Psychedelics for Work, Psychedelics for Healing

From Ayahuasca retreats for CEOs to ketamine coaches for corporate leaders, we explore the world of corporate psychedelic use.  

In this episode, Lynn and Molly explore the differences between using psychedelics to optimize work performance and using them for healing. We share their worries about using psychedelics to reinforce existing capitalist hierarchies. We discuss how the intertwining of professional and spiritual realms can degrade our sense of self worth. Along the way, we question the idea of "taking your whole self to work," and the dangers of outsourcing your personal spiritual and ethical questions to an employer (or to any spiritually immature institution).

Lynn shares stories and insights from her visit to the Shipibo people in Peru, where she learned about some traditional uses of Ayahuasca. 

If you enjoy Ketamine Insights, please share it with a friend and rate and review it on your favorite podcast platform. That really helps!

Support us and join our community at https://www.patreon.com/ketamineinsights
or at https://mollydunn.substack.com/
Email us at ketamineinsights@gmail.com (We love to hear from you!)
Our Instagram is @ketamineinsights
You can also find all of our episodes on YouTube and on our website https://ketamineinsights.com/ 

In this episode we reference the NPR show It's Been A Minute. The episode is called "Why Tech Bros Worship Psychedelics and Think You Should Too" 

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, please get help. In the US, you can dial 988. You are never all alone.

00:00 Introduction to Ketamine Insights

01:29 Exploring Ketamine for Work

02:48 The Blurring of Personal and Professional Realms

05:43 Ayahuasca and Professional Coaching

07:41 The Ethics and Psychedelic Use

10:23 Consequences of Commercialization for Indigenous Communities

15:53 Intentions and Psychedelic Use

25:55 Traditional Uses of Ayahuasca in Peru

35:30 Traditional and Western Healing Traditions

39:31 Work, Spirituality, and Human Worth

44:48 Concluding Thoughts and Credits

Until next time, remember to advocate for yourself, and never ration your joy.

Chapters

• 0:00 Theme Song and Intro
• 1:29 Exploring Ketamine for Work
• 2:48 The Blurring of Personal and Professional Realms
• 5:43 Ayahuasca Retreats and Professional Coaching
• 10:23 Consequences of Commercialisation for Indigenous Communities
• 15:53 Intentions and Psychedelic Use
• 25:55 Traditional Uses of Ayahuasca in Pero
• 31:53 Healing Practices and Community Beliefs
• 35:30 Traditional and Western Healing Practices
• 39:31 Work, Spirituality, and Human Worth
• 44:48 Concluding Thoughts and Credits

Transcript

​[00:00:00] 

Theme Song: She is sometimes sad. She's sometimes happy. She's doing things to make life less crappy. Trying a treatment that's new on the scene, let's sit back and talk about ketamine. 

Molly: Welcome to Ketamine Insights, a show about mental health and psychedelic medicine. This podcast is made by and for people who use psychedelic medicines for healing. I've been using ketamine to treat depression for several years, and my co-host Lynn, is a longtime ally and friend to people with mental health challenges.

Ketamine Insights is a cumulative podcast. We recommend that new listeners start with episode one, especially if you're looking for practical advice about how to get started with medicinal ketamine. Today we're talking about the differences between using [00:01:00] ketamine and other psychedelics for healing versus using them to improve work performance.

We also get to hear from Lynn about her visit to the Shabo people in Peru where she learned how they use Ayahuasca for spiritual and medicinal purposes. It's a great episode. If you enjoy it, please follow us and leave a review. Thank you. I.

Hello?

Lynn: Hello.

Molly: Yes, I think we are. Okay, great. 

Molly: I wanted to talk a little bit about the way that ketamine is being used now, outside of the healthcare setting and outside of the raver party setting as well. I've looked around a little bit, and found professional coaches using ketamine mini retreats for clients who wanna improve their work performance.

Oh 

Molly: it's this whole like.

Lynn: I was… like on the, the the NPR show that I was listening to that used to have shared with me, "It's Been a Minute" [00:02:00] as they were talking about people in the work world, mostly like Silicon Valley, but I think it's not just Silicon Valley, but it is a lot in that world. People that are so obsessed with work and their work life, their personal and maybe spiritual life that, you know, there's this idea for a lot of us, (and as like a, a mission driven professional. There's this part of me that identifies with this, where there's like a blending of my personal professional life). But. in the Silicon Valley world that they're, when they use psychedelic sometimes that it's like, why

Why would want - there was the question of, why would you want to have your sort of personal and spiritual life or your personal spiritual journey be used to further your professional life? You know, like, doesn't that seem like. Realms that you wanna keep separate, which I could see why, that's a good question for some people, but then I think for some of us it's like, well, they're so interconnected. And I feel like, well, if you're in the, like, if you're in a, a [00:03:00] startup, like in the tech world, I don't know, are they interconnected?

