Learn About The Future Of Psychedelic Substances

LISTEN ON:


Episode 15.5

Paul Austin

Our founder, Paul Austin, shares some of his thoughts on psychedelics, and the future direction of the psychedelic community. We also hear about current and future projects at The Third Wave that could have a big impact in the psychedelic space.

Podcast Highlights

Paul kicks off our first ever “Highcast” with some Dutch Sativa and a few thoughts on psychedelic culture. How can the psychedelic experience and ‘social entrepreneurship’ help change the world for the better?

Next we hear about upcoming projects at The Third Wave:

Our “Find the Others” campaign will be launching in April/May this year, and aims to get everyone involved in above-ground psychedelic communities. We want to connect all psychedelic societies worldwide and incubate the growth of new communities. We also want to help develop leadership in already established communities.

On the back of our successful microdosing events in the Netherlands, we are working to introduce Microdosing Experiences that will allow small groups of people to experience legal microdosing in a controlled setting, for whatever purpose they desire.

We’ll also be inviting people to join us on full-blown psychedelic retreats in Jamaica, the BVI and Costa Rica, where psilocybin is legal. Our first retreat will take place in September in Costa Rica, and will be a ten-day long experience with magic mushrooms to facilitate healing, creative development or personal insight.

There is also space for three people to join our founder Paul Austin on a psilocybin retreat in Jamaica this July (5th-13th).

Beginning in June, we will be starting weekend retreats to the Netherlands for full-dose psilocybin experiences, starting with small groups of 5-10 people. Details will be coming soon.

Paul has also opened up an opportunity for high-end coaching for people interested in using psychedelics to improve their lives. Paul has space for 4/5 clients who could benefit from one-on-one consulting about the optimal use and integration of the psychedelic experience. Click here for more details!

Finally, if you’ll be at Psychedelic Science in Oakland this month, send us an email! We’d love to organize a Third Wave meetup during the conference.

Podcast Transcript

00:29 Paul Austin: Welcome to the first ever high cast. I'm gonna start doing these more often where I'll record a podcast when under the influence of some sort of substance. Where I am now in the Netherlands the substance is decriminalized, available, go into a store and you can buy it here. It's pretty fucking awesome. And the substance is cannabis. And I'm smoking a 100% sativa, it's called Utopia Haze, it's a bit strong. A lot of the Cannabis in the Netherlands is quite, it's like hydroponic chronic shit that really gets you stoned.

01:04 PA: I was in Jamaica about a month ago now, that was almost five weeks ago, yeah, five, five, six weeks ago I was in Jamaica, and I was doing the Psilocybin retreat in Jamaica for a week and I arrived to my BnB, which I had found on Airbnb and my host welcomes me. Shows me my room, gives me a towel and then, of course, asks, do I want some cannabis? And of course I'm like, "Hell, yeah, I want some cannabis. That would be great." So he goes into his little... It was on a compound of sorts, so he had a little place to himself. So he went back there, got some for me came back and he's like, "Okay, here it is." And he came out with probably six to seven grams of cannabis. It was six to seven grams. I was like, "Wow. That's a lot of cannabis." I don't know if I can pay you that much. I don't know if I can afford all this. I'm like, "I don't need this." And he's like, "Dude, it's 10 bucks." So this dude sold me seven grams of cannabis for 10 bucks and it was damn good weed.

02:02 PA: This is grown outdoors, it's grown organically, there's no chemicals. It wasn't as, it's typically not as well-cured so it's not as well dried. It's harder to break up. And for that reason sometimes harder to light a joint, but man, when I was vaporising it I'm like, "This is the real plant." this is the plant without the pesticides, this is the plant without the Frankenstein like approach, I really like this and now I'm back to smoking Frankenstein weed. It's whatever, it's cool, it's great. I like sativas, they get me up and talking and the reason why I'm even recording this podcast right now. I've found incredible results from accessing, yeah, alternate states of consciousness typically through drugs. Obviously, I'm microdosing proponent. Fan of microdosing. I do it myself, not really consistently anymore, but I do do it from time to time. microdosing with both LSD and Mushrooms, larger trips as well.

02:55 PA: But cannabis is really the consistent go to. That's what I do most afternoons, and probably not afternoons, most evenings. I will do cannabis on the weekends, maybe a little bit earlier. I have a vaporizer that I carry around with me and it makes it very easy and largely healthy to consume the cannabis in a consistent way. And why I'm recording this podcast is because I don't really record a lot of podcasts of me talking, which is for good reason, I'm interviewing people. And I like to interview them and I'd like to spend time interviewing them and since we only are doing interviews for an hour now, I wanna make sure I really capture their story in a way that's informative and helpful and insightful and all those things. And so I thought I would take this opportunity to record a full podcast kind of capturing my thoughts and attitudes about different things in Psychedelia but also, just wider. If we cast a net a bit wider and look at also consciousness or travel or food, or what have you. This podcast is not only for you guys, the listeners, but it's also a way for me to play out ideas and to discuss new things and to see where my curiosity leads.

