#337: Hamilton Morris on Better Living Through Chemistry: Psychedelics, Smart Drugs, and More

What else do you recall from your breakfast, Hamilton? I ate it from a ceramic bowl. With a metal Fork. Optimal minimum. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I'll answer your personal question.

No seen that kinda. I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endocellary. Me too. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Inktel.

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Check it out. Well hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. Today's guest, I'm gonna keep this intro short And skip the preamble because I'm so excited to share this with you. is Hamilton Morris on Twitter at Hamilton Morris, Instagram at Hamilton Morris.

who is a writer, documentarian, and scientific researcher who currently studies the chemistry and pharmacology of tryptomines what are those? We'll talk about it at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. His writing has been featured in Harper's Playboy and Vice, and he is the creator of the television series and oh my goodness do I love it, Hamilton's Pharmacopia or pharmacopia. Which uh you don't have to worry about spelling. It's easy to find as soon as you type in Hamilton's Pharma anywhere. that uh you want to find it, whether that's Amazon Prime or wherever, which recently completed its second season and it is absolutely one of my favorite series of the last five years. I don't know how on earth it took me so long to find this. It's Fantastic.

And I encourage you to check it out. His website, which should be up by the time this episode publishes. I'm gonna keep prodding him is HamiltonMorris dot com. Hamilton is you think M O R R I S. Dot. com and this episode goes into the chemistry of psychedelics and mind altering substances, his adventures and misadventures around the world with different indigenous cultures, different

Clandestine. chemists and all sorts of characters. Very, very smart guy, exceptionally good at explaining complex subjects. simply and making science sexy Please mate.

Hamilton Morris. Hamilton, welcome to the show. Thanks. I have been hoping to

have this conversation on the podcast ever since I first saw your show. And have recommended the show. To Probably more people than any other show I've seen in the last three to five years.

So thank you for making it, first of all. That's great. I'm glad you like it. And I wanted to begin the conversation. We're gonna bounce around a lot.

I will mispronounce many, many things, so please pardon my ignorance. That's fine. This has been a trend already in our conversations uh but I thought we could Start off. By Introducing people to a character they may not know. And that's Alexander Shulgan. And I think

The best way to do this is to read the opening of And here we go. Feel free to correct any of this. I'm already feeling embarrassed before you even start. This is a pretty old piece of writing. Oh, okay. Would you prefer that

Let me just get through it. Is that okay? Yeah. I love Alexander Shulgan. I've loved him from the first moment I read about him. He is my idol, my hero, my son, my O2. I love each of the nine hundred and seventy eight pages of his phenethylamine magnum opus pecal, phenethyl amines I have known and loved, and every milligram of his one point one three kilogram tryptamine treatise Uh Tikal. Tryptomines I have known and loved. Above my bed I've pinned a large picture of Shulgan cuddling with his wife and I often sleep with a copy of Picol not under my pillow but as my pillow. He is the grandfather of ecstasy, the molecular magician, the atomic conquistador over the span of fifty years He has created more new psychedelic drugs than the Amazon jungle ever has. He is more of a mythological creature, a chemical centaur than he is a real person. Who is Alexander Shulgan?

Alexander Shulgin is a chemist who has just uh a career so amazing that You'd think. he couldn't be a real person. Um he's very much a product of the nineteen fifties uh And I could you know tell you his

His life story and it's a But um I'll just do that very quickly. Alexander Shulgan came from a a poor family of Russian immigrants uh in California.

And He was accepted at Harvard as a I think as an unusually young freshman, I think at that time it was s somewhat more common for people that were very young to go to college early and he felt alienated.

from his classmates because they all had money and he didn't and he made uh A small bomb out of mercury fulminate and blew up the windows of his freshman dormitory and then decided to leave Harvard and Join the Navy. And in the navy he injured his thumb.

and had to have a small surgical procedure done to to sew up the wound. And before the procedure a nurse gave him a glass of orange juice that had crystals of morphine. Um that were float on the surface of the orange juice and he

Drank it. And passed out and they sewed up the wound. And when he regained consciousness he thanked the nurse and said, Thank you so much for giving me that morphine, it really made the procedure painless and I don't think I could have gotten through it without the morphine. And she said there was no morphine. Those were sugar crystals. And

That First. encounter with the placebo effect was so profound for him that he realized he wanted to dedicate the rest of his life to understanding.

Um And when he was in the Navy he brought this chemistry textbook with them by a chemist named Paul Carrer and um and studied it. And you know, these early chemistry textbooks they had synthesis of mescaline, synthesis of lysurgic acid, synthesis of harmaline, all these things were

they weren't treated as taboo subjects. They were simply legitimate areas of scientific inquiry. So he was being exposed to all this chemistry that would later serve as the foundation of his career. And then he got out of the Navy.

Um Went to Berkeley Got a degree in biochemistry, um And

started working for Down. Which then was in a sort of it was a controversial time because they were supporting the

Manufacturer of napalm. in Vietnam and there was all this sort of political protest surrounding the work. But he had developed A profitable insecticide called Zectrand. And Because he'd made them all this money, they said you can do whatever you want. So while he was still working at Dow

And you can actually see his Doubt books online. with the Dow logo and everything. And at that point he was not only synthesizing these things, but he was Testing them on himself.

Which was the only effective way to do it. And At some point they decided they didn't want him to do that anymore, but he had enough money that he decided to continue the research in his backyard.

Um And he did this all openly. He didn't hide anything. He published in the most prestigious scientific journals then and now, Nature and Science. And he did it all from his home address with no university affiliation. Um and he did amazing

research. I mean There are entire pharmaceutical companies that have done less than he did in his backyard. He is considered responsible for reintroducing MDMA as a psychotherapeutic tool.

In addition to that, he created countless derivatives of MDMA. He also created a a chemical called Ariadne or dimmoxamine that was used as a potential treatment for CNL dementia. created methylone, which he patented as an antidepressant. I mean, you could go on and on and on about the amazing contributions of this guy. So he's someone that um you know, you rarely have these experiences in life where you He can

point them and say that changed my life. But I remember as a high school student, reading a profile of him in the New York Times magazine sitting in my parents' kitchen and thinking And I wasn't even very interested in drugs. I mean I was maybe as interested than a than a typical high school student, but I wasn't a drugie. I had smoked salvia and used cannabis a number of times and dr and drank alcohol a number of times, but I wasn't actively pursuing this and then I read a profile of this guy

And um And thought wow. He Is inventing Not only new drugs, but new types of drugs. Drugs that

I didn't know existed and no one knew existed. And he's doing it in his back yard. What an amazing human being. What a totally fascinating creature this person is. And uh And became pretty seriously obsessed with him, you know, ordered his books

read the books, and the books I think have Um have many levels to them that you come to appreciate. There's the the superficial level Which is You read these things and they're fantastic. Some of the best not

Just best books about drugs ever written. Some of the best books about science ever written. So you know, if you're are just interested in science, I can't recommend these books. Are they accessible to non chemists? Yes, they're absolutely accessible to non chemists because there's a narrative component to each book. Um a love story. and stories that are more accessible. And then there's hardcore chemistry as well. Um so the typical way somebody reads these books is you read the stories and you read the qualitative effects of the drugs and you kind of skim over the chemistry because it's too complicated. And that's the way I read it the first time as well.

Um And then There's a kind of second reading. Which is, you know, now you've taken or I had taken you know, general and organic chemistry and now I'm I'm ready to really understand these things. And then you realize

Okay, wow, all right, this is this is real. And then the most amazing thing then this is maybe But really Um As inf reinforce my love for him is then following

some of these recipes in you know in a university research laboratory and realizing This is real. This really works. This These are scientific tools and the synthesis that he provided.

are not only effective, they're often brilliant routes to producing these compounds. And What an amazing contribution this man made. What made him So good. In the sense that presumably other people had access to the same books. And similar training.

I don't know what what distinguishes a great chemist from a merely good chemist. Well he would actually often say that he was a terrible chemist because his his PhD was not in chemistry. Um he was he was more interested in biochemistry and enzymes and things like that. And that's an an interest that carries over into a lot of his later work in in certain ways. Um But What made him great

is not so much the chemistry itself, although that was fantastic and I I would never uh suggest that it wasn't but Wait was He had a perspective on science that a lot of people don't have. A lot of people

They think whatever they're doing right now is state of the art because it is. And they don't think Well what if this F M R I stuff we're doing right now? What if a decade from now it's all garbage?

And what if this was a huge, very expensive waste of time? But what's the one thing that won't be a waste of time? What's the What is certain. to be timeless. And that's experience.

That's the one thing that never becomes obsolete. And he understood that. If he had been like so many of his colleagues and said, Oh wow, I just discovered a new derivative of mescaline. I can't wait to cut out a strip of a rat's uterus and Place it in a bath. And see if this Mascaline derivative causes the strip of uterus to contract.

This will be so interesting to find out. Well All the research that is Isolated.

uterus tissue and things like that. It's all obsolete. You can't cite that in a scientific paper in a meaningful way without kind of understanding that it's not considered useful because it doesn't differentiate between the different subtypes of serotonin receptors and There's so many variables to consider.

Um So he understood all that that these pharmacological Assays were flawed. But his own experience. was the bottom line. That's what mattered. And um and there've been a number of of philosophers that I think had a a similar attitude. You know, Goethe also wrote this amazing book on colors. I don't know if you know about this book, but he he I know of it, I haven't read it. I have a friend who's a memory competitor.