Like for me it seems like how interconnected could they be? But they were saying that in the show that that is kind of the culture that the startup world tries to promote is that Yeah, it has to be like all-in everything. And then I think for a lot of people that are, that are in a really like mission driven or social impact kind of career also, you don't have a lot of boundaries sometimes between your personal world and life and your professional. Like everything is, everything about you is committed to what you're doing professionally in a way. But that's instantly what I thought of when you said like, you know, career coaches, professional coaches, and it's like your whole life is kind of focused on certain values and goals,

Molly: Right. I think it's like,

Lynn: It's a little weird. The idea of doing that is a little weird, but at the same time, I could see it like if your, everything that you do in your life is committed to a certain thing, you're

Molly: mm-hmm.

Lynn: trying to improve and sharpen yourself.

Molly: Yeah. It's a, it is a really interesting [00:04:00] question. The like whole bring your whole self to work type movement. And like, I, I totally understand the, what you're saying about the, when you're mission driven or you work for a mission driven organization, you kind of throw yourself into this work that it is, it's, for some people, it's a calling.

For some people it is spiritual. For some people it is, you know, it's values based. And then in a lot of other intense work environments, it's just a matter of, like. It's sort of all encompassing, right? Whether you're a lawyer working 120 hours a week, or a startup who, you know, person who's getting every meal at work.

And,

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: it's like a, it's a lifestyle, not just a job. And I think it's like, it's a dangerous, it can be spooky because you might feel much more loyal to that job than that job feels to you.

Lynn: So true. true. [00:05:00] Yes. Yep.

Molly: a lot of the time, the values don't coincide, right? Like, even if you are working for an organization that's mission-driven, like you are, in some ways, somehow those, you know, it's important to keep in mind that your values are yours and you can't just like outsource that part of your. Life to any kind of institution, any other organization, especially one that's not like spiritually mature, you know what I mean?

It's one thing if you wanna do that for a religion that like, has thought about these things.

Lynn: yeah, yeah. That's so true. So tell me more about this, the career coach or professional coaches thing.

Molly: I mean, it's, it's similar to these like ayahuasca retreats that you hear about in Costa Rica or other places where CEOs and celebrities will use like traditional medicine as like a quick fix. And they say it's like 10 years of therapy and two days. And I mean, to me it's a [00:06:00] scary approach in part because like, you don't know what's gonna come up when you do a ketamine trip, like,

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: or ayahuasca even more so is my understanding.

Like it's a deeply personal experience and to me it's, it's like intrusive to think about. Doing it for work

Lynn: totally.

Molly: specifically, and it's also like not clear to me that the, if that's the kind of mission and intention that you go in there with, you may not be ready at all for what comes up

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: and you may not be in a good environment for what comes up.

You know, if they're thinking about, I don't know, annual returns and like leadership styles

Lynn: That's wierd

Molly: and then something comes up about a traumatic experience in your past or you know, it's just not a appropriate linkage.

Lynn: Oh my God. Yeah. That could be so weird. I would think. Yeah. What, what kind of, what kind of psychedelics are they using at these? Did it say,[00:07:00] 

Molly: Ayahuasca is a big one, so they do,

Lynn: I mean, yeah, that goes really deep.

Molly: I know.

Lynn: I would think. Yeah, you might, I mean, a lot of people, you know, have been through some traumatic things in their lives and have Yeah.

Gone on to whatever the successful career is that puts 'em in this retreat. So yeah, they're supposed to be thinking about returns and Yeah, like you said, improving themselves and they're gonna have all kinds of experiences. 

Molly: Right. Or like, my relationship with my father needs to be rethought and stuff like that. And like, I know people come out with a sense of clarity and that could be helpful at work. I'm not saying it doesn't like work, but it's a very it seems like a very like, thin use of a ancient medicine

Lynn: It does. It really does.

Molly: and like, like I heard Judd Apatow on a podcast by Mike Brabiglia. I think a comedy podcast.

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: Saying that he did ayahuasca and he had no preparation whatsoever. He didn't research it, he didn't look into it. And Mike [00:08:00] Brabiglia was surprised and Judd Apatow kind of shrugged it off and he is like, what am I gonna do? Like go on YouTube and find a bunch of people puke in their brains out.

Like, I don't wanna poison my mind with like, things like that before I do this drawing.

Lynn: I mean, I don't know. I'd think you'd like think about it setting intention. I feel like you would have some thoughts on how we might prepare. Yeah. I

Molly: I thought that was so

Lynn: videos, but

Molly: right. I thought that was such a like, little insight into how to prepare for psychedelics that the idea was like, do nothing or watch some YouTube videos

Lynn: Yeah, that seems, that seems like what my like 8-year-old would say about it. 

Molly: Yeah. So this like, you know, the idea of like spiritual preparation or setting an intention or like,

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: Creating a relationship with the facilitator.

Lynn: Yeah I was thinking, read some books, meditate on it.

Molly: Right.

Lynn: kinds of things. Talk to your therapist, talk with friends, talk to the others who've been through the experience. Oh my god, there's so many things.

Molly: I think in part this is like a, a problem with information just getting [00:09:00] out there that people don't understand the gravity of these experiences and access is a bit, there's, it's so, so easy for a wealthy person to purchase a, a retreat to Costa Rica and have access to these powerful experiences that like.

