Spiritual Spotlight Series
Discover a world of healing, holistic, and spiritual modalities with the Spiritual Spotlight Series podcast. Every week, we introduce you to diverse spiritual practitioners, including psychics, energy healers, life coaches, spiritual thought leaders, and witches. Each episode offers inspiration and enlightenment through the unique journeys, experiences, and divine abilities of our guests. Perfect for those on a path to spiritual awakening, this podcast blends science and mysticism to expand your understanding of spirituality. Our mission is to open your eyes to the world around you, making complex concepts accessible and enlightening for anyone seeking spiritual growth. Whether you're new to spirituality or looking to deepen your knowledge, the Spiritual Spotlight Series is your go-to resource for awakening and transformation.
Spiritual Spotlight Series
Journey of Reconnection: Exploring Psychedelics for Healing, Growth, and Spiritual Understanding
When Matt Zemon's paths crossed with psychedelics, it was more than just happenstance—it was a rendezvous with destiny that would reunite him with his late mother and herald a journey of self-discovery.
Our latest episode brings this bestselling author and psychedelic medicine expert to the mic, where he unravels the narrative of his transformative encounter. Matt eloquently describes how psychedelics can be a gateway to accessing buried emotions, healing from within, and fostering a greater sense of self-worth.
His emphasis on creating a sanctuary for these profound experiences is a testament to the careful orchestration needed to turn a psychedelic journey into a cornerstone of personal development.
The conversation then transcends personal narrative to examine the burgeoning field of psychedelic research and its promising applications in treating an array of mental health conditions. With the horizon of acceptance broadening, we take a closer look at how ketamine clinics and the potential return of MDMA can revolutionize therapy.
The ceremonial aspects of these substances come alive as we discuss their ability to instill a profound sense of interconnectedness and a dissolution of the boundaries that often isolate us in our day-to-day lives.
Finally, we wrap up our profound exchange by diving into Matt's literary work, "Psychedelics for Everyone," which breaks down the myriad ways these substances can be harnessed for medical, spiritual, and recreational ends.
As we navigate this landscape, we stress the importance of making informed choices and approaching these experiences with both curiosity and caution. This episode doesn't just offer a glimpse into the world of psychedelics—it's a beacon for those seeking to understand and possibly partake in this renaissance of consciousness expansion.
Join us as we map out this terrain, offering a hand to those ready to take the leap into the vast and vibrant world of psychedelic exploration.
To learn more about Matt:
http://www.mattzemon.com/
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattzemon/
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We hope you found the episode to be enlightening and insightful. Our goal is to create content that not only entertains but also helps you grow spiritually and connect with your inner self.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to like, subscribe, and write a review. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us and helps us to improve the quality of our content and reach a wider audience.
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Hello everyone, welcome to our Spiritual Spotlight series. Today I am joined by Matt Zeeman. He is a psychedelic medicine expert. He is a dedicated explorer of the inner world and a passionate advocate for the thoughtful and responsible use of psychedelics. He is also the author of the Amazon bestseller Psychedelics for Everyone, a beginner's guide to these powerful medicines for anxiety, depression, addiction, ptsd and expanding consciousness. Matt, thank you so much for coming on Spiritual Spotlight series. I'm really happy to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Rachel, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for doing this.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to jump right in and do it. And what inspired you to explore the inner world through psychedelics, and how has this journey shaped your understanding of mental health and spirituality?
Speaker 2:It's a big question to start off with. All right, I fell into this by accident. Actually. I had some friends invite me to a guided magic mushroom or psilocybin experience and I wasn't a drug user. I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't do a ton of research, but I did decide to do it. And in that first journey I reconnected with my mom, who died when I was 22 and she was 49. And I felt this sense of safety and love and realized I didn't feel like that in my normal life and just had kind of insight after insight and I left that going, wow, what was that? And I ended up going back to school to get a master's in psychology and neuroscience and traveled around and experienced different psychedelics from different providers and just trying to learn more about consciousness and who I am.
Speaker 1:And what are we doing here?
Speaker 2:It's been a journey.
