Welcome to destiny. Now here's your host. Cliff dunning Well.
Psilocybin can be contrasted to any compound. It's different from all other compounds, including all other psychedelics. Psilocybin is very interesting and should be studied more deeply because it does things that are quite miraculous, that are very close to the surface, in other words, ordinary scientific. Most methods of research I think could get at.
Some of this.
The first thing that is astonishing about psilocybin is that of all the psychoedel elicks, well yes, of all the psychedelics, with the possible exception of DMT, which is a whole special case, psilocybin is the most easily capable of generating visions, and that fascinated me. I took a lot of LSD, and I was really hyped for LSD I had read I was waiting. I was fully informed and prepared by the time I got to my first LSD trip, and
I was somewhat puzzled by it. It did completely take me apart, and I thought many strange things and had many insights. But I had thought that it would be like the Havelock Ellis description the ruined cities dripping with jewels, the vast jungles, the strange machinery.
All that, uh uh.
Later I discovered that by smoking good bombay black hash on LSD, you can sort of cloax that into existence. But an easier thing is pilocybin. Psilocybin just causes you to hallucinate furiously.
That's Terence McKenna and a talk on microdosing psilocybin, which are mushrooms, and that's now thirty years old, that presentation. So it's been in our minds to microdose psychedelics, to consider them as a healing agent, a plant medicine, as we've discussed before. And I actually had the great honor of traveling with Terrence mckinna when we were doing the Whole Life Expo, which was based in San Francisco, and
Terry did Austin, Atlanta, Georgia, Orlando, Toronto. I think we did a seven city tour with him, and at that time, people were just taking mushrooms by the hands full, and people were overdosing and it wasn't really well thought out. And by the way, if you haven't done mushrooms, if you haven't, if you're thinking about doing psychedelics. Check out Terrence McKenna's book. It's called Food of the Gods. He's also got another book called The Hallucinogens, and his best
known book is called Psilocybin. That's the title, which is the Mushrooms. And these are all important pieces of literature as we begin looking at microdosing. Hey, this is Clip your host of destiny. I hope you're doing well today. We have a special program. We have up to this point talked about microdosing, but haven't really got into the protocols.
How to choose the proper psychedelic for you, what to do if it's a first time event, how to prepare body, mind and spirit, because your spirit is very much attached to working with plant medicines. And we have an expert on the program today who's going to show us just how to go about working with plant medicines in a beneficial factor. Now here in Northern California, and I talked about this over I think it's been a couple of years now. There are meetup groups and if you're not
familiar with meetup, go check it out. Type and meetup on your search Internet search engine, and you'll see that these are groups that are educating people on how to use psychedelics, and then they're bigger issues is where to get quality psychedelics, and this is LSD, psilocybin, which is mushrooms, DMT, and ketamine. Now, if you've been reading the paper recent you'll know that Elon Musk overdose. Overdid it a little bit with kennemine, and apparently he was taking large amounts
of it. He was working, poor guy, and you gotta really be careful with it. But today we're going to learn not only the properties of these psychedelics, but how to use them in micro infintestent levels of dosages so that you're affected, but not just affected. You're able to function completely. You're not spacing out, you're not passing out. You're functioning on a level that allows you to be very very creative that it allows you to be much more determined in what you're doing. And this is what
I love about today's program. We use intention to bring forth our desired results. And I've been talking about intention for a while. I wrote a book a few years ago called Cannabis and Sexual Ecstasy for Men, and the focus on that was not only sexual ecstasy, but creativity and how to bring in the intuitive and the automatic software, which is what we call the intention. So you intend on something that's the software going into the body, the mind,
and the spirit, which is the hardware. And when you intend on something to happen, it happens. The body is like following that path. And the reason we use it when we're using any type of psychedelic or cannabis or psychedelics is when you intend at the beginning of your journey, you're sitting in motion your desire to have a positive event, to have a healing event, and to make sure that
all systems are go. So in other words, it's my belief and a lot of other people that we have on the show that when you take a psychedelic or cannabis there are levels of preparations, there's levels of oversight, and what I mean that is they're unseen forces or unseen entities. There are are higher wisdom and our higher