Lynn: Whereas for a lot of people, it's like something you would save up for and think about for such a long time because it'd be so much money and like the amount of time that you would have to take off from work or whatever, and such a commitment. So you would spend a lot of time preparing for it and thinking about it.

You're not just like, oh, I'm just gonna drop this and

Molly: Right.

Lynn: a quick YouTube video if I need to think about it. And

Molly: Right. And especially for people who are doing it for mental health reasons, like the, the consequences are just greater and the hopes are higher. And the risk,

Lynn: That's what I would think too. I'd be scared about potential negative consequences and then also like the potential, really positive consequences.

Molly: if you're dealing with depression or something else, like you just [00:10:00] want it to work so bad that you're gonna do your research, you're gonna try to maximize the opportunity, you know, like increase the Yeah. The chances that it'll actually work for you.

Lynn: Yeah. And he just kind of did it for fun. He's just like, I'm just gonna give this a

Molly: I guess, yeah. And I, I don't.

Lynn: gonna have a trip.

Molly: I don't feel like it's for me to say how people should use these drugs.

Lynn: Good point

Molly: I do think it is, it's like very important to think about the indigenous communities that these drugs are coming from and like how commercialization and commoditization of these substances affects the original source.

But it's not impossible for those things to live side by side. But I, I just am, it's just such a different way to use these medicines

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: like I, in some ways, I'm sure it might be better to be out in the, jungle in a beautiful environment like Costa Rica than being in a clinic [00:11:00] somewhere on a, you know, a bed with your, like I told you once, I did a in infusion in a clinic on a regular hospital kind of caught bed thing with stirrups.

Lynn: Oh, sounds awful. Yeah.

Molly: they were, they like folded them up and like, you know, for o ob, GYN Yeah. I like they folded them up, but it's just, you feel so medical and so sterile and so that like, you know, I'm sure being in a beautiful environment would be way better than that. Yeah. I don't know. There's like, there's all of these different kind of ways that these these worlds are colliding, like professional and capitalistic and, and commercial endeavors with psychedelics right now.

Like there's some organizations, some companies are providing Ketamine assisted psychotherapy as a mental health benefit outside of any health insurance or anything like that.

Lynn: Ok. That's cool.

Molly: I think that's, yeah, that's a [00:12:00] really interesting, like, it's weird to me for a company to choose what therapies are available to you and what therapies aren't. At the same time, health insurance isn't covering something that's clearly beneficial to so many people.

Lynn: yeah.

Molly: It's an interesting, it's like a cool benefit, you know, I wish I worked at a company like that.

It would save me a lot of money. 

Lynn: You know what a question that just came to my mind on the whole subject of, you know, the indigenous peoples and these medicines and, you know, affecting all of All of this is what's happening. With the supply chain of ayahuasca having been in the tibo community where they use ayahuasca traditionally and have like a very small amount of tourism from foreigners using it.

I, it's like, you know, people harvest it at this. It's like this vine that's harvested at this, you know, and communities traditionally like just grows naturally and it's harvested at this very small amounts and produced traditionally. But I wonder how it's being [00:13:00] produced now at this increased volume to be able to be, made at the volume that they need for these re retreats in Costa Rica and how they're getting into Costa Rica. Are they like growing it on plantations in the Costa Rican rainforest now, you know, they,

Molly: Yeah,

Lynn: I wonder how, what they're doing,

Molly: how do they meet that demand?

Lynn: off of it. Yeah. How are they meeting that demand?

I'm so curious.

Molly: And to me, one of the interesting things too is like how are they meeting the demand for the substance itself and how are they meeting the demand for the facilitators and the shamans and the people who guide you through these journeys that like, there's just no. Way except for word of mouth to know if they're any good at what they do.

Lynn: I've, I've read that like in some of these Costa Rican retreats that it's, you know, it's like Peruvian shamans from the indigenous groups that are, that are up there in Costa Rica that may like been part of the year there. In Costa Rica doing it. I'm sure they're training, I'm sure they're training people and there's probably like Costa Ricans [00:14:00] that are, you know, trying to get trained and sort of take over the trade.

I bet there's this whole, you know, dynamic that's happening where it's sort of like, who, who will own the shamanism? You know, and who

Molly: Right.

Lynn: will be able to facilitate the, the actual doing the, the trips and leading these, and it's probably

Molly: Right.

Lynn: And it's probably going to change over the next 5, 10, 20 years.

Molly: Yeah. And I'm sure there are better actors and worse actors in the field and

Lynn: yeah,

Molly: people who are, you know, better at it and more interested in doing it for personal improvement, spiritual growth, whatever. And other people who are like, take this now, see you later.

Right. I mean, you see these, this professional coach that I found her website in, she's in California, doesn't seem to have any qualifications as a therapist or as a, you know, any, any background. She's a professional coach.

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: So I was looking through her website trying to find what, how she would be [00:15:00] good at ketamine assisted therapy

Lynn: Yeah,

Molly: And I just didn't see any really even claim to, I.