Speaker 1:I have to say in reading your book and it's right in the beginning I love that you share, like your person, you have five personal experiences that you share the moment with your mom, like being somebody who's spiritual, who connects with spirit, like you could just feel that emotion and that wonderful journey and moment that you have with your mom to really she's always with you. And I love the fact that you kind of bridge the gap for death is just a doorway and we're never alone. And I just thought that was so profound and you could just I know you had experience with your daughter, your son, with clearance and trauma with your mom, like it was so, like I love that you share those journeys because sometimes when you read you know this has a lot of scientific information and whatnot. Sometimes it's hard to make a parallel between, okay, well, spirituality, and then I'm going to go do ketamine, like you know what I mean. It's kind of a hard jump. So I want to say thank you so much for including those vulnerable moments in your book was really profound.
Speaker 2:Really appreciate you saying that I really had given up on God, I'd given up on spirituality when I'm yeah, I mean, I lost it in that little window of time. I lost my great-at, my grandmother, my father and my mom, all within like four or five years, so it was just a lot of people and, yeah, I just couldn't see a way that any higher power, sacred can do such a thing. And then to find spirituality again in my late 40s was just, it's just surprising. I was like I was reading like God is not great by Christopher Hitchens. This is like it was just not expected, yeah, and now it's. It's really where I spend most of my time are in these ceremonial, psychedelic experiences.
Speaker 1:I think it's so profound. So in your book Psychedelics for Everyone, you discussed psychedelics as a tool for transformation. Can you maybe elaborate on how these substances facilitate such profound changes?
Speaker 2:So I want to also be careful with the word. I understand why we all use the word transformation, but at this point, what I believe is the first thing psychedelics do is they help us remember who we are.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't change who we are. It just reminds us that we are loved and powerful and enough and worthy and that anything other than that is a story we've been telling ourselves. Now, with that remembrance and the neuroplasticity that psychedelics induce, we do have an option or an opportunity to make behavioral change. That's part of why we talk about. Integration is really where the work is with psychedelics. Psychedelics aren't a cure. They are a catalyst to help us see, and then it's up to us to then take advantage of whatever it is that we to actualize, whatever it is that we want to actualize from it. So that's why in my other book and Beyond the Trip, which is a psychedelic preparation and integration journey, there are four weeks of homework for people following a psychedelic experience. There's a 30 day gratitude journal that helped us reprogram the mind for the positive versus so many negative things that we are taught at an early age to kind of have that as our focal point.
Speaker 1:One of the things in your answer that you brought up is that it's almost you know we are facilitating the healing in which we desire within. So we can use psychedelics as a tool to maybe illuminate some of these things that we're trying to. You know, maybe want we want to recap for their mom, maybe we want to release trauma, maybe we want to ease our anxiety, and I like that. It's a tool, but ultimately I have to consciously, physically decide whether or not I want to take on that healing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true for so much of that. So we talk about in the, as we organize these types of experiences, what is our role? So my role is creating a safe container, so we hire excellent facilitators who are really experienced in this. We make sure they're bringing pure medicine, so that's a concern. We make sure that people have a health intake that's reviewed by a medical professional. We make sure there's no contraindications. We make sure people understand the risks that are associated with this and come in with an informed consent process.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Make sure there's good musicians to help guide through the experience and create a soundscape. Make sure there are chefs to keep people nourished. From that point, the experience that each person has is their experience. If they feel they had a breakthrough, they had a breakthrough, it's on them. They feel they didn't have a breakthrough, that's also on them. So no credit, no blame for the actual experience or, to use your other word, transformation or remembrance. We just can create a safe space.
Speaker 1:I really liked and this is kind of a deterrent for my questions that you brought up like how, as somebody who is facilitating these kind of healing sessions, safety is paramount, Like in whoever you're booking with maybe I book with you when you're company or someone else I love the fact that you touch on. Safety is so, so important when you're going through this kind of experience, because you're in an altered state of consciousness and who knows what kind of like. You did mention how people have. Sometimes you go into a power struggle and there could be, unfortunately, some abuse that takes place, and I really liked that you touch upon that almost as a okay, well, if you're going to do this, make sure you know that you need to be safe and who you're going to be partnering this journey with.
