“The mission of Mind Body Health & Politics is to expand consciousness, stimulate thought, enhance mental and physical health, and encourage community.” — Dr. Richard L. Miller
This week I am privileged to introduce you to Jules Evans – author of books including Philosophy for Life and The Art of Losing Control. He is also the director of the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project and the editor of the Ecstatic Integration newsletter, which I recommend subscribing to below. While psychedelics offer incredible potential for healing when used responsibly, we must also understand the risks involved and how to navigate challenges should they arise.
As Jules puts it, "We are still learning what helps people to put themselves back together after these challenging trips." As psychedelic medicines become more accessible, demand for guidance is skyrocketing. Yet the stakes are high without proper safety precautions and professional support. Jules and his colleagues have documented a wide range of potential unwanted complications, from anxiety and social disconnection to existential confusion and even feelings of demonic possession. Some key findings from their research: 39% of people who had a challenging psychedelic trip said it was one of the 5 most difficult experiences of their lives In one survey, a fifth of people reported difficulties lasting over a year after a bad trip, and another fifth had issues persisting over 3 years The most common adverse effects were increased anxiety, social withdrawal, and ontological shock that profoundly unsettled people's worldviews A small number of people felt they had picked up negative entities requiring exorcism Some individuals suddenly "remembered" childhood abuse that may or may not have actually happened Weeks or months of derealization are not uncommon, where people question what's real
Jules himself struggled with PTSD for years after a bad LSD trip at 18. A later, accidental near-death experience finally freed him from identifying with the belief that he was permanently damaged. While adverse effects are in the minority, they are likely under-reported, sometimes even in clinical trials. Anecdotes abound of boundary violations from "shamans" exploiting their power, charging exorbitant fees, or even sexually assaulting clients. As a long-time veteran of the psychedelic world, I've had countless positive experiences that dramatically improved my quality of life, creativity and connection to others. Yet I've also witnessed irresponsible use and the wreckage that can result without proper precautions. The promise of psychedelic healing demands that we move forward with wisdom, integrity and care - not with blind enthusiasm or profit incentives alone. Confronting our shadow material is no small task. These medicines work, often by plunging us into the depths of the human psyche. Having a skilled, compassionate guide is worth its weight in gold. With solid ethical practices, psychedelic sciences can truly blossom into powerful modalities for the betterment of all. Join Jules and me this week for an eyes-wide-open look at the complex realities of working with psychedelic medicines.
Tune in for this healthy conversation at TalkRadio.nyc
The episode opens with Dr. Richard introducing the guest, Jules Evans, who shares his experience of having a "bad trip" after experimenting with psychedelics. This led to PTSD lasting about 5 years, sparking Jules' interest in mental health and philosophy. In 2021, during the "shroom boom," Jules noticed the lack of discussion around the risks of mushrooms, prompting him to research the harms of psychedelics and ways to support those affected. Dr. Richard views a "bad trip" as an opportunity to confront suppressed negative thoughts with the help of a coach. Jules recounts his LSD experience at a nightclub with acquaintances, where his ego felt threatened, leading to trauma. Dr. Richard contrasts his own LSD experiences in controlled settings, highlighting the importance of the environment. Jules notes the current culture's lack of awareness regarding psychedelics' effects. Dr. Richard emphasizes LSD's potency and vulnerability even in small doses. He shares how LSD altered his perception while listening to Beethoven, making it difficult to enjoy music since. Jules adds an example of adverse effects during a trip ruined by loud music, illustrating the importance of the environment in psychedelic experiences.
In the subsequent discussion, Dr. Richard delved into another potential side effect. He cited statistics from a Canadian Psychedelic survey indicating that 52% of respondents experienced intensely challenging trips, with 45% feeling that no positive outcomes resulted. Dr. Richard likened this to the divorce rate in the United States, questioning the rationale behind engaging in something with a 50/50 chance of negative outcomes. Jules shared insights from his interview with survey respondent Phillip Lucas, revealing that those who undergo challenging trips often describe it as one of the worst experiences of their lives. Jules elaborated that during a terrible trip, individuals may feel a sense of imminent danger or as if they are trapped in a nightmarish scenario. Moreover, he explained that the altered perception of time during a trip can make minutes feel like years or even eternity. Consequently, individuals may endure lasting trauma post-trip due to the intensity of emotions experienced. Jules emphasized the need for further research into trauma-related outcomes associated with psychedelics like LSD. Dr. Richard concurred, stressing the importance of providing adequate guidance and support to mitigate anxiety and existential fears during trips.
Following that, Dr. Richard referenced Jules' research, highlighting that 39% of individuals who underwent challenging experiences with psychedelics considered it one of the top five most difficult experiences of their lives. Jules noted that this study was conducted in 2016 and emphasized the lack of consensus on how to label such experiences—referred to as "bad trips," "challenging experiences," or "adverse experiences" by different people. Dr. Richard proposed his own term, "UCM" (Unwanted Complications of Medicine). Intrigued, Dr. Richard sought further insight into Jules' research and the findings of his own survey. In October, Jules published a paper and administered a survey asking participants whether they had encountered difficulties lasting longer than a day following a psychedelic experience. Of the 608 respondents, 80% reported experiencing such difficulties. Among them, two-fifths indicated that the challenges persisted for over a year, and one-fifth reported durations exceeding three years. Jules then asked participants to describe these difficulties, which were categorized into various themes. The most prevalent theme was "anxiety and its different levels," encompassing fears of permanent damage, recurrence of the experience, death, or revisiting the intense psychological state induced during the trip. Another common theme was "social disconnection," reflecting the inability to share the experience with others due to a perceived lack of understanding or connection. Additionally, participants described experiencing "existential confusion," wherein encounters with entities or divine beings during the trip left them grappling with profound ontological shock upon returning to reality.
