#1385 - Paul Stamets

[0] three two one and we're live hello paul hey it's happening how are you sir very well how are you and you have newfangled mushroom hats these are surprisingly durable so think about these mushroom hats there that you would think oh it's going to fall apart in your fingers but no it's got like it's quite pliable it's quite pliable and it's known as german felt and this um allowed the ice man otzi to be able to travel into the alps it was a fire starter mushroom really and this were actually revolutionized warfare because it helped flint spark guns ignite the gunpowder really so it's amadu and uh it comes from a birch polypore mushroom which is a subject of much of our research these days now when this grows in the wild what does it look like because this is uh you've fashioned it into this hat or had someone fashioned some ladies that looks like yeah some ladies in transylvania yeah yeah it's called um foamy's fomentarius it allowed for the portability of fire this is no doubt we all came from Africa and we went north and we discovered winter this allowed for fire to be carried for days and so your clan was absolutely dependent upon fire starting in order to survive the winter and this mushroom allowed and enabled people to survive wow it's very light um is it edible excellent question um Hippocrates first described it in 400 BCE um as a treat as an anti -inflammatory so in teas yes but you know that's very very tough.

[1] When you put it in ash and water, it delaminates into mycelium.

[2] And so some ladies in Transylvania still make these.

[3] And it's a fabric that you pull.

[4] And that mushroom there will become one hat or maybe more.

[5] Because it just keeps on elongating.

[6] And it's made of mycelium.

[7] So explain the process.

[8] How would you take this slab of mushroom that I have that looks like sort of like an enormous Hershey's kiss?

[9] And then you would put that in water with ash from a fire from a fire.

[10] Why ash?

[11] What is that?

[12] Because it's highly alkaline, and then it helps it separate.

[13] It begins to delaminate.

[14] And literally, you start pulling us, and it's a fabric that you keep on felting.

[15] And so it's called German felt, and it's been used for literally thousands of years.

[16] And beekeepers actually use this for smoking hives.

[17] We could, but it would be kind of bizarre.

[18] We could do it flick a bit, and you'd burn up one of these.

[19] things it's just amazing how much this is a fuse and one spark on this you know can ignite this entire thing over 15 20 minutes really yeah and so beekeepers use it for a smoking so if i lit this right now with this lighter not that if you lit this the powder the powder so you this the ash the powdered ash and then the water and then how does it flatten out and become Because it soaks up, and mycelium makes mushrooms.

[20] Mushrooms make mycelium.

[21] And so when you soak this, and then it gets soggy, and then it tenderizes, and then you start breaking it and pulling it apart.

[22] This was actually probably the first discovery because our ancestors noticed when insects were born to this mushroom.

[23] Is that like the unprocessed version of it?

[24] So this is what it's like on one side?

[25] Well, it's just made into a little table thing, but it's the same thing, basically.

[26] So is this stitched together?

[27] How did they make it like this?

[28] actually it says using a wood glue um and but that's all the natural colors nothing's been added to it um and uh these and so they just pull it apart pull it apart and eventually gets flat yeah i really want to make a coat i'm really that's my goal is it have somebody make a coat would it tear easily is an amazingly strong tensile fabric it's it um absorbs water um but you have to be careful someone smoking a joint or near a fire or smoking a cigarette But it happened to me. I got a big hole in one of mine.

[29] I was smelling the smoke.

[30] My head was on fire.

[31] More than once.

[32] How many folks are out there wearing mushroom hats these days?

[33] Just a few hundred.

[34] And we've been trying to actually keep the industry alive by just inundating the – there was like 25 or 30 of these hat makers in Transylvania 10, 15 years ago.

[35] Then it shrunk down to four or five.

[36] And a friend of mine, David Summerlin, visited.

[37] said, Paul, this hat -making technology is on the verge of extinction.

[38] And so we just sort of inundated them with orders in order to build the industry and keep it alive.

[39] So how could someone contribute to that if they wanted to?

[40] If people that are listening to this, how could they buy one of these hats?

[41] Well, if you go to my Facebook .com slash Paul Stammetz, I think his name is Mako, actually, you know, squatted on my page to sell the hats and more power to them.

[42] Okay.

[43] Yeah.

[44] Cool.

[45] Interesting.

[46] But this mushroom has figuring they'd be very prominently important for saving bees.

[47] And that's where our research has been astonishingly interesting lately.

[48] And where is that thing that you brought in?

[49] What is that?

[50] This is, this is, I, so to get some context to this, you know, I think shamanistically, mushrooms, plants, animals become important because of a plurality, a multiplicity.

[51] of benefits.

[52] This is one example.

[53] Not only revolutionized warfare, not only allow for the portability of fire for us to save ourselves from the coldness, and we migrated into Europe from Africa, not only the beekeepers used it for smoking, but fly fishermen use it also for drying flies.

[54] But we have found that this mushroom is extremely powerful for reducing viruses that harm bees.

[55] And we are, it's been described today as CNN, an insect apocalypse, 40 % of bees.

[56] of insects are under threat.

[57] This just came out.

[58] And this is a really on all hands -on deck moment.

[59] But I'm optimistic because I think we can find solutions in nature.

[60] So with my colleagues and when I was here before, I talked to my work with a Biosheel Biodefense program and these woodconks are very strong and antiviral properties against flu viruses and herpes, etc. I use these ideas and actually had a waking dream.

[61] And I realized that the bees were being infected by mites with viruses and the deformed wing virus in particular is the worst virus.

[62] And so I contacted Washington State University.

[63] We started doing some research and I'm really, really happy because I love skeptics who become my supporters.

[64] We published in Nature.

[65] Only 7 % of the articles submitted the Nature get published, the Nature publication ecosystem.

[66] To this day, our articles are the top 1 % of all articles.

[67] ever published in a nature publication ecosystem.

[68] Now, that's phenomenal because that's the most credible scientific journal in the world.

