🍄 The New Health Club #34 - Rick Doblin - Meet Mr. MDMA and meet a psychedelic institution.
Hi!
You know, I really get the feeling that we are entering a new hippie era. Just a cooler, smoother, more modern, and definitely more digital this time ‘round. Why do I think that?
Well, the UC Berkeley has launched a new center for psychedelic science and education. Berkeley, of course, was a really important university in the late sixties and it has always been a place where new ideas for the world got researched thoroughly.
“With $1.25 million in seed funding from an anonymous donor, the new UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics will conduct research using psychedelics to investigate cognition, perception and emotion and their biological bases in the human brain.” the article says.
But wait for it, the best thing is that Michael Pollan, author of “How to change your mind” (and our former guest on The New Health Club podcast) is a founding member, So head over to apple podcasts and listen to my talk with him again!
Is that guy on our YouTube Show a saint?
Yes, I am talking about Rick Doblin!
Rick Doblin, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He received his doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he wrote his dissertation on the regulation of the medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana and completed his Master's thesis by researching oncologists about smoked marijuana vs. the oral THC pill in nausea control for cancer patients.
His undergraduate thesis at New College of Florida was a 25-year follow-up to the classic Good Friday Experiment, which evaluated the potential of psychedelic drugs to catalyze religious experiences. He also conducted a thirty-four year follow-up study to Timothy Leary's Concord Prison Experiment. Rick studied with Czech psychiatrist and transpersonal psychology founder Dr. Stanislav Grof and was among the first to be certified as a Holotropic Breathwork practitioner. His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise healthy people, and then eventually to become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist. Rick founded MAPS in 1986, and currently resides in Boston.
These are the hard facts on Rick, but there is so much more to him to learn about! For example, because of his 30 years’ experience with MAPS, first by starting it as a non-profit, and then helping them to bring MDMA aboard, and then finally getting it acknowledged as a therapeutic substance.
Rick and I had an almost private conversation, as much as this is possible on Zoom anyway. And just maybe because we had that conversation very shortly after lockdown here, we both were more open. We talked about Rick’s long journey with MAPS, with his troubles and fights with the war on drugs during the times of Ronald Reagan, and how the Holocaust experiences within his family gave him the strength to fight for psychedelics and build one of the most important forces in the new field: MAPS. And yes, we also talked about his ketamine trip at the Esalen Institute, during which he encountered the Nazis.
All I can tell you, listening to this man is like a nice, long shower. You come out confident, incredibly refreshed, and ready to go!
Oh and we had a blast at the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg! My first (safe) festival in Covid Times! I talked to Christian Angermayer and this time we kept it German! It’s available from Friday on their website.