Who's uh who has read this and recommended it to me? Well it's it's a really amazing idea. I've been reading it recently and um you know he was saying physicists are saying the color is made of waves of light or there's these different theories But what difference does it make? We don't experience colour as waves of light. So

Why don't we take our own experience? as seriously as the physicists that are measuring the wavelengths of each color of light. And Why don't I sit and describe the experience of green and sit and describe the experience of yellow and what it's like and what does it look like during the day and what does it look like at night and how does it change? Everything, everything that I can observe. And to not underestimate my perceptual apparatus as a sort of Analytical device.

How generalizable what is the value of the subjective that experience and how generalizable is it? I mean you mentioned color, so it makes me think of how certain cultures treat and perceive colours very differently. Right, of course. Uh s so in the In the case of, say, a Shulgan Or others.

Uh What do you see in the value or what did he see in the value? of describing the subjective experience. And I'm sure the question a lot of people are wondering is How the hell did he risk mitigate? Like if he's creating these novel compounds. How do how do you think about

risk in such a case. Right. And that's a that's a great question. There's two ways to think about the risk issue. Um There's one way that you could say like How c how could he possibly have done this? It was so dangerous. He was the first person to synthesize these things. No one knew it. anything about them. They hadn't even been given to rodents yet. So how could he possibly take that risk?

The flip side is Do we really know anything? About it. Any drugs that we take? I mean there's still fundamental debate going on right now about whether or not

Cannabis decreases IQ. after long term use. I mean I have the psychopharmacology textbook that I was using when I was in college says that it does. Um, then there's endless debate about it. We haven't resolved very Basic.

drugs on earth. So I would say before we magnify The

Potential danger in unknown substances. We shouldn't minimize the potential danger in the known substances because really Everything is unknown to a certain extent. Um And

the the basic way that he mitigated that risk and he actually published a scientific article describing his methodology that's worth reading for anyone that wants to get into this area. Um is to Start Small.

To start. Yeah. one tenth of whatever the absolute smallest imaginable dose might be for something. So if it's a you know Suppose you made this just completely hypothetical. Suppose you made

six methyl DMT. Six methyl DMT. is likely to be inactive. It probably won't have any activity. But just to be safe, if I were hypothetically making that, I might want to start at A hundred micrograms. All evidence would point to it being less potent than DMT, but why risk it?

Start at a hundred. Nothing. In an hour. Move up to Two hundred. Then move up to four hundred, and then over the course of days

very gradually escalate the dose. And If you do it that way. You can say with a pretty high level of certainty that you won't poison yourself, because even if it were cyanide, you wouldn't poison yourself if you were doing it that way. You would recognize that it was toxic before you reached anything close to a lethal dose of the material. Same would be true of strychnine. There are very few Which you wouldn't advise. Which I would not advise. people although strychnine has been used medicimally in the past and

I would actually be curious about trying it at a low dose, but But maybe this just shows the sort of person I am. that uh that methodology and his description of it. I believe it was published in the journal Psychopharmacology. Um I think it's called Yeah. Any type of gingerbread trail and uh we can put it in the in the show notes, but we can give it a

I can definitely pull it up for you quickly with a Google search. I can't remember off the top of my head. Yeah, no problem. And for people listening, we'll put that in the show notes and also for people listening. A quick audio engineer note here in my sound studio. Uh this is the hour of the blue jay. So if you hear any birds in the background, those are blue jays. And it is my Uh

Shogun. I he's captured my fascination in the last few years. But part of me is maybe embarrassed or insecure about picking up this book beyond the narratives because I know no chemistry.

never taken a chemistry class. How would you recommend or would you recommend to people who are Out of school. who would like to gain a basic literacy in chemistry.

Uh. Uh is there any particular approach you would would that you would recommend? Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. This is a great time to learn anything. There's so many educational resources available to people on the internet. So

Um you know, when I was taking organic chemistry there are two books called organic chemistry as a second language. Um Part one and part two. Those are fantastic, very well written, very clear, very accessible. Do you need any are there any prerequisites before reading this? Or can you j hop right into it? It just depends, I would say, on your basic foundational scientific literacy. Um I would say for most people that have

Let's say. high school level understanding of of chemistry in the sense that they, you know, know about elements and things like that. That should be accessible. I believe it's been a little while since I've looked at it. Um but I I re I remember it being pretty accessible. And then there's Con Academy. videos that are very good as well. Um

And there's a kind of an industry. There's actually a pretty big educational industry surrounding organic chemistry specifically because it's a class that's taken by a lot of people that don't want to be taking it. Right. Um because it's a premed requirement. So uh the an industry has emerged to help all of these pre-med students who don't want to become chemists and don't find chemistry interesting to ensure that they can pass the class so they can go to med school. Um Which is nice because the same isn't true for some other technical things. This is really uh purely a product of

The pre med requirement, I believe. I remember having uh Uh another scientist. had uh spoken with uh Nav Um on a prior episode of

had recommend actually getting the test prep books uh for some of these related subjects. I think it was s something or other one oh one. That was all in a Q and A format, but um The organic chemistry as a second language will be on the shopping list. Uh definitely get that. And then the other thing is, you know I'm a I learn about things

when I have a practical application for them. There's a lot of things that as an abstract idea don't have a lot of value, so And I say this with some hesitation, but you know, if you really want to learn these things, the absolute best way to learn them is to do chemistry. Um ideally in such a way that you don't hurt yourself or other people or get arrested. But there's a lot of basic chemistry work like distillation that you can do and it's a lot of fun to distill

essential oils or to um s extract various things from plants, you know, you could extract piperine from Black pepper or Um Or

a number of different things and that's not illegal and it gives you a basic idea of how to do these sorts of chemical manipulations. Um Yeah, I mean I think that I if I didn't have experience working in a lab, I don't think I could ever care about chemistry as much as I do because you need that practical application typically to really

Dig deep into something. Psychedelics enter. your life experience. And why

Why has it been? Stuck. And held your interest for so long. I was always aware of them um And always interested in them, even as a child, you know, I remember there was a a book called Buzzed that was uh sort of like

I think my school library had a copy of it and it was um an educational drug book and they had a a section about DMT in it. And I remember even as uh maybe a fifth or a sixth grader thinking, Oh wow, this DMT stuff, it's call the they call it the businessman's trip on the street. And uh and that that sure sounds interesting. And I remember Um at uh I don't even know if this place still exists, but there's a a a shopping mall called the Garage in Harvard Square. I grew up in Cambridge and I remember a drug dealer approaching me at the garage and saying, Do you want some L S D? And I said, Well, I don't really want L S D, but I would like some DMT if you have that the discerning consumer of street psychosis. Probably twelve or something like that. And uh but but um but

And he didn't, of course, and I didn't take the L S D, but I was aware that they had a certain power, um My Uh My dad was very afraid of them. His

Child psychiatrist had Written some Medical. papers about how damaging it is for people to use LSD as children.

And so he had been very much influenced by his psychiatrist who had led him to believe that L S T was dangerous. Um So he'd

uh I would say pretty permissive attitude toward most things, but he really felt like he would say, you know, don't take L S D promise me you won't take L S D. And um And I had I went to a kind of

alternative high school and there was also there a little bit of a sense that Psychedelics. didn't necessarily do people any favors. you know, a lot of the people that used psychedelics weren't people that I wanted to Be like.

Um it wasn't you know the I was I was a pretty nerdy guy. I was on the science team and certainly no one on the science team was using psychedelics. And uh And And so I was afraid of them and simply didn't use them in a major way in high school other than Salvia, which I actually love. And uh although I was fascinated by them.

And they're And their power. How did Salvia Enter your life. What was the f what was what was the first experience? Because for better or worse, it was very available at that time in head shops and so it was the sort of thing that high school students would talk about, you know, there's this stuff, it's uh it's legal, you can buy it in stores, you smoke it.

Uh causes you to trip dramatically for a few minutes and then you're back to normal. I mean it's a a pretty good Sales pitch if someone's a fourteen year old and um And so I tried it. And this was also before um people

considered it as frightening as they consider it now. There wasn't this fear narrative surrounding the substance. And I tried it and it was utterly amazing. Um And

You know, that was my first experience beginning to appreciate that These things were not only very different. But to some extent they were. not describable.

to begin with, that no matter who was describing them, there was going to have to be some degree of distortion and it really was the sort of thing that had to be experienced. And then I started to understand a little bit more About culturally why these things are misunderstood and why they might have more potential than people realize. Why is that? Why why do you think they're called Well let me mention two things. Number one is that

Before people listening run out. Two Yeah. Uh watch a few YouTube videos. Uh I mean it's it's worth being cautious about. Uh I find I find Savia Devonorum fascinating and the the science

Uh equally fascinating, but uh it it It is fairly well known for people who jump into it without doing a whole lot of reading is something that people do once for in many cases. You you tend to or in some cases like to run away. Um to to check out the YouTube videos first. But uh secondly Uh

Why are these why are these substances? Culturally misunderstood. Part of it has to do with there being no place for it, I think. You know, what What do we do? with a salvia experience.

Um It's a little bit weird to even talk about it for a lot of people. So What do you do with it? It doesn't fit into any spiritual or religious frameworks in our culture.

We don't have a a framework for there. scientifically, at least at that time, it was barely studied. I think when I first used it, it may have been before they even n understood that it was a kappa opioid receptor agonist or anything about it. Um So There isn't A lot.