[69] There does right that.

[70] Extracts of polypore mushroom mycelia reduce viruses and honeybees.

[71] And this mushroom, the Amadu, reduces the deformed wing virus 800 times to one, with one treatment.

[72] And then the Rishi mushroom mycelium reduces the Lake Sinai virus more than 45 ,000.

[73] thousand to one.

[74] Now, these are wood concks that grow in trees.

[75] And we all grew up with Winnie the poo, but no one made the connection before me, apparently, that bees are attracted to rotted wood because of immunological benefit.

[76] So Amidu and Rishi mushrooms, we found, and we published in this article, that high significance, and I think the reason why this article is not top 1 % of all nature articles is that I've been able to present the theory with proof now that a natural product can have a broader bio shield of benefits than a pure pharmaceutical.

[77] Up to this time, there's been no agents to reduce viruses in bees.

[78] Now, the deformed wing virus is being vectored by the varroa mite came in 1984, and it injects viruses into bees.

[79] And so it's like a dirty syringe.

[80] And these viruses debilitate the bees and shorten their ability to fly.

[81] Look at that poor bumble bee.

[82] Oh, wow.

[83] That's crazy.

[84] I mean, that is so sad because that mumblebee can't fly.

[85] Now, bees can pollinate up to 1 ,000 flowers a day.

[86] And the average flight time of, like, honeybees, it used to be 9 days, 1 ,000 flowers a day.

[87] Every almond you eat was visited by a bee.

[88] So 1B can pollinate 1 ,000 flowers a day.

[89] 9 days was our pollination flight time.

[90] Now it's been reshortened to 4 days.

[91] So we lost by 50%.

[92] In the CNN article that we just showed in, China now, they're hand -pollinating flowers.

[93] Yeah, with paint brushes.

[94] A paint of apples.

[95] Yeah.

[96] So apples, cherries, almonds, strawberries.

[97] Because of the lack of bees.

[98] Because the absence of bees.

[99] So it's really, it's all hands on deck.

[100] This is, you know, I'm really optimistic about the future because we have solutions in nature that we can now amplify and be able to deploy.

[101] And so one of my inventions, and I'm giving these away, the 10 ,000 of these for free.

[102] I've come up with a citizen scientist bee feeder that puts these extracts into sugar water.

[103] And if we have a sign -up sheet up, it's for free.

[104] It's a fungi .com slash bees.

[105] And we're going to give away the first 10 ,000 of these.

[106] And this basically allows citizen scientists to help wild bees because wild bees are given about 80 % of the benefits.

[107] And if you scroll down there's a really we just got the CGI done if you go all the way down and then click on the click on that video and we just so here's the bee feeder and this is available on YouTube folks it says bee mushroomed feeder bee mushroomed all one word and then feeder yeah and now watch that's the bees visiting and they're taking the sugar water look how much they're sucking out of it those little greedy bastards yeah and that's crazy how it goes away so quickly and this is a maze and bees are better at navigating mazes.

[108] And so you can see the bees going in and out.

[109] My grandson who was afraid of bees was really fascinated by this.

[110] So I got them to do this.

[111] And so these are something that we're going to make these available all over.

[112] And then I'm going to create vertical gardens in apartment buildings.

[113] It could bees when you fly up 200 feet.

[114] You create ladders then, ecological ladders.

[115] And then this is a way the citizen scientists all over the world can take action to be able to help bees from collapsing.

[116] And then you station these.

[117] in neighborhoods for bumble bees, for other types of bees.

[118] And then we have it with a Wi -Fi -enabled device with solar panels, and then we upload into the cloud all this data about bee pollination visits.

[119] So we can create a metric on the baseline of bee pollination services.

[120] So if you see bees that are declining and suddenly below a baseline, and Oklahoma, two years ago, 84 % of the beehives died.

[121] Now think if you're a cattle ranch.

[122] And you lost 84 % of your cattle.

[123] So the idea is to help bees immune system.

[124] And if we create baselines with these bee feeders, upload the data.

[125] And this becomes a new form of internet because they have Wi -Fi ability.

[126] So it's a distributed network as well.

[127] Where is the Wi -Fi on that?

[128] Well, we don't have, this is in development right now.

[129] We're working with a very, very large computer company who's making all the instrumentation and they're into big data.

[130] So we have a solar panel going in here.

[131] we have blue LED lights because bees are attracted to blue light and they'll count the number of bees going in and out instead of bees are only flying that in daytime we don't need a battery and so the solar power will then upload the data into the cloud and they will create mega data sets and then we can look at Africa Indonesia how is it going to upload into the cloud was it using is it using an LTE Oh so it's using like a cellular system or low frequency long range communication system Can we help?

[132] Can we contribute?

[133] Is there a way that this podcast can help?

[134] A lot.

[135] I want to enable people with solutions that they can teach their children the importance of natural systems and they can take action.

[136] This seems like a great one.

[137] I mean, I love this idea.

[138] I think it's awesome.

[139] I can afford to give away 10 ,000.

[140] I talked to this computer company that everybody knows, but they asked me not to use their name, and they ask how many do we need?

[141] I said about 10 billion.

[142] The billion.

[143] Billion.

[144] And because this, but I will do up to my capacity and then I'm hoping that, you know, we're going to give these away for free and then eventually we'll create networks of hubs where I have now 40 patents on this and helping bees survive from these extracts, but not in Indonesia, not in India, not in Africa, not in China, not in Japan.

[145] I've open source it for most of the world.

[146] I'm basically commercial, I'm going to commercialize it so the haves can help the have -nots.

[147] And I think a lot of people want to help.

[148] And if you, and we're thinking about different ways of doing this, I'm open to all ideas, but the idea is to get maybe one person to sponsor 10 other people.

[149] They have a distributed network, their own social media community, where they end up we getting schools.

[150] We will open source the code for 3D printers.

[151] So that's really important for schools.