04:08 PA: And so sometimes it's fun just to get on the mic and to talk for a little bit. So I'm just gonna talk about some ideas here. This is the first part, there will be a second part after this where I'll explain some of the projects that we have going on in Third Wave. And those are really interesting. Obviously, a lot of the projects... So the projects that we've done so far have been very fairly small scale. This podcast is one of those and we're growing that at the moment. But we're launching some new really, really interesting projects over the next six months, some of which are for the community, some of which are for individuals and some of which are for both. And I'll let you guys hear that in the second part. So just stick around for that.

04:49 PA: I'd like to talk about a few things that are on my mind. I recently read this book called Stealing Fire, by Stephen Kotler. Steven Kotler is a guy who studies flow, which is a concept from positive psychology popularized by a Hungarian psychologist whose name I won't even try to pronounce. And he first came up with the concept in the early '90s, I believe, and then wrote a book about it, called Flow. And these ideas that he came up with... This idea from positive psychology is flow is this concept of being in the zone. It's really... It's like you're kinda beyond time, you don't understand that it exists. You're so in flow, in the moment, in the zone with what you're doing that you don't notice or pay attention to time passing. And typically, we enter flow by engaging in an activity that is just a little bit too hard for us. It's like just outside of our comfort zone, it's not super far but just outside of our comfort zone. And we understand that there's a level of focus that needs to happen in order to accomplish that goal or solve that problem or overcome that obstacle by accessing these states of flow we're able to better handle these really complex and difficult tasks.

06:07 PA: So Steven Kotler, is a writer, he wrote Flow, The Rise of Superman, I believe it's named, and then recently published with Jamie Wheal a book called Stealing Fire, a book about accessing altered states of consciousness or he also calls non-ordinary states of consciousness to basically drop into flow and achieve amazing things that wouldn't be accessible in normal waking consciousness. And he talks about various examples but the one that stuck out to me again, and again, and again was his emphasis on psychedelics. In fact, he begins that book by discussing the Eleusinian Mysteries and by discussing this guy in ancient Greece who kind of stole the recipe for Kykeon and hosted a massive lavish party at his villa. And when the word got out that he had stole the Kykeon, the beverage that they used in this secret initiatory rights, he was banned from his, I think Athens. I think he was banned from Athens, he was banned from Greece because it was such a taboo. It was... These mysteries were held in such high regard that to protect those secrets was critical. And he starts it with that story, which I think is telling of his angle and telling of Stephen's probably own personal experience with psychedelics.

07:32 PA: It's interesting that we're seeing more and more books being written about psychedelics. We saw Ayelet Waldman, who was a federal offender. In Berkeley, she taught a class about the war on drugs at Berkeley. She's been published for a lot of her fiction and came up with this book, microdosing, how it made a mega difference. I'm sorry, A Really Good Day: How microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life. And then Steven Kotler also writing more and more about psychedelics. Michael Pollan's next book is about psychedelics. The tide has turned. Culture is starting to pay attention. Culture is starting to notice. We have enough science now where we can go ahead and we can start building the cultural framework and the cultural dialogue to be positive and constructive towards psychedelic use as tools in medicine. And these well-known writers and authors who are now openly discussing and talking and analyzing psychedelics is a very welcome change from even just five or 10 years ago, when the concept or the thought of doing an illicit substance like LSD or magic mushrooms, that'd be the fucking end of the world.

08:41 PA: Things have changed. Things have changed thanks to the research at Johns Hopkins, thanks to the research at NYU, thanks to the research at UCLA, at Imperial College, in Zurich, in Switzerland. There are probably dozens of other places that I'm missing in Brazil, with Ayahuasca, in Barcelona. Things have changed. We have that science now and we can start having these real conversations about how can we make these tools accessible for all? How do we not only medicalize them for wealthy white people because let's be honest, if MDMA therapy becomes legal in 2021, I'm not so sure that insurance companies are gonna hop on board right away to support that. I'm also not so sure that governments will be necessarily onboard with integrating that into their statewide healthcare. Now, that could be... Canada could be different, Europe could be different but in the United States, for example, we've had medical cannabis now for over 20 years, and we still don't, as far as I know, insurance providers do not cover medical marijuana. That's a travesty, and I'm not that hopeful for MDMA or Psilocybin therapy as well. That would largely be available for kind of a white upper class.