Two because there's nowhere else for them but the margins. It's uh you know, what you do, you can write an around experience report and tell your friends about it, and then that's the end of it. But the potential, of course, extends far beyond that. And these are really important tools for studying consciousness and

in certain cultures or even in our own, if you develop a framework to do it, could be Ways of treating disease or having a spiritual type experience.

Yeah. What uh Would you consider yourself And this is not a trick question, there's no right answer here. But y since you use the word I sp a to be spiritual, a spiritual person. I am not a spiritual person at all. Um in fact I d I'm not even sure I know what the word spiritual means. Me neither. Yeah.

So in that in that case what Is there value or what Is there value in the spiritual experience for someone like yourself? Yes. Or I don't know. It's lacking a better descriptor. I mean I recognize that maybe that's not the right word to use, but I don't uh

I don't know how else to label it. Well, i there's a very tangible value, which is that you know, along with the visual distortions and the distortions of time and sense of self, there's often these Um very simple positive things that emerge like a sense of love for my

Parents. Something like that, love for my friends, appreciation for being alive, gratitude. Um a desire to work hard, to use the time that I have on earth in a way that will benefit other people.

You know, these are basic things that sometimes emerge from the experience and to feel those things and a in a genuine way is Fantastic. It's really good, especially if you

or a somewhat cynical materialist person and when I say materialist I don't mean in the like uh Ac acquisitive sense of the word. Yeah. But just in a sense you believe in physical reality is the ultimate. Be all and all. And um and it doesn't change that belief, but it gives me a sense that within that physical reality there's tremendous depth.

And beauty. And So many things worthy of exploration. We we were chatting a little bit yesterday about

And uh It's I suppose reflective of some trouble I've had with interacting with various Types of explorers in this realm, meaning Scientists on one hand, if if if I can simplify it. If

These sort of hard scientists on one end of the spectrum. Who uh almost I'm not gonna say universally, but very much fall, I would say, in line with the And then

on the other end of the spectrum. Uh looking at psychedology from a For lack of a better adjective. Uh shamanic.

perspective. It's it's hard to get Th there's there seems to be allergies on both sides to the other, uh, in some cases. Uh.

Mm. What is the What is what are the reservations that you have about aside from not believing in The

deity spirits, whatever might be used uh for explaining things on the shamanic side. Um it seems to be many people in these psychedelic experiences want that type of context. They they seek, say, the Uh

to provide them with this container and experience and uh even people who are otherwise would view themselves as very hyper rational. Uh how do you think about the sort of shamanic cultural context. We lack it here, but there are cultures where that does exist, but it comes along with a lot more. Right. That's a complicated question. And there's a there's a lot of aspects to it that

I find slightly problematic. One is that Plants are the be all and all. Um I think the plants are a wonderful starting place.

And they introduce us to so many things. And maybe Those things are the best. Maybe DMT is as good as it gets. But I've had the opportunity to try a number of different DMT derivatives.

M E T, M P T D P T D I P T And so on. N I P T and a number of others. And um

about having tried all these different tryptamine derivatives of DMT is that they have different properties and might be better for different things that we don't need to use these in a one size fits all manner. So for example People often talk about Ego death. Um I I for whatever reason don't even like using these psychoanalytic terms when describing psychedelic experience, but for whatever reason, um with DMT it tends to be

about me, about my life, my friends, my family, my associations. Um With D P T Yep. feels more universal. It feels like This is

an experience that anyone my DPT experience could have been your DPT experience or could have been anyone in the world's DPT experience because it's not about me, it's about It's not about my life, it's about life. And Um And I think with

The shamanic root there's often a lot of dogma. There's a lot of um This is the way to do it. And this is what's traditional. And

There's a little bit of discouragement of experimentation in favor of what is traditional. And that's fantastic because we have a lot to learn from these traditions without question, an enormous amount to learn. But figured it out. I don't think any culture has figured it out. And I

I'm most in favor of anyone that is continually trying to push things forward, trying to see how can they be even better than they are, how can they Um and that's maybe not a good mindset. Maybe it's better to to just be satisfied but this is

You know Maybe that's the scientific mindset. How can we change it? How can we make it better for people that don't like to vomit? How can we make it better for people that want a shorter experience or people that are sensitive to this or that. Yeah. And I mean we we chatted about this a little bit yesterday, but also the uh

Not just the specificity of action or being able to use derivatives for different types of experiences but also the reliability or accuracy of dosing. Right. Yes. Which maybe you could maybe you could Chat about for a second.

Yeah. I mean I think that if there's one thing that is not talked about enough in the realm of psychedelics and drugs in general, it's dose. Dose is So So important. to understanding a drug's effect and it's often not even

disgust. You know, people will say, Oh, I hated Adderall, I hated this, I hate that I'll say, you hate it Adderall, how much did you How much were you taking? And they'll say, Oh, I don't know. Uhhill. Well there's twenty milligram pills and there's five milligram pills and which one were you taking?

And And it makes a big difference. It makes a huge difference. I mean, this is Yeah, the Toxicology is founded on this idea. Paracelsus' idea that

the dose is the poison that um the difference between a medic and a poison is the dose. And with plants you don't have that luxury of knowing the dose. You simply don't. There's tremendous variability. then on top of that, they're often being prepared in one way or another that can make it even harder to know exactly how much is being consumed and then someone drinks a cup of

brew and they say, I don't like ayahuasca, it's too strong or I didn't feel anything. I'm not sensitive to ayahuasca. And what's sad about that Is you can't learn from the experience because you don't know what you took in the first place. Whereas if they had taken Forty five milligrams of

DMT freebase and A synthetic M A O I Then you could say. Interesting. Maybe you're unusually

insensitive to DMT next time try fifty five milligrams and work your way up gradually and eventually you'll find the dose that works for you. And that's and you can kind of troubleshoot the psychedelic experience. It doesn't need to be just a I felt it or I didn't feel it or it was too much or it wasn't enough thing. You can figure out what works for you. And that's really important because These are serious experiences. There's a lot of uncertainty going into these experiences. At the very least to have that foundation of I know what I took and I know how much of it I took is

something that can't be underestimated in its value. There's so many different directions I want to go, but I'll try to pick one. And just one more thing in that vein. That's the real tragedy of psychedelics right now is for a common person, they have access to two psychedelics. L S D and psilocybin containing mushrooms, and they don't know the dose of either of those things. You take one blotter of L S D, maybe someone told you that it contains a hundred micrograms of L S D, but you have no idea. I have

analyz blotters of non L S D containing um lysergiumide, it's like one P L S D blotter. Um I was working with a a chemist friend on an experiment and there's variation across the blotter. Then on top of that there's different salts of These different things. these different lysurgomides. So it's you don't know how much you're taking to begin with, making the assumption that it's exactly one hundred micrograms per

Um and the same is true of mushrooms. Um, even the same species grown on the same substrate there can be variation in potency between two different mushrooms. There can be variation in potency across the same mushroom between the stem and the cap. No and just just for sake of clarity, when you say variation in potency, we're not talking like a ten percent difference in potency. Well th there's a a chemist named Joshin I believe that's how you pronounce it, Joshin Gartz, um and he did he published some work on this. You can see exactly how

much variation he observed. There hasn't been as much research on it as I would like, but the the general takeaway Is that um Is that these things are not. Homogenous. And um

And if you're Going into what is potentially a very Profound experience. you really want to have that baseline confidence that I took this much of something. It I think it really helps and is not to be underestimated. I mean particularly if you're coming in as m many people would with a reasonable level of anxiety or fear or apprehension about

something that you've never experienced that people describe well supposed maybe an oxymoron describe as ineffable. Yeah. Are there any books you would recommend. or resources that you could recommend to people aside from uh Shulgan's books.

For those uh P Would like to learn more about psychedelics and you mentioned consciousness. I'm wondering if there are any books that you've found very thought provoking that don't also

Uh activate your gag reflex given Yeah. Some of the writing. Right. There's one book that I think um hits all of those points you just made that's really fantastic. It was written by my thesis advisor, Nicholas Langlitz. And um The name of the book is Neuro Psychedelia. It's an academic book. So it's not It's not as readable as maybe some of as Michael Pollen's book, for example, but

I think it's one of the best Books ever written about it. psychedelics, neuroscience and consciousness and um What was his last name again? Langlitz. And he's a really interesting guy, M D Ph D, you know, really um

very dedicated to understanding the subject. And he looks at it, it came out Almost uh decade. before the Michael Paulin book, but it also takes a very different perspective on the value of a lot of the neuroimaging research. So I think um It's a fantastic.

Buck. that I can't recommend enough. Um You know, for those that are interested in the historical and anthropological aspects of all of this. You have um there's an anthropologist named Douglas Sharon who wrote a lot about San Pedro. He's fantastic. Um there's um Marlene Dobkin de Rios who wrote a lot about ayahuasca in the eighties and I maybe even in the late seventies she's fantastic. Um There is um

Of course Jonathan Ott, who wrote Pharmacothe on He's fantastic and has written many books and he's great. Um for getting uh a sort of wide historical and scientific view of things. I think he was one of the best for that.

Great. I will put all those in the show notes for folks who have links to all of those. Uh Why put together the T V show? Why Do so much work. I mean, uh having a some understanding based on our conversation. Also just watching the show, you realize How much

Work. It is. to put something like that together. Why why do it? I wanted to do it um

For a number of reasons. One is that I I've always felt that even the the there's a certain there are trends in journalism. And That certain things become demonized and then everyone talks about how terrible they are and then

The public. decides that that's truly the case. So, you know, right now no one could write an article about Opioids being good, you simply couldn't do that. It's not it wouldn't be allowed. You'd be violently attacked.