[152] So the code is going to be open sourced.

[153] But then if somebody want to make millions of these and sell them, of course.

[154] you know, I wouldn't be happy with that.

[155] They have to work with me. But individually, we can empower individuals with, and schools to have the open source 3D printing codes.

[156] We just have to make it trendy to have one of these in your house.

[157] Like, look, I'm helping.

[158] I'm helping the bees.

[159] If we just did that, it would really make a big difference.

[160] I know that's a gross way to look at it, but that works.

[161] My grandson, Kai, is a perfect example.

[162] He was shuddering and fear of being coming near to this.

[163] And I just, my friend, Dr. Steve Shepard, entomologist, Tom.

[164] me something about bees I didn't know.

[165] Bees are moving so fast.

[166] And we look like we're moving slow.

[167] but if you move really slow the bees think you're a statue and so the idea and so of my grandson and Akai I said look at this and you can see underneath you can see the bees going in and out I said to move really slow and then he got fascinated watching the bees so he overcame his fear of bees he was excited that he's helping bees survive now we've created something intergenerational and saving the bees is the number one bridge concept between conservatives and liberals everyone wants to save the bees.

[168] That's number one?

[169] It's a number one bridge issue between mending the fence, so to speak, cross the political and social divide.

[170] Everybody wants to save the bees.

[171] So this is something, this is an actionable solution.

[172] And the scientific data out there is pretty disturbing.

[173] You know, 75 % of flying insects in the past 27 years and a report from Germany that just came out have disappeared.

[174] Now, many of your listeners are out in the country, You know, I grew up in the country.

[175] Remember all the bug splatter you used to have against your windshield?

[176] You don't see that anymore because the insects are dying because of exposure to pesticides, monoculture.

[177] When you have monoculture, you have what's called pollination deserts.

[178] When you have lots of biodiversity and lots of plants and diversity, the plants are pollinating at different times of the season.

[179] When you do to a monoculture, all the plants like almonds will all produce flowers all at once.

[180] And then there's no pollen available.

[181] So the immune system of the bees, due to factory farming, loss of habitat, deforestation, glyphosphase, you know, heavy metals, pollution, all those things are cofactors.

[182] But the nail in the coffin is by far these viruses.

[183] And so immunologically empowering and supporting the immune system of bees, then it gives the bees the ability to be able to survive longer, do more pollination.

[184] Is there a specific source of these viruses that they can isolate?

[185] Are these a new thing?

[186] Well, actually, there's a slide that shows the pandemic spread of these viruses throughout the world.

[187] They came from Asia, and it's now a global pandemic.

[188] All bees in the world are now infected with these viruses because when they infected honeybee, for instance, visits the flower, it leaves viral particles.

[189] In the flower.

[190] And then a wild bumblebee comes, it visits it, and it becomes infected.

[191] So there is a unfortunate, I don't want to use your word, purport.

[192] storm.

[193] It's a terrible storm of cofactors.

[194] And because 80 % of the benefit the farmers receive is from wild bees.

[195] But we can't count them.

[196] And you know, I have beehives and what happens in the colony collapse, you go out on Monday, the bees are happy, you go on Thursday, they're all gone.

[197] I mean, it's...

[198] Really?

[199] It's that quick?

[200] That quick.

[201] And it's not like there's hundreds of dead bees around your beehive.

[202] They're just gone.

[203] And there can be hundreds of pounds of honey and the bees, you know, they're gone.

[204] So they go off somewhere to the die?

[205] What happens is because the newly hatched bees are called nurse bees, and the nurse bees take care of the baby bees.

[206] But when the colony senses there's not enough pollen and food to support the brood in the colony, the nurse bees are prematurely recruited to go out and find pollen.

[207] So they abandon the babies.

[208] And then the varroa mites are un...

[209] They just go uncontrolled and they start injecting viruses.

[210] And so are other co -factors, just like when you get an infection from a viral infection, you can get bacterial infections.

[211] And so there's a cascade of opportunistic infections as immunology is decreased because of these viruses.

[212] Wasn't there a contributing factor that had to do with cell phones as well?

[213] I actually, I'm really glad you brought that up.

[214] This is a contributing factor.

[215] I have not seen convincing evidence.

[216] It's a hypothesis that's not fully flushed out.

[217] There are some people quite adamant in their belief in this, but I'm driven by science and data.

[218] I can, the rhythms, the frequency of the high of cell phones is an argument that's made is not in the same cosine wave of the wavelengths that we experience in nature.

[219] And so this is disruptive.

[220] I understand that I'm still on the fence.

[221] I'd like to see really strong data and scientific evidence of that.

[222] But it's a hypothesis that needs to be tested.

[223] That's what we're looking also at low -frequency, long -range communication systems.

[224] I think I told you this story.

[225] If I didn't, I apologize.

[226] When we were on Fear Factor, we had a bee stunt.

[227] We had to cover these people in bees.

[228] And a local bee colony flew in.

[229] to check out what was going on and those bees and the bees that were brought there met in the sky and worked it out and the beekeeper told us okay we have to shut down and everybody's got to back out of here so we had to shut down everything and back out for like about an hour at least a half hour why these bees communicated with each other so they're flying a giant swarm of them flying in the eye in the in the air trying to figure out why hey what do you guys here for what are you doing why you in our neighborhood like oh we're not moving in we're just filming a TV show like they had to work it out that is so unusual it was really weird that's extraordinary yeah so when a new queen splits from a hive you know a colony they then take a big group of them with them so it's all about protecting the queen I just don't understand how they worked it out there was no fight to the death there's no nothing they just sort of worked it out and the other bees took off and the bees that were there came back to their high their little colony yeah that's a lot of this is also well that's I'm glad you mentioned that because there's also speaks to what's called bee drift.

[230] And so when we publish our article in nature scientific reports, actually I think the data is understated because 10 to up to 20 percent of bees will drift from one colony to another.