To that. Like there, that's not even what she's trying to do

Lynn: to it. It was just like, Nope. It, this is just like, this is standard these days. I'm a professional coach and I'll take you to Costa Rica and there's lots of people

Molly: for her. It wasn't even Costa Rica, it was just ketamine. So it was local, but I don't think, I don't know.

Lynn: Yeah. Okay.

Molly: signs you up with a prescriber, I guess. I'm not really sure how the chain works, but it's like you, you just like go to a resort for two days or three days and do some ketamine each day or something and come out of it thinking, feeling much better about your performance as a CEO or so, I guess, I mean.

Yeah.

Lynn: huh?

Molly: I like, again, I don't mean to be talking shit about every other way to do ketamine. It's just like it's a striking difference to me between the way I've always thought about using psychedelics for [00:16:00] mental health and the way other people are thinking about it to like optimize performance. I know like Elon Musk said something about like, there was a, someone was asking him, is it okay for you to be doing these drugs and like be in charge of all these companies?

And he said, well, you know, this, the stock price of my companies has gone up by this much in the past, this many years. So whatever I'm taking, I should take more of it. And, that kind of push toward efficiency and, and performance here's the thing that gets me about it,

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: like, I.

When we talk about using ketamine for mental health, one of the things that we talk about right, is like a patient centered approach to mental health. You're not laying back and letting the medicine do its work. You are an active participant, you're the primary healer. We have, you know, talked about this over many different episodes and it's a different paradigm for mental health.

Lynn: Mm-hmm.[00:17:00] 

Molly: and the way you interact with the mental health infrastructure under that paradigm is very different. And that's important. It's an important difference, especially within mental health, where like people have been locked up we've had generations of generations go by where people are locked up for things that we no longer think are an illness at all.

Lynn: Yep.

Molly: and so it's important that like, that patient led perspective is very important in mental health. And I think that like when you're bringing. A new paradigm like that, like the ketamine and other psychedelics are naturally upending. Like they naturally help you create different orders of thinking, different ways of thinking, right?

And so it makes sense to be like, interrupting the existing hierarchies 

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: it's just a striking difference in that paradigm versus reinforcing the hierarchies that exist through, like, using ketamine for capitalist ends.

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: [00:18:00] also. These people who are using it for, you know, performance optimization at work. You know, kind of think they're being counterculture in some cases. By doing it, it's like you're, no, you're literally making yourself into a tool like

Lynn: Yeah, yeah. Just making yourself more productive, more efficient. Like just a, like an automated for like the system for the man.

Molly: Yeah. And using, using spiritual experiences to make rich people richer.

Lynn: yeah,

Lynn: yeah. It is a little weird

Molly: It's weird

Lynn: say make them making themselves richer. Making rich people richer.

Molly: right. Both.

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: Yeah.

Lynn: And other people. Richer rich people. Richer other rich people richer. Yeah. I know. But that's, that's a good point. So,

Molly: I think that's an, it's an important difference of like, you know, people used LSD in the sixties it was the same kind of idea that like you have to like, work against the man, like fight against the system. And, and there's a big difference between using [00:19:00] psychedelics for like fighting existing hierarchies or rethinking existing hierarchies, I should say, versus

Lynn: the hierarchy in the

Molly: mm-hmm.

Lynn: and the man, which basically is now Elon Musk,

Molly: Yeah.

Lynn: it's like now Elon Musk perpetuating the system that he has built, and

Molly: Right,

Lynn: then others just like that system and wanting to be like him and

Molly: right.

Lynn: him. 

Molly: And going to like such huge extents to, to make that happen. Like, you know, ketamine other, I have not done ayahuasca, but it's intense,

Lynn: Oh yeah

Molly: like. You're pooping, you're puking, you're talking to God. Like,

Lynn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Molly: it's a lot to handle,

Lynn: It's a lot to just want to like write better code or. Be more efficient at whatever it is that you're doing in that world.

Molly: right? I think even, even for me, I'd like to [00:20:00] think of myself as a mission-driven person.

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: career was all involved in public service.

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: And when I, when I have thought of intentions for infusions,

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: I had trouble being so prescriptive as to like, like I never put forth an intention that was like, how do I better serve?

In part because it seems too like transactional, like, you know. If, if you show me like it's, it's transactional or prescriptive, like, tell me how to do this thing that I already know I wanna do is not really the, that's not really the model for intentions that I was taught and that I usually go by.

It's like, you go, you don't go in with a demand, you go in with a question. And so like,

Lynn: so gimme an example of that. So like, what would your question be as opposed to going into [00:21:00] session saying, I wanna come out better able to serve, whether that's through your job or something else you're saying. Your question would be,

Molly: you might go in thinking something more like, how can I better live my values? How can I, or like, you know, show me about service? Like let's talk about my relationship with service. it's more about like, if you consider service a spiritual endeavor than like, how how can you, how can you better live out that value as opposed to like, how can you logistically do it?

Lynn: yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying. I wonder what the intentions are that Bros generally set, or if they do set intentions, you know,

Molly: A great question. Yeah. I'd love to know. I would love to like interview some people who use ketamine this way. Because I'm sure it's fascinating and like there [00:22:00] have been times when I've done a lozenge and had an insight that I think would've been useful when I was still able to work. I didn't go in with that hope, but it does because it helps you connect things that you don't otherwise think about connecting.