Um But you can easily write an article about how psilocybin is good and you will be congratulated for doing that. And I started thinking about what things can and can't be talked about and what can I talk about that no one else is going to talk about. And the main thing that I was interested in with the show. Is

clandestine drug synthesis. That's sort of the thing that I feel is most widely misrepresented in the media are the people that run underground. drug lab. So somebody at Johns Hopkins if they're doing research with psilocybin we're very eager to congratulate them for their work, but someone who's actually responsible for providing these drugs to the public so that someone can normal people can use them, we're eager to demonize them, even though They're risking their freedom to do that.

And they're typically not bad people. In in many cases they're very good idealistically motivated people that do this because they think it's the right thing to do with their lives. They really believe in it. So I thought okay, with my understanding of chemistry This would be a great opportunity to clear up a lot of the misconceptions regarding clandestine drug synthesis. That was kind of the

the most important thing for me to do. Um But then beyond that, I wanted to tell drug stories that hadn't been told and to present a basic case for understanding the value of these things. Um You know.

And there's a lot of different ways to do that. You can say that look, this is valued by an indigenous group. and they've integrated this into their traditions and into their spirituality and they really appreciate it. So maybe think twice before making it illegal because These people are not only

not experiencing It's making their lives better. So Think very carefully before making a plant illegal. That's one basic idea that I wanted to communicate.

Um but then the other is These are real scientific tools, you know. I've been on both sides. of this discussion journalistically I've had the opportunity to interview enormous numbers of people and to be interviewed Many, many times. And I've From being on the opposite side, from being interviewed and profiled.

by people I've become aware of how stupid a lot of these discussions are and how easy it is for people to minimize and reduce the importance of all this. It's just dru it's just drugs. It's drugs. Just drugs. It's Everything. It's your consciousness.

all of medicine, medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, this is not a a niche subject of study. This is one of the most important areas known to mankind and has been for thousands of years are medicines. So Um So just to get people at the very least, even if they don't like it, to acknowledge its value and to take it a little bit seriously and not just say, Oh, drugs, just that stuff that drugies use. It's so much more than that. So I've I've recommended this

I've recommended Uh Well there let's see, a few different pronunciations, but Hamilton's pharmacopia Don't worry about the spelling, just search. Hamilton on your your favorite provider and you'll find the show. Uh uh I watch it on Amazon Prime, you can watch it anywhere or many, many, many different places.

Which episode might you suggest? And I'm gonna give you a few different profiles uh a scientist start with. I know that's really broad, but let's just say somebody who who would consider themselves or who is professionally a scientist. Mm. It depends on what the there's an episode from this most recent season called A Clandestine Chemist's Tale. And that's about how

made it more difficult for people to have home labs partially. That's one of the ideas that I was trying to communicate. It's also about clandestine MDMA synthesis and features the first ever televised total synthesis of MDMA. Um And It's real.

It's Yeah, that's what you see is a real synthesis of MDMA. So just the Yeah. amazingness of even capturing that on film is something that I think is cool for almost anyone who really wants to see this is where it comes from this is how it's done. You know, it goes we start with

No, we I didn't Uh but the chemist starts with um You know, crude. sassafras root bark oil and takes it all the way down to the recrystallised M D M A hydrochloride.

um over the course of five days. And it's I was just kind of blown away by watching that process. Um And I also televised a total synthesis of Qualude.

Um And Also We did a little bit of a drug called gaboxidol, um, got a little bit into LSD chemistry. I mean there's there's a lot of chemistry. I would say that Drugs aside, there's probably more hardcore chemistry in this T V show than there has ever been in any T V show ever. Uh if anyone can find

I would be astonished if that's not the case. Which is cool. I mean I I think it's great because people find it interesting and I get so many emails from People saying that they find chemistry interesting for the first time. And the way to do it wasn't to simplify it. It was to show people how complicated it is. Routinely.

in these episodes, and I'd like to think of myself as a reasonably well read guy, but I haven't taken much chemistry and you'll go through a number of different diagrams or they'll ha the certain words will come up and There is no pause for uh you know a ten minute explanation of the term. It's just uh it's provided in context, but it is uh Sophisticated, sophisticated show, but still very entertaining to watch. Uh For for someone who is a non scientist Let's just say they're fascinated by

The What they have read about psychedelics or heard about psychedelics. They've never taken a psychedelic. Terrifying on some level. The prospect. Is there an episode?

Or set episodes you'd recommend? Well I'm so I'm probably the worst person to ask because what the things that I like in my own work are always the things that are the most obscure that no one has ever done, but that's from my own perspective, whereas I think the mushroom episode that I did was the most successful of them all. Um So that's probably uh I guess

That's the people speaking. They like that one the most. Um I Um W that wouldn't be the first one I would recommend, but people want to learn about mushrooms. Probably

A clandestine chemist's tale or the lazy lizard school of hedonism episode about this chemist who operated an an MDMA lab in the center of a volcano. So you mentioned uh which is a fantastic episode. You mentioned the mushrooms. Uh what what of the other most popular episode's been. I think the people like the episodes that detail shamanism. I think people are very interested in shamanism, partially because it's it's non technical, but

Because it's such a foreign idea. That You could have a spiritual tradition based around drug consumption. And that it's so non taboo that people do it with their families and they do it to heal and they

Um They've just never seen anything like that before. And I hadn't either until I saw it myself. The mushroom episode, the Salvia episode from season one, both Have that Um

And the San Pedro episode from season two. Um is a pretty in depth Analysis. with actually no voiceover though. It was a different it had a different format from the other episodes, but it's a it's a view of cactus shamanism in Peru that I think gives you a an appreciation for

The medical context in the community that this really is um this is so different from what you would think of when you You know. These are people that

Treating him Exactly the same way you would treat a doctor. in the United States. I have

Apilepsy. I have A sprained ankle. Yeah. I I mean I don't know what he would call himself Wachumero or Curanderero, but I mean probably not Shaman. Maybe he does, but uh I'm not sure how he would self describe f from that episode. W what would he call himself, do you think? No he did. He may have. I would have to double check. Maybe in English. Yeah. I mean a lot of those guys would say curander or Wachumero or something like that. This is not gonna make be relevant to anyone else, but since I'm curious, did you actually have like toilet?

Shit or chicken shit splashed in your face in that episode. Because there was a shot. while you're doing your chores or something awful and it was sp it was edited in to your cleaning montage. Got splashed under your glasses and it looked awful. I don't know if that was Done in the effects studio.

I okay, you caught me. It was a I couldn't resist that gag. Okay, I just couldn't resist it. I have uh very fast. It's very fast. Yeah. I have a slightly childish sense of humor and uh and and yeah, it was just it's Yeah, got me. my favorite wardrobe of yours, which is otherwise fairly constant, but the uh gigantic yellow like big bird hates that you're you're you're dressed in towards the end. I w I don't wanna give away too much. Um you didn't look too happy to be doing I guess I d I I I'd imagine I haven't encountered this directly in the in the San Pedro or Huachuma cactus uh tradition, but these sopladas where he was where he was having you take in the like

Florida water or whatever that was into your mouth to spritz on him. You did not look happy to be doing that. So terrible. Have you done that before? I have, yeah, you don't you don't want to um Certainly don't want to drink it. You don't want to hold it in your mouth. It's it's Pro what? Probably ninety five percent.

Ethanol. I lost. the ability to taste for several days after doing that. It was it was actually maybe one of the most damaging things I did. in the entire show was holding the Florida water in my mouth. Agua Florida. What was one of the

Uh for people who maybe so we we talked about people who are nervous or apprehensive, yet curious. What about the overly confident, cocksure person who might go into something without a healthy level of respect. Is there uh is there an episode you'd recommend the the DMT episode? Uh the opener for that episode. I think does a pretty decent job. Uh five M O D five M O D M T. Yeah. Um, you know, I it's it's hard to say because

That's a great example. And I've seen that outside of my film work I've seen Um Someone who had a very cocky attitude approach five M E O D M T is l is like I've done a ten strip dude. I've done

Ten strip meaning L S D Yeah, I've done whatever, whatever. I'm a There's nothing that can be on. And uh and then You know It's a bad attitude. You don't want to enter any experience with that attitude. Because what what good could possibly come of that. Um

So It's It's good to Take things seriously. You don't want to be afraid, but It's a serious experience. I mean it's

I would say it's no less serious than being Reborn. So If you want to Be reborn with a

angry, cocky, confrontational attitude than Go for it. But it's probably not the best approach. Um But you know, that's the other thing is I've had to cultivate a really laissez faire attitude. Toward a lot of things to do my show effectively. If you're gonna be a journalist and you're going to interview people, you can't constantly be telling them

what's right and what's wrong. And there's a lot of moralism and there's a lot of psychedelic prescriptivism in the community. People love to say, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it, you're not serious enough, you're just trying to get high. It's not respectful, it's not traditional, it's abuse. And I really hate to see that. I think that's one of the worst things that somebody can do because Um ultimately we're if you do that you're just aping the government's same mistakes of setting up

these rules of right and wrong ways to use drugs. So you can use marinol if it's prescribed by a doctor and it's synthetic THC, but you can't use it from a plant. That's the wrong way. You know, all this y you don't want to go down that road of Telling people what's right and what's wrong. um, assuming they're not hurting other people. So I I try not to Um

Tell people what is right and what is wrong. So if people want to smoke five M E O D M T with a cocky attitude be my guest. But it's it's um it's really anything that I say, it's just a you know, in an effort to minimize any harm that could come from these substances because um it is a very serious experience and it could be difficult.