[231] So we had treatment colonies and we had treated colonies.

[232] Well, because 10 to 20 percent of the bees in the treated colonies went to the control colonies, we actually diluted the differential because we had cross, you know, movement of control bees and beehive versus treated bees.

[233] And so when we actually, I think, some of my other co -authors thinks we actually have understated the data.

[234] But when you look at the P values of significance, you know, extraordinary P is less than 0 .009, and that for scientists is an extraordinarily significant data set that is clearly showing the evidence that these extracts help the immunity of bees and help them be able to survive and do a better job.

[235] That's awesome, and it's crazy that it's just a natural mushroom.

[236] But it makes sense what you're saying, that they built their beehives in these rotting trees, knowing that these fungi were there, or somehow or another being attracted to it.

[237] You know, I like to say, the first five seconds that I got the first patent award, my ego did swell.

[238] And then 10 seconds later, I said, are you frigging kidding?

[239] We're Neanderthals with nuclear weapons.

[240] How could it be the first one to have discovered that bees benefit from mycelium immunologically?

[241] but there's no what's called prior art. There's no evidence.

[242] And I mean, think of that.

[243] We have the intelligence of nature underneath our feet.

[244] And this is something we need to tap into.

[245] And the fact that we can show a natural product, you know, if you had HPV, HIV, and you went to a doctor 12 days after having one treatment of these extracts and your virus has dropped 45 ,000 to one, any physician would say, wow, you're doing really well.

[246] And this is what we're being able to see.

[247] Now, we've been trying to find what's called the mode of action.

[248] How are these viruses actually being reduced?

[249] Putatively, our strongest hypothesis now is that providing essential nutrients that are important for the immune system to activate gene sequences that attack the viruses and give more host -defense of immunity of protection of further infection.

[250] Now, does this work with humans as well?

[251] Like, Chaga is supposed to be good for your immune system, right?

[252] this is a great convergence of traditional Chinese medicine and European medicine and medicine from indigenous peoples all over the world have been using these mushrooms is that now we're finding scientific evidence that folklorically the reputation of chaga of rachy of these mushrooms helping the immunity of humans this is translational medicine so but bees is an animal clinical study bees have been stated as being besides rosophila the second most well studied animal in the world.

[253] This is a animal clinical study, past digestion, past what's called the cytokone P -450 pathway, which is your detoxification pathway, mostly in our liver.

[254] All animals use the cytokone P -450 pathway to break down toxins.

[255] And it's past the microbiome, into the blood.

[256] So this is actually, this is an animal clinical study.

[257] And I think it's a gateway for us to take this as credible evidence that natural products can be more useful and offer a broader bio -shield of benefits than pure pharmaceuticals that go after one molecule with one target, one set of receptors.

[258] There are immunological fields have developed in the complexity of nature.

[259] This is what our foods are.

[260] This is, we're in constant biomolecular communication with the ecosystem.

[261] We've evolved in this complex molecular environment.

[262] And so our immune systems are upregulated through multiple stimuli.

[263] And that's why I think these extracts, because of their complexity, they build upon the complexity of natural systems and help our immune system.

[264] So you have hope that this is something that we could eventually see being like a peer -reviewed, proven thing for human beings as well?

[265] Absolutely.

[266] I do believe that's on the near -event horizon.

[267] There's a lot of researchers now.

[268] I believe it's on the near -event horizon.

[269] It's something that we're going to see more and more.

[270] There's lots of clinical studies.

[271] For physicians, it's no branding, no sounding of anything.

[272] I populate a website called mushroom references .com.

[273] I populate specifically for physicians.

[274] I just spoke at Singularity University, you stand for medical school in front of a thousand physicians.

[275] I try to make the bridge of the credibility of the science for physicians who are just not educated yet because they don't have the resources or the time.

[276] So mushroom references .com, you can go to that website.

[277] It's got hundreds of references that then you can put in any you know, symptom or species, et cetera, and you'd be able to find the peer -reviewed references.

[278] There's about 30 references, for instance, on psilocybin right now, which is an area of research that I'm particularly focused on.

[279] Now, there was, for a long time, a stigma associated with anything that had anything to do with mushrooms, particularly because of psychedelic mushrooms.

[280] Is that alleviated?

[281] I know the John Hopkins study on psilocybin has shown some.

[282] pretty incredible benefits.

[283] And there's a lot of people now that are starting to look to it for treatment for people with PTSD or addiction issues.

[284] Has that become more mainstream in your experience?

[285] There's a vast title change in medical science.

[286] There's a slide.

[287] These are just a few of the universities right now that have been approved by the FDA and other agencies for human clinical studies on psilocybin wow so we're looking at Harvard Stanford Purdue um Penn Toronto University of Toronto that's amazing so that's only a few of them I actually could put a Department of Veterans Affairs that's very interesting as well right if I could put up 20 more but you couldn't read them because I had to be able to just to be able so but this this is a huge shift and the the clinical studies are coming out for as you know PTSD in particular has been extremely useful, but one of them that came out of Johns Hopkins for breaking tobacco addiction.

[288] Fifteen patients, small clinical studies, statistically significant, 10 out of 15 people after one or two heroic doses of psilocybin, 12 months later, had not smoked a cigarette.

[289] Wow.

[290] So, I mean, to break tobacco addiction, which is one of the most addictive substances on this planet, is phenomenal.

[291] That's incredible.

[292] And the other research for PTSD, depression, I'm really excited about, cognition, creativity.

[293] I think we can, there's a lot of smart people out there, a lot of smart people listening to your podcast.

[294] I think the idea of microdosing and being able to increase our ability of cognition and creativity to come up with the solutions that can get us out of this mess.

[295] Just think of that.

[296] If we had hundreds of millions of people thinking about solutions like I've come up with to solve some of the environmental challenges we have today for food biosecurity.

[297] The loss of bees is a threat to our national security.