self that are all engaged in the experience. And so you're intending or I should say, by intending all these entities, these energetics are placed on notice that you want to have support, that you want to be cared for, that you would like to have the ultimate experience of psychedelics, of cannabis or anything else that is going to shift your awareness. So intention and this wasn't even used twenty
thirty years ago. It's just really come on board in the last i'd say last decade where intention is critical factor in any type of psychedelic experience, any type of altered perception, altered senses, so that the ultimate result is positive. Now, my guest today is Paul Austen, and he is the founder of Third Wave, which is an educational institution. And I have not found anyone quite like him who speaks
to working with psychedelics on a microdose level. And he is an expert, and you'll hear soon you'll quickly learn why. I can only recommend his program to the point where I'm gonna get his book and consider trying some of this thing, you know, perhaps trying some of these protocols. So today's program is the art of microdosing psychedelics, and my guest is Paul F. Austen. Earth Ancients does a number of tours every year, and it's really important to
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out the Insta three sixty x five. We've been talking about micro DOSI now for almost four or five years. We've had people like Dennis McKinnon on the program. Graham Hancock paid us a visit and we were talking about his book on Journey, A Journey without Acid in Ayahuasca and DMT, and today I'm really happy to say I have somebody who's developed a protocol for using psychedelics in your daily life, and his name is Paul Austin. Let
me tell you a little bit about Paul. He is an entrepreneur, thought leader, and I caught a great video. I was on YouTube yesterday and this was a talk he gave in I think it was twenty seventeen about his work in as a professional and a protocol developer of psychedelics, and he also found an organization called third Wave. It was really a cool video because I don't think anyone is doing what Paul is doing, which is actively working with team development, creating a protocol, but also creating
a business around microdosing. So hey, Paul, welcome to Destiny. Great to have you on the program.
Great to be here, Cliff, Thanks for making the space in the time. I'm happy to dive into everything microdocing, protocols, yeah, you know, mood, energy, leadership, all the stuff. It'll be a fun conversation today.
I got to ask you, you know, I'm a little older than you. I mean, I remember people in junior high starting to drop acid LSD in the early days. You know, it was a tab. It was a drop put on a piece of candy or something like that, and I had friends. I never did it. I did a really strong cannabis back then, and now today's cannabis is even stronger. But how did you jump from creating an application for psychedelics from just taking it just I mean getting high and going, hey, this feels great and
I'm happy where I'm at with this. I mean that you're taking a big, big leap.
Big big leap. Yeah, quite the I think it's cool, a macro leap.
Not just not just a micro leap.
You know.
My story starts in West Michigan. I grew up in Grand Rapids, which is kind of the second biggest city in Michigan. Midwest, traditional family, and so my parents are very anti drug, you know. And a friend that introduced me to cannabis when I was sixteen then introduced me to LSD when I was nineteen, and so I had my first really profound experience is that higher doses, not
microdoses with LSD. And because I was raised in a pretty religious, traditional family, there's a lot of sort of guilt and shame that I had to work through and release, you know, just from being raised in that environment, and so one of the key lessons or downloads from those early experiences was, you know, life is meant to be created. You are not beholden to any sort of stories that have come before. You free to do as you wish, So like, go go on a journey, right, go explore.
And so at the age of twenty one, I moved to Turkey, where I taught English for a year. And while teaching English, I started to study a lot about how I could work online and you know, travel anywhere I wanted, And so I did that for a few years in Thailand and Portugal and Mexico. In twenty fifteen, I was living in Budapest, about a decade ago now, and just more people were starting to talk about psychedelics Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan. There was more clinical research coming out about its benefits.
Cannabis was also.
At this point in time becoming more widely accepted, and so I sort of, as a young buddy and entrepreneur, I sort of saw the writing on the wall, and I made, you know, the assumption that psychedelics would sort of follow the path of cannabis in terms of becoming legalized and available and more accept it. And so in twenty fifteen I started a platform and a website because
you know, I just genuinely wanted to help people. The intentional use of psychedelics had really benefited my own life, and I thought more and more people would become open and curious about this. And so when I started third Wave in twenty fifteen, I really focused on microdosing as the initial entry point, because a lot of people when they when they become curious about psychedelics or open to it, the biggest fear is I'm going to have a bad trip, Like I'm going to take too much.