Speaker 2:That's really important, Rachel. So my book is called Psychedelics for Everyone, but under no circumstances do I mean that everyone should take a psychedelic.
Speaker 1:I want people to read this book. I think you can say that in the book. I do, I do. I think you said it multiple times.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I want people to read this to understand. Well, maybe it's for me, maybe it's for someone I love, maybe it's just because I want to understand, so it changes the way I vote in the next election. All of that's important. That's important. I even hesitate these days to even use the word safe. We talk about risk reduced. All medicine has risk. Almost 200 people every year die from a set of mitophino overdoses Yep. So there is a risk. For those who are interested in, there's a really cool study by Imperial College London, dr David Nutt, where he said let's forget the drugs are classified and let's just look at harm to self and harm to others. And he looks at a bunch of drugs far left-hand side, I think. It's 72 in his chart. Most harm to self, most harm to others is alcohol, absolutely.
Speaker 1:You work your way down.
Speaker 2:You have tobacco, you have heroin, but all the way in the far right-hand side of his chart, our mushrooms is like a six, LSD is a seven, MDMA is a nine. So are there risks? Absolutely, Relatively not as much, but people should know the risks going in from again, medical. Then we get into the risks of contraindications. Maybe you're taking some other medicine or supplement that leads to a dangerous contraindication, so you have to watch out for that. We then get into family background. So maybe you have I'll use an example maybe a pair of skills of friend and maybe you're young. Well, this might not be the right thing for you to do at this time, Right. And then what you touched on, Rachel you get into the vulnerability of being in a non-ordinary state of consciousness and being truly in another space, and you really need to trust your facilitators and your fellow travelers in that experience to keep you safe Absolutely.
Speaker 1:John.
Speaker 2:Topkin has done beautiful research that if people pay attention to source where do your drugs come from? Set your mindset, going in and setting the physical environment the probability of a bad experience, a truly bad experience, is very low. But those are the things that people really need to care about as they're deciding. I want to do this in a medical environment, I want to do this in a ceremonial environment, I want to do this as a psychedelic tourism environment. All of that's important.
Speaker 1:So so important and you do bring up like I'm a registered nurse in my day life I actually run a doctor's office.
Speaker 1:So you're right, people do overdose from Tylenol Advil, like people think that over the counter drugs are safe and they're really not. And you have to be so conscious and aware of what you're consuming in your body and I like that you bring up the chart of alcohols way up here. But these psychedelics really are down here and if you're going to a licensed practitioner who is studied and trained, well versed, you know you're going to have such an amazing outcome, I feel.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and then I think what you're speaking to overall is agency. So we again, early on we're taught to give up our agency to our parents and then to our teachers and doctors.
Speaker 1:Doctors, and on and on.
Speaker 2:The psychedelic process is about remembering who you are. You taking control over this. You taking first understanding who are we at our core, then understanding what do we want to experience in this life, and then understanding it's our movie. We can make this happen. So part of this journey for everyone is deciding up front. I want to do this, if that is what they decide, and I'm going to keep myself safe. I'm going to keep myself safe by asking these questions when did your medicine come from? Did you have it tested? What is your experience as a facilitator? What are the risks associated? What are you getting Give me in terms of music or eye masks or mattresses? What are you going to do for me in advance, for intention setting? What are you going to do for me afterwards, for integration? And maybe they're not going to do pieces of that and you have to do it yourself. And that's fine as long as you have the information.
Speaker 1:Right, that's so, so important. Like I've completed some interviews with a couple of different people that they lead psychedelic retreats and whatnot, and you and now another group like really this integration period after the experience. Like I like that you're touching upon that, because I think sometimes people may go for an ayahuasca retreat and they come home and it's like, okay, now what? So I like that you have information and an integration period post this trip. You know it's so important.
Speaker 2:It is and I can. Johns Hopkins has great research. But if you're trying to optimize this experience, you're trying to make the results of the positive behavioral and mental changes last the longest. Yeah, and integration process is important. That can be with therapist, it can be with a coach, it can be with a spiritual group, it can be on your own, it can be with a therapist going doing the work.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. What do you think are some misconceptions about psychedelics that you've encountered and how do you address them?