In wrapping up his remarks, Jules and his team identified 60 distinct types of prolonged difficulties stemming from psychedelic experiences. One example involved individuals feeling as though they were possessed by a demonic entity, possibly due to attracting negative energies during a trip. Another instance was individuals experiencing visions of abuse, leading to uncertainty about whether the abuse was real or merely a product of their imagination while tripping. The absence of external confirmation complicates the process of discerning whether such abuse occurred. Dr. Richard expressed gratitude for his own experiences, which resulted in positive outcomes and provided clarity in his life, particularly in overcoming his fear of death.
Following the advertisement break, Dr. Richard shared a personal practice he developed to overcome his fear of death. He described closing his eyes and simulating the act of dying by releasing all the air from his abdomen. If he can subsequently open his eyes, he recognizes that he is still alive. However, he acknowledges that one day he won't be able to open his eyes, signaling the end of his time. He emphasized that conquering the fear of death can alleviate a significant burden. Dr. Richard also remarked on society's prevailing fear of sudden death and suggested shifting the perspective from the inevitability of death to the possibility of eternal life. However, he acknowledged that people hold diverse beliefs and emphasized the importance of finding whatever coping mechanisms work best for individuals.
The discussion shifted to research findings by Jose Buso, indicating that 12% of ayahuasca users experienced lasting functional impairment. Jules pointed out the contrast between chemical trials, where safety measures minimize risks, and psychedelic trials, where adverse experiences may be downplayed or ignored. For instance, in MDMA trials, negative effects might go unreported in final results. Similarly, a person in a psilocybin trial for depression felt more suicidal afterward, but was labeled a "non-responder," despite having a profound trip that revealed underlying issues. This lack of transparency is concerning, as it disregards valuable data and compromises accountability. In essence, all research studies should honestly consider and report all outcomes, regardless of their nature, recognizing the significance of every response.
Furthermore, emergency department admissions related to psychedelics increased by 69% between 2016 and 2021. Dr. Richards emphasized that there is no recorded data of anyone dying from LSD ingestion. However, Jules noted that despite the absence of deaths, accidents have occurred. For instance, individuals may impulsively jump out of windows while under the influence of LSD, as they may feel disconnected from their physical surroundings during a trip. This underscores the importance of having a sober individual present to ensure safety and manage the environment. Dr. Richard summed it up as "Having someone take care of the outside world while you attend to your inner world."
Jules highlighted another adverse effect involving a pilot who had consumed mushrooms two days prior to his shift. The pilot experienced derealization, perceiving himself to be in a dream state where consequences were irrelevant because reality seemed unreal. Believing crashing the plane would "wake him up," he faced 84 counts of attempted murder. However, Jules shared their research findings with the pilot's defense attorney, demonstrating that derealization is a common effect of psychedelic use. Consequently, the murder charges were dropped.
Following that, Dr. Richard shifted to the topic of sexual abuse and predators within psychedelic environments. Jules shared an example of a psychedelic school in Colombia that operated for 15 years under highly abusive conditions. The person in charge of the school was excessively controlling and engaged in sexual relationships with students. He manipulated them into believing that sexual encounters were necessary for healing. As a result, individuals who emerged from such communities often felt broken, traumatized, and had their self-esteem shattered. Jules mentioned his observations of a shaman residing in the Amazon who engages in similar behavior with young women. After purportedly "healing" them, he extorts large sums of money from these individuals, effectively trapping them in his cult. Moreover, those who attempt to expose his exploitation face threats of legal action or curses, making it difficult to confront predators within the psychedelic community.
The discussion then turned to the addictive nature of Ketamine, and Dr. Richard inquired about Jules' perspective on the matter. Jules acknowledged Ketamine's potential benefits in addressing addiction, depression, and other psychiatric disorders. However, he emphasized that Ketamine itself can be highly addictive, with withdrawal symptoms often more severe than the addiction itself. While Jules recognized its short-term efficacy in providing relief, he cautioned that it does not offer a cure for these conditions. He drew parallels with the opioid industry, noting its addictive properties as well.
Finally, Dr. Richards inquired about opinions regarding the steep prices people pay for psychedelic experiences. He cited examples such as a church in Denver charging $5,500 for three mushroom ceremonies, and in Oregon, a month of psilocybin therapy costs $100,000 for addiction recovery. Additionally, Johnson & Johnson's Ketamine nasal spray comes with a high price tag, despite providing short-term relief. He expressed skepticism about psychedelics being a good long-term investment, suggesting they might be effective initially for patients new to mushrooms, but ultimately, anyone can cultivate them.
More about Jules Evans and his company Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project https://challengingpsychedelicexperiences.com/
People just reporting feeling more anxious for days, weeks, months or years after a difficult experience.
Post psychedelic trauma, fear of being permanently damaged, fear of the experience repeating, fear of dying, fear of when you die going back to that place you were in during the trip, these kinds of things.
Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics.
I'm your host, Dr. Richard Louis Miller.
The mission of Mind Body Health and Politics is to enhance your physical and emotional wellbeing and encourage community.
I say encourage community strongly because I believe that human beings are friendly tribal animals and we're meant to live tribally where we cooperate and collaborate with one another.
However, there is a small percentage of us, less than 5%, who are very different.