09:52 PA: Now the exception to that could be vets with PTSD but that would probably be a one of the few exceptions. So how do we start having these conversations about building community in cities so that doing this is not such a struggle so that we can decentralize the power structure. We can start lobbying city councils, we can start working with people who are influential within communities to make things happen on a local level. To decriminalize mushrooms, to decriminalize other psychedelics, to work on certification programs at a local level, where people can responsibly use these things. We need to start doing that. We need to start looking at alternative models and we need to start looking at building more resilience into the psychedelic movement because right now it's fairly susceptible to problems. When you build something on science only, it's a struggle to create lasting change. We're seeing this with the ecological crisis right now.

10:48 PA: Guys, just in case you don't know, we have enough science that points to there being a massive ecological crisis that is caused by human activity. They're calling it the sixth mass extinction. 97% of climate scientists agree that we are drastically... We're creating big issues, we're creating big problems. Our president doesn't really believe in climate change. Most... I would say probably half of Americans don't believe in climate change. The science is there, culture has not caught up yet because I think, well, there are number of reasons that I won't get into, but it hasn't caught up yet. We don't want that to happen with psychedelics. We need to create and change culture because culture is what even incubates science. And if we change culture then science will also pay off.

11:35 PA: But more importantly, we can actually make these things accessible to everyone who wants to use them, not limited by socio-economic status. And I think that's critical because if we agree that psychedelics have an ability to transform lives in various capacities, that they are interesting ways of looking at healing and healthcare and preventative medicine and even as tools for entrepreneurs or creative types to handle innovative problem-solving, if we agree that they can do all those things if we create the right set and setting then we have to go about changing the set and setting culture is set and setting. Culture is the most obvious blatant set and setting and it's only by changing culture that we can truly then ensure that psychedelics have all these positive outcomes, because as many people will say, psychedelics don't have inherent values. I've heard of this thrown around in the psychedelic community of four but basically if you give a psychopath, a sociopath, psychedelic it'll just make him more of a sociopath. Charles Manson was a good example of that.

12:51 PA: However, it is thus the responsibility of culture then to then create less sociopaths. It is thus the responsibility of culture to incubate healthy communities and societies where more and more people are optimistic and positive about the future. And if you do that, you change the set and setting, you make it more likely that then psychedelics, will have these dramatic transformative benefits that many of us who are listening to this podcast understand and know about. So culture is set and setting, what do we do to change culture? Well, we build communities. This is what we're doing at Third Wave. I think the other thing that we do is we... You do it from both the decentralized model but you do it from the top down as well. Aldous Huxley was known to have conversations with Timothy Leary or I'm sorry, he had a conversation with Timothy Leary when Aldous Huxley was a visiting professor MIT. Leary was at Harvard, they sat down to dinner. This was when Leary was just getting interested in LSD, he had already tried Psilocybin and Huxley was like, "Hey dude. I think we should keep this in the hands of people who can handle it." And Leary was like, "Yeah sure, that sounds good."

13:55 PA: And then we know what happened next. Consciousness was dumped on the United States and it had no context for it. It had no way to handle it. And so we dealt with a backlash. I like Huxley's advice. I think we do need to look at a decentralized model of building community in various cities. I think we also need to look at a top-down structure. Human nature is naturally hierarchical. We're not truly egalitarian. There is some type of structure. Now we can be conscious of that structure, we can manage that structure to mitigate its downsides, but there is some sort of hierarchical structure still. How do we influence people who are influencers? This is what Malcolm Gladwell has talked about before. How do you influence people who are influencers, authors, writers, philosophers, venturers, entrepreneurs politicians? How do you talk to them? How do you engage with them? How do you have a conversation with them? Now fortunate for us, our current economic model or society is going to be built by largely people who have done psychedelics. One sec.

15:02 PA: Burning Man, this is something that was talked about in Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler, Burning Man has incubated this kind of aspect of living in an unordinary state of consciousness. This aspect of exploring different dimensions and different ideas and from that, and I don't know if it's a chicken or the egg thing necessarily, I don't know which one came first, but Burning man and the combo of it being a lot of Silicon Valley people will go to Burning Man. Elon Musk has been known to go to Burning Man, the co-founders of Google, Burning Man, it happens. It's happening more and more. These are the people who are building the future in which we'll live and all of them have done psychedelics. And if we agree that these people have had positive experiences using psychedelics and if we agree that it's influenced them to create this almost web, this global web of consciousness and leverage this technology to have all these innovative breakthroughs, then maybe we can agree that many of them are going to help shape society for the better. That although capitalism does have its downsides that we can transmute money into social capital to rebuild community because people are now recognizing the negative consequences of the separation, they're recognizing the negative consequences of being too one-dimensional, being too materialist, being too focused on monetary gain.