Speaker 2:Oh, so we've all just lived through a 50 year prohibition and no one told us as a prohibition. So what did that look like? It looked like as we grew up seeing commercials on TV just say no, and frying pan and eggs. This is your brain. It's your brain on drugs.
Speaker 1:Find our dare contract. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yes, we did that in the Philadelphia as well. That's funny. And then what else did it look like? It looked like article after article about how these drugs have no medicinal use, article after article about how these drugs are addicting, yeah. And then it looked like a disproportionate amount of people black and brown people being jailed for drug offenses, even if they were consuming drugs of the same person as white people. So it took its toll and we were given bad information for many, many years. So how does that then materialize today? Well, people have visceral reactions when it comes to the idea of using these substances for any purpose and they're scared. And I get it, I totally get it. And they ask what is this going to put a hole in my brain? Is it going to do this, that or the other thing? Am I going to get addicted? What do you mean? You're going to use a psychedelic for alcohol use or smoking or heroin?
Speaker 1:addiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, any of these substance use challenges. So there's a learning curve and that's okay. We're seeing this beautiful rise. Right now, there are over 300 academic institutions studying psychedelics. That's amazing. Yeah, the studies are being done on everything from depression to anxiety to PTSD, eating disorders, ocd, substance use, autism. I mean incredible, chronic pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Chronic pain yeah, absolutely. So more information is coming out. We have a medical model right now. Ketamine is legal in all 50 states and people are using that. Mdma shouldn't be re-legalized this year, which is amazing. And then psilocybin FDA has given breakthrough therapy designation to that. They're doing beautiful work with end-of-life patients. It's just one example of psilocybin. We have somewhere between 202,000 psychedelic churches in America, so people are experiencing them that way. And then we're seeing psychedelic retreat centers in Mexico, jamaica, peru, costa Rica, brazil, the Netherlands, multiple areas also appearing as options for people and countries like Canada and Australia doing amazing work, and then the entire state of Oregon, the entire state of Colorado, with a medical framework and decriminalizing these medicines.
Speaker 2:So what an incredible time to be alive and what an amazing shift that we all get to experience here when it comes to options for exploring consciousness for and or mental health options.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I actually have a friend whose daughter right now goes weekly for ketamine infusions because she has a pain condition that years and years has made her suicidal and whatnot, and this is the first time she's having some relief by having it's like transformational, and thank goodness that that's an option, like you're saying. I think it's amazing. So let me ask you this how do you think psychedelic experiences can help individuals reconnect with their true selves and reclaim a sense of purpose and meaning?
Speaker 2:I like that. So there are different medicines for different purposes. So I'll take you through maybe an arc of one, one set of ceremonies that that I participate with does this arc? The first medicine that people are given is sassafras. Now other ceremonies we use MDMA. It's a similar molecule. These are called MDMA and sassafras or MDA.
Speaker 2:These are all called empathogens, or heart openings. So when people take a heart opener, they feel love for themselves, they feel love for others, they quiet, quiet down the default mode network. So you don't have that inner narrator telling you you're not enough, you need to do more, you're not worthy. It turns off shame, blame and guilt so that you can look back at your experiences with and give an honest assessment. Okay, this was my role in the experience and no bad me, it just is. And then it gives us kind of a beacon of light of okay, I'm now thinking this different way and thinking about myself and others with lots of love. How can I do that in my everyday life? So let's call that like step one in the medicine.
Speaker 2:Step two in the ceremonial process is psilocybin or magic mushrooms, and with this one this is like the interconnectedness of all things medicine. You feel that you are not separate from nature, but that you are part of nature, you feel grounded into the earth, you feel connected, that we're all brothers and sisters in a very real sense, in a way that maybe it just didn't ring as true through the stories. And I think this medicine really helps. I call it molecular cleaning. It takes us down to our core essence. That reminds us, it shows us, oh wow, inside I'm amazing and maybe I don't need to tell myself this story or that story, or look at my relationship with my wife or my partner or my friends or my colleagues or my family this way, I can look at it a whole different way. Or maybe I don't need to engage with this substance this way. I can look at it that way. With both these medicines we're gonna have neurons firing together that haven't fired together in years, and that's again a remembrance of oh wow, I didn't always think the way I've been thinking, and that's powerful. And then it also puts us into the state of neuroplasticity where we can do all sorts of amazing things.