They are predators.
They are the people who would rule the rest of us and call us subjects rather than citizens.
But here in these United States, we're still experimenting with what we call a democracy and a republic.
This institution of a democratic republic is very fragile because those in the little percentage would rather change it.
And therefore, it's part of our job to stay awake.
In the words of one of my great heroes, Thomas Jefferson, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
One of the people who's being eternally vigilant that I've come to know is Jules Evans, who comes to us from Costa Rica.
Jules is vigilant about quite a few things, some of the things we're going to be talking about on today's broadcast, including psychedelic medicine adverse effects.
Why is he interested in this as a person who's vigilant?
And why am I interested in it?
And why am I writing a book, Psychedelic Medicine Adverse Effects?
Here's why.
Because what's called big pharma, when they produce substances called drugs,
and they have negative effects they call them side effects as if to trivialize them they're nothing bad they just happen on your side that's a lot of nonsense horse hockey these negative effects don't happen on the side they happen to our entire system all of us feels these effects and they try to trivialize them
But those of us in the psychedelic community are going in a different direction.
So is Jules Evans.
So am I. We are going to tell the world all the effects of these psychedelic substances, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics, Jules.
Thank you, Richard.
Let's talk about psychedelic medicine adverse effects, one of your favorite topics.
I don't know if it's one of my favorites, but it's definitely one that I've become somewhat obsessed by the last couple of years.
I became interested in it because I had a bad trip when I was 18.
at a period of psychedelic experimentation.
And it affected me for a few years.
I developed actually PTSD for about five years, and it took me many years to recover.
And that really started my interest in mental health and in philosophy and in various other kinds of things.
And leap forward to now, three years ago in 2021, at the height of the shroom boom, I saw so much hype around psychedelics and the conversation was so dominated by the benefits, which I don't deny by the way, but I was like, where are the people talking about the risks and the harms?
Where is the research on the harms?
and so I thought I would collaborate with some friends and some colleagues and start to do more research on the harms of psychedelics and on what helps people if they feel harmed.
I want to talk a little bit, before you share with us your wonderful research, I want to talk a little bit about that quote, bad trip, unquote, that you had at age 18.
For me, a bad trip
is when demons get uncovered material that's been suppressed put in some corner of the mind and the psychedelic medicine opens it up but for me that is not a bad trip
That is an opportunity.
However, in order to take advantage of the opportunity, one often needs a guide of some kind, some kind of a coach, because look,
If you don't know how to fly a plane and you get in it and somehow figure out how to take off, what the hell do you do once you're in the sky?
You don't know what to do.
But if you got your teacher next to you, you know what to do because he tells you and he takes over.
So in your circumstance at 18, did you have a guide?
Were you alone dealing with all this stuff that came out of your consciousness?
on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
at this stage of my life I was I was strung out you know I was doing too many drugs I was I then was with people I didn't know very well so none of them that I could trust and say I'm having a bad time and it basically exposed I would say uh weakness in my you know the the the vulnerabilities in my identity
And I think with a guide, absolutely, it could have been a good trip.
It could have been a healing experience.
But instead, it just triggered my profound, my ego felt incredibly threatened.
The defenses shut down and it was traumatizing.
And I didn't speak to anyone about it at the time or for years afterwards.
Oh, painful, painful.
You saw me wince when you said you took LSD at a nightclub.
I've taken LSD well over a hundred times, maybe more, who knows how many hundred times.
I've never once taken it other than in nature, on a beach, or in a private home that was ultimately safe, with all the telephones off, computers off.
on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
and I opened up my eyes and looked around and I realized all it was was the heating furnace and that was a major lesson in the imperative for me in being in an ultimately quiet place.
Right, right, right.
But the thing is Richard, you're part of a kind of venerable and wise psychedelic culture.
on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
Let us just say out loud
as clearly as possible.
These substances are tremendously powerful.
LSD comes in micrograms, micrograms, the tiniest, tiniest substance molecule, a microgram, and they make us vulnerable to everything.
We're vulnerable to our insides,
We're vulnerable to our outsides.
That's why that story with the furnace that sounded like a motorcycle.
One has to be careful with music.
I was tripped by a famous tripmeister, the secret chief, Leo Zeff, Dr. Leo Zeff.
And he put Beethoven on, on these earphones.
and it was a wonderful trip but I couldn't get away from Beethoven I couldn't get into my own inner consciousness I couldn't do the work I wanted to do to examine and be self exploratory all I could focus on was the genius of this Beethoven and how the hell he created this music and when he was deaf and I had this whole Beethoven experience from then on
Quiet.
I never put music on of any kind.
I don't care how good it is, whether it's my favorite reggae or the moody blues or whoever, because of the vulnerability that music comes into us when we're hyper vulnerable and it affects our consciousness.
And what we...
You know, I'm just writing a story about the psychedelic program in Oregon.
And I asked the Oregon Health Authority if I could see what official complaints have been made so far about the program.
Great.
And they sent me this PDF.
And I was expecting, I didn't know what I'd see, like this facilitator molested me or I had a bad trip.
But you know, when I saw one of the complaints was,
A client saying the facilitator put on a jam band.
I think it was like Phish or maybe the Grateful Dead.
And it was like these 15 minute songs with long guitar solos.
And this person said, you know, it ruined their trip.
But you think about how much it costs in Oregon.
I mean, that sucks.
Oh my gosh.
I'm associated with a institute in Oregon called the Changa Institute.
and they're involved with training guides.
Okay, so there's one example we just gave of an adverse effect.