16:24 PA: They've lost their touch with spirit, they lost their touch with the source. And they're now... I think we as a society are starting to recognize that we need that to live truly meaningful, maybe, I don't know if that's the right word, to live lives of content. To live lives of presence, to live lives of joy but also sadness, to mitigate suffering I think. All of these things tie into that, and I think our business leaders, many of them, not all of them, I'm generalizing, but many of the ones that are especially young, under 50, I think, I hope have their heart in the right place and I think psychedelics have played an influential role in that. Of course that will remain... That remains to be seen. But people like Elon Musk for example, who made a fuck load of money in PayPal, and then basically took that and put it right back into building Space X. He took, I don't know, a lot of money and in 2002, started working on Space X to make us interstellar. He's been working on this for 15 years, guys. Space X went pretty well so he started Tesla. Tesla's obviously gone super well, so he started Solar City. Basically, I mean, he had the idea for Solar City, it was at Burning Man. I read this in Stealing Fire and he basically just handed it off to people that, like his family, 'cause he's like, "This needs to happen. I can't do it. I'll give you capital." And now he's taking it back over.

17:46 PA: So, I think Elon Musk is a good example of that. He is someone who cares about humanity. He is someone who wants humanity to better itself. He is someone who... And I think that more than anything is the shift that we've seen. People are now starting to recognize that we are one Earth and that the Earth is one organism even, the Gaia principle. And that we can't survive without reconnecting with it. And people like Elon Musk are doing that, other business leaders are doing that. And this is what partly what we're trying to do through Third Wave is we're trying to look at a social entrepreneurial model, where we can provide things for people, consulting, coaching, services, services, I think services almost exclusively. The world doesn't need more stuff. The world has enough stuff. Largely services that are needed, I think. And working on solutions, tech solutions, app solutions, other solutions that facilitate healing on a more community-wide scale. Looking at Psilocybin mushroom retreats, looking at Ayahuasca retreats, Ibogaine retreats, looking at microdosing experiences, looking at all of these things. So we're exploring the social entrepreneurial model in the hopes of.

19:03 PA: I mentioned this before I came up with this idea I wrote on my Facebook page and I would encourage you guys, we'll provide a link in the show notes. But add me as a friend on Facebook or check... Yeah, add me as a friend on Facebook and engage with me there. I would love to hear more of your thoughts about Psychedelia and everything. So we'll provide a link on the show notes if you add me. Facebook.com/cosmo119. So Facebook.com/cosmo119 add me as a friend. And I wrote something on Facebook today, the wizards of the 21st century will be the ones who can transmute money into social capital. They're the ones who can transmute money back into social capital. We had all the social capital build up as more tribal societies, and when civilization came around, and then really industrialization, we basically tried to privatize everything and put a price tag on it as a way of increasing GDP 'cause we're operating in this model that increases in GDP as long as that was consistently going up, well, then obviously our quality of life was improving as well. We've now come to realize that that's a false narrative. It's a false model that we can't rely on. It's not accurate anymore, it's not a good heuristic by which to navigate reality. So to look at new models.

20:14 PA: And one of those new models that we have to explore is what can we do with money from an entrepreneurial perspective to return it back into community strength, resilience and that's what we're doing. And I think that should be the next cultural movement in terms of even beyond psychedelics, even beyond consciousness is how can we leverage the tools that are given to us? How can we be extremely pragmatic in catalyzing change by leveraging the tools that are given to us and returning them to where they should be? Turning them back into something that's more valuable than money because let's be honest, there seems to be this archetypal understanding that we're going to face some sort of apocalypse soon. All these vampire movies, and all these end-of-the-world scenarios that we're seeing in Hollywood. And, yeah, I think there's just this underlying sense that something catastrophic, whether, that could just be something as well known as the ecological crisis, but something catastrophic is gonna happen. So how do we manage it? And if that happens, if we have a major shift, major, money will be useless.

21:17 PA: Let's look at Germany after World War I, they had extreme inflation, everyone lost everything. Who's to say that won't happen again? What if that does happen? It's probably more likely to happen than it isn't. What will money mean then? Money will just be this abstract number that's in a bank account that has no value. What will matter is community, what will matter is relationships. And not these flimsy professional, oh yeah, I got your back, you got mine relationships. I mean friends, people who would take a bullet for you, people who would protect you and shield you, people who would do whatever is necessary to help you, you need those type of people in your life. And I think we can build that through a psychedelic angle. I think we can build that through a psychedelic lens. I think it's critically important that we leverage these tools to build that community to weather a potential oncoming crisis or to potentially avert an oncoming crisis. Maybe that's even more of what we need to do is look at preventative ways to leverage these tools to help with that.

22:25 PA: Okay, I'm getting tired now, so that's gonna wrap it up. I hope you guys enjoyed part one of my high ramblings. I'd like to hear your feedback. Again, add me on Facebook, we're gonna start... I'm gonna have...