I could see where it would be helpful for work, like I really do. I think that's more true of like a lighter dose than a full trip experience, but I, I wonder how like yeah. What intentions they go in with, how they kind of moderate the experience. Is it about acceptance and openness or is it about trying to like direct the experience in a certain direction and maybe they've gotten good at, you know, if the goal isn't openness, then maybe there is some value to that.

Kind of like that kind of more directional approach. I've never done it that way. To me, the like point is always to be open and learn from the medicine and what the medicine wants to teach you as opposed to thinking [00:23:00] that you know best what the, what will come out of that experience. But like, I don't know, maybe there are other ways to use it,

Lynn: Yeah. And then maybe in the end it's like, know, these medicines are, they have many uses and people hopefully will use them safely, and they can be used for many things. And hopefully this kind of use doesn't like, like pose any risks to the kinds of therapeutic use, the

Molly: Right.

Lynn: ways that we use them and the ways we know that they can be really useful for mental health. But maybe there'll be many more different uses that are

Molly: Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. And I think, one of the important questions is how do you wanna use it? And in a way it kind of reflects your own journey in life or your own goals at the moment. It's like, are you trying to find spiritual enlightenment? Are you trying to heal mental illness?

Are you trying to, you know, just [00:24:00] improve your life or have a fun experience like walking through a forest one day? Or are you trying to like rubber hits the road or whatever, and improve something specific about your life?

Lynn: yeah,

Molly: Yeah, because it.

Lynn: Who knows what else it could be. And then maybe it'd be like musicians trying to like compose music, you know? And it's just opening up new, neural pathways to, for writing music or poetry. I don't know. You could imagine different kinds of creative endeavors, 

Molly: Yeah. No, totally. And I think like you're the the art that has come out of these experiences so far, like, it's interesting. there's a lot of commonalities between the art that's come out of these things, like even ancient art you, you see a lot of the same patterns and stuff

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: People draw today when they're trying to explain or show what they experienced.

So yeah, I mean it, I think there are a lot of like cool opportunities for [00:25:00] research and learning when it comes to like. Different ways these, these medicines affect different people in different cultures. And the similarities. I've heard one explanation of ayahuasca in particular, 

It was like Ayahuasca has a way of treating a spiritual malady.

Lynn: Hmm.

Molly: And in the Western world, the learning that we tend to get from Ayahuasca is about connectedness and interconnectedness.

Lynn: Mm-hmm.

Molly: And that's actually specific to the Western world because we are so isolated and individualized that that's a spiritual wound that we all share.

And that happens to be the thing that ayahuasca normally does for people in the west. But if you, but actually in other cultures, it tends to have different messages altogether.

Lynn: That's super interesting. Yeah, makes sense. Now, what I remember from spending time in the Shabo community in Peru with a [00:26:00] shaman and, and I never did ayahuasca myself, but learned a bit about what they used it for. Traditionally, there was a couple things they talked about. One was that they would use it for plant medicines and that they would they would take it. because part of being a shaman was healing and understanding like the, the plants around them in the forest.

And so they would say there's a new plant that we just don't understand what it does, what the medicine is. If we can use it for something, then we'll use I ayahuasca and we'll with, and we'll have that plant there in the ceremony and we'll journey with that plant basically. And we'll like look into the DNA of the plant and understand the plant and. And they like come to understand its uses and what it's for, you know? And like, you're like, what?

Molly: That's so cool

Lynn: also the designs that they draw that are like these crazy, like maze like patterns are, they say are like the DNA of plants. They say it's the DNA of [00:27:00] plants that they see an ayahuasca journey. Like, oh. So amongst many other things, I'm sure that the ayahuasca ceremonies, so they call it a ceremony is for them. I mean, that's the word in Spanish. But of course, like in their language, I'm sure they have many other words for it, but they talk about how it's about seeing like inside of plants and seeing

Molly: wow,

Lynn: and seeing what plants are and what they do and what they can give to people.

Molly: it's so interesting.

Molly: Yeah, I've always wondered that when it comes to traditional medicine, How many things did you try before you discovered that this root was good on a burn? You know, like, but, but then it, but it makes sense that there would be some intuition to that or some, and it's fascinating that ayahuasca would help you narrow that down and understand that better about a plant.

Lynn: Yeah. It's so fascinating. And then there's still, like in modern time, you think of all these things of being like passed down over generations as they are, but that people are still experimenting with them. Using

Molly: [00:28:00] yeah.

Lynn: interesting.

Molly: Hmm. And you, your experience with them also was like like they, talked to you, didn't they? If I remember right about like when someone is ready to go through a ayahuasca ceremony and when they're not, or not ready, but like how did you, how did they put it?

Lynn: Yeah, because they were very serious. This was a community that was, they're not a community that hosted a lot of tourists. They did, they weren't the kind of place where you could just like show up and be like, I wanna do an ayahuasca ceremony. They were more of a, a little bit more of like a hard to get to community.