I'm going to freak out and I'm going to.
Be paranoid and anxiety and what if I jump out of a window or whatever. And so I said, just take you know, start low, ghost slow, take a really low dose, do it a couple times a week, see how you feel.
And then go from there.
And so over the last decade, I've just made that my full time profession, publishing Mastering Microdosing, the book that we'll talk about a little bit more. I started a retreat center in the Netherlands. We did legal psilocybin retreats, and now my main focuses. I trained practitioners, so coaches, doctors, therapists, if they want to get trained, and how they can work with psychedelics. We facilitate that as well.
What were you person getting from it? I mean you're going, yeah, I want to try it, I want to trip And but did you evolve your experiences to have intention for healing, have intention for creativity, have intention for creating business platforms? Yeah?
I would say my early work was a lot of exploration. It wasn't you know, they talk a lot about in the media now this therapeutic approach to psychedelics, which is you do a very high dose, you have an eyemask, you have a playlist, you have a therapist or two where they're present with you.
I wasn't doing that.
But I also wasn't just taking a bunch of LSD or mushrooms at a rave or a music festival. I was doing it with a friend or two in the woods, usually outdoors. And so one of the big deep insights for me was how connected I felt.
To the natural environment.
Yeah, right, and how so much of great health is having that relationship with the natural environment. But on a very practical level, well around the same time I started to get into LSD, I also started to get into like personal development, and so I.
Started to meditate.
Like my early experiences with psychedelics were really influential and helping me to commit to a meditation practice. I became more mindful of the food that I ate. I became you know, more aware of how I showed up in relationships, in the way that I was treating people, and you know, how it could be a better friend or a better you know, brother or son or whatever.
That was.
So it was really these in these early phases, it was just I was curious. I was interested in growing and developing. And then it wasn't until I was twenty four, when I had already some entrepreneurial experience that I thought, oh, this not only helps me myself to become a better human, but in working with these, I also have more capacity
to be of service to life itself. And so that was really the the i'd say intention behind Third Wave and everything that's come from that is you know, I saw psychedelics as a tool that, if used skillfully, could really people sort of wake up, you know, And having grown up in a religious family, I was you know, talked, talked, talked to about God a lot, but I never experienced this sort of you know, the experience of what it is to be connected to spirit or.
God or the great unknown, or do.
You have an experience where you called in the God forces and kind of sat there and oh, my God, there's a somebody's talking to me, the giant voice.
Well, the way that I frame it is it's more like I see God in nature. That was for me the big unlock, you know, where it was like the trees have a way of talking to us, the ocean and the water has a way of talking to us, the rivers and the streams, and so it really opened up that sort of awareness I've never I still haven't had.
You know, my name is Paul. I still haven't had the classic apostle.
Paul experience where I'm blinded by the light and exactly I can't figure out where I'm going. But there was a deep sort of opening in my heart and my spirit and a deep love and reverence for nature that came from that, and so I've really been in service to that ever since I've started this path.
You have a podcast, and I've looked at some of your guests, and you have some Indigenous I don't know if they're elders or not, but you have a native perspective, do you have a sense of that connection? And there and then in the indigenous use of psychedelics.
This is it's interesting.
I just interviewed someone for the podcast that's not published yet who recently published a book on shamanism called Shamanism a Timeless Religion, and he talks a lot about this archaeological evidence for psychedelic use, and a lot of the archaeological evidence or anthropological evidence is you know, in Mexico, in Peru, Brazil, Colombia, with peyote, psilocybin, mushrooms, aahuasca and something called yo bo which is a five E meo snuff.
And you know, part of what psychedelic work has really connected me to is sort of this this pre Christian way of being. So there was a fantastic book written about four years ago called The Immortality Key by Brian muro Rescue, where he explores the sort of early or sorry ancient Greek use of psychedelics where they drank something called kaikon and how that may have inspired early Christianity.