23:00 PA: And let me know what you think of this podcast, let me know what you think of my thoughts, let me know if you think I'm just totally full of shit or if you think I might be somewhat sane. I'd like to hear constructive criticism but also responses in a way that builds the conversation. So guys, thanks for tuning in, stay for part two. In part two I'm gonna update you on all the projects that are happening at Third Wave. And I think you guys will find them to be interesting. And so I would highly encourage you to stick around for part two. Cheers, everyone.

[noise]

23:30 PA: Hey podcast listeners, welcome back to the show. We're gonna have a bit of a different format for you today. I'm coming at you from Den Haag, the Netherlands. I'm in the Netherlands because I did a microdosing event last Sunday. It was Sunday March 26, with the Psychedelic Society of the Netherlands, and it went phenomenally well. We had about 120 people who came to our microdosing event in Amsterdam and because of the legal status of truffles in the Netherlands, but a 100 people ended up microdosing at the event including about 10 people whose first time it was ever taking psychedelics. It was like a super, super fun event. We did it at this cool place in West Amsterdam, it was a phenomenal space, a phenomenal venue. Basically, I gave a talk for 45 minutes about microdosing, answered some questions and then people took the micro-doses and laid down and we listened to some really interesting music.

24:30 PA: And I did an event with the Psychedelic Society in December, and we had about 80 people come to that. It was again a microdosing event where we did some yoga and some creative problem solving and working with this organization has just continued to pay off in value and has paid off in relationships and they're a great organization to work with. And again, they did an excellent job with the event that we had on Sunday here in Amsterdam. So I'm recording this podcast from Den Haag. And I'm at one of my friend's apartments, who's also part of the Psychedelic Society and we're just hanging out here the next couple of days.

25:12 PA: So the reason I wanted to get this podcast out to you, this is kind of a special edition podcast, is because from my perspective, I think what I'm trying to do at Third Wave and with the podcast is build community, and make it as inclusive as possible. And although I have definitely taken the reins and ran with them over the past six months especially, eventually I would like Third Wave project as a community-oriented project to really develop on its own and have more and more people who are involved in the community, help contribute and take it to the next level. I think what we've created at Third Wave, and what we're continuing to try to create is an educational community-oriented resource that's easily accessible, well designed and has information that's backed by scientific research and general understanding and knowledge of facts. As well as, obviously, taking an angle towards how do we legitimize psychedelic substances for those who would like to use them. And I think that's a big reason why we focus so much on microdosing so far.

26:18 PA: So what I wanna do with this podcast is I wanna kind of clue you guys into what's going on from a more internal perspective at Third Wave. So I want you to know what projects we're working on. What projects are coming out soon, basically what you can expect down the line and I'm telling you this for a few reasons. The first reason is if you have the skill set or if you know someone who has a skill set or if you wanna contribute in some way to our cause and our mission and our community, please send me an email or reach out to me and let me know. We do have paid positions available, however, much of the work that we're doing is not paid. We'd like to have contributors who are not paid, but there is compensation available for certain things. So if you have a talent or a skill that you either wanna just contribute for free or you wanna explore if there is possible collaborative opportunities. That's why I wanna let you have an idea of what we're working on at Third Wave. The second reason is because I think it just creates more anticipation for what's coming in the future. We're working on some really interesting and dynamic projects, and I think those of you who are listening will have an interest in at least some of them. Maybe not all of them, but at least some of them. And so, I wanna clue you guys in on what those things are and what we're doing.

27:33 PA: So without much further ado, let's get started. Project one that we're working on is something called Find the Others, which is a phrase that was coined by Timothy Leary when he's talking about finding the others, finding psychedelic community. I brainstormed this idea in August 2016, and I've been sitting on it for some time. I tossed it around the larger psychedelic community, including with some people who already are running psychedelic communities, it never really took off because we were all working on a different number of different projects. And then I went to the Beyond psychedelics conference in Prague in September 2016. And we had a really big meeting about psychedelic community and this was six months ago. And still nothing significant has happened, it's still kind of just slowly bumping along. And I've been patient and I've been waiting and now I am a man of action. I like to do things, I like to make things happen. And so, we're launching this project within the next month or so. And this project, which we're calling Find the Others is a way for everyone to get involved in the psychedelic community.