There were some that were a little closer to, what's the name of the town? Pucallpa, where they had more tourists

Lynn: I think this community, I was connected with them through a family friend that had been there and done an ayahuasca ceremony.

And they were like, this was like the one group of Westerners that had got gone there,

Lynn: ceremonies [00:29:00] before and they had gone through like the cleansing and everything. So this community was like, they had a family of shamans. And so this very old man who was like almost a hundred years old, his son who was around 80 then he was training the next generation and they said if you wanted to go through the ayahuasca ceremony you needed to go, you needed to do Some sort of fasting. I can't remember if it was a week or two weeks but basically you have no meat, have no sex for either a week or two weeks, and then a number of other kind of cleansing type things along those lines.

Lynn: sex, no meat, no alcohol. They would say that they would like be very concerned about performing the ceremony on you if you didn't follow these because would be sort of unclean and you might have a bad experience and they might have a bad experience as well. And they would say, well, you know, the other shamans might do this but it's not the traditional way. And

Lynn: that's not the kind of [00:30:00] experience that they thought should be had.

Molly: Hmm, that's interesting. And they.

Lynn: I was kind of interested. I was like, oh, maybe I'll try it. And they were like, oh, like, ask me these questions, you know? And I was like, oh, I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm qualified for that and I don't have enough time to hang out here. I was there for like, you know, four or five days or something.

Molly: Mm.

Lynn:  to fully cleanse in myself.

Molly: In time. Yeah. That's interesting. And so they were like, eh, skip it. Like you can't prepare.

Lynn: You're not able Yeah. Yeah.

Molly: that's a good example too, it feels like they're not incentivized in any other way besides like, what's good for you? What's good for them? What's good for the community?

They're not gonna say like, yeah, go ahead and do it even if you don't have enough time, because we need the thousands of dollars that you're about to hand over.

Lynn: Oh yeah. They weren't like, oh, you have a hundred dollars. And they weren't even charging a bunch of money, I don't think. 'cause they were like, they weren't like a commercialized sort of, they weren't one of these villages

Molly: Right.

Lynn: that has like the whole commercial set up with like, places to stay. It was like, you're staying in our, like, family hut. We have like, a [00:31:00] tiny tent we set up for a ceremony. Like they don't have, was not a big setup. 

But yeah, they were just like, no, this is not, this is not good man.

We cannot do this. This does not sound good. Yeah. You're not ready for this. You need to be, you need to prepare yourself. You need a couple of weeks, you know.

Molly: Were you disappointed or were you like, eh,

Lynn: yeah, I think I wasn't totally at the time. I mean, I was like 23, 24 years old. I was like very spiritually immature. So I was like interested, but I was also like kind of sensitive that I was not, not maybe mentally quite there yet.

I knew that it was like a big deal and that I was not maybe not fully ready to go there yet either. You

Molly: yeah.

Lynn: And in retrospect I'm like, yeah, maybe it's good that I didn't, you know?

Molly: Yeah.

Lynn: and maybe I need another five to 10 or so years to have that kind of a journey.

Molly: do you know within that community is there an age limit? Like do people generally do it in middle age or is there, are there [00:32:00] other rules around.

Lynn: I think It's definitely adults and, and like the kids would always talk about it. The kids would whisper like, oh, ceremony, ceremony. They're doing a ceremony. And it was definitely like adults only. It was also like, it's not the kind of thing that people are doing regularly.

It's very much like kind of the shaman family and it seemed like sort of a lineage. It was like you're in, it's like sort of a shaman bloodline that generally do it. It's not like everyone is doing ayahuasca all the time. It was, people are doing it to learn this. This is what I remember, this was like, this is a long time ago now, is that people are doing it to learn about the medicines, the plant medicines, then they're doing it for healing If they feel, if someone's sick and they're trying to understand like someone in the family or someone in the community, what's wrong with them and how to heal them. And there may have been other reasons, but that's what I remember about how it was explained to me. And then they would do it maybe if, if they're like leading someone else at a ceremony. As some kind of a learning and spiritual journey,

Molly: That's what I was gonna ask

Lynn: but the main [00:33:00] things were like for them to learn about some medicines and then to heal someone. And then what I also remember of the community was there was this tension, as I know this course is like happens in a lot of places where there's traditional religion and traditional healing, that there was like a whole evangelical movement. There was a little evangelical church that had sprouted up in a neighboring village. And so like half of the community had , had turned to evangelical Christianity. And in that church they were saying that the traditional medicines bad. the shamans were not Christians either. They didn't believe in Christianity and they were very much about their traditional beliefs. And so there was like this split in that community. About, and it wasn't like about necessarily being about ayahuasca, but it was about the sort of set of traditional beliefs, which included shamanism and ayahuasca, but not necessarily ayahuasca. Its center as I understood it, but kind of traditional beliefs, [00:34:00] shamanism, animism, you know, nature worshiping, that kind of thing, this like set of you know, evangelicals

Molly: Yeah.

Lynn: and, and in that church they were saying the shamans are evil and ayuhasca is evil.

