So we request for that twenty five hundred dollars, but that's on a sliding scale, so we try to make it accessible, but also understanding that to do it ceremony is like three days of my time and then a full day of my partner's time and all the materials, not just the mushrooms but all the things.

So I need to be able to offset my investment in that.

So it's it's tough get that really down to a low level for an individual at a high dose, at least in the structure that I have right now.

But the idea is that this is financially available to most people.

Excellent that sounds really good.

And so what's next for SETUS seminary and are there any plans for expansion research, collaboration or deeper scientific validation anything like that on the horizon Yes, and unknown too.

So right now, I started doing a few validated surveys.

So these are surveys that are used in clinical research for depression and anxiety, because I was interested in understanding what sort of the objective shifts are.

Now these are their self report surveys, but they are validated, and there's always some you know, it's people just saying what they felt and what they how they feel now.

But I have been using these, not one hundred percent of the time, but I was finding like these wonderful results, especially with anxiety.

It drops like a stone after a big journey, really amazing.

So I've been playing with a little bit on the side.

On my side, I'm actually putting together right now a case series using one of these pairings just for microdosing for people that haven't had any mushroom experience for at least six months, that be willing to do six months of microdosing and take surveys a few different times at the outset, A couple of times and then at the end, so I'm hoping to publish that.

I've already published a couple of cases in integrative health journals that have a real that embrace this kind of thing.

So I'm doing it in honestly kind of a half assed way, but with actual VALIDATA tools and sincere intention because I'm interested in knowing if this is helping are the people that come to us for help.

We also are potentially working with VA associated organizations and suicide prevention organizations to try to get these kinds of medicines into the hands of people that could really benefit and potentially save their lives.

We have the legal issue though, right but you know, I'm a veteran myself, so I have a real saft spot for our veterans.

And the VA Hospital is never at the forefront of anything.

I worked in the hospitals when I was in the service.

The VA Hospital is quite backwards and most of their facilities, but they are on the front end of trying to get access to psychedelic medicines because it's showing that it's saving the life of these very deeply traumatized veterans.

They're losing, you know, thousands of them every year to suicide.

So there are people within the VA system that are very dedicated to the research.

How can small molecule very controlled?

That's how they do clinical research.

But we're also kind of working on the side with people within those systems that feel comfortable enough to recommend to folks that maybe you should take a look at this.

You know, they're doing these things properly, as properly as they can in the current environment, and it could be uh, it could make a huge difference for you.

So we are kind of on the periphery, but very much want to demonstrate that this is a valid approach for health and wellness.

It can be done in a very responsible and supported way as far as expansion goes.

So you know, I kind of run all the operations for this right now with the sister organization that does the manufacturing, so I have two companies and then I still work.

So expanding is a little uh.

I can't even envision it at the moment.

But you know, with the right people, potentially, or you know, sufficient demand or shift in attitude, there may be a real reason change.

You know, have a different attitude about expansion.

I'm not against it at all.

It's just not something I I'll be able to do anytime real soon.

Okay, So how do you hold individual and society and narratives wronged?

Healing shift because of your work?

I don't think it's our work.

I think it's the medicine.

When people have this, the experience, the shift happens, they're able to make it durable through small shifts in their own behaviors.

They know it to be a holy wellness, supportive endeavor and everyone around them season.

It's not what we're doing.

We're just a portal, you know, We're just providing access.

It's the mushrooms.

It's the mushrooms and people's willingness to work through them and with them and keep on their road toward their goal, you know, whether it's being a first class athlete like yourself, or just having a better relationship with your children, you know, or putting down the bottle or whatever it happens to be, or not wanting to hang yourself.

You know, once a week.

The medicine speaks for itself.

It speaks for itself.

We just are providing access.

Okay, awesome, and let's get you on this one.

If a listener wants to explore sacrament assisted healing responsibly.

Where should they start and what should they north first?

Yes, so just visit our website.

It set us, set us or say to us is the Spanish way of saying it.

It means mushroom in Spanish.

So set us Seminary dot org.

The front end of the website is purposely a bit vague.

You could read between the lines, but the information about you know, various research, other resources, videos, articles, and all the details about our Sacramento pairings are in the member portal of the website.

So if you visit the website you're trigued by what you see on the front end.

Just a hit, they'll become a member.

It's a little tab up at the top, costs nothing at all.

It'll take you one minute to become a member.

We'll ask you just a few questions.

We want to know if you have experience, if you're on any psychiatric medications, if you have any history of cardiac disease.

We ask these questions because if you do have any of those things, we'll definitely want to speak with you.

You know, before and you know given the okay to engage with psilocybin, we want to keep everybody safe.

You will get an automated reply.

You'll get access to enter the back end of the website and go through all the details and you can from there request microdose pairings.