What was uh what was the scariest if you had any scariest experience or unsettling experience that you had Uh not necessarily I mean they're given the places that you're going to, I can think of a few scenarios offhand. I mean, with Kratom also safety. I mean, my God, there's so many pl ways that you could put yourself. into difficult situations uh that are unrelated to the psychedelic consumption the consumption of psychedelics themselves. But if were there any experiences you had that were particularly difficult.

I had I had one interesting experience many years ago where um I've been to China For undercover Reporting. uh three times. And the first time I did it It was maybe two thousand twelve, something like that.

And I was going under cover to a lab that was producing a synthetic cannabinoid called U R one forty four. Which is a cool structure. And uh

And I went to the lab interviewed the chemists and They gave me a sample of the UR one forty four. So then I was back.

my hotel room with my cameraman who has Crohn's disease and loves Just Be stoned. He's stoned all the time. And uh And And it helps him with Crown, but also he just loves to be stoned. And so he was saying, you know

Should we try out this U R one forty four, this synthetic cannabinoid? And I thought Well Ye yeah. Yeah, I suppose we should maybe

But I didn't have a scale. And and typically I would never use a drug without a scale. But I thought, okay, this has been used by people before, there's a little bit of information on it. Oh

Take one grain of this granular crystal. And uh and I'll smoke it. So I smoked a grain and he smoked a grain, and we were both Sitting in our hotel room and um and starting to get very, very high.

And As I got more and more high I started experiencing this fractal of uncertainty where I was thinking I don't know if this is UR one forty four.

But then I was thinking. Well, even if it is UR one hundred forty four. I don't know anything about U R one forty four. I don't know. If it has toxic metabolites.

I don't know. If It Is carcinogenic. I don't know.

If it has any form of toxicity. But even if it didn't have those things, I don't know if this is pure UR one forty four. And if it isn't pure. I don't know anything about the toxicity of those impurities.

But even if it is pure and doesn't have toxic impurities, I don't know the dose that I consumed. I could have maybe Consumed an overdose. And you know, just going on and on and on all the Branching uncertainty about safety and purity and potency and dose and

Um I was fine actually and actually ended up having a good experience. But it just made me think You don't want to go down the the fractal of uncertainty road. You don't want to you want to minimize the uncertainty as much as you can because your own mind is already infinitely uncertain. So why not at least know that you've consumed your one forty four and know that you've consumed one milligram, so you can at least rest on that foundation. Um

So th the m negative experiences that I've had have almost always than a product of uncertainty and inadequate preparation. I would say that The

negative experiences that I have had After carefully measuring doses have typically been Okay. Uh because I did have that.

ability to fall back on. I took one point four milligrams. Previously I'd taken one. This is not going to be that much stronger. I'm gonna be okay. This will be it was over four hours last time. It's gonna be over four hours this time. And you also have the ability And the training to assess or imp or imp

Prove purity. Yourself. That's true. That is true, yeah. Um So minimizing uncertainty I think is really important. But then some of these things are more challenging and five M U D M T is an example of that. You know, it it has a

inability to to really frighten people. Um there's some people that only have these negative experiences. And when I was using it most recently I um There's a chemist Casey Hardison, who's a a friend of mine.

And he had Gone out. Drinking with a friend of his own. And after drinking a little bit they decided to smoke. five M E O D M T together.

And um And they both smoked it at the same time, which is something that you shouldn't do. And they both dissociated because it has a sort of dissociative character.

And When my friend Casey came back, his friend was dead. He had asphyxiated on his vomit while he was

in this state and there was no one watching him. Holy shit. Yeah. So that's a pretty frightening thing to have happened. And then I was filming this piece about it And Um and I remember talking to this gynecologist turned toad venom shaman and and I was saying, you know, I really have some reservations about this to be honest with you, because um

you know, this friend of a friend very recently died. Um And y you know, the the fact that that happened is ch it's frightening to me. And he'd be saying, Oh yes, how so terrible. Just terrible and no one Every And uh saying

I didn't realize he was the son of a shaman. That's interesting. He's saying. Oh, you y you you're talking about the recent death in Brazil? And I was saying no no no, this is a recent Death in Colorado.

There are multiple recent deaths. And you know, s just the fact that it's even implicated in these deaths, even though it's not a direct effect a direct toxic effect. It's always people drowning while they're dissociated or asphyxiating on their vomit, but just the fact that this had happened at all was enough to really give me some uh concerns about doing it. So you mentioned drowning, so I I have to ask because I w I wanted to save it for this conversation. It's part of the reason that the The five MEO episode opener is is so attention grabbing.

Why on earth did the I suppose shaman slash facilitator choose a location with so much water and so many rocks. It's I have gotten so much Criticism. For featuring that.

And um That's an interesting thing about making these documentaries is that There's a a question of showing things the way they are, even if the way they are is potentially unsafe. Or

trying to always set an example for other people because you I don't want to m misrepresent reality and say things are a way that they're not. Um But at the same time That Experience showed me that

Um You wanna maybe set an example. I certainly got a lot of criticism for it. his reason for doing his um His sessions. by the water is I think simply that it was a beautiful location and

the people that were smoking the venom were very experienced, so he thought that they could Handle it? But Clearly there's a risk of drowning.

And clear you could hurt yourself on a sharp rock or something like that. Uh I w want to

And feel free to correct my recollection here. Uh Uh why you hadn't Produced an episode. with ayahuasca. And I just remember this train of conversation in the the truth barrel in the sauna. But I I I found what you said very uh thought provoking and I wanted to

Explore it here. Uh I don't know if you recall where we where we picked up, but it was related to shamanism and The providing of

explanation, I believe it was, or Something along those lines. And uh the mention of uncertainty earlier. Uh Help me too.

recall that portion of the conversation. But uh Why not feature? Ayahuasca. Well, there's a number. We can get back to that. I actually tried. Um I tried to do a story about the the death of Kyle Nolan. I don't know if you know that story.

Um Because one of my concerns again with dogma and with Prescriptivism. Is that People start

to say that there is only one way to do things. So when ayahuasca at the height of its popularity um in New York at least, if you said to someone, I've done ayahuasca, the next question they would ask you is Did you do it in the Amazon? And if the answer is no. Then you didn't really do ayahuasca, did you? You just did some perversion of ayahuasca that shouldn't be called ayahuasca. And I found that very obnoxious and elitist and stupid because ayahuasca is a T

And it's a tea that anyone Listening to this. can make. Not that they should, but they can, assuming that you can boil plants in water. And It's not a special knowledge.

To make it. So the idea that you have to Go to a Foreign country.

and be with a different culture to experience it, I think is flawed, especially because a tourist industry has emerged to satisfy this enormous demand of white outsiders in the Amazon. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with drug tourism, but if the whole point of going there is to have a traditional experience and then what you're actually having isn't traditional in the slightest, then what was the point of traveling in the first place? So Um What

one thing that happened is you had all these white outsiders The There isn't. All that much. anthropological literature on the subject, and they probably weren't reading it to begin with. So they don't know what is traditional to begin with. So someone comes to

a retreat. In this case it was a retreat called Shimbre. And The shaman says I'm actually a Martian. I'm I'm uh always a promising start.

Is it? But this is a question. So you're a white outsider and somebody says I'm a Martian. Yeah. You don't want you don't want to appear racist. Right. This could be their tradition. You don't know what their tradition is. Maybe that maybe they come from a long line of Martians. And uh And it would be very offensive to question their Martian heritage. Right. You don't know.

True. So people are getting away. With saying absolutely ridiculous things about themselves. just neglecting their duties Forget.

Spiritual duties, just their duties as basically babysitters. They're not watching people. And There was a a teenager named Kyle Nolan who went to Peru to have one of these sorts of experiences with a um a shaman named Maestro Moncoluto.

And Mm. Disappeared. His parents go to the retreat looking for him. Oh he just

walked away. Then they find his body. buried in a shallow grave on the outskirts of the retreat. So As soon as that hits the news and th actually international news, it was in tabloids. I do remember when that's

Then all these people come out of the woodwork and say that that Maestro Moncaluto, I always knew there was something up with him. I always knew there was something wrong. He he would say that he would just sit and watch soap operas while everyone was on ayahuasca, he wasn't watching anyone and uh And and something about that struck me as being very dangerous that People cared more about what they perceived as being traditional than what was effective or what was safe. And

If Ca if he had thought You know what, this is a T. And if I'm really interested in it. Maybe I can brew a a low dose batch of it myself.

and test it out and figure this out on my own. I guarantee he was capable of it. And he would probably still be alive. So What was the cause of death? Was it ever determined? It was never determined, unfortunately. So I don't And that's often the case with these. So

It it's really out of open mindedness that I think that people um should be aware there's multiple ways to do these things that um it doesn't make your experience nonvalid if it wasn't conducted in South America. Um But

The other reason that you were initially getting it is that You know, the mystery of existence or the mystery of life is sort of the grand mystery that we all must figure out for ourselves.