And so I think a lot of my work has been with indigenous elders, whether that's with ayahuascar or psilocybin or san Pedro is another cac die similar to peyote. But also a lot of my personal work has been sort of releasing the conditioning of a lot of the sort of Christian morality that we've been born into and understanding what it was like to be you know, you know, I kind of I've had past life experiences as a sort of Celtic druid priest, which Merlin is sort of
the archetypal representation of that. So some of this work has brought me into those archetypes like who is I as a white person before Christianity? Or who were we
as white people before Christianity? Because I think there's so much emphasis as there should be on what I would say, indigenous people in the Americas and their relationship to psychedelics, but I don't think we put enough emphasis on the fact that we, as a white people also have indigenous lineages and we've been you know, because of Christianity in many ways, a lot of these what we're called the mysteries, the ancient Greek and Roman mysteries, they were banned, and
so we've been disconnected from that lineage for seventeen hundred years. So I think that's part of the invitation now with the modern psychedelic renaissance, is how do we invite those philosophies, are those ways of being back into our day.
To day Yeah, I hear you're saying about Merlin and kind of the white wave of early prehistory. I'm curious, though, do you have a sense now that you've been working with psychedelics that this is a tool that we should be using to go to the next level of evolution. If you read Graham Hancock's book, he believes that psychedelics were used for brain enhancement as well as a tool for moving beyond current concepts and accepting and beginning to use downloads of future concepts.
Well, it's one inquiry that I've had of late, is what does it say about reality when psychedelics, aliens, and artificial intelligence are sort of all converging at the same time. I even asked chat GPT about this and it said something along the line, Yeah, it's it's something along the lines of like, we're clearly becoming much more open to possibilities that we previously.
Did not know were or were not aware of.
So, you know, I do think there are a lot of people who are are struggling, right so with mental health PTSD, depression, addiction, anxiety, and I feel like the first step for a lot of people is how do you just fill your own cup? You know, And psychedelics have shown incredible clinical efficacy to heal PTSD, depression, addiction, traumatic brain injury. There's even some really interesting clinical research that's showing how it can treat Parkinson's MS, Alzheimer's, right,
these neurodegenerative diseases. So I think the first step for a lot of people is how do you fill your own cup? How do you sort of get back to baseline. I was fortunate enough to be, you know, even though I was raised in a pretty sheltered, traditional Christian home, I had a good upbringing, no no major big t traumas, and so immediately when I started my psychedelic use, these questions of what is the sort of exploration of what it means to be human really really started to come online.
And you know, I do think that is the greatest offering with these substances. Even if you look at the counterculture in the fifties and sixties and the use of LSD. A lot of the inquiry was around the overlap of
psychedelics and self actualization. So Maslow had his sort of hierarchy of needs, and he has written if you kind of dig on the internet a little bit, he's written about how psychedelics helped to facilitate this state of self actualization, and he actually had something beyond that called self transcendence.
And so I think part of the value of psychedelics is they allow us to see beyond sort of a dualistic reality and worldview, and tapping into that sort of creative muse or creative spirit really allows us to have a new lens and a new perspective on what it means to be a human being at this point in time.
And so I think part of the greatest potential or invitation with these substances is to reimagine the systems that we have not as I would say, extractive or short term, and we can start to actually look at how do we create systems that are regenerative and built for seven
generations from now, not seven years from now. And I think that's for me, a big part of the Indigenous lineage and the Indigenous knowledge when you when you talk to indigenous elders who have worked with psychedelics or not, they always talk about how do we become great ancestors?
And so I think that's a big question that psychedelics bring up for us, is what are both the practical but also spiritual things that we can do to be great ancestors and you know, have the agency, the autonomy, the capacity to actually create healthier ecosystems and you know, businesses and things like that.
