Psychedelic Medicine: Mental Health Therapies and Practices for a Decentralized World

Speaker 1

Joseph West lives in Tucson, Arizona with his three children and his partner Katherine Kincaid. Together, they own and operate private group psychotherapy practices in both Tucson and Salt Lake City. The practice specializes in psychedelic integration and psychedelic assisted therapies. Joseph is passionate about creating safe contexts for the use and exploration of sacred medicines and technologies, both natural and synthetic. In past years, Joseph spent time working as a real estate professional, an accountant. a stay at home parent and a sociologist. His social scientific research on early Mormon history was published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Joseph is a co-founding member of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, Joseph West.

Joseph West

Psychedelic medicine should be understood as a safe Sacred technology and as a relatively safe and contextually reliable means to the experience of personal revelation understood in terms of Mormon belief and discourse.

Joseph West

Okay. Stepping back for a moment to frame the talk in terms of the conference theme, I want to talk about Joseph Smith and the problem of centralized authority and centralized access to revelation from God. I begin with a throwback reference to a talk given in 2013 at this conference by Don Bradley called Joseph Smith and the Technologies of Searship, where Bradley argued that Joseph Smith understood his seer stones as technological tools. I jump off here because, for one reason, is that it introduces the idea of technologically enabled access to the divine, which I’d like to say more about later. And second, the use of sear stones in early Mormon history illustrates and demonstrates how. The problem of centralized authority began as a problem of decentralized access to revelation. And I’m referring here to the story of Hiram Page, who in 1830, the year the church is organized, shows up with his own seer stone. And he was receiving alternative revelations to Joseph Smith. And in response, Smith announces that he had received a revelation, which basically stated that he’s the only one authorized to receive revelation. And so this story kind of illustrates the problem. Joseph Smith’s solution to the problem was to centralize access to communal revelation and to mandate the per the pursuit of personal revelation in the affirmation of that which is revealed to the Authoritative figure.

Joseph West

Okay, so Revelation in Mormon theology, I want to talk briefly about this concept and say that there’s two key ingredients to the experience. Of revelation. First is a non-ordinary state of consciousness. This is a term that psychologists use sometimes, but I give some examples. From the scriptures of instances of Revelation that kind of illustrate that. And then the second thing, and more important, that I want to talk about is this phrase from John the Revelator: the spirit of Revelation is the testimony of Jesus. And the testimony of Jesus, I assert, should be understood as a disposition towards faith in the atonement of Christ. where the atonement of Christ is understood in authentically Mormon terms to refer to the work we do when we take the name of Christ upon ourselves and participate in the labor of reconciling Reconciling conflicting desires towards greater mutual fulfillment and joy, seeking to knit our hearts together in unity and love, one towards another, as it’s put in Mosiah 18. The testimony of Jesus, or disposition towards faith in the atonement of Christ, is an enabling factor that enables creative vision of possible futures in which conflicting desires are reconciled.

Joseph West

Okay, and just related, I want to read one part. This is just one part of the Mormon transhumanist affirmation. We are disciples of the gospel of Jesus Christ. which is to trust in, change toward, and fully immerse our bodies and minds in the role of Christ to become compassionate creators as exemplified and invited by Jesus. Okay, that’s all the theology for now.

Joseph West

I want to talk about psychedelics. What are psychedelics? The term psychedelic is translated to mean soul or mind revealing. It’s usually a chemical substance, a medicine that’s ingested in some way or another, and usually the intent is to induce a non-ordinary state of consciousness. Other names like hallucinogens, plant medicines, and entheogens. An entheogen means generating the divine within. And I did want to give a little bit of a sense of what’s some practical things. At our practice, we offer psychedelic integration services, which is when clients integrate past psychedelic experience with a trained or licensed therapist. And then there’s also psychedelic assisted therapies, which is when clients integrate, ingest the medicine with practitioners. And the only psychedelic assisted therapy that We offer it currently as ketamine due to legalities, but there’s all kinds of research and trials on psilocybin and MDMA and And we use the protocols that are developed in this research, you know, in what we’re doing and kind of like how we do the therapy.

Joseph West

Okay, some research findings. Where is the clock? Okay, here we go. So, okay. There’s too much research to highlight, but I’m going to just. Give a couple highlights of the research on the use of psychedelic medicine for the betterment of well people. So there’s lots of research about how psychedelics can treat extreme Conditions like PTSD and trauma. But I’m talking about that’s a term that’s used in advocacy: psychedelic medicine for the betterment of well people. And I want to plug this talk. If you wanted to look it up, it’s an hour long. The statistics that I get mostly come from this. It’s very recent. This is what I want to say about that. So the study that I’m going to talk about is over several years has eventually been hundreds of participants, what he calls healthy volunteers. I’m sure that’s like a psychological profile. And they administer the medicine, which is psilocybin. You kind of like lay there on a couch or a comfortable chair with an eye mask and headphones. And then you have this experience. And most of the data they’re collecting is, so it’s a very internal experience, this particular research. And the data they’re collecting is like surveys after the fact, okay? And so I want to just highlight some of my favorite findings.