Loud music can create an adverse effect and ruin the experience.
Let's hear about some of the other things.
I mean, I see in your write-ups here that 52% of the people who responded to a Canadian psychedelic survey said they had an intensely challenging trip
and 45% thought no good had come of it.
And I read that, Jules, and I say, you know what?
That sounds like the divorce rate in the United States, 50-50.
Who in their right mind wants to bet on something where you have a 50-50 chance of losing?
What do you make of this data?
Well, I think I interviewed the person who did that survey, a guy called Philip Lucas in Canada.
And what he said was, according to that survey, when people have really challenging trips,
it's one of the worst experiences of their life just like you know in the famous Roland Griffith study from you know that started the whole psychedelic renaissance a lot of people said a good trip was the best experience of their life one of the most beautiful so you know if you have a really challenging trip what happens as from from what we can tell is your ego feels so threatened often it feels like you're gonna die
that you're in danger of dying or you might feel you're in hell and also trips mess around with your sense of times sometimes people feel like they're in hell for eternity or for months or years or for decades or centuries so these are very gnarly experiences and unsurprisingly
People come out of these experiences sometimes very shaken up or even traumatized.
Just like if someone was holding a gun to your head for four hours, that's going to leave you shaken up.
Or if you're in a really bad car accident, that would leave you shaken up.
So it's similar with challenging trips.
and we are still learning what helps people to kind of put themselves back together after these challenging trips.
At the moment there's very little research on that.
You know, once we're in the position of having to put people back together, we've already made a mistake.
They shouldn't be allowed to not be together unless the not together is what Dombrowski called a positive disintegration.
That is another whole area.
But if it's not a positive disintegration, it means that the guy did not do their job and they let the person get traumatized.
You gave the example of feeling like dying.
Yes, when you take a heroic dose of LSD or psilocybin,
You can encounter death, but feeling like dying and encountering death need not be a frightening experience.
It can be a learning experience of accepting something that's part of the developmental process, being born, living, and dying.
But if we don't have a guide to help us with that, then we have to deal while under the influence of a psychedelic with our anxiety and our fear about dying.
That is not something one should take on alone.
That's like flying that airplane without having a coach sitting next to you.
Well, I think it's very easy now to get psychedelics on the internet, just send to your house.
But a lot of people don't necessarily know how to find a guide.
And, you know, I mean, you know, the legal places in Oregon cost a lot of money.
So a lot of people just take it at home on their own.
And sometimes they have some good trips and they think, okay, I'm doing fine.
I'm going to try a bit more and they take a higher dose.
And then they have an experience where they feel completely overwhelmed.
but I mean but a lot of them still carry on taking psychedelics and they still have good experiences so you know it's like it's like people kind of really wiping out surfing and sometimes you come away bruised and injured and you're out of action but you you
Jules, one of the studies that you cite that I want you to talk about is one in which 39% of the people
who had a challenging experience under psychedelics said it was one of the five most difficult experiences of their lives.
I think that was Carbonero.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, that was a famous study in 2016 which really popularized the term challenging experience.
And one of the aspects of this field is
We don't even know what to call these kinds of experiences.
Some people call them bad trips.
Some people call them challenging experiences.
Some people call them adverse experiences.
There's not even any settled definition for these kinds of experiences.
Well, let me offer you one that I've been experimenting with.
UCM.
Unwanted Complications of Medicine.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
You think that grabs it?
Unveiling the Shadows Jules Evans on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
Yes, that's why I say unwanted complications.
Well, Jules, what do you make of Carbonero's number?
39% of the people had an experience that was one of the five most difficult experiences of their lives.
This doesn't bode well.
I want to know more.
What can you tell us about these 39%?
What were the circumstances?
Were these people self-experimenting?
Did they have coaches?
Did they know about set and setting?
What can you share with us, Jules?
Well, it's not my paper.
I don't know.
I don't know the specifics of Carbonaro's paper.
I can tell you about the research we've done.
We brought out a paper in October and what we did was we asked people in a survey, have you ever had difficulties that lasted longer than a day after a psychedelic experience?
We got 608 people who replied.
So all of our data set
on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
and then we asked people what kind describe the difficulties to us and then we put them we themed them into different kinds of categories
um and the most common kinds of difficulties were the most common was anxiety people just reporting feeling more anxious for days weeks months or years after after after a difficult experience and there are particular types of anxiety like fear of being permanently damaged fear of the experience repeating
Fear of dying, fear of when you die going back to that place you were in during the trip, these kinds of things.
Post-psychedelic trauma, so that was one category, just basically fear and anxiety.
Another one, which was very common, was social disconnection.
People reported they had some awesome, terrifying experience and then afterwards they didn't know who they could talk to about it.
I had this myself when I was 18.
Who do I talk to about this?
My friends, they're 18-year-olds, they don't have the kind of bandwidth for that kind of experience.
I don't know any specialists to talk to, so that's quite common.
Another one, Richard, is existential confusion.
We're doing another study on this now.
Basically, people have all kinds of crazy mystical experiences.
you know maybe they encounter God but in a form they didn't expect or aliens or a godless universe or or these kinds of things or they suddenly get a message like you are a shaman or you are gay or you know whatever and they come away from this going what does that mean
and sometimes people just can't stop thinking about the experience obsessively trying to work it out because it's kind of giving them this experience of ontological shock you know it's shaken their previous belief structure and they don't have a new one yet sometimes you know we know that psychedelics can radically change people's worldviews
But sometimes there are months or years where they're like, I don't know what I believe.