Yeah, I like the guy aspect of indigenous psychedelics, working with guy, working with earth and all the animals and nature. But I think because we're in the United States and we're hyperactive, we have to we can't sit still. We got to be innovating, we have to be creating, we have to be manufacturing on a super level. And I'm curious as to what you see the future as working
with psychedelics. Can you say that I am beginning to get a sense of our future as a super race or a superhuman or something, you know what I mean, without getting too much in the ego. It's so easy to get into ego on this stuff. But I'm just curious what you're touching on because you're in a minute here, we're gonna talk a little bit about your better leadership through macrodo scene, which I think is business based.
Yeah, business base.
I really see the invitation for CEOs to become more artistic. So I think that's part of the vision of how can more business people be like artists? Yeah, and less industrialist. But you know, when I when I, when I think about the future of this, I often you know, I talk a little bit about the context in the past. So even third wave, right as a as a frame suggests there's a first wave and the second wave, and we are We've already talked a little bit about the
first wave, the ancient in indigenous use. But in the second wave, what a lot of folks aren't I think fully cognizant of is And this will hit home for you because of where you live. Silicon Valley wouldn't have happened without LSD and and and the really basic fundamental
story is Ken Kesey, who listeners may know of. He was He was a lab rat in an experiment at Stanford in the late fifties, right, And what he did is he snuck out a bunch of LSD from Stanford brought it to Menlo Park and started handing it out to all of his friends, including a band called the Warlocks, which ended up becoming Grateful Dead, and a lot of those early people, including a guy named Stuart Brand who's still alive and lives in Saucelito, started to do a
bunch of LSD and ended up becoming these pioneers of the personal computer revolution. In fact, Stuart Brand wrote a piece for Rolling Stone in the early seventies I think it was seventy two or seventy four where he said the personal computer is to the seventies what LSD was to the sixties, where it's allowing us now to be hyper connected.
So it was almost like.
The intuitive wisdom that came up from these experiences as ellas D really informed. And a lot of people know the Steve Jobs story as well, so I won't go even into more detail around that. So I think the invitation now is a lot of that has been cognitive, right, and so we see that with the development of AI.
We see that even in the sort of over intellectualization of everything that happened in tech and computers, where a lot of people can only be really neck up, and so I think the invitation now, as we we deep in into this is really to ask what does it mean to be in my celial network? And that's I love that metaphor because if LSD is more cognitive, psilocybin
mushrooms are much more integrated and embodied. And so I think the invitation for a lot of us is how do we actually build and create from the heart and the gut and not just the head, And how do we have greater attunement and sensitivity to our relational field, to our you know, the ecosystems in which we live, to really experiencing what it's like to be I would say, in love with life or in love with the natural environment.
And for me, my hope then is that I've seen this over the last decade because I've worked with you know, hundreds of people and business and leadership positions that when they really commit to doing this work in a way that's intentional and with integrity, it ends up trans forming them and they can't go back to how they lived before. And oftentimes how that pans out in business is they're
more people centered rather than profit focus. They care a lot more about what we might call a triple bottom line, which is people profit and purpose. So I find that a lot of people who end up working with microdosing or general psychedelic work, they can't do work that feels like they're selling their soul, you know, they just have to find something that feels meaningful and fulfilling for them.
And especially in now the age of AI right where you know, you read these headlines and it's like ninety percent of you know, white collar knowledge workers are going to be replaced in five years, right, And I don't know how true this is, but let's say even fifty percent of knowledge workers are replaced in fifteen years. That opens up this massive question about, well, what do we do right if we no longer have to work or in the way that we've thought about work, where do we put our time energy?
You know, vision, heart love?
And I think something that psychedelics do is they offer a path forward. In that way, they offer some insight and glimmers of possibilities in terms of what that may look like.