And It's so difficult and painful. to think about your own mortality and the death of the people that you love and

what the purpose of life is that religions emerged to help people deal with these big existential questions and they help. They help a lot. I think that's one reason that r religions are as popular as they are, because It's Rough.

to sit alone in your apartment scratching your head wondering what the meaning of life is or something like that. And um and so I understand why people want these interpretive conceptual frameworks for the psychedelic experience. And that's why from the get go, In the nineteen sixties it was You know Zen Buddhism or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or whatever any explanatory framework that could be found was jumped on because

the reality that there is no explanation is not But As unpalatable as it is, I think that That is the value.

exactly what makes it difficult is what makes it valuable. And to have that experience And I I say this cautiously, but to have that experience By yourself. With no one explaining anything to you, to be confronted by the full magnitude of the mystery and with an absence of explanation is one of the most powerful experiences that you can have.

And I don't know if a shaman prevents you from having that experience. They might not. But I know that you will have it if there's no one there to tell you what's happening. How

Have you found it? Mm. Comfortable. Cheering. Positively powerful to sit with that great uncertainty.

Versus Profoundly. destabilizing. I mean if Uh that's not I'm not using that as a justification for having this overlay of like a shamanistic

uh cosmology or anything like that in in every experience. But What is the I guess internal the the self talk or anything that allows you to helps you to turn that into a positive experience as opposed to A negative one.

Or an overwhelming one. Well, if you can the more that you can direct these things toward values that will help your life. I think that that's generally good because too much destabilization isn't healthy.

Um I remember the first really, really, really, really strong ayahuasca experience I had. Um I had it I had a bit of that. I remember my friend was watching Seinfeld.

um in in the other room and uh and I came out of it. thinking when you say ayahuasca are you talking about the farmawaska. Mm-hmm. And um And coming out of it and Thinking. Well that

that was a deconstruction of everything I have ever known and ever will know. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what year it was I Um Time had completely

And you know, just these profound reconceptualizations of every aspect of being, and then you come out of it, and what do you do? Do you go and join your friend and watch Seinfeld? I think that'd be very difficult to do. I don't know. Or maybe maybe the easiest thing in the world. I de I I wasn't inside your experience at the time. What did you do?

I apprehensively watched some Seinfeld and then decided Against the sign cards. Ha

Newman Yeah. And what did you what did you gain from that experience.

If anything, I mean what what did you take from that? Well it's okay, here's what I would say about that experience is that I am not I I don't know what to do with experiences of that magnitude. And I'm

reluctant to find a framework that explains it. So I don't know that it's especially But I can say that at lower doses ayahuasca has had

much more practical benefit. Cartoonishly. practical. Could you give an example? Yes. Uh I remember once

I taken a low dose, I believe it was forty five milligrams of DMT with three hundred milligrams of McClobamide. And Um

And I was writing and I was really enjoying everything that I was writing. And I was thinking, damn, I'm getting some good writing done. I'm really working through ideas in a an effective way. I'm loving this. But you know what would make it That much better.

is a little nicotine gum. 'Cause I like nicotine gum. And uh that will make my thoughts sharper. That will give me enhanced clarity. And it will make my writing even better if I'm chewing nicotine gum. And then I looked at the nicotine gum and I thought

But then this is the thought that underlies all addiction. This is the thought that underlies all compulsive behavior is I want more. It's not good enough the way it is. I want it to be that much better. But it will never be good enough. And the nicotine gum is already inside me. I can

create my own nicotine gum and I dramatically threw the nicotine gum across the room. I was like, I don't need this. I already am the nicotine gum. And uh And You know, that's I think why these things can have an anti addictive effect. One of the reasons is, you know, there's all sorts of pharmacological reasons, but even psychologically, they teach you that all these things are inside you and that

you have the ability to create these sorts of drug effects on your own to some extent, that it's all You know, it's it's your acetylcholine receptors that are being activated. You can activate them on your own. You know it's it's a flashback to Shulgun with the sugar crystals on the porch. That's amazing. I had never heard that story. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a very practical thing is don't chew nicotine gum to make your writing better because it's already inside you and You just can create it yourself.

Um And I've had so many of those those sorts of low level practical experiences and I really like that because it's not about time. Like what can I tell you about how my sense of time was deconstructed? I could go on and on about it and you wouldn't understand and I wouldn't understand and it it exists outside of the realm of any sort of comfortable comprehension, at least for me. Whereas um thoughts about addiction, about how you construct your life, about how you ration your love or how much love you have or how to

integrate love into your existence, those are things that you have practical applications. And I think that's important are the practical applications. A good segue, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway. Uh I know nothing of

We do this. Uh I don't know if if you'd be open to describing who Wade Davis is and perhaps d F the furthermore. Defining the cultural matrix.

But who's Way Deus? Wade Davis was a student of Richard Evans Schaltis at Harvard. He was an ethnobotanist who came to prominence in the eighties after writing a book called The Serpent and the Rainbow. Um and

Proposed later made into a movie. Later made into a movie by Wes Craven. Um And proposing this pretty outrageous idea that the idea of zombies

In Haiti was not only real in the sense that there really was zombification. This wasn't some kind of folk legend, but that there was a intricate pharmacological explanation for how these zombies were created. That involved Scopolamine.

And the toxin from pufferfish T T X. So really amazing idea. You got a huge amount of

criticism for it at the time of its publication and was even accused of fraud and or contaminating his samples with TTX to prove his hypothesis. Um it was very, very controversial at the time. But It's such an interesting idea. And it hadn't been adequately tested. I wanted to go back and did in two thousand nine to collect samples just to see

if anyone else could find further evidence for what He said, because that's one thing that people do all the time is endlessly debate is it real, is it not real? Instead of just going out and try to see for yourself and collect new samples and do additional analysis and figure it out. But he he's had a lot of luck, I'll tell you that. He's um he's one of these guys where the number of crazy things that he collected in his career it borders on being suspicious and I understand why people regard him with suspicion because

He's First of all, he's a he's a great storyteller. Which um makes maybe people maybe regard him with suspicion for that reason as well, because he's not dry and serious enough. But, you know, he discovered a fungus called dictyanema.

that contains um It's a sort of um a lichen. That contains Silocybin.

Crazy. No one else has ever found the species. He just f happened to find it. No one else has ever found it. Amazing. He also claims to have found the tallest San Pedro cactus ever observed. It was I think a hundred feet tall. Okay. Um that one strikes me as unbelievable, but I've examined the specimen at the

Harvard or Barium myself, um and read his descriptions of it. I you know, I think maybe didn't bring a tape measure with him and made a little bit of a generous estimation of of its height. But he um But he really also was by all accounts a very hard worker and really was, you know, out there.

Talking to people. He is a prolific writer. and made a lot of really amazing discoveries. was the field exploration and sort of the cultural Uh examination.

Is that something that you try to emulate? Or is that uh Yeah. I mean it seems like that's a s a strong component of at least the T V show. Sure.

Uh The the there's another Um Compounds. That I wanted to

to chat about, which is I begin. Uh we didn't we didn't really get into it yesterday. uh over dinner, but can you perhaps introduce people to what I begin is. And Um

Why it why it might be of interest or is of interest. Yeah, so Ibigaine is an alkaloid that is found in the roots of a central West African plant called Tabernanthe Boga.

And It's a pretty amazing molecule. It's very, very difficult to synthesize um All the Iba game that's used. commercially has to be extracted from plants. It's very complicated structurally and

Pharmacologically it is one of the most complicated drugs I've ever read about. But the reason that people are interested in Ibogaine is there was a guy named Howard Lotsov who was addicted to heroin. he tried I begin sort of on a whim and then Afterwards.

Lost his desire to use heroin and patented it as an anti addictive intervention for treatment of heroin addiction. So It's a pretty amazing thing. I mean, one of the most difficult pharmacological tasks is getting people off of opioids to the point that To some extent. People

have thrown up their hands and said, all right, the best we can do is agonist replacement therapy. We'll give them methadone, we'll give them Buprenorpine. And We're just Giving them another opioid.

that's regulated and that's the best treatment we have when it comes to actually getting people off of it. There are very There really there's nothing in terms of pharmacotherapy. There's you know clinics that specialize in helping people wean off of it, but we don't have drugs that um are designed to

reduce the addictiveness of Yeah. Um so it seems to have that effect for a lot of people. Unfortunately hasn't been studied as Well is I would hope, because it's a schedule one drug in the United States, which has interfered with scientific research, but um

But what's really amazing about IBegain is even though it's Famous For its treatment of opioid addiction is that I think it has a a general anti addictive, anti compulsive effect. Um It also works for alcoholism. It also works for methamphetamine addiction.

It seems to work for many compulsive behaviors. Does it only have that persistence of effect at high doses? That is a question that hasn't been thorough investigated. But my guess is that there are alternative dosing strategies that are safer than taking single high doses which are referred to as flood doses, and that would be micro dosing

Um over longer periods of time or taking lower doses over longer periods of time. Um and this is especially useful because Ibugaine is cardiotoxic and has been associated with a number of deaths. So Anyway to reduce that toxicity. is a boon to the therapeutic use of the substance.

Are there other Uh Outside of Uh addiction are there other applications or or potential applications of I begin? that uh people are exploring or hypothesizing

Yes. So one of the most interesting things that uh that I have researched regarding Ibigaine is its effect on a protein called G DNF, that's glial derived neurotrophic factor. And this is a a protein that is very useful in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. There's been some limited clinical work where they showed that it um can cause a regrowth of dopaminergic neurons. And which is

the mechanism of Parkinson's damage to the brain is loss of dopaminergic neurons, so it's directly reversing the toxic effect of Parkinson's. Um And they found that I began causes a release of the same therapeutic protein. So that's pretty

Damn. useful and Um And that's just the tip of the iceberg with it. I mean, it also seems to synergize with dopaminergic drug, so it's possible that it increases patient sensitivity to the L Dopa treatment as well.