If you have any of those kind of little red flags, we will definitely contact you before we process a shipment.

But this is what they will look like.

You come right to your door.

We generally get those out within one or two business days and it ships you.

Yes.

If you wanted to do ceremony with us, you'll see on our events page.

We have small group ceremony every month and you can just write a note that says I'm interested.

It's an automatic email that comes to me.

We'll have a conversation, not quite as long as what we had today, which is quite impressive, not but you know, we'll go through what you're after, what your experience has been, what our process is, and all of that and get you signed up if you want to participate.

If you want to go a step further and have a individual ceremony, that's something that we do one off as our requested.

That's you know, it's much more personalized, so you get all of the service is that we offered with small group, but the whole thing, the whole day, and everything that's done and all the colors that are used are all geared to you, so it's a little bit more complicated, but the process is essentially the same.

So just visit the site if you'd like to become a member.

You'll have access to deeper information at no cost whatsoever.

You can sign up for the newsletter.

It's just a.

Weekly newsletter that talks about our events, that talks about different research that's coming out, that talks about our various collaborators and whatnot Whereforce.

So there are really no barriers getting more information.

It's all available through the site.

And guys links to Palm and everything that she talked about socials.

Everything will be in the description of this podcast and Palm.

This has been an awesome, awesome collisition.

Even though I've talked about mushrooms and the show before, this was a completely different type of position.

I learned a lot.

I really really enjoy talking to you today and guys, if conversations like this resonate with you and as we as I said earlier in this podcast, I am a online fitness trainer.

I help spiritually incline people burn fat and Bill muscle.

So if you would like to start your fitness journey, get into the best ship of your life, work with me one on one and get my coaching directly one on one with me and level up in all eras of your life mentally, physically, and also spiritually.

Hit me up on my Instagram at Adriano Underscore two four six or my name Todd Cave on Facebook.

Send me a DM and let's see if you're a good fit for the compound body training army and guys.

I also can help you get some magic mushrooms.

I can help you to remove some fears and traumas as well.

So if you also would like to get some magic mushrooms for me, help support this podcast and all of that stuff, hit me up on my socials at Adriana Underscore two four to six or my name Todd Cave.

And if none of those things interest you, but you would like to support the podcast in some way, you can visit our merch store on Amazon.

It is called Todd and Me.

We have some cool tank tops, hoodies, shirts and sweats.

Link will be in the description of this podcast, and I have all one of those shirts that you can get in the store.

Today it is called truth isn't learned, Truth is realized.

Hikes.

So if you would like to grab a shirt like this, link will be to the store in this podcast.

And if you do grab a shirt or hurdy or sweat or whatever and take a picture of yourself in it, tag me on Instagram or Facebook and or send me a photo of you in it, and I will put you on my story and or show you out in the next podcast that I do after I receive it.

So, guys, this has been an awesome, awesome conversation.

Palm, thank you very much for sharing your journey science and sacred story.

If you believe in healing through integration of science and spirit, guys, please like, subscribe a share this with someone ready for real transformation.

And dear listener, please consider supporting us through either Patreon or locals if you would like to help us with video editing and also spending some time to research guests, because we want to keep bringing on good quality guests and that does take some time to screen them and make sure that they're good fit.

You can listen to this shows without any ads or anything like that through Patreon or locals.

Link would be to those pages in the description of this podcast, and that helps us to bring more boundary, pushing healing conversations your way straight to this podcast.

Palm, thanks very much for being a guest on the Conscious mass A podcast.

I aloroughly enjoyed this podcast and I knew that this would be an awesome conversation just by it literally like scrambled my brain for a temporary second where it was church, reverent, science and psychedelics.

I was like, whoa, whoa, these words don't go together.

So, you know, many thanks for coming on to the show, and you're welcome to come back again if there are any other things that you're launching.

What's not you were happy to come back here because I'm very much a believer in medicine and I will help those with my platform to help get the message out.

If you're doing good work, you're definitely doing good work.

And I think you've got a bit of a niche there in terms of how you're doing stuff.

And I think that people that are in the United States, because they do have quite a few listeners in the United States, will be very much intrigued to visit your establishment and to get some healing and stuff like that.

It has been beautiful.

Really, by far the most interesting conversation I've had in months, and I've had a lot of them.

Thank you very much for your interest, thank you for your passion, and thank you for having me really appreciate it.

You're very welcome.

And guys, this has been another episode of the Conscious Man seven podcast.

Please don't forget to like subscribe at the share because that helps us to be recommended any algorithms, and while you're there, please give us a five star rating or whatever platform you use, and because that helps us to obviously brow the show and to get recommended for people when they go into those apps to listen to us.

Guys, don't forget to keep smiling, keep shining, and keep being the change you want to see.

Speak to you soon.

Cheers and the MASTI