We're going to take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will return shortly with my guests today. Paul Austen from Third Wave discussing microdosing psychedelics will be right back. My guest today is Paul Austin, who's written a book called Mastering Microdosing. He's also the founder and director of Third Wave, a microdosing
institution based in San Diego, California. I don't know how much about AI, you know, but I think the only way for to take over is to become sentient, self aware. I don't see it. I just don't see it. And I've had guys on this show here that are somewhat expert at it and are dealing with it. So I think it's a kind of fear mongering when you say we're gonna's gonna wipe out this many jobs, this many creative people. It's just I think it's a tool that
you know. And we're here in California kind of the I'm here in San Francisco where he used the epicenter for the whole thing, and I think it's just kind of been blown out of proportion. But getting back to the third Wave, you brought up the indigenous level, which is the first wave, the second wave. I had the I was a kid, but I was a program director here in San Francisco, for whole life, had Tim Larry, had Dennis McKenna, and these guys are pushing the dropping
the acid, taking the psychondelics. I don't think they were. Or perhaps the evolution of the of the use was in a place where where you are right now, which is intentionally expanding the use of it with a specific goal. And I'm really curious now third wave is a website, third Wave is also a protocol. Tell us about third wave and how it's moving beyond the first two protocols or the first two waves.
Yeah, that's a great question.
And so Timothy Leary had this really famous quote turn on tune in drop out right.
That was sort of the.
Quintessential mantra of the counter culture in the sixties. And so there was even in that process in other reed right, there was a rejection of the status quo in the mainstream. There was a sense of we're separated from that, we aren't that we're.
Doing our own thing here.
And I think the invitation in this third wave of psychedelics is true integration right where one could say a lot of these practices that were counter culture in the sixties, meditation, yoga, psychedelics are now actually becoming much more mainstream. And so I think that's why I've always loved micro doosing, because microdosing doesn't necessarily bring you into this transcendent state. It actually keeps you here and now, but it just sort
of turns the knob up a little bit. And so a lot of what we focus on with our protocols, and I'll to do a little foundational So microdosing really with our protocols is you're microdosing three days a week, basically every other day a Monday Wednesday Friday or Monday Wednesday Saturday. The substances that are most commonly microdosed or
LSD psilocybin, mushrooms. And then I've been talking more and more about something called sampedro or wachuma, which is a cactus from the Andes that has mescaline mescalines the active alkaloid in san pedro or with tuma, and the key benefits that people notice are greater mood, energy, and better sleep.
Let me just stop you real quick quick for a second pause. I just want to get into this in my head. How in the hell are you supposed to microdose LSD.
And go to work?
Now? I think for you, this is funny because when I was watching you do this.
Talk, I said, I was a speak any of it.
Right that morning you had dropped some acid and I'm thinking, how is this guy standing in talking? So you need to educate this a non user, and how the hell you function with LSD microdose?
So start loan, go slow.
You can always take you can always take more, you can't take less. I love the I love the Hunter S. Thompson quote. Once you buy the ticket, you take the ride.
Yeah, dude, even a load dose of LSD if you're a non user, that's come on.
Right.
So so this is but it is really a dosage question, right, It's like the difference. It's it is the difference between like, you know, a cup of coffee and and ten cups of coffee or something like that. And so I think part of the part of the I would say problem or stigma that's associated with LSD is people have it in their mind, oh, I'm doing a tab or I'm doing you know, two tabs, or I'm doing four tabs, whereas a micro dose is one tenth of a tab.
It's about ten micrograms.
Okay, So the experience is going to be altered perception, but you're saying that it's functioning. You're still functioning.
Stub intoxicating is the technical phrase, the fact intoxicating, meaning you are at you maybe at a threshold level where you notice a slight shift and change so people will notice, oh I have a little more energy, I'm smiling a little bit more.
Really minor, Okay.
It's very subtle, right, it's very subtle. Sub perceptuals and other phrase that's often been used to talk about with microdose. And then so a tenth of a regular dose is about ten micrograms, and I tell people to start lower than that. Five micrograms is a really good starting dose because everyone has a different sensitivity. And do it on a weekend, like when you don't have to go to work,
because believing. I've heard the stories of people who thought they were taking a micro dose, and I've seen the memes of people who thought they were taking a micro dose and it definitely was not a micro dose.
So you wanted of.
A board meeting and everyone's sitting and looking at each other, and one guy who took the dose is looking out the window.
This happened.