And on top of that, it seems to have an antidepressant effect and Depression is one of the major symptoms of Parkinson's disease. So I I think it could really be helping people with Parkinson's and there's this sort of underground community of people with Parkinson's that use IBogaine And um And I occasionally receive emails from these sorts of people. They use it at twenty milligrams a day. And They seem to really believe in it as a treatment and

And on one hand I understand that it's irresponsible to talk about these things without A lot of serious medical support, but the flip side is that It needs to be studied. People need to be aware of it. And it's very sad to see the same treatments being used for Parkinson's today that were used thirty, forty years ago. I mean it's still pretty much Take L Dopa.

wait till it stops working and then we'll switch you on to something else. But there's no treatment available that's actually addressing the root cause of the neurodegeneration and if this does And

Deprived. that treatment, it's a tragic thing. You mentioned uh In the beginning of your description of I begin that it's uh Extracted from plants.

Very very difficult, yeah. Uh and This is I I'm so glad to have you on the show. Uh From for there many many reasons, but also just to

Disc this uh spectrum of kind of Uh I don't know, scientific materialists, I'm not sure if that's the right description. Yeah. All the way to say.

But there's there's b because While watching the five MO DMT episode And the The capturing of toads And also your commentary at the end. Made me think

uh or contemplate how One of the weaknesses of the argument for whole plants is that Uh or Squeezing toads for that matters, it seems very environmentally

Unsustainable. And if the objective is to get some of these compounds to I mean you could have farms like they do in Brazil for Santo Dime where they have Ayahuasca Vines. for just hectares and hectares and hectares, but Oh wow, that's amazing. Have you seen that? I haven't seen it, but I I I I know I know a guy who knows a guy. Uh but is there is one of the arguments for synthesis that it is just a a a more scalable

solution if one wants to. Like let's just say maybe not in the case of of Parkinson's, although it is widespread, but for O C D or utilizing some of these psychedelic compounds. if they were to be rescheduled or derivatives developed that were not schedule one. Uh The synthetic route is more

It's the sustainable option compared to using naturally occurring I mean is that I don't know the the realities of extracting or synthesizing, because I've done neither. But I mean is that's is that something that you thought about while uh quite a lot while making the show or something that came up a lot? Like Kratom is another example, right? I mean I I just uh seeing the kind of devastation and the the conflicts between I don't know if you would call them Kratom poachers and people who are attempting to

Forests. I mean it's it's the so much violence, so much destruction. Um yeah. Does synthesis fix that? Sustainability of course does matter and synthesis is typically more sustainable. Um But the other thing is that

You know, all these plants are genetic. reserves that If we're just looking at them as a crop. and not appreciating them as something to conserve and study, then we may be losing the opportunity to discover all sorts of new things, you know.

I'm sure there are Is our old ayahuasca vines that contain beta carbolines that have never been found before. And if we're just chopping them down to use them in a brew when you could just as easily use um Syrian roux

Peganum harmala or something like that. Um you have to wonder Whether or not we're Potentially. losing the opportunity, or they could be, you know, useful cultivars. They might be faster growing. There's all sorts of reasons to keep and study plants um as opposed to just using them up. Uh same thing is true of of peyote. There's so many different alkaloids and there's been very little study done in terms of finding You know, faster growing.

varieties of peyote or finding strains that have a higher mescaline content or a higher payotine content or things like that. Um And If we wanted to make these things available, those would be necessary things to do in the same way that they've been done with cannabis. You don't just grow any cannabis, you grow cannabis that has been bred to have the qualities that you're looking for, typically high THC content, but um there's a lot of other things high THC V or high C B D content and um And so

You know I think that that's really important. You want to have natural reserves of these things that that can be studied and can be used as stock for breeding, and you risk losing all of that if you're just thinking only in the moment I want it now. Um same is true of these toads. I mean there's a lot of basic scientific questions that haven't been answered about the toads. Um

I would love to see people you know, studying the rate that they regenerate the venom or how they respond to the milking, or if they're sensitive to their own venom, which is such a fascinating question because with you know, with puffer fish, they've actually evolved a mutation in their sodium ion channel that makes them insensitive to the toxicity of T T X. Is the same true of the five H T one A receptor in the Bufell various toad? Have they also evolved a different type of serotonin receptor? That makes them insensitive to their own venom. I mean, those are the sorts of things that I would love to be doing with the toads, answering these basic scientific questions. When it comes to just using them as a source of drugs

You can make five MEO DMT from melatonin. And it's so much more efficient. And so much cheaper probably as well. That It just seems

that without a good reason why even potentially harass a toad. Um and then on top of that you have the certainty regarding dose. which is so wonderful to be able to say this is exactly fifteen milligrams of five MEO DMT free base as opposed to this is a hundred milligrams of toad venom that might contain who knows how much five MEO DMT and however much five MEO NMT or

serotonin O sulfate or whatever steroidal lactone that's found, you know it's there's a lot of stuff in there and it's rarely looked at objectively or quantified in any way, so the people that are using it don't really know what they're getting. Get it. Pause for a second for just a remedial definition for me and anyone who might be curious, because uh a word has popped up a number of times that I've read a thousand times, alkaloid. Can you

Define what an alkaloid is an alkaloid is a material isolated from a plant that contains a basic nitrogen atom. So That's

an alkaloid. Um Sometimes the term is extended to include Any material That's

Extracted. From a plant, but in the strictest classical definition, THC would not be an alkaloid because it doesn't contain a nitrogen atom. Salvinor and A would not be an alkaloid because it doesn't contain a nitrogen atom. Uh turpenoid No. Yeah. Another thing that I don't understand, but I've read. Yeah. Yeah.

So Um So that's it. It's it's A term. mostly derive from the the classical methods of extraction from plants. So all these drugs that have basic nitrogen atoms behave in a certain way chemically

and can be extracted from plants using an acid base extraction. And So that's how They got this name. Thank you.

No, it's this is this is the type of education that I need. Uh, but I won't I won't take up the podcast to do that. I'll I'll be looking at the the book recommendations. I'm keeping an eye on time, but Gear shift to Smart drugs. uh no tropics new tropics, I'm not sure how to pronounce that either. Uh

Are there any particular types of cognitive answers that you find interesting. Um and one which maybe you can recall the name of came up. In one of your episodes in fact because it was described in a pamphlet by one of the chemists. I think it was uh

The same chemist who Harold. Two C D. Yeah. All right. Uh Are there any particular cognitive answers that you have found. Effective.

And or interesting. Yeah. It's such a it's such a philosophically interesting question because whenever people say that something made them smarter. I always think of the Dunning Kruger effect. Are you familiar with what that is? It's uh these these two psychologists at Um at Cornell, I believe. Uh

found this effect that the the more competent someone is in a given task, whether it's uh musical ability or humor, the more likely they are to underrate their ability and the less competent they are, the more likely they are to overrate their ability. So I always wonder, you know, what would it What would be the manifestation of a true cognitive enhancer?

Would it make you feel stupid? Would it make you feel Increasingly aware of all the things you don't know. Would you feel intellectually ashamed of yourself? And that's a good smart drugs have all been abandoned because they actually made people feel abysmally stupid. There's a major problem with self assessment in the realm of nootropics. Um

just because something makes you feel smarter does not mean that you are smarter. And then there's a larger question of how do we define intelligence. What does it mean to be smart? is having an improved memory, does that mean that you're smarter? Um

is being more creative. a sign of intelligence, it's typically not. included in any kind of objective measure of intelligence. So Um So how do you define it to begin with and what are these drugs doing and what is the intended effect?

Um it's a it's a really complicated question. You know, the most basic thing I think is memory. That's the thing that most people can agree If they had a better memory. it would be useful. And I do believe that some of these things you know Often some of the most mundane things like nicotine improve memory and um

Aid focus a little bit. So Of all the things that I've tried in the realm of nootropics and its many The one that I Still uses just nicotine gum. Um

I try to use it less. I sometimes don't use it at all. I know that I told that story about not using it, but I still I still chew it on occasion because it really helps me read, especially if I'm going you know, plowing through it a Dense. novel. Or something. I like to go to the library and um

pop in a square of nicotine gum and And just really try to focus. But uh you know, new pept was okay, PRL eight fifty three was okay. Um uh phenyl paracetem is okay. They're all you know, it typically it's the stimulating ones that are A little bit.

better, but then the then the question is, are these nootropics or are they simply stimulants? And are stimulants nootropics? How do we designate these things? It's wha you tried two C D? I have not. Yes, absolutely. And two C D's really interesting because um One thing if you read about people new monists, people with photographic memories. Uh one thing they

all seem to have in common is they're all synestetes. one thing I've wondered about that synesthesia that they have is is this multi sensory cross linking of information aiding recall Because if everyone listening to define that term so it's uh if People who may smell colors or visualize numbers. Uh

That's uh the type of cross linking that you see in these like The Mind of a Nemanist by A. J. Luria gets into this in great depth. But sorry to interrupt, please continue. Yeah, if when you think of an orange, it's not just an orange, it's the color, it's the smell, it's the taste, it's the sound, it's the texture, and there's all this multi sensory encoding of the information. Does that allow you to recall the orange in a different way or do you have more handles on that memory that allow you to retrieve it more easily. So psychedelics also induce synesthesia. And that was one question that I had is could this synesthesia inducing effect

Be harnessed. In order to Aid retention of information. And

I don't have a a real answer to that question. But I think that if drugs like two C B Do you have any sort of nootropic effect. It may be as a result of that kind of

I mean there's different ways. That maybe encouraging synesthesia would be one way. Another way might be um just a basic stimulant effect. Another way might be that they approach problems from a different perspective. Um and this is why James Fatiman, right, is very interested in psychedelics in problem solving is because

Sometimes having a different way. is all that it takes. Not necessarily a better way, not necessarily a smarter way. Simply a different way of looking at something. Is all it takes to solve that problem because you got locked into a certain way of approaching it. You're only thinking about it one way. And just to mix it up, to shuffle the deck for a moment and think, Well, maybe I could have done this in a completely different way is What it takes.