28:43 PA: So right now there are about 60 psychedelic communities worldwide. There are probably, honestly, only 15 to 20 that are actually active that meet on a consistent basis. So the London Psychedelic Society is one. The Psychedelic Society of the Netherlands, the Brooklyn Psychedelic Society. A lot of the psychedelic societies, they are societies, but maybe they don't meet that often or they're not that active. And so what I wanna do with this project is one, I want to inspire and motivate people to start their own psychedelic communities in urban areas all across the world, at least in nation states where they have the ability to do so. I think there's potential to have 200 to 250 even more psychedelic communities and societies across the globe and I think we should do something, we should create a catalyst to make that happen. And so I think that's the first aim of this project is to incubate psychedelic community in society.

29:43 PA: The second aim is to develop leadership potential for those who are either already leading psychedelic societies or who want to lead a psychedelic society. I've interacted with a number of societies over the past six to eight months, and the biggest differentiator between the ones who do it well, and the ones who don't do so well, is leadership quality. And I think what is so important in moving forward as a cultural movement is to cultivate leadership ability in those who are within communities and trying to do this work. We can only have an impact if we understand how to have an impact, if we understand how to lead, how to create change, how to make differences. And so that is really the second main aim of this project. So yes, we wanna incubate psychedelic communities and societies. We also wanna help cultivate leadership development for those who are engaged and active in psychedelic communities.

30:36 PA: And I think the third thing is just building general psychedelic awareness about the utility of psychedelic community. I think there are a lot of people... I get emails from people all the time saying, "Hey I've had these really transformative experiences with psychedelic substances, but I don't have anyone to talk to them about. I really wanna be involved in a group and active in a group." I think there are a lot of people out there who don't even recognize or realize that there are psychedelic societies and psychedelic communities. And I think by carrying out on this project, we're going to help build that awareness. So right now we're working on developing a video, we already have a page. If that's something that you guys would be interested in, just send me an email, I just wanna get a sense for who would be interested in a project like that. Our plan is to roll it out at the end of April, early May, with a lot more details at that point. So that's project one that we're working on and I'm super excited about that project.

31:28 PA: Project two is our forum, forum.thethirdwave.co. You guys have heard me mention this before in the podcast. I wanna re-emphasize and reiterate something that we are onboarding a community manager at this point in time, whose role will not only be things like social media, but also, on actively engaging people in conversation on our forum about our podcasts, about the content that we produce about new research that comes out, about things related to building psychedelic community. That forum really is a hub for information about responsible psychedelic use and the growth of local communities. And so I would encourage you to go and sign up on that form. Things are really gonna start to kick off in the second to third week of April on there as we bring on a moderator and she actively cultivates engagement on the forum. So I'd encourage you to go there, check it out. It's still a little slow going but by the second or third week of April, it will be definitely up there. That's the second project, the forum. I'm gonna check my notes just so I can make sure I'm on track.

32:33 PA: The other projects I wanted to discuss is the microdosing app that we're creating, woo, woo! Yep, we are working with the developer who is helping us to build and create a microdosing app, where it is much more easier, it is much easier and more intuitive to track you're microdosing, to get reminders about when you should micro-dose, to take notes on the experience of your microdosing, to track those notes over a long-term period, et cetera, et cetera. We're hoping to release that first version sooner rather than later. I would say at the latest, by the end of May, I'm not completely sure yet. And expect to see that on the horizon as a microdosing app. And I think that's a really good way to then transition into some of these other projects that we're working on at Third Wave. What I've noticed is, obviously there's a growing interest in microdosing and so I'm looking for ways to facilitate microdosing experiences for people who are interested.

33:34 PA: And so something that we're gonna start to do is microdosing experiences in places where it's legal, obviously in the United States, all of these substances are illegal. There is a gray area with things like 1P-LSD and you can buy your own Psilocybin spores but technically it's illegal to grow them. However, doing any sort of public microdosing experience would obviously be a big no no in almost every country. Now, what's nice about being in the Netherlands is they have these things called truffles that you can go and you can buy in smart shops. And truffles have Psilocybin in them. And so what we're going to start to do in Amsterdam and possibly elsewhere in the Netherlands is facilitate microdosing experiences. So if, you're an American and you'll be traveling through Amsterdam or if you live in Europe and you have a group of friends who are interested in this contact me, let me know and we'll set up a microdosing experience.

34:31 PA: Different ideas that I've thrown around for this, is doing a micro to moderate dose and going to the Rijksmuseum or going to another museum or seeing live music or just... There's a lot... Amsterdam's an amazing city. There's a lot to do in Amsterdam, it's a world class city. And on days that it's nice there's no better place to be in the world. And so I want to facilitate these microdosing experiences for those who are interested. So if this sounds like something you might be interested in, again, reach out to me, I'm willing to work with it in a number of ways. What we're also going to start to do is branch out to entrepreneurs and creative types who wanna facilitate insights and breakthroughs with the aid of micro-doses to moderate doses. And so, if you're listening to this, you're part of a creative team or you run a creative team or you're just genuinely interested in facilitating some sort of creative insight with microdosing, please send me a message or an email and also let me know about that and I'll be happy to provide more details about that for those who are interested.