[298] Just think about the threat to our economy.

[299] So this microdosing, I think, has enormous potential as well.

[300] And when you think about one of the issues I see right now with the clinical studies is like almost is too good to be true.

[301] Statistically significant, great universities, great science, published in peer -reviewed journals to the top of their game.

[302] But these mushrooms have so many benefits.

[303] for fighting dementia, potentially Alzheimer's.

[304] Johns Hopkins has an Alzheimer's clinical study ongoing currently.

[305] For a dose of psorocybin to see if it helps pre -Alzheimer's patients and not go into full -blown Alzheimer's.

[306] There's so many different benefits potentially.

[307] It's almost like a chaos of data.

[308] It's almost too good to be true.

[309] So my team and Pam Criscoe is an MD from British Columbia.

[310] We've been working with people, and we have just launched today an app that's at microdose .me, double entendre.

[311] Microdose .com.

[312] It's available on the Apple store.

[313] It's available on Android.

[314] And this is a quick little...

[315] Wait a minute.

[316] A microdosing study on...

[317] And Apple allowed this on the app store?

[318] Yep.

[319] That's a big shift.

[320] And it's up today.

[321] Because this is a Schedule 1 drug that they're talking about taking on...

[322] on microdose levels, I mean, I'm just saying what it is, right?

[323] I mean, obviously, you know what camp I'm in.

[324] I want everybody to do it.

[325] But this is really significant.

[326] It measures your ability to hear, vision, the tap test, you know, and how quickly you can tap your fingers.

[327] It's a, whether you're stacking it with, but it's also good for non -psychoactive substance use.

[328] What is your baseline?

[329] so you're getting older I'm getting older I'm getting younger dude I have a new thing I vote for you I figured it out but the idea is to create baselines you know and then you create a baseline over time so you find out how far you deteriorated or what your trend line is versus the general population so the idea with microdose dot me is that we'll create a massive data set massive amount of data and then we'll offer this to clinician for them to see signal from the noise.

[330] I suspect, hypothetically, I don't have the evidence, but several doctors that have collected case studies of tinnitus, or tinnitus, though what pronunciations are correct, of the buzzing in your ears and being able, and people have resolved that from doing microdosing.

[331] Really?

[332] And 30 % of Americans have hearing loss or more is progressive over time.

[333] How much hearing loss leads to depression, because you can't hear your loved one say?

[334] things and you get in arguments and I didn't hear you and you didn't say that and I mean it just ramifies out so the ability of being able to have better cognition a better neurological development and helping hearing vision depression if the interesting thing about the microdosing that we've been collecting is that people tend to be happier and they're happier but they're more creative and when they're more creative they're happier you're learning a new kata you are excited the next day you nailed it you're up and going to do it again you're writing a new book you're doing an artist work so creativity breathes happiness happiness breeds happiness breeds creativity and then the opposite is true malaise and depression you're not as creative you're not enjoying life you're not looking forward to the next day so I think it's almost a binary choice and the idea of using microdosing and the definite of microdosing is has sort of variable interpretations.

[335] So using the solosomy cubenza scale, which is the most common soloside mushroom in the world, one gram is liftoff.

[336] Five grams is what Terence would say was the hero's journey.

[337] And when I was on last, I did with you, I did 20 grams.

[338] You know, that was a little bit much, you might say.

[339] But when you do one -tenth of a one -gram, you don't feel it.

[340] 1 .20th for sure you don't feel it.

[341] So the idea is you do microdosing below the threshold of intoxication, but then it benefits neurogenesis.

[342] Now there's an extraordinarily interesting study that came out with mice, but I think it's translational medicine, and they were doing microdosing versus macrodosing.

[343] So these are some numbers, but basically one gram.

[344] is almost equivalent to one milligram per kilogram of body weight, 70 kilos is 152 pounds.

[345] And so at one milligram per kilogram with these mice, that's like one gram of cubences.

[346] That's a dose.

[347] It's not a super high dose, but it's a dose.

[348] So what they did with these mice is they had them in an arena with a metal floor.

[349] And they gave a tone.

[350] Then 40 seconds later, they were shocked.

[351] So they had the tone again A few minutes later 40 seconds later they got shocked After 10 rotations the mice realized Like Pavlov's dog When there is a tone There's going to be a negative consequence A shock happening So the mice would cower and fear So then they dosed them With a micro dose 0 .1 milligrams per kilogram versus one milligram per kilogram 1 tenth of a dose versus a full dose Interestingly the full dose It took 10 rotations of no shock, the tone and no shock, before they forgot or became reacclimated not to have the fear of condition response.

[352] With the microdose, one -tenth of that, it only took two rotations.

[353] Two rotations with a microdose, and they dissociated potentially PTSD.

[354] Why do you think it's less?

[355] Well, it's a really good question.

[356] And the evidence we have so far, and again, this is very early evidence, lots of research is going on in this.

[357] it looks like the neurogenic benefits of microdosing are greater than the neurogenic benefits of macrodosing.

[358] You flood the receptors, you're having this incredible trip, it's fantastic, it's colorful, it's life -changing.

[359] Yes, that is all beneficial for changing your life.

[360] But doing microdosing over the long term, because the nerves don't regrow in six hours.

[361] But over weeks of regeneration of nerves with microdosing, it seems to me. that the micro dosings, instead of flooding and overwhelming all the receptors, are feeding these receptors, they're allowing for neurogenesis.

[362] Now, this is, again, a hypothesis.

[363] There's so many great people studying this right now.

[364] But I'm advocating to all of the clinicians at Johns Hopkins, at Stanford, UCLA, at Harvard, please do testing of the patients for hearing and vision and other behavioral tests that aren't not just about emotion and mood and PTSD, but let's actually get some physical measurements.

[365] So then you can track prior, during, during is too complicated.

[366] It's too much intervention.

[367] You're tripping your brains out.