Joseph West

In the majority of healthy persons studied, psilocybin occasioned mystical type experiences associated with enduring positive changes in attitudes, mood, and behavior. One month after the initial trial, 78% of participants reported that it was among the five most personally meaningful experiences of their lives. 83% reported that it was among the top five most spiritually meaningful experiences of their lives. So this is after a month of processing it, and they still think this. These positive effects are sustained in most subjects for at least 14 months, probably longer. And then, this is kind of like a side little statistic, but it’s one of my favorites that I found, which is the majority of persons who go into this ceremony or study identifying as atheists no longer identify as atheists one month after having the Experience. So that gives me kind of like a slight Schadenfreude feeling for my atheist friends. If you’re interested in retaining your atheist identity, you should avoid psychedelic medicine. But anyway, okay.

Joseph West

So we’ve talked about theological underpinnings and research findings, and I’d like to tie the theology and science together by describing what scientists think is happening in the brain. during the psychedelic experience. Think about the discussion on revelation. Revelation is the experience of a non-ordinary Revelation is the experience of a non-ordinary state of consciousness in which practical clarity towards atonement with and by Christ is attained.

Joseph West

Okay, so in the brain, there’s a part of the brain called the default mode network. And the default mode network plays a crucial role in the development of social functionality. the perception of time, remembering the past and simulating the future, and the separation of self and other. Within the default mode network is the cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex. which are both rich in serotonin receptors and which also happen to be the postsynaptic site of the psychedelic activation. Under the influence of a psychedelic, these two areas do something called decoupling. Under acute psychedelic doses, when these two areas within the default mode network lose integrity or decouple from each other, the subjective experience generally falls into A category some scientists call oceanic boundlessness, which is a feeling of oneness that refers to the dissolution of ego boundaries and associated with positive emotions ranging from From heightened mood to sublime happiness and serenity or grandiosity. This sense of oceanic boundlessness is also part and parcel of the mystical experience, which has been defined by psychedelic scientists. according to various criteria, including a sense of oneness, transcendence of time and space, a noetic quality, and a deeply felt positive mood.

Joseph West

Okay, so the non-the non-ordinary state of consciousness normally attained through psilocybin use, in this case psychedelic use, is Just by the nature of the experience, conducive to what I was talking about, the testimony of Jesus, or this disposition towards faith in Christ, which enables a creative vision of the future. Um and I’m saying that’s kind of what revolution revelation is. So um let’s see. Oh well, it’s just my last slide. It’s not going, but there we go.

Joseph West

Okay, in conclusion, Mormonism mandates the pursuit of personal revelation as an answer to the problem of centralized community Communal authority. Psychedelic medicine offers a safe and reliable means of experiencing deeply revelatory states of consciousness. Mormons interested in receiving either personal or communally authoritative revelation should therefore understand psychedelic medicine as a sacred technology, a tool that can be used in the quest to understand the divine. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Hello. Hello, hello. Thank you, Joseph. Would you also include less sexy psychedelic medications like antidepressants? and anti-anxiety medications and bipolar medications in this realm? Or do you have I I don’t want to use a nasty word like puritanic But like a purity problem with those types of things because they’re not as natural.

Joseph West

Oh, well, on the natural versus synthetic, no, I don’t think There I don’t there is a uh there’s a lot of people that think the natural substances like mushrooms that’s psilocybin is like the the pure thing. And the synthesized things like LSD is not. I don’t feel that way. But in terms of the antidepressants and other kinds of medications, I think that those aren’t defined, those don’t fall under the scope of the definition of psychedelic medicine. Hallucinogenic. There’s a couple things I should probably know some of the list, be able to list some of the features, but yeah, so no, I don’t think that antidepressants are considered psychedelic medicine. Just by definition, not by uppity-ness or anything.

Speaker 5

How do normal people get signed up for psilocybin trials like that?

Joseph West

Yeah, no, I think that it’s the It’s really hard. I mean, there’s only been a few hundred people in these trials. So, you know, I think there’s a legalization process, there’s cultural movement towards that. But no, they’re not accessible. I mean, even the ketamine-assisted psychotherapy that we do, you have to be indicated. It’s a prescription. And so, yeah, there’s an accessibility issue with that, for sure.

Speaker 5

That’s where my question was going. We have a new law passed in Utah just at this latest legislative session to try to open Up to some experimentation, at least, here in the state of Utah. And of course, Oregon has its laws. But I was wondering how you operate in Arizona, because I’m not aware of any such law in Arizona.

Joseph West

Yeah, well, so we’re a licensed practice, and so we’re not we don’t do anything that is illegal. So we have a ketamine, a CAP clinic, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. And we’re developing protocols there in anticipation for other medicines as they become available, hopefully. But yeah, that’s a big, a big Time open question. I mean, if we were involved with a trial, a research trial that was approved, we may be able to do some of the work at our practice, but we haven’t pursued that really yet. Thanks, Joey.