I know a guy who was a CEO of a two billion dollars startup in Silicon Valley and thought took what he thought was a micro dose and it was not a micro dose, and he had a really important board meeting and it ended up being kind of one of these things that the board found out about later and a reason they used to fire him. Oh man, I hate the heath right, And for him it was all like this was supposed to happen, Like there were a lot of other moving pieces, you know. He was
grateful for the transition. But yeah, so start low goo slow. For psilocybin mushrooms, that's about one hundred milligrams. So a full dose of mushrooms is like two to three grams, so it's about one hundred milligrams. So you started a very low dose. You start in a weekend and then the key really with a micro dosing protocol is to do it three times.
A week for six weeks.
Okay, because what's happening when you take a low dose is it's upregulating something called b d NF brain drive neurotropic factor, which is a precursor to neuroplasticity, and it's deesting, yeah, and it's down relating the fear response from the amygdala, and so neurobiologically you have greater plasticity, meaning you can learn and adapt quicker, and you have less fear, and so you can actually create from a place of flow rather than feeling like you have to procrastinate or what
if I do this or what if I say this? It's just sort of more openness with it. And so people find that after those six weeks of microdocing better mood, more energy, greater neural plasticity, less fear, and a lot of people then after that experience they might take like I usually I advise take a week or two off. Like for every three weeks you microdose, take a week off.
So if someone is going through a protocol, they're doing it for six weeks, I say take two weeks off, reset, and then ask yourself, is this something that I want to re engage with because a lot of people who are microdosing are then you know, I would call it like a sacred supplement is probably the best frame for it, where it becomes this thing that is intoxicating, that subperceptible. But when people do it, you know, it just adds a nice little sparkle to their day to day.
So if I mean, we're in California, we could probably look in the Yellow Pages and find groups that should do this stuff. You know, doesn't there's no such thing
as Yellow Pages anymore. I wish there was, I know really, But if you're outside of California, especially in some of these I don't want to say less progressive states, but states that are challenged by these concepts, what are we going to do with somebody who wants to start something like this and it hasn't really been involved in psychedelics. I think it's important that you have a guide a person or do you have recommendations on your website for
every state every country? Talk about that a little bit.
So, yeah, the legal landscape is really interesting right now with psychedelics. So Colorado has legalized what they call natural medicine, which include psilocybin, ayahuasca, sampedro five meo, DMT, and e boga. Oregon is legalized psilocybin mushrooms. New Mexico recently passed a
bill through the legislature to medicalize psilocybin. And then you have several cities like Seattle, Detroit, Oakland, Washington, d C. You know, and other smaller cities like Cambridge and Berkeley that have decriminalized all plant medicine, So there's pockets where it's accessible. So that's that's point one. Point two is eight million people took psilocybin mushrooms last year in the United States, about three point one percent of the population,
and about four million of those people were microdosing. And so the question is where are all these people getting getting the drugs, getting these these substances. So a lot of people are growing their own mushrooms. So on third way, we have like a mushroom grow kit that makes it really easy for folks to be able to grow their own mushrooms and have a relationship with those mushrooms.
Right.
I I selling the kids the kits, not the spores, so we can legally sell the kits.
I going to say this, This is my next question is where do people find these drugs?
But you have to get the spores yourself. Now, the other layer of this.
Is, you know, sixty one percent of Americans now support legal psychedelic therapy. So we're at a place in time where the especially the federal government, but also other state governments are aware of these clinically established benefits and they're actually focusing most of their time and energy on fentanyl, cocaine, albeits, you know, drugs that are dangerous, addictive, leading to death.
So there is this kind of middle confusing place that we're in where there's now dozens of websites that you can go on and you can just purchase microdoses on those websites and they'll just ship it to your home. Wow, it's illegal, but no one's doing anything about it. And so the key with that then is to make sure that you get it from like a trusted supplier. So with Third Way, we don't provide it on our website
it's too risky, but we have partners. So like one partner, for example, is a company called Golden Rule, which we can drop a link to and they have psilocybin microdoses and LSD microdosies. So when folks come to us and they're like, we'd love to get some micro doses, where do we go? We just point them to some of these these external websites to look at. And the key then is if you are getting you know, these microdoses, to have a friend or a coach or a therapist.