[368] You don't have time to be tested, you know, for vision and audit.

[369] But then post -wise and then looking at the residual effects.

[370] Now, Dr. James Fathamon, he has the Fadamon protocol, my protocol, the Stamance, protocol, James Fadamondon's protocol was microdosing one day on, two days off, one days on.

[371] My protocol that I'm suggesting is four days on, three days off.

[372] And James and I are good friends.

[373] We talk about this.

[374] We laugh.

[375] We're just basically, these are hypothetical potential treatments.

[376] Are you comparing data between the two of you?

[377] This is what microdose, not me, will do.

[378] We wanted to say, are you following the Stammis protocol, the Fadamine protocol, our own protocol?

[379] Are you using it with niacin?

[380] Were you doing it with Lyons mane?

[381] What are you using?

[382] On the lion's main is phenomenally powerful neurogenically.

[383] And there's two clinical studies out of Japan with mild cognitive decline in dementia, showing very positive results, taking two to four grams of Lyons mane per day, the mycelium.

[384] Actually, interesting, not the fruit body.

[385] The mycelium is much more powerful.

[386] And we just have been contracting with a neurological testing laboratory in France.

[387] And we just got some amazing results back showing that when we had Lyons main extracts of the mycelium exposed to neurons, and the positive control was the brain -derived nerve growth factor, nerve factor.

[388] And it was used as a baseline for measuring neurogenic compounds comparatively.

[389] and the neurogenous benefits from this is where the pluripotent stem cells, stem cells that then differentiate the neurons, and the BDNF clearly shows that.

[390] It's the standard protocol.

[391] With the lion's main, it also increased the number of neurons.

[392] Then we started looking at analogs of psilocybin.

[393] And the analogs, when we added the lion's main mycelium with these psilocybin analogs, which are perfectly legal, they're not Schedule 1 substances.

[394] Silocybin analogs are not?

[395] What is it exactly a psilocybin analog?

[396] There's a number of them that have been reported in the literature.

[397] There's Bayoacistin and Nora BayoSystin are two of the more prominent ones.

[398] Now, I'm a psychonaut, and in 1960, Bayosestin, a report of a child died outside of Kelso, Washington, from eating mushrooms in his yard.

[399] The family ingested the mushrooms.

[400] they went to the hospital.

[401] The child developed a fever eventually had renal failure and died.

[402] A chemist by the name of Lung, and then Benedict and Tyler picked up on this, they analyzed the mushrooms looking for a new toxin.

[403] The mushrooms were identified as being saloscibi boocystis.

[404] It is a mushroom that goes in Washington State and Oregon, sometimes in British Columbia, but not in Northern California.

[405] It's very rare species, but grows in yards.

[406] When they analyzed the mushroom looking for a new potential toxins, they found this alkaloid, it's a dimethythripyme -based compound, and they named it Bayocystin, after a psilocystin.

[407] So Bayocin had the reputation of potentially being a deadly poisonous toxin.

[408] It's present in Cubensis, is present in many psilocybe mushrooms, and my book Soliside Mushrooms of the world has charts that show how much Bayosystems in these things.

[409] But no one had ever consumed BayoSystem because this reputation.

[410] Bayoscystin is legal.

[411] I obtained some pure Bayoscystin from a laboratory legally.

[412] I have no psilocybin, you know, nature provides I don't people, make this very clear.

[413] But I can have, I can possess these cellcybin analogs.

[414] And so, since there was no reports in the scientific literature of whether this was truly toxic or not, I, with my, with a doctor, friend of mine, MD, that measured my vitals and hooked me up, you know, to blood pressure, ECG, did all the biometrics that are needed.

[415] And so we did an end of one study.

[416] I decided that even though it had a history of potentially of killing this child, I think that's a false positive.

[417] I think it was bad science.

[418] I couldn't find no one who ever ingested this.

[419] So I decided I would ingest it.

[420] Now, my friend Pam, she's an MD that goes into Antarctica.

[421] She's the only doctor on a research vessel.

[422] And so she goes down there and she gets to bring a roommate.

[423] It was me. And so Pam and I were working really hard.

[424] We had all of our plane tickets.

[425] We're ready to go to Antarctica.

[426] We'd been planning this for months.

[427] And then we decided, well, just before we go, Paul, let's do the Bay of Assistant test.

[428] You know, we were talking about this for months.

[429] We finally got the time to do this, but the next day we're going to Antarctica.

[430] So Pam looks at her cell phone and this Russian research vessel crashed into a reef, tore a hole in it.

[431] And it's like, now the trip is canceled.

[432] I mean, I have American Express, you know, plane tickets, hotels.

[433] I got 24 hours to try to recapture all this money because we can't go.

[434] The trip's been canceled.

[435] So I had super high anxiety.

[436] And I told my doctor friend, I have too much anxiety.

[437] I can't go.

[438] This is too crazy.

[439] And then she kind of looked at me and going, listen, we've been planning this for months.

[440] You know, please.

[441] And I listened to her.

[442] And so I did 10 milligrams of Bayosystem.

[443] she measured my heartbeat blood pressure all those all those metrics my eyes did dilate she said that was good so she had a drug like effect and then she checked in with me every 10 15 minutes 20 minutes you usually have lift off one hour you're full blown into it and she checked with me and she checked with me and she asked and I didn't get high I'm not at all she goes how do you feel and I said I feel great I have no anxiety everything was this trip is going to be fine.

[444] So here we found an analog of psilocybin that does not get you high, that's legal, that reduced anxiety.

[445] I think this is the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

[446] Because all the clinical studies are proved right now for pure psilocybin.

[447] What about the analogs?

[448] They activate other receptor sites, you know, in your neurological field.

[449] And that's why I think this is why looking at the natural form of these mushrooms standardized to a psilocybin, a certain concentration versus the pure molecule, I think that is the way of the future because pure psilzybin is up to $6 ,000, $7 ,000 a gram.