Specifically saying that, and I'm sure that kind of thing has probably just exploded. And it'd be interesting to know what's happening in those regions of the Amazon where like has become commercialized

Molly: Yeah.

Lynn: the evangelical church has just grown as well.

Molly: Yeah. to go back a little bit to what you said about healing other people when they're sick and they don't know why, would the, would that be the shaman doing the ayahuasca, like in the presence of the sick person?

Or would they both be doing it?

Lynn: I think it can be both. This is, from what I remember, again, I'm like, not, not the authority on this, but from what I remember, it could be both, could be. But often I think it's just the shaman would do ayahuasca or like the two shamans. 'cause it, it [00:35:00] was like, you know, a couple of generations, the shamans might do ayahuasca in the presence of the person and they'll have tobacco, it's like a pipe.

They'll have tobacco, they'll be smoking tobacco, and that's considered healing and blowing it on the person. And so they'll do the ceremony and try to figure out through the ayahuasca what the problem is and how it can be healed.

Molly: Hmm.

Lynn: So the idea is that the ceremony itself could be healing, but it also helps them to see in the presence of that person with the help of the medicine, what is, what's going on and how they can heal it. And of course I feel like, having lived in many developing countries where you have the tensions between western medicine and traditional medicine, I'm like. I have a lot of thoughts about this and mixed feelings because I think traditional medicine know, has its place and it's important culturally, and it can be important in communities, but it can also be, it also can be destructive. When, I mean, in this community, of course, they had virtually no access to Western medicines. I mean, it was like two hours by boat when a boat was available. And [00:36:00] then, and then further by road when, during the dry season when a road was available to get to a town. It was very hard to get anywhere, you know, and people didn't have a lot of money. I don't know what kinds of things the shaman was saying should be done.

Molly: mm-hmm.

Lynn: if there was a sickness, like if they, the shaman would say, you should take medicine or you should be, don't know if there were harmful things that they would say should be done. Like

Molly: Mm-hmm.

Lynn: I lived in Malawi, for example, a kid was bit bitten by a snake and a he, someone we knew and a healer. Said that he needed to be cut with a razor the snake bite. And he kept, and he kept, the healer kept cutting the kid on top of the snake bite to remove the venom. He said, and this kid ended up getting infection, like a worse infection, right. When he should have just been left alone, you

Molly: Mm.

Lynn: they didn't, the family didn't believe the western doctor.

Molly: Mm-hmm.

Lynn: It's minor example of how, you know, the sort of traditional healer, the what their thoughts on how to deal with something versus a western doctor can lead to something really bad and an infection sometimes when not dealt with, can [00:37:00] lead to death or a

Molly: Right.

Lynn: loss of a limb and all kinds of things. So. You know, it can be a little scary, but I love traditional healers, it's fascinating and important and everything, but, you know, I, I don't know in this case, in that community, what kinds of things they were necessarily doing. And I believe that this, like Ayahuasca definitely was teaching them so many good things about plants and medicines. Hopefully they were also, you know, and seeking out like antibiotics when they needed it.

Molly: Right, right. Yeah. I think both ways of thinking and healing have a lot to learn from each other.

Lynn: Yeah, exactly.

Molly: I remember this in I forget what Paul Farmer book it was, but there was a kid who was sick and they took him to the doctor and then they took him to a traditional healer.

And Paul Farmer went to the family and was like, what? I thought we had taken care of it. why did you take him to the traditional healer as well? And the question the mom had back for him was, do you have no [00:38:00] capacity for subtlety

It was like, or for complexity or something like that. It was like, we can do both. both can help and both can heal and Yeah. And there's definitely destructive. Yeah. And there's destructive parts to both, both ways of looking at it. Yeah.

Lynn: And that was something that I've learned just like with in all the countries that I've lived in, that everyone, all of my friends and colleagues have always been like, oh, did you go to, like in Nepal, like Lynn, you should see the Ayurvedic doctor. And you know, you should really be just like, drink your turmeric tea, but, oh, you shouldn't be on all those Western medicines. But like, maybe, but are you taking an antibiotic? You know, there's like, you should really look into both at all

Molly: Right. Yeah.

Lynn: yeah.

Molly: And both should be used intentionally, right? Like you shouldn't, we, we sh there are a lot of people who are on way too many medicines, and I also like, at the same time, like I'm on a good few, and people who raise their eyebrows, it's like, well, thanks, but no thanks. I I don't need your opinion [00:39:00] on this.

You know? Yeah. It's, it's all,

Lynn: And then, yeah, at one point in Nepal, I just stopped talking to my colleagues,

I just stopped sharing with them because I just couldn't handle it anymore. And I didn't need to tell them about the medication I was on. Like, thank you guys. I know you're just, you're doing it from a but this is working for me.

Molly: Yeah. It's a, it's a problem with uninvited advice all over the world, I think.

Lynn: Oh yeah. Yeah. Everybody's got strong opinions and there's so many different ways of approaching medical issues.