Are demons real?
Are aliens real?
Are there entities?
It's basically really shaken up their belief system and they feel extremely unsettled for a while.
Well, it sounds like your research is in line with that Weiss study of 2023 where they reported 14% of the people were feeling anxious for an extended period of time after their psychedelic usage.
And they said that half of the people felt that personality changes were permanent and unwanted.
That's a big number, Jules, 49%.
No, it's 14%, isn't it?
Yeah, 14%.
14% were anxious, but half.
But they're saying half.
Oh, I see.
It might be half of the 14%.
Exactly.
It was 7%.
It was 7% of people.
Okay, fair enough.
Good, good.
Glad we're correct.
Permanently more anxious or neurotic.
Yeah, it sucks.
It sucks.
It really does.
Wow.
Okay.
Let's hear more about your research.
Very exciting stuff.
Important.
Well, let me just give you two more of these kind of types of extended difficulty.
I mean, first of all, let me say the sheer variety that we ended up with 60 different types of extended difficulty.
So things like feeling possessed.
you know a small minority of people they feel like they picked up some kind of bad energy or bad entity and that it requires you know some kind of exorcism or catharsis or another ceremony to get rid of it i'm just giving these uncommon i just want to give you a sense richard of the sheer variety yes another one that that comes up and you might have come across this in your work is people who suddenly have a vision during
of having been abused as children and they never had any memory of this before and then they think well is that real or is that am I imagining it and you can imagine that's very disturbing for them and sometimes for their families as well
I have run into that exact phenomenon Jules and it caused a great deal of difficulty for the person and the effects, the very challenging disruptive, life disruptive changes lasted two years.
Yeah, yeah.
So that happens, a bit like happened with the whole hypnotherapy movement in the 80s, and suddenly people recovered these memories of childhood abuse, and they're like, is that real or not?
Something similar, maybe on a smaller scale, is happening in psychedelia at the moment.
Yeah, so... You know, it's a fascinating question that you raise, namely...
is this memory of abuse a memory of something that happened or is this somehow a fantasy or a dream or that came out of a movie and got implanted in my consciousness and somehow I mean sometimes the only way to know
is to seek outside corroboration.
So in the case that I just shared with you about the woman who had
All of a sudden, recognition of early childhood sexual abuse.
Her husband went and interviewed the possible abuser, and it appeared as though it really happened.
But without the outside confirmation, a person's really stuck, aren't they?
Yeah, they've got to accept the not knowing and, you know, yeah, live with that.
Yeah, so I mean, and I, by the way, I mean, I'll get on to what people say, help them with these.
I don't want to freak out your audience or depress them.
Like the whole point about learning about these kinds of difficulties is, first of all, see if we can avoid them.
And secondly, if they occur, how do we work with them?
Thank you.
I think that's important.
Personally, Jules, psychedelic substances
have changed my life for the better.
Pure and simple.
My life dramatically changed for the better.
My consciousness improved.
My way of treating other human beings improved.
My understanding of the world improved.
My sense of connection to you and every other being on the planet dramatically improved.
My experiences fortunately have been extremely positive, but that doesn't mean I didn't deal with demons and challenges.
It's just that I was able to make those with help into positive experiences that left me feeling confident that I was able to conquer the demons.
and I would say the biggest one that I conquered early on and it stood with me my entire life until now at 85 is any fear that I had of death.
My psychedelic experiences have pretty much completely eliminated the fear of death.
I accept it as simply part of the developmental process.
And I'm not even sure that death is death as a result of my psychedelic experiences.
What we call death might be nothing more or less than a transition into another state of being.
We don't know.
I used to believe that when we died, it was like going to sleep without dreaming.
It was just lights out.
Since my psychedelic experience, I'm open to the possibility that our energetic system continues in some form, even though the material body of molecules clumped together to make this thing called the body no longer exists.
Yeah, well, you know, the thing that really helped me to recover from PTSD in my 20s
I had an accidental near-death experience where I was skiing and I fell off a mountain and I had a kind of white light type experience and it helped me to recover because I got this kind of message in the white light in this two minutes that what was causing my suffering
was my own way of thinking, my own beliefs because what I was really afraid of and what a lot of people are afraid of when they have bad trips is I've broken myself, I've broken my brain, I've messed up my neurochemistry and I really thought that
and I got this like message in this experience God knows from what I have no understanding of that experience don't pretend to understand it but I have this insight let's say it's your beliefs it's your beliefs that you're damaged that's causing your suffering you can let go of those beliefs you're fine you're you know you have a soul your soul can't be damaged and I am less afraid of death
I'm still afraid of death, I would say, Richard, but it gave me a hope that there's something beyond death.
When I find remnants of my fear of death, I lay down on a bed or on the floor, I close my eyes, I breathe through my abdomen, and I let myself die.
I just let it all go and go out into the deep dark
and just let myself feel like I'm dying.
And so far I eventually opened my eyes and I'm still here and I'm not afraid.
One day it'll happen and I won't open my eyes
But I'll go out in that way in a sense of acceptance.
It's a hell of an exercise because I do believe that all fear is ultimately the fear of death.
And when we conquer the fear of death, it takes a tremendous amount of pressure off.
I mean, Jules, when you think about it, we live our whole lives believing that we're going to die.
Isn't that sort of like having a draconian, a sword of Damocles over the neck, walking around, living, knowing that death can come any second?
I've wondered whether we wouldn't be better off changing our cultural tradition, and instead of living our lives knowing we're gonna die, we live our lives believing we're gonna live forever.