Speaker 2:And then I get one more medicine, one called Bufo, or five MEODMT. So this is the God molecule, it's the toad. You might have heard of lots of different names. This is our non-duality medicine. So in every other psychedelic that we know of, there's a subject and an object. With Bufo or five MEODMT, there's not, there's just the universe. There's no time, there's no place, there's no you, and that's why many people say this is your personal conversation with your safety, an incredible opportunity to feel deeply that we are, we are having this human experience, but that we are spiritual creatures on a much longer journey. You put three of those things together and, yeah, people can really. It can really change the way people look at them.
Speaker 1:So if somebody's having that arc where they take these, you know, have these three different experiences how long would something like that take? Would that be over a weekend? Is that a day? Is that a week?
Speaker 2:Typically for something like that, you do two or three days. You would do maybe a whole day of saccharine, maybe a day of psilocybin and then the Bufo since that's a shorter experience could either be on the same day as a psilocybin or the next day. But it's similar. Like in many cultures they use ayahuasca, different medicine, very common in Central America, south America, hawaii has an ayahuasca culture. Typically we go down and do maybe three sessions with ayahuasca over five days and that's pretty common protocol for that particular medicine. But, yeah, over a few days.
Speaker 2:And what also happened, rachel, when you do multiple day, multiple medicine, is it takes the pressure off. So many people like, oh, I spent all this money. If I flown to Portland to do a psilocybin journey, I dropped but $3,500, I better get this experience the way. I want this experience. Yes, it's a lot of pressure. Multiple days, for whatever reason. People are like, okay, well, I've got time. It's not the end of the world if this doesn't work and because they're relaxed it tends to they tend to have a great first day After that first day. They're used to it, they release their heart, they've practiced, they've gotten used to the facilitators and the musicians and their fellow travelers. So then, when it comes time for psilocybin, they can dive deeper, and that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I like the idea that it's also not just like if you do spend the money and you have this expectation of I better have the best experience ever. That just sounds so stressful. It's over a couple of days. You kind of like you said, you take that pressure off and that release off and you probably have a more pleasurable experience. So I didn't even think about that Like, oh my goodness, I know.
Speaker 2:That is also why I like group psychedelic experiences versus individual. I know in the medical model they're so used to individual work. But what happens in my experience with individual work is maybe you have two facilitators and one participant. Well, if that participant moves there, pink, the two facilitators have seen it. That's a lot of attention on the self In a group ceremony. The energy moves around the room and maybe, rachel, you're releasing and I'm not, or maybe this person's laughing and this person's crying, and the energy just moves in a different way. That's beautiful and, again, I think it helps forge connection. It helps remind us that we're not alone. It helps remind us that we all have our stuff and our experiences and our traumas that are really important to us. After the experience in what's called a sharing circle, which is super common, again in the ceremonial space, maybe I don't want to talk, but I'm listening. And, rachel, you start talking about something you saw in your experience and all of a sudden it reminds me of something else that I hadn't really connected with in my experience.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden, your learning, feeling and growing becomes my learning, feeling and growing, and then maybe I do say something and that connects with you or this person or that person, but I do feel that it makes the entire experience deeper and more resonant with people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and this is why I myself like doing group healings and group-led meditations and then sharing at the end, because when you share at the end, usually if somebody has a question or something, someone else is also thinking it. So, it helps that shared experience and that shared healing, and I like that. It's also when you're having these sharing circles. It's also very vulnerable but, like you said, it's a safe container to be able to express what you're truly feeling and what you're experiencing and that just sounds so beautiful for that moment.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree with you more. And as long as people go in knowing you don't have to share anything and no one's gonna judge you, and if you do choose to share, you can share anything and no one's gonna judge you, and that's both is okay, and then people make a decision that's right for them.
Speaker 1:I love that. So, with the growing acceptance of psychedelics, how do you envision the future of psychedelic therapy and its integration into mainstream healthcare?