Molly: Mm-hmm. There was one other thing that I wanted to talk about with respect to like work and spirituality which is like, I think also when we're talking about service or when we're just talking about like all encompassing professions when you conflate work and spirituality, you can end up reinforcing this idea that we have in Western culture and maybe all over the world of, you know, productivity equals worth and that [00:40:00] there is no value to just being, there's only value to doing.

And I think like that's been a really important. Question for me as a, as someone who became disabled in their thirties, is that like you really have to, and a lot of people face this when they retire as well. It's like, what is my value if I'm not creating value in a commercial sense? And I think that disability studies has a lot to offer this question.

There's this question also comes up with in conversations of ai, right? It's like, if we're, if people are going to, if AI is going to be able to do a lot of the jobs that people do, then what will people do when people don't need to work? And how will we find worth in ourselves and how will we value ourselves?

And it, and it goes to show a very, like, thin understanding of human worth when human dignity is not seen as inherent, but rather earned through work. And I think like when you're, when [00:41:00] you're conflating work and spirituality, you end up, you can fall even further down that path of thinking that because you're a better performer, you're a better person or you're more worthwhile, what does that say to people who are unable to work, to people who, you know, need assistance to get through every day?

Like there's just a, it's, it's deeply demeaning to a huge proportion of the population

Lynn: Absolutely.

Molly: and demeaning to yourself as well. That's not, you're worth more than that. You're not just worth the sum of your parts and the sum of your labor. That's not how it works.

Lynn: I think it's a great point. Yeah. And in the end, like, is that productivity? I can't help but think, in the tech bro situation, is it

Is it all about just making more money? is it just money? This is something I've just been thinking a lot about lately as someone who's facing unemployment in the near future, that, that's a whole nother conversation I don't wanna get into.

But but just like. You know, money and employment and [00:42:00] careers and, and everything and, and what we're doing with our lives, what we do with our day to day, hour to day, hour, hour and everything right. These big questions. yeah, so like the, the tech bros and then wanting to have a spiritual journey to help them become more productive. is it all just in the end, 'cause they wanna make more money. Is that what it is? It just that they individually wanna get richer and they wanna help their bosses get richer wanna help everybody get richer.

Like, it's just, it's weird to me, I understand wanting to have money to be comfortable, wanting to have a good life for yourself and your family and be able to help others, but it's hard for me grasp and I maybe for some people, this is strange, but it's hard for me to grasp this idea of just like wanting, just like endless amounts of wealth.

You know?

Molly: Yeah, no, I think that's a great question, right? my sense is that it is very different actually, that it's not just money because look at how unsatisfied so many rich people seem. Elon Musk,

Lynn: yeah, exactly.[00:43:00] 

Molly: you know, that like, I think a lot of it is like money comes with approval, money comes with esteem and respect and performing well comes with those same things, amongst your peer group

So I think like performing well at work isn't just about money. It's often about prestige and respect as well.

Lynn: prestige, power.

Molly: Right?

Lynn: Yeah. That's something else I've been thinking about is like this whole Yeah, like power. Yeah. Prestige, power, legacy, all these things.

Molly: Yeah. Tell me about it. There used to be a thing in, when I worked. The bureaucracy in DC but also in the Senate, people talked about "legacy issues."

Lynn: Hmm.

Molly: this is a legacy issue for the boss. Like he wants to be known for this. And, it always meant like, we need to, do this particularly well because it's part of the boss's legacy.

Lynn: Yeah.

Molly: And I always thought the opposite was true, that like, if it's about his ego, then we don't actually need to worry about it. Like that's not, it's already not important [00:44:00] because we're not doing it for the right purposes. 

Our goal is not about his legacy. Our goal is about the people that we serve every day.

Lynn: I would hear that too. I feel like about ambassadors often, like toward the end of their ambassadorship, I would never hear an ambassador say it, but you'd start to hear people say like, oh, this is about his legacy. It's about his legacy. Like, yeah. You know, everybody whispering about it, like, this is really important for his legacy. And I'd be like,

Molly: to me it's,

Lynn: is that, does that matter? Do we really care about ambassador's legacy? Like, it's such a like, yeah,

Lynn: I'm busting my ass for this person's legacy, quote unquote legacy?

Molly: Yeah, it's really upside down. It's so obviously upside down. Are we here to serve him or is he here to serve us? Like, is he here, is, is the population here to make him look better or is it the other way around? 

Lynn: All right. We veer

Molly: I'm trying to, yes, we have veered off topic. 

Lynn: I Okay. Right. are we good? Should we sign off?

Yeah. I think we're good. This was good.

Molly: All right. Great. Well, [00:45:00] thank you so much, Lynn. I'll talk to you soon.

Lynn: Thank you. Okay. This is awesome. Check to you later.

Molly: Bye.

Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed the show. We're always interested to hear from you. So please email us at ketamine insights@gmail.com. If you're someone who uses Ketamine to improve your work performance, get in touch. We'd love to learn more. Please take a moment to subscribe and to review us on your favorite podcast platform that helps us reach more people.

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In the US the [00:46:00] National Alliance on Mental Illness is a good place to start. Until next time, remember to advocate for yourself and never ration your joy.