I thought most Americans do believe in that.
I'm from Europe.
Europe's incredibly secular and atheist.
Don't most Americans believe in life everlasting?
Yes.
If we believe that we're going to live forever, and then at the last moment we find out we're wrong,
How much better it would have been to live the whole life optimistic that we'll live forever and be wrong for a few seconds or minutes at the end rather than live the entire life thinking we're going to die and then at the end we find out we're right.
I mean, I definitely, it helps me relax.
I mean, I honestly, I think that this is the hard bit.
I think life after death is easier than now.
So, you know, and that helps me when life is tough.
I kind of think, well, you know, I've got that nice little beautiful experience to go back to.
So that helps me.
But I know that there are other people.
There are other people I know.
They don't believe in life after death.
They're not afraid of death.
So people have different kinds of mindsets, don't they, Richard?
Yes, let's come back to the psychedelic unwanted complications of medicine.
I'm looking here at about another one of the studies that you cite.
And this was, oh, it's Tony Bosso in 22.
He said,
12% of the people who take an ayahuasca felt functional impairment lasting longer than a day for which they sought psychological assistance.
Yeah, that's Jose Buso.
Oh, I know him.
He's from Jose from Spain.
Yeah, exactly.
From ISIS.
Yeah, I've met him.
So in other words, 12%, you know, if somebody gives me a medicine for my heart, I got a 12% chance of it doing something not good.
I'm a little I'm somewhat reticent.
I would rather have a medicine that only has a one or two or 3% chance.
Yeah, I don't know.
Like, listen, you go to 10 therapists, you probably got a 1 in 10 chance that one of them is going to be really bad.
You know, one out of every 10 therapists probably really sucks as a therapist.
So, I mean, to everything there are risks.
Probably 1 in 10 have adverse events from meditation.
What do you know about this MAPS study where they're saying 7% of the participants who took MDMA had increased feelings of suicidality?
You know anything about that study?
Yeah, I mean, in many of these studies, by the way, many of the clinical trials, now there are some people who say, you know, adverse events happen in naturalistic settings, but they don't happen in clinical trials.
If you have safe setting, then you can pretty much eliminate the risks of challenging trips or difficulties after trips.
This is the theory.
but I think there is some evidence that just like in other bits of the pharmaceutical industry in psychedelic trials sometimes adverse experiences are minimized or kind of dismissed now let me give some examples on the MAPS trials we know we and mostly all these trials you only know what the investigators tell you
It's the investigators who choose whether to report something as an adverse experience and whether to say it was connected to the drug or not.
We know that there have been participants in MAPS's MDMA trials who said, I felt worse after the drug, and my experience wasn't really reported in the final results.
We know that because they spoke to that famous podcast, the Power Trip podcast, which made some criticisms about the MAPS trials, including, well,
One person who was kind of sexually assaulted.
But there were other people who said, look, they had adverse experiences and they weren't written up in the trial.
I've got a piece coming out in my newsletter on Friday about a participant in a Compass trial.
Compass is one of the biggest companies, the leading psilocybin therapy company.
and in one of their trials for psilocybin for depression one of their participants felt more suicidal afterwards and was in a really bad state for a few weeks needed a lot of support and when it was written up she was put down as a non-responder
so Kampa said she didn't really respond to the psilocybin but she did respond she had a really powerful trip which really exposed her problems and she felt for a few weeks overwhelmed by her problems so what I'm saying is within psychedelic trials just like in other kinds of pharmaceutical trials
We need to be a bit critical and suspect that there may be a minimization of adverse events.
You remember you said in your introduction about how big pharma, big pharmaceutical companies typically with their products seek to minimize the side effects.
That's what's happened with Oxycontin, for example.
Yes.
Sorry, oxytocin.
Yes It's what happened with SSRIs Yes Same thing happened with psychedelics
I may be less so.
Well, it's human nature.
It's disappointing.
It's disappointing.
I like to think we stand for something better.
I'd like to think that our taking the psychedelic substances have turned us into more virtuous, honest people with high standards of integrity and caring for one another.
And I'm very disappointed to hear that Compass tried to hide a negative effect.
that is very disappointing and that needs to be exposed and they need to stop doing that and be honest with the rest of us Jules and I'm so pleased that you're doing the work you're doing to bring this information out to the public I can't thank you enough really sure it's you know I just think I guess
I mean, I'm less, I feel less surprised that this would happen and less let down.
I mean, I mean, look at, you know, the Christian church or something.
It's full of good people with very good intentions and yet bad things still happen.
And it's the same as psychedelics and sometimes bad things happen because people have such
You know, they think psychedelics are so important to the future of humanity that nothing can get in the way of that utopian goal.
Therefore, let's not talk too much about adverse effects.
Well, we're changing that, you and I, Jules, and others are going to join us.
Now, I want to talk about something else here.
Yeah.
And get your take on it.
So often, you see in the news things like, so-and-so happened, and there was a 75% increase.
So-and-so happened, and there was a 150% increase.
So I'm reading here, emergency department admissions
Connected to Psychedelics went up 69% between 2016 and 2021.
But what the public is not being told, and we don't know unless we contact Tate, who did this research in 2023, we don't know what that 69%, which sounds like a huge number, means because if the emergency room admissions to begin with were 10%,
and they went up 100% so you got 20, big deal.
It depends on what the absolute numbers are.
I read sometimes, you know, the effect went up 400%, but when you dig in, it turns out there were two and it went up to eight.
Well, who cares?