35:34 PA: Now, building on microdosing experiences we're going to start to roll out Psilocybin retreats fairly soon. So, as I just mentioned, truffles are legal in the Netherlands, Psilocybin, magic mushrooms are also legal in places like Jamaica, the British Virgin Islands, and it's very much a grey area in places like Costa Rica. So for example, in Costa Rica, there are Ayahuasca ceremonies, there are Ibogaine places, 5-meO-DMT. Mushrooms fill a very, very similar place in Costa Rican law where because they haven't had any issues before there's no legal books on the man on magic mushrooms. So what we're going to do is we're going to do a 10-day retreat to start off in Costa Rica using magic mushrooms to help facilitate healing, to help facilitate personal insight, to help facilitate creative development. If you're interested in using magic mushrooms within a nature-oriented setting, about 15 minutes from the beach in Costa Rica with professional guides and facilitators who can help you explore your own consciousness in a way that's safe and responsible then I highly encourage you to stay tuned for more details.

36:52 PA: Like I said, that's gonna be probably in September, that we're going to do that retreat. There will be more details that roll out fairly soon. So if that's something that you're interested in, whether you're from North America or Europe, please let us know because what we're also going to do in September is roll out longer retreats for the Netherlands as well. There are a lot of people who are interested in this in North America. Obviously, there are a lot of people who are interested in this in Europe as well. And so as an organization, we're gonna start to roll out retreats and workshops in the Netherlands for people from Europe to work with truffles in a way that's responsible and that facilitates personal insight, creative breakthroughs and healing for people who are interested in using this. Now, those longer retreats, the 10-day retreat in Costa Rica, the 10-day retreat in the Netherlands, we're waiting until September to do those. There's a lot of details that need to be taken care of. There are a lot of things that need to be handled and we wanna make sure that it is the best experience possible for those who would like to do it.

37:54 PA: Now, what we will do in the meantime is we're going to do slightly shorter experiences. So beginning in June and we'll start rolling this out on the email list as well and talking more about this beginning in probably late June, early July. We're going to do weekend retreats in the Netherlands with Psilocybin in small groups. So if you live in Europe, if you wanna work with these substances in a legal, safe, responsible way to facilitate creative insight, healing, personal development we're going to start offering weekend retreats for groups of five to 10 people in the Netherlands. And that's something that is obviously much closer in time, that's two to three months away. And so, I'm starting to discuss this and talk about this. So if that's something that you're interested in, if you'd like to have an experience in the Netherlands with these substances over a weekend please reach out or just stay tuned for more details. We will be rolling that out very soon.

38:56 PA: Last announcement specific to legal Psilocybin experiences, recently in February, almost a month ago now, a little bit more than a month ago actually, I went down to Jamaica. And I did a week long Psilocybin retreat down in Jamaica. I don't think I've spoken about it on the podcast yet but it was an incredible experience. It was in a beautiful place, the Southern Coast of Jamaica and we facilitated legal Psilocybin experiences for nine people in total and had a phenomenal time. Now, I will likely go back in July for a second retreat and I'm opening the opportunity to go down to Jamaica in July with me for a legal Psilocybin retreat for three people. So if that's something that you're interested in, that's just a few months away, about three months away now. It will be July 5 to 13, and I'm looking for three people who want to fly down to Jamaica and have a legal Psilocybin experience in paradise, in Jamaica, it is paradise. I remember I was down there and I'm like, literally you could definitely call this something like paradise. And some people that I was with corrected me and they were like, "No. This is paradise." so it's a beautiful, small little village on the Southern Coast of Jamaica. Super, super safe and I'm opening three spots for people who are interested in doing a legal Psilocybin experience on the Southern Coast of Jamaica. So if you're interested in that, again, send me an email, let me know more details, I will provide them as necessary.

40:37 PA: Now, I wanna talk about one more thing. As many of you know, I run a business in the online language area. So kinda brief back story on me. I graduated from college in 2012, from university May 2012. Immediately, I moved to Turkey and I lived in Izmir, Turkey for about nine months, Istanbul for a couple months. And when I was living in Turkey, I taught the TOEFL Test, Test of English as a foreign language. So the TOEFL is a standardized test that foreign English students will take to prove that they can speak English well, write English well, read, listen, those sorts of things. So I basically taught that for a year in a school in Turkey, and then I decided, "Hey it might be fun to start my own business." So I bought a domain name, started making YouTube videos, publishing content blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That is the project that I've been working on now for almost the past three years. I started in September 2014, it is now March, April 2017. That project has been phenomenal. And the only reason you're listening to this podcast right now is because of that project.