[450] And you can translate that into growing sulfide mushrooms for $2 a gram.

[451] Now, there are people out there listening saying, well, the price is coming down.

[452] Indeed it is.

[453] It's down maybe to $1 ,000 to $500 a gram.

[454] But how many people in the urban lower income, you know, impoverished population suffering from people, ETSD who can't afford to go to Johns Hopkins to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have a clinical treatment.

[455] I think this democratizes the use of psilocybin and microdosing that could be a benefit across our society.

[456] And then my proposing is you stack it with niacin.

[457] And the reason why you stack it with niacin is you take one -tenth of a gram of slaspecuvensis microdose.

[458] You had 100 to 200 milligrams of niacin.

[459] now if someone tries to get high by taking 10 times as much they'll have like two grams of niacin this is flushing niacin vitamin b3 and that flushing niacin will give you such an irritable reaction of skin -nitching of people who've taken vitamin b they three they know this so it becomes the antibuse for microdosing but moreover it excites the nerves at the end of the peripheral nervous system and neuropathies oftentimes present themselves the deadening of the nerves of the fingertips and toes and it's also a vasodilator.

[460] So there's three attributes of stacking niacin with psilocybin mushrooms that prevents abuse becomes the antibuse.

[461] It dilates the blood vessels to deliver the neurogenic benefits of psilocybin to the endpoints of the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system.

[462] And it then also excites the nerve ending.

[463] So I think those three reasons this could be I hope to see in the future psilocyte mushroom to being over the counter vitamins approved by the FDA stacked with niacin that allows for the universality of use for the benefit of our culture and what we were talking last time can I pause you here for a second is there any other evidence of people taking these analogs and having this anti -anxiety effect other than you I mean this seems it's a very small sample size right it's just one person yes there are are as an antidepressant, as far as anxiety and depression are interrelated, there are our reports.

[464] James Faderman in his studies, his population study, which admittedly small, did not see an anti -anxiety component.

[465] But other clinical studies, that John Hopkins also, the anxiety of dying from cancer.

[466] Right, but that was actually psilocybin.

[467] That was actually psilocybin.

[468] But what I'm saying with you is also you had a very profoundly stressful situation happening, something you had prepared for for a long time then all of a sudden it was gone and all this money's gone you've got to try to figure out I'd get it back it's like it's immediate right right maybe with these other people they didn't have such an immediate anxiety moment and maybe their anxiety was harder to measure whether it was coming or going well absolutely um it's an end of one study this needs this is just how many people me no the other one with the other people that have experienced it but didn't experience any anti -anxiety there's no one else that we know in the scientific literature.

[469] Johan Garts mentions, I published philosophy azurestens with him, the most potent sulfide mushroom in the world.

[470] Johann Gartz says, and one thing that he was asked, and he said that the Bayosystem was equal to that of solcybin.

[471] I don't have high confidence to that statement.

[472] I consume Bayosystem.

[473] I was ready for liftoff.

[474] I was hoping for liftoff.

[475] I know what liftoff feels like, and I didn't get it.

[476] So this is, what happens in science so much is the scientists, when you can't do a clinical study, we bioassay.

[477] This is very common.

[478] This is how Albert Hoffman discovered LSD.

[479] He bioassayed it.

[480] Didn't he do it accidentally though?

[481] He did it accidentally, right.

[482] He got in and went for this famous bike ride, but then he did it purposely after that.

[483] But nevertheless, this is what our scientific, you know, psychonauts must do sometimes.

[484] Sasha Shulgun.

[485] Yeah, Sasha Shulgun is famous for it.

[486] The most famous of all and the most revered.

[487] And he bioassayed, based on his knowledge of chemistry.

[488] He wasn't going to try to commit suicides.

[489] So this is really an area that I think has enormous value.

[490] And several meta studies have come out.

[491] One that I had mentioned before is a population of several hundred thousand prisoners.

[492] And there was a 18 % reduction in violent crime and 22 % or so reduction in larceny and theft.

[493] in a population where they reported they had one psilocybin mushroom experience and statistically significant.

[494] Now, association may not be causation, but it can be, but a more recent study from British Columbia, which I find to be so fascinating, is that they did a large population set and partner -to -partner violence.

[495] if your male partner had done one psilocybin trip to statistically significant reduction of the probability of that partner being violent towards their other partner.

[496] Statistically significant.

[497] So I always thought if there's a dating app, maybe you should have the dating app, have you tripped on psilocybin?

[498] Yes, well, that may be a better candidate for dating.

[499] So I think psilocybin makes nicer people.

[500] And I think we deal a lot more nicer people that are more creative, that are dedicated to helping the community.

[501] And I think this is a potential paradigm shifting a drug.

[502] Unquestionably.

[503] And here's the other thing.

[504] This could be profit.

[505] I mean, these companies that are seeking to profit off of pharmaceutical drugs, you can profit off this stuff, particularly with the protocol that you just described with adding niacin to it to ensure that people are doing only microdosing.

[506] look man this could be a very profitable enterprise for some company and the benefits if if people can mirror the benefits that you had of this alleviation of anxiety my god that's like most of what people struggle with so many people out there listening to this right now like fuck i wish there was something that didn't get me high but just alleviated this fucking angst that so many people are struggling with every day it's a it's a massive disease complex that swept our society and facing all these problems, how could you not become depressed?

[507] Well, you cannot become depressed by becoming creative.

[508] And I think that solstiven in microdosing enables the creative pathways for ingenuity for us to feel that we have meaning.

[509] We can make a meaningful difference.

[510] And it's really important.

[511] You know, we've entered into 6X, the sixth greatest extinction event known in the history of life on this planet.

[512] We've had two other extinction events from asteroid impacts, 250 million years ago, 65 million years ago, but we're now involved in a massive extinction event.

[513] And the research that came out today, and the other research has come out with 75 % of the insect population, 40 % in immediate jeopardy, the research article came out, said in Europe and North America, they have good data collection, Amazon, they don't.