Speaker 2:So there are three ways that people access psychedelics in America, and I think all three are important to understand and all three need to happen. The first way is, as you just referenced, the medical model. So these are people like us who want to be diagnosed. I have a thing depression or anxiety or OCD, whatever. I have a diagnosis and I want to meet somebody in a medical model and I want to get therapy that is done in conjunction with these psychedelics. Great, that is beautiful, that is important. We need to train as many people as possible.
Speaker 2:There are others who say I don't want that. I want a ceremony, I want to connect to my sacred, I want to explore myself, I want to optimize, I want to understand why am I on this earth? And I want to meet somebody in a ceremonial model. Great, and I believe that these ceremonial leaders need to have a way to come out from being hidden and be able to share their knowledge and for there to be trusted sources for these people.
Speaker 2:The third way is the decriminalization movement which we have decrim nature chapters all over the country. So their premise goes like this no adult should tell another adult that they shouldn't put nature in their body or they can't put nature in their body. Beautiful premise. That is important for people who want to use drugs recreationally, but it is also important for those who can't afford to use the medicine. So all three things need to happen together and I see a future where all of us are exploring our minds, our consciousness, our mental health using the tools and the people that we are most comfortable using, but we are using this medicine to get to this next level, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Do you have time for?
Speaker 2:one more comment on this.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely Go ahead.
Speaker 2:All right, I'll say one more thing so in the old days, in the old days there was just healer, and the healer was both a spiritual healer and a medical healer In our Western society. We've separated those roles and I guess that you can say psychedelics.
Speaker 2:If we gave it to the spiritual people that they don't have the latest information about my brain and my body to keep me safe, perfect, I get it. And conversely, if you give it just to the medical professionals, there are many of them who don't have any spiritual background and they don't understand how this connects. So there is a collaboration, a reconciliation, an opportunity for both sides to work together in harmony so that people can again go into either interplace that you would like to go and start with, but have both a spiritual experience and a biochemical. So we call that a biochemical, psychosocial, spiritual process versus just I'm going to give you some drugs, I'm going to put it in an IV in your arm, I'm going to take your vitals and after it's over, I'm going to send you on your way. It's legal to do that, but it's a different process.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I have so many thoughts running in my brain right now Just trying to integrate my RN self with my spiritual self. It's always fun. So let me ask you this how do you approach the spiritual aspects of psychedelic experiences, and how do these experiences intersect with various religions and cultural beliefs?
Speaker 2:This summer there was a psychedelic science conference in Denver and almost 13,000 people showed up with, I think the least expensive ticket was like $1,000. It was a big conference and at that conference you could take all sorts of tracks, so there was a therapist track and an academic track and a religious track, and in that religious track there were sessions like psychedelics in Islam, psychedelics in Judaism, psychedelics in.
Speaker 2:Christianity, psychedelics in Buddhism, hinduism, you name it. Those tracks were there. Each of us have our own cultural background, we have our own beliefs and I believe that psychedelics, when done right for lack of a better word doesn't judge or say you need to believe anything. It's a tool to allow you to explore your history, your culture, your beliefs and decide where you wanna go with them. My experience, regardless of where you came from, psychedelics increases the amount of spirituality people feel. It's something like. There was a study. We're looking at atheists and psychedelics and I think like 70 or 75% no longer were atheists following their psychedelic experience. It's a big, big number.
Speaker 1:Huge number.
Speaker 2:Huge number, powerful, powerful medicine for people who want to explore. And then, actually, we are seeing the power of this with the studies being done right now with psilocybin and end of life. So here are people who've got terminal illnesses. They're being prescribed and doing this in a study setting psilocybin and they are decri and after that experience, their depression is down, their anxiety is down. Doesn't change the outcome, doesn't change that they're gonna die in a relatively short period of time. What it changes is the quality of life for those people during that experience. So it's beautiful, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I'll take it one more step. What is super exciting, then, to think about is imagine now a world where we have some people who are taking this because they do have this existential crisis that is upon them, but now their family and friends are also able, maybe in a spiritual or a sacred process, to also take psychedelics and process in advance. Wow, this person means so much to me. I love this person so much and I don't need to be quite as distraught as we're going into this experience. It changes the way, changes the experience for those in the active state of transitioning, as well as those that love them, and that's incredible to think about.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I have a lot of experiences being a hospice nurse when I went to the hospital and also I worked in home care where hospice we partnered with. So death with dignity, death with compassion, I mean, and not just sedating them until they pass Like this just sounds like such an amazing, beautiful healing experience to almost take away the fear of death as well. Like I just wow, that's amazing. It makes me wanna go back and go back to hospice and be like are you doing this?