41:42 PA: I was able to turn it into a profitable business and the website development you see in Third Wave, all the articles that we produce, the graphic design, the publishing of the podcast, all of this costs money, I assure you. It does cost money. And it had to be funded and it was funded by that project. However, Third Wave is starting to gain some traction, and I really wanna dedicate my full-time efforts and work towards working on Third Wave. I think culture, I think society, I think communities need access to these substances to facilitate healing. And the best way that we can make that happen is by building a strong dynamic team at Third Wave to really start pushing the cultural dialogue and making things happen. And the only way that I can do that is if I commit and dedicate my full-time and energy to this project. So I'm going to start to do that. I really already have been doing that for the past month or so. However, as I turn my attention away from my other project and towards Third Wave, I'm left in a bit of a sticky situation from a personal perspective, my personal income has been reliant on this TOEFL business for a very long time.

42:56 PA: And while that's been great, it's the challenge has run out. I'm just not interested in doing it anymore and I wanna transition into doing Third Wave full-time. However, I do need to have an income and we haven't really rolled anything out from an income perspective. We have the Patreon campaign for Third Wave, and that's about it. I've been hesitant to do anything. However, it's time to discuss next details. As a way to bridge the gap between my TOEFL business and what's going on at Third Wave I am looking to bring on four to five clients who want high-end, individualized, coaching or consulting for ways of integrating the psychedelic experience to live a better life. And I'm looking to take on just four or five people into that role. There will be more details on that soon in the coming weeks. Basically, the focus of it is to provide high level coaching, to those who are interested in exploring the psychedelic experience for personal growth and benefit.

44:02 PA: So if that's something that you're interested in doing, if you wanna help me to facilitate this transition between working on online language into doing full-time psychedelic work, I encourage you to reach out to me if you think you might want to work with me, I can send you more details. You know about my credentials and about why I think we would be a good fit. It won't be cheap. I do really good work. I can help people with a significant number of things, and I'm very well versed in the psychedelic experience and the implications that it has for an individual's life. However, for those who are really interested and committed to transforming their lives with the help of psychedelic substances, I would love to talk about ways that we can work together in the long term. So if that's something that you're interested in, then please again, either stay tuned for more details or as soon as you get off this podcast, just shoot me an email at [email protected], [email protected].

45:01 PA: Announcements, other announcements? Not really. If you can please support this podcast by donating to the Patreon page that would be phenomenal. There's not really too much else to go over. We're having a microdosing event in Copenhagen on April 8. We're also having a microdosing event in Berlin on April 9. And I will be at Psychedelic Science, April 22 to 24, not 23 to 25. So the conference, I believe is April 21 to 23, so my dates suck. The conference in its entirety, well, not in its entirety, 'cause there are like workshops a couple days before and the day after, but largely the conference will be April 21 to 23. And I will be at Psychedelic Science and as a community, we're going to do a couple of fun things. I would like to livestream Jim Fadiman's presentation about the research they have collected on microdosing so far. I will also do some type of community-oriented meet-up. So, if you're attending Psychedelic Science or even if you live in the Bay Area, shoot me a message, let me know and we will definitely be having some sort of meet up, some sort of event for Third Wave around Psychedelic Science. I believe, upwards of 2,000 people will be at Psychedelic Science, and so I would love to make sure that we use that opportunity to meet as a community and continue to build the binds that will take us into the future together.

46:30 PA: So yeah, as a recap. Boom, recap. Find The Others project, building psychedelic community, incubating it. We're coming out with a microdosing app, we're onboarding a new community manager who's going to get the forum up and going so I would encourage you guys to go there. Anyway, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook 'cause that's cool to do. And then we're gonna start doing microdosing experiences in the Netherlands if you're interested in that, shoot me a message. We'll have Psilocybin retreats that we're rolling out in Costa Rica, Jamaica and the Netherlands. And as a way to help facilitate my personal transition into actually making an income, I will be offering high level coaching and consulting for those who want to improve their lives with the use of psychedelic substances.

47:13 PA: Note, I will not provide the substance. Well, unless you're in the Netherlands 'cause that's legal. Otherwise it's illegal and I can't do that shit. You'll have to have the substance yourself and I will just be providing insights into, "Okay, how do you prepare for the experience, what should you do when you have the experience and most importantly, how do you integrate the experience and then execute on the insights and breakthroughs that you have to live a better life?" So guys, that's it. That's the special little podcast is getting you up to date on what's going on in our internal world. And if you want to contribute in any way to what we're doing, please reach out, send us a message. I would love to hear from all of you. This is a community project. And the more people who are involved the sooner we can legitimize psychedelic substances for those who need access to them. So thanks again for tuning in and I will see you guys for the next regularly scheduled podcast.

Related Podcasts