Jim's great. Uh he's really fun to chat with too. Yeah about the uh the uh the studies that they had um conducted related to the the problem solving with with hard sciences and a lot of engineering problems. Uh For people interested, I also uh spoke with Jim on the podcast, so you can find the Fatiman episode pretty easily. But Uh.

For you personally then if you had nicotine gum currently in pole position Would you put anything in second and third place? I think you know, the classics Nicotine. Caffeine.

It's like caffeine and hydrus, or I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly. You are, yeah. Sweet. Um And You know good old fashioned Riddling on occasion. I say this with a little bit of Reluctance because

stimulants are addictive and um And it's kind of a bad habit to get into. But I would be dishonest if I didn't acknowledge the fact that

Um using low dose Ritalin. has helped me. What does low does mean? Ten milligrams. Um I don't take it every day, but

It's you know It's it's a tricky one. Because it does give you a certain intellectual stamina that helps you read and write and think. And I think that with a lot of discipline you could achieve those same effects without Ritalin. But

Um It's helped me. Th you mentioned something that I I wanna come back to just for a a moment for people who might be listening and interested. If they're If they want to assess before and after.

effects on cognition. Uh I was uh you can find online Uh tests that are used uh in studies to s in it to assess reaction time, working memory, things of that type. So if if one were proactively looking at the the before and after effects of just about anything. I mean Yerba Mate or

Alcohol. Doesn't really matter. There are tests if you look up uh Some of the studies done uh by any number of cognitive Neuroscience, Kahneman, and others where you can uh

you you can identify online tests that can give you uh hel help you to establish a baseline if you want to look at some of the effects. But yeah, the the intelligence can be fine sliced into so many different component areas. Right. Uh I mean it can get really, really complex. Uh for people who are who who would be Um I was actually involved

Uh. With a steady People should check this out. He's also been on the podcast, Adam Gazali out of UCSF at the Gazali Lab. Uh they developed a Software. Uh Called Neuracer.

uh that was very, very effective. Uh they ended up I think it was the cover of Nature at one point. Um being able to Uh Reverse.

certain aspects of age related cognitive decline. And then after the cessation of training with software, there's a persistence of effect I wanna say. At least six months later. It was really remarkable. Uh So there are tests you can use to assess. uh the f the effects of these types of compounds. Uh

Well Hamilton We could go on Or I I could go on for hours and hours and hours. Uh but Uh I suppose we should uh probably wrap up in in just a little bit.

Where can people Find you. Say hello. And uh Otherwise learn about your work. Yeah. I mean I I have a a Twitter at Hamilton Mars and Instagram at Hamilton Marris. I'm starting a website Hilton Mars dot com, but it's not up.

Yet. My prediction is that we will have it up the royal we, in this case meaning Hamilton and people I might introduce you to by the time that this goes live. So Hamilton Morris dot com Hamilton Morris M Day um And if you want to watch my TV show, Hamilton's Pharmacopia, it can be purchase for three dollars an episode on iTunes and Amazon and it's also free on Hulu and uh it's on National Geographic and Vic land and

I'm sure you can also torrent it as well. And if you have Amazon Prime, I think it's actually available with Prime membership. Okay. Uh as well. Is there anything do you have any ask? of the audience. Is there anything that people can help you with besides the T V show? Um yeah, if You know, I I self fund a lot of the scientific research that I do, so if there are any psychedelic philanthropists out there that are interested in funding non clinical

Basic. science research, that's chemistry and pharmacology with no clinical end in sight, but are just interested in understanding the mechanisms of these substances um reach out to me because in a chemistry lab, a couple thousand bucks can go a long way and it's um it's always important to remember that

Without the basic science, the clinical work can't really be done. research would if if somebody's listening and says, You know what, I don't have a lot of money, but I could probably dig up Two to five K. For something interesting.

What might that be applied to? Right now I'm working with a chemist named Jason Wallach and we are trying to do a process called autoradiography where you take a radio labeled drug and you look at the distribution in the brain and we're looking specifically at a drug that seems to distort the way sound is perceived based on Shulgin's reports and we want to see with the radio label drug.

how it will distribute in a rodent's brain. So We're trying to raise a little bit of money to do that sort of research. It's not all that expensive and it could really have interesting bearing on our understanding of auditory perception. We didn't have time to get into all of her sacks, but have you read Musicophilia? I haven't read it.

I think you would love it. I have to, yeah. It's almost entirely about Auditory uh Pathologies of various types, but I think you would you would greatly, greatly enjoy it. We did not have a chance to get into Oliver Sachs, we did not have a chance to get into Claudio Naranjo, is that how you say the name? Yeah. Maybe another time. Uh

So for people who Might be interested. and helping you with with some of the science, uh I I would encourage them to first Go to Hamilton Morse dot com. It may be unavailable, but there may be a contact form on there by the time that is ready. And if not, is Twitter generally the best way? Yeah.

Yeah. Uh Do you have any other Recommendations, suggestions. Parting words, book recommendations, anything at all that you'd like to say or share.

I really can't Overestimate. The value of P call. for understanding these things. It's just a fantastic book. It will tell you almost everything you need to know about psychedelics and drugs in general, and it's a really great

Love story. And um It yeah, it's it's a it's a moving experience to read it, so I I hope everyone will run out and buy a copy. I think it's fifteen bucks or something. Why pe call and not T call? Well P Call's the first one and if if you like P Call, I think you'll move on to T call, I would hope.

Uh and I've also, not surprisingly, in uh almost every office I have been to with researchers who are involved in these fields, they have P call and T call. right there prominently displayed either in front of or right above exactly where they sit. And I'm embarrassed to say I haven't read it because I feared that I would

Perhaps like taking the ultimate smart drug. See just how ignorant I am. Uh and become overwhelmed by the uh the chemistry. So it's nice to know that you can read it in multiple passes and get different things from it. Yeah. Absolutely.

Well Hamilton, thank you so much for the time today. Uh I would encourage everybody to watch the show. It is spectacular. I I don't know which I would recommend people start with. I particularly enjoyed and have enjoyed uh recommending uh the The five MO DMT bit uh the the ketamine episode also I thought was just beautifully shot and edited and crafted. Yeah. It was really well done. Uh and um all I mean all of them that I've seen have been ex exceptionally w exceptionally well done. And I don't say that lightly.

Uh but I encourage everybody to check it out. There's no reason not to. The episodes are very short, very digestible. Uh who did the opening animation? for the series. Um it was a group of animators advice actually. It's spectacular. Yeah. It was a there was a guy named James Blagdon and he sort of contributed the style and then it was a number of different animators advice that uh executed it and they did a great job.

Well on that on that fine closing note. Uh to uh everybody listening, thank you for taking the time. And uh I'll make one last request to the audience, which is if you would perhaps like to hear Hamilton do his own podcast. Let'em know. I think I think it would be a gift to the world to hear some of the interviews you have done in extended form. Um so that'll be my plea to the universe that maybe someday You put some of your audio

out there. for people to hear. Yes, I'll consider it. Alright guys, until next time. Uh the show notes, we will include links to everything, the books mentioned, the uh uh studies that were conducted, or I should say the conducted and published by uh Shulgan including his self experimentation methodology. I will figure out the best link for that, the Fatiman episode, Tim.blog forward slash Fatiman F A D I M A N, and you can find links to Hamilton and everything else that we covered today at Tim.blog forward slash podcast.

Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered, it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off. for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Leadership in Turbulent Times, which is the latest book by the ever amazing Coolitcher Prize winning author Doris Curns Goodwin. I had her on the podcast not too long ago.

And uh she just blew everyone away. What an incredible storyteller and Weaver of history and lessons from history. You can check that out if you want at team.blog forward slash DorisD-R-I-S. It was a captivating conversation that really blew me away. Leadership and Turbulent Times, that is the latest book, is a culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history. which offers an illuminating exploration of the early development that's super key. Early development, growth, and exercise of leadership. and uh draws upon four presents, which we'll get to in a second. Goodwin asks and answers In those pages, the question, are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times, or do the times make the leader? And she draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely, namely Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt,

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These four men shared a fierce ambition and deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships, and at their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. This seminal work provides an accessible and essential roadmap for aspiring established leaders in every field. I highly highly recommend it. For more information you can visit DorisKernsgoodwin.com. That's DorisKarns K-E-A-R-N-S Goodwin.com. And leadership in turbulent times is available in hardcover, ebook, and audio wherever books are sold. Check it out.

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