We do something called the micro dos inexperience through third wave, where I coach a group of people live over zoom once a week who want a microdose and just support them and they have questions and help them get their dose level correct and navigate anything that might be coming up.
So I do think if someone is interested in this and they're doing this for the first time, you definitely want to be part of a like a course or an educational initiative so you can make sure that you have the support that you need if you want to, you know, explore this in a way that's helpful.
That's a very important point that you're making, which is following what I'm thinking right now, which is how do we begin safe space using the intention and what are the results to start with the environment which is critical.
Yeah.
So set and setting was a term coined by Timothy Leary and Richard Elbert who later became ram Das and so set and setting refers to the mindset when you're going into it. And so what I often invite people to explore is, you know, can you maybe do a little meditation or a little breath work, or just spend time in silence away from your phone, Like do you have the capacity to go inward and just do a check of how you are, where are you at right,
sort of getting a sense of your mindset. And then the first time you're doing this, be in a comfortable environment. So be at home, be in the garden, maybe go to a local park if that feels comfortable, and just be in a setting.
That you know really well.
Like what I do not advise is, you know, to take this and go drive in a car, or to take this and go to a music festival, or to take this and go out to a bar and be around a bunch of other people. Like, if you're exploring this, be at home, be in a safe setting. You know, have a little time to check in beforehand, because that
environment really really matters even at lower doses. It especially matters with higher doses of psychedelics, but even at lower doses, people notice that there may be emotions or feelings that start to come up. And so to have a place that you can be with those emotions and feelings that feel safe is really important.
That's somebody who's strong and emotionally solid enough to do it on their own. Do you support and you just mentioned doing group trainings, do you have a resource for somebody in a state or a country who may want to have someone watched them or her. Do you do can you? I mean some support therapy for sure.
Yeah. We have even on third Way, we have a directory of hundreds of coaches and therapists and guides and retreat centers and even clinics that folks can go and check out. In our training program, we've trained over three hundred practitioners, so a lot of them are listed in that directory. They're in basically all fifties, you know, not all fifty states, but I would say probably twenty five to thirty states. We have students from maybe twenty different countries as.
Well, so.
That would be part of the invitation. The other invitation for people who are in you know, we'll just name names. Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, you know, Idaho. Right, these are some of the more conservative places. South Dakota, North Dakota, even the Midwest like Michigan, Ohio, there are you'd be surprised how many meetup groups there, Like we were talking about meetups before we went live,
Like if you go to meetup dot com. There's a lot of Psychedelexis societies now that are doing these informal meetups in various cities across the country.
And then there's also conferences and events.
So I'd also invite people if they are curious about this and they do want to explore it, maybe even from a professional perspective they're a therapist or doctor, a coach or whatever. There's big conferences, three or four big conferences every year that that also are a great way to find the others. That's the Timothy Leary phrase. Because people who might not live in La or San Francisco or New York or you know, some of these big cities, they still need that support, and so being able to
find that support is really essential. So our directory is great conferences, events, meetup dot com is also a good place to find local.
Can you reference real quickly? Give you mention this that you got you do zoom conferences where you're doing microdosing. Is that enough do you think if you're because I mean, for me, I've been doing zoom for so many years it's you know, it's an extension, so it doesn't really make a difference for me. But if you're doing and mine altrain protocol, is that enough for support? Do you think?
I would say depends on the individuals. So typically what I advise is, if someone is really struggling, right, if they're maybe depressed or struggling with anxiety or PTSD, if they're on psychiatric meds prozac, lexiprozoloft, you know, benzodiazepines, ADHD medications you know well, Butrimm like, if you're on a medication and you're interested in these, usually what I advise is to start with ketamine. Ketamine is an FDA approved medication.
It is legal, accessible, and available at all fifty states. There are a lot of accessible ways to get it, and a bunch of in person clinics. So I would say, if someone's really struggling, to start there, because it's legal, it's accessible, it's inexpensive.
This is what the usk was using here recently, Yeah, before