Speaker 2:It is yeah, I love the work being done in the hospice community. There's another hospice adjacent community of death doulas.
Speaker 1:They do beautiful work in this space.
Speaker 2:Here in our little I'm in Chapel Hill, north Carolina. Down the road there's a town called Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh there's a death fair every year where thousands of people come and they talk about death and they honor their ancestors and share their process. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1:We could take away the stigma of death and dying, especially in the United States, and being okay to grieve and really talking openly about the process and that state in stage of life, I think us as a society would have so much more compassion for one another. It's such a scary topic to talk about death and really it's not.
Speaker 2:And we just we're not very mature, we don't it's gonna happen to everybody and we don't talk about it. We spend so much time thinking about our careers and learning everything there is to learn about whatever computers, black holes, engineering, whatever.
Speaker 1:Anything, think your thing.
Speaker 2:Stock trade market and don't spend right enough time release in many cases, any time on. What are we doing?
Speaker 1:here. Who are we?
Speaker 2:Where are we going? So we're very much worried about what's gonna happen. We don't think enough about what's happening in the next life and we certainly don't think about what's happening in this life.
Speaker 1:So true it's. I think it's very, very hard for a lot of individuals to be present and to truly like take stock of where they are and, yeah, it's very interesting. But I also feel like and I'm not sure for you too, especially with 2024 and the energy that's kind of coming onto the planet and I'm sorry I'm going off topic here, but it does feel like there's a lot of awakening and energetic momentum for people to turn more towards psychedelics and spirituality and, you know, alter states of consciousness, to connect to divine within, Like I feel so many people are like oh, I'm going through this now, Like it's a very interesting energetic experience right now.
Speaker 2:Love that, rachel. I mean, there's never been a better time to be alive, so we can start with that. Regardless of what we see in the media, this is amazing. We have crime is down, violence against women is down, famine is down, disease is down, income is up, poverty is down. So so many things are great that are happening and there are things that are challenges. But because we have this period of prosperity relatively and we have an opportunity to do amazing things with our lives and to and now I don't think it's an accent there's 309 academic institutions studying this and that we have bipartisan support for these medicines and people want it. They're leaving churches and droves across the country right now and psychedelics offer an opportunity to have a direct spiritual experience, and I think people are hungry for it.
Speaker 1:They're hungry for it and if there's this, almost yeah like all right. So last question here yes, yes, yes. Finally, what do you hope readers will take away from your book and what message do you want to impart on those exploring the world of psychedelics for personal growth?
Speaker 2:So I do. I'm gonna go backwards. I want people to be to think about risk. So there is risk with this. Are you sure you want to do this, for whatever reason? And then, if the answer is yes, just take every possible step you can to reduce the risk. So pay attention to your source, your set and your setting and make sure you're safe. My book again it's called Psychedelics for Everyone, whether this is for you, for someone you love or just you just want the information to better understand what's happening. That's what I really want people to take away from the book, but that there are options, whether it's a medical option, the spiritual option or a psychedelic tourism option. Those options are out there. If you're still listening to this podcast, 40 minutes in something's calling and calling to you yeah, and go find your local psychedelic society or ask around or schedule a call with me or something. And yeah, and just again, reduce your, take responsibility to reduce your own risk in this process.
Speaker 1:Well, matt, thank you so so much for coming to Spiritual Spotlight Series. This has been amazing and thank you again.
Speaker 2:Rachel, we've got to talk to another hour. Thank you for coming with such great questions and bringing the former hospice and nursing energy to this. I really appreciated that, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