So I don't know what this 69% emergency admission stands for and whether that is a reverse of what we're talking about instead of...
Putting forth the adverse effects, this may make it look worse than it is.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I believe it was pretty low levels.
So I think I personally would be more concerned about psychotic episodes from cannabis because people smoke a lot more cannabis than they do psychedelics.
Unveiling the Shadows Jules Evans on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
That's how long it takes people to forget.
Immediately, the emergency rooms are involved.
When we get heroin epidemics or Oxycontin, the emergency rooms know.
We don't have an epidemic of people coming to emergency rooms on marijuana.
It's very rare.
And by the way,
I say that agreeing with you that oversmoking strong stuff can lead to some pretty far out distortions of cognitive functioning and emotional state.
There's no question about it.
Right?
But you don't see it happening in the emergency rooms.
That tells us something very important.
That's sort of related in a way to what Dr. Dave Nichols, the foremost LSD researcher on the planet, related to me on this program.
There's never been a death
There's never been a death from LSD.
There's never been a clear-cut, this stuff, this medicine, this LSD killed this person.
And people have taken doses that would send you out to Mars and back.
I mean, I know of a case where a person took 5,000 micrograms.
But I mean, people have jumped out of windows and things.
I mean, that's not propaganda.
That's true.
Why?
People...
No, there was no authentication of that case of the person jumping out of the window because of LSD.
That was a big con job.
You mean in the 60s?
In the 60s.
No, but it happens still.
It was a con job by this television guy named Arne Linkletter.
Yeah, I know.
But it does happen.
You know, Nick, not Nick Cage, who am I thinking of?
Nick Cozy?
Famous...
famous Australian singer but his son jumped off a cliff when he was on psychedelics there is a group of kind of mothers whose children died in psychedelic related accidents one of them jumped off Ram Dass jumped off a roof thinking he could fly he didn't die but he broke both his legs so this does happen it doesn't happen often but it does happen
Unveiling the Shadows Jules Evans on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
Well, don't trip on your own, trip with someone, you know, the stuff that you know, like trip with someone who's not tripping, just so they can keep you safe, just in case your sense of the physical laws of reality become suspended.
You have to have somebody around, at minimum, who is 100% sober.
you must that person will take care if there's a hole in the roof that person will take care if there's some physical emergency and the phone rings that person will take care of the outside world so you can do your inner work because the inner work is what these substances are about
Unveiling the Shadows Jules Evans on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
which which is one of the more common extended difficulties in our study people experience derealization yes they get used what am i in a dream am i in a movie am i dead this kind of thing i've experienced that i've experienced that too now in his case unfortunately he experienced it while he was in the cockpit of a plane oh god
and he tried to crash the plane because he thought how am I going to wake up I know I'll crash this plane because it's not a real plane and then I'll reset I'll wake up right well he and he got arrested and he got charged with 84 counts of attempted murder and we actually shared our research with his defense team
and they used it in the court case and they managed to get the attempted murder charges dropped because they showed look this happens to people people experience derealization i think that pilot was in some ways lucky because if he you know if you actually harm someone on psychedelics you can't say i had no idea that this could happen that's not going to work in court that's right that's right it doesn't work with alcohol either
on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
and the only thing that happened to me was I thought well because this is a dream I'm going to upgrade to first class because you know this isn't a real credit card this isn't real money so I did and luckily that was the worst thing that happened to me was that I you know a month later I got a bill for eight hundred dollars because I'd upgraded but it could have gone worse right like I could have
Jules, Jules, Jules, my son, please stop taking these things in planes and in raves and in nightclubs and stay on a beautiful beach in Costa Rica or in the beautiful environment that you're in.
My word, you're putting yourself in, oh my word, on an airplane.
Whoa.
This was two days afterwards.
I had no idea that, like this pilot, I had no idea these things could affect you two days afterwards.
Let's talk about an unwanted complication of medicine, of psychedelic medicine, sexual abuse by the guides.
What can you tell us?
I'm really glad you mentioned that.
And at the beginning you talked about predators.
and I think there I mean I now come across quite a few cases of guides who were either always like bad eggs like they're kind of sociopaths or psychopaths and they get off on controlling other people so I've come across cases like that people who run
I've written a few stories now about psychedelic abuse and I've come across different kinds of cases.
I came across one case of a psychedelic Gestalt school in Colombia and it ran for 15 years and the guy running it was very abusive.
The guy running it was highly controlling.
He slept with his students.
He said to his young students, the only way for you to get healing is for you to sleep with me.
He manipulated people with like intense sessions, lots of psychedelics, this kind of thing.
People get stuck in this community for like 10 years, 10 years of their life.
And they come out feeling broken and traumatized, their self-esteem really destroyed.
This place finally got closed last year.
but there are lots of kind of places like that I'm writing at the moment an investigation about a shaman in the Amazon and he basically gets people to come to his school in the Amazon and then if they're young women he says the same thing he says look I'm going to heal you you're very lucky I've picked you to have sex with me and he uses like drugs but also
on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
on Challenging Psychedelics
Unveiling the Shadows Jules Evans on Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
There are some people like that out in the world.
You've been in the world of wellness and spirituality for decades.
I imagine some of these people have crossed your paths.
Of course, of course.
Yes, we had an experience not that long ago of one of the
A very famous therapist who was going to be in one of my books, Psychedelic Wisdom, and I had to take the person out of the book because of a well-known sexual transgression that was pretty just hideous and besmirches our entire field of endeavor.
We're running out of time.