[514] So we do even have a measure the insect loss in the Amazon.

[515] But if you're a trout, if you're a bird, if you like drinking coffee, and you like chocolate and you like almonds, I mean, these are all dependent upon pollinators.

[516] So if we lose these flying insects, we lose the pollination services, and it threatens worldwide food biosecurity.

[517] This is one of the biggest threats to our ecosystem now.

[518] I think we can invent our ways out of this if we creatively, you know, expand our ability to come up with novel solutions.

[519] I think those solutions are literally underfoot and all around us today.

[520] We just have to wake up, like I woke up to helping the bees.

[521] There's so many smart people out there.

[522] If they just started realizing that nature is a deep well of evolutionary knowledge and that we have evolved within this complexity, then to delve into that library of knowledge and pulling out applicable solutions, vetted by science, controlled studies, but not looking at these pharmaceutical pure molecules as the way of the future, but looking upon the complexity of the microbiome, the complex interrelationships, and selecting out microbiomes that then create guilds of solutions that are applicable to the problems that we face today.

[523] All right.

[524] I like that idea.

[525] All of it.

[526] It's beautiful that there are these natural solutions that maybe if we could just shift people's ideas, is about how we view psilocybin, how we view the analogs, how we view the interaction with people in nature, that you can, you know, we can make a real change, make a change that's tangible inside of our lifetime.

[527] And again, selling this stuff, like if, look, we're seeing what's happening right now with medical marijuana and then shifting to commercial marijuana and now hemp.

[528] It's giant.

[529] I mean, it's a huge industry through, it's changed Colorado.

[530] Colorado, Denver's real estate's gone through the roof.

[531] People are moving there so much that they've got traffic problems now they never conceived of in the past.

[532] It's changed their economy, and it's changed their economy due to just a really obvious shift.

[533] Here's the shift.

[534] Marijuana is not bad for you.

[535] It's not.

[536] We thought it was.

[537] It's not.

[538] We're sorry.

[539] You could have it now.

[540] And now you could sell it.

[541] And now it's legal.

[542] But federally, we're still dealing with Schedule 1.

[543] So it's, it's, these shifts are happening.

[544] These companies are investing money.

[545] There's a lot of profit to be made.

[546] And a lot of people are profiting.

[547] but it's still in this weird transitionary stage.

[548] It is, but this is a people's revolution.

[549] When you have decriminalized nature coming out of Oakland, which I'm fully in favor of, how dare we make a species illegal.

[550] That makes no sense to me. What is Oakland specifically?

[551] They've made ayahuasca, psilocybin.

[552] What else?

[553] All natural products with psychoactive properties, to the best of my understanding, both Denver and Oakland, they remove the funding for prosecutors and judges in the courts.

[554] so you can't use public funds in order to prosecute people for possession.

[555] Can you still arrest them for it, though?

[556] Well, the law enforcement officer is not getting paid.

[557] He's not doing his job.

[558] He's violating his code of conduct.

[559] You arrest him and you take him to a prosecutor.

[560] A prosecutor says, I have no funding for this.

[561] You're wasting our time.

[562] You're just coming here is wasting my time.

[563] I have murders that's to solve.

[564] What if someone's selling it?

[565] Decriminalization does not, it doesn't prevent you from being prosecuted for selling schedule one substance right that's a really really good question and i have um thoughts on it that's controversial um because this speaks to the ability of some people having access and not if you want i only trip on suicide mushrooms once or twice a year um that's all all i need as terence mckenna and i think alan watts say when you when you get the message from the phone hang it up um so So if you just have these slozite mushrooms growing in your backyard or you know how to collect them, then you only need one or two doses a year and even microdosing, you know, you get a lot more extension of that.

[566] But my view, and I've never had any problem with law enforcement.

[567] In Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia and Canada in particular, law enforcement has a very pretty mature attitude towards this.

[568] that if you have a small amount and you're not trafficking and you're for individual use, it just doesn't raise the level of the need for enforcement.

[569] No, I understand that, but I just wish there was no incentive at all.

[570] There was nothing there.

[571] Like, just the idea that you have to rely on the good grace of a cop who understands that there's no incentive to arrest you.

[572] That seems like horseshit to me. Yeah.

[573] Like, we're grown adults in 2019 with a mountain of evidence.

[574] This is not, we're not living in the dark ages anymore.

[575] And the fact that it's still a possibility that you get arrested.

[576] Or you could face some sort of criminal charges for having something that's only been demonstrated to be good.

[577] This is why the citizens movement, the federal government, I mean, the Republicans and conservatives and libertarians are all about state rights.

[578] This is a people's movement.

[579] They should get behind this because individual community rights against the big man, against the federal government.

[580] Yeah.

[581] The federal government, there needs to be a title change.

[582] And how do we do that is because we have decriminalized nature in Oregon.

[583] We have the Denver Initiative, other cities around the country.

[584] It's now spreading throughout the entire country.

[585] There's probably 20 cities in the next 16 months.

[586] They're going to have decriminalization at the city councils.

[587] I also think it's a significant solution to this problem that we're facing with pills and a lot of destructive drugs.

[588] There's a lot of self -destructive drugs that people are taking because these people are hurting.

[589] What psilocybin gives you that these drugs don't, it gives you a potential to heal.

[590] It gives you a moment to reflect.

[591] It gives you a change in the way you think and you interface with the world.

[592] And that just doesn't exist in those other drugs.

[593] Those drugs are escape drugs.

[594] And the need to escape is what we've got to eliminate.

[595] And I think that's one of the things that psilocybin can help.

[596] It can help alleviate the need to escape.

[597] And a shout -out to Rick Doblin and Leanna Agoluli of Maps.

[598] MAPS .org, the multi -disciplinary association for psychedelic studies, MAPS .org and MAPS

[599].C