I have two more topics that I want to cover with you, Jules.
One is the potentially addictive effects of ketamine and the other is the unwanted complication of psychedelic medicine brought on by those who are charging amounts of money that are absurd and are limiting the use of these psychedelics to people who are uber wealthy and depriving others.
Right.
All right.
Well, the first one, I've written about this and I get a huge amount of criticism when I do.
And it's like the one thing that this booming ketamine industry doesn't want to talk about.
Like in the last four years or so, the number of ketamine clinics in the United States has grown from something like 60 in 2019 to over 600 now.
Those are just ketamine clinics.
There are also places that will deliver ketamine straight to your door.
It's become this great white hope of venture capital in mental health.
Ketamine is going to solve the mental health crisis.
Ketamine is going to solve the addiction crisis.
In the UK and in China, where there's been a lot of research on ketamine for the last several decades, we're looking at this slightly thinking, where's this going to go?
Because we know that ketamine can be dependency forming.
Ketamine is a dissociative and people can become dependent on it.
And in the rave scene in the UK in the 90s and the noughties, it was well known that ketamine can be addictive.
and it can lead to really painful withdrawal for which people then end up doing more ketamine.
So, as long as people know that, when they get ketamine, because I think ketamine therapy can help people, it can give short-term benefits to people who have chronic depression or PTSD.
It doesn't cure them, but it gives them a bit of relief.
But people should know that it can be addictive as well.
That's all, really.
And I think the industry is in denial about it, much as the opioid industry was in denial about opioids being addictive.
I agree with you 100%.
I've seen overuse, what seems like addictive use of ketamine.
I think it's something we have to be extremely careful about and it needs a great deal more attention out in the world, in the press, because everything you say is accurate.
They're delivering ketamine to people's doors.
They're able to buy it through the mail.
Doctors are prescribing it and
Right, I mean...
We're in this golden window for opportunists and grifters where people are charging thousands and thousands of dollars for one mushroom experience, for three mushroom experience.
I just came across a church in Denver which charges
5,500 dollars for three mushroom ceremonies.
There is a program, this is a semi-legal program in Oregon which charges a hundred thousand dollars for a month of psilocybin therapy for people recovering from addiction.
So there are astronomical fees out there.
And then there's things like Johnson & Johnson, their ketamine nasal spray.
Again, it costs thousands.
It only works short term, so people have to keep on doing it, which of course is great news for Johnson & Johnson, but very bad news for the patients because it's going to cost so much.
so indeed you know this is um you know the prices are crazy at the moment the good news is that mushrooms grow out of the ground and anyone can grow them so i think i just don't i just not sure that psychedelics are a long-term good investment bet because i think people are going to pay a lot the first few times they try them but as they become more familiar with them
I don't think they're going to pay thousands of dollars for something that grows out of the ground that you can grow for five dollars or so.
So I think we may see much cheaper models of psychedelic therapy emerging.
Let me give you one example, just finally.
There is an organization called Cluster Busters.
I don't know if you've come across them, but they're for people who suffer from cluster headaches.
and this group they've been you know they've tried everything else to deal with these horrible headaches that make people feel suicidal and what they found is that um you know like medium doses of psychedelics of psilocybin helps reduce the pain from these cluster headaches and they formed a community group
A bit like a Dallas Buyers Club, you know, that helps them to develop a protocol and to share knowledge and to share community support.
And this works very effectively for this group of people with this particular kind of medical condition, which is very, very chronic, serious condition.
And they don't pay astronomical amounts.
they hardly pay a thing they grow the mushrooms themselves but they do it in a way that is relatively safe because it is a community model
So, you know, what we're trying to work out is how to balance safety and accessibility.
Yes.
People prepare to pay thousands because it's safe to go to, you know, it's a bit safer to go to a guided ceremony, a legal guided ceremony.
But I think, so at the moment, it costs a lot and it's not very accessible.
But I think over the years,
What is the name of your organization in Costa Rica, Jules Evans?
Well, I mean, I'm in Costa Rica, but we're an international organization.
It's called the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project.
That's the research organization.
How do people reach and find out more about this Challenging Psychedelic Association?
Well, the website is challengingpsychedelics.com.
Thank you.
That's helpful.
and our newsletter is ecstaticintegration.org.
How do people sign up for your newsletter?
They just go to that website and they sign up.
Excellent.
Jules Evans, thank you so much for being with us today on Mind Body Health and Politics.
Your talking about the unwanted complications of psychedelic medicines has been very helpful, I'm sure, to all of us who will hear this interview.
Thank you, Richard.
I look forward to your book.
Yeah, my latest book, by the way, that came out a few weeks ago is called Freeing Sexuality.
It's on a whole different topic.
But the one that's coming, the next psychedelic book coming out this year is Psychedelic Medicine at the End of Life.
And then, of course, then comes the one you're referring to, Psychedelic Medicine Adverse Effects.
Fantastic.
Well, I want to be as productive as you are in my 80s.
Well, you're doing a good job.
Part of the job is to stay trim and not put a lot of insulation on the body to compromise the immune system.
Thanks again and thank you all gentle listeners to being with us today on this broadcast of Mind Body Health and Politics.
I remind you that we come out with a new broadcast every Tuesday morning at 9 o'clock if you want to listen to it live, otherwise of course on the archive.
Be sure and follow us on the various social media platforms.
I'm creating a tribal gathering where we can talk to each other and engage in meaningful dialogue.
Until next time, this is Dr Richard Louis Miller reminding you that good health is worth fighting for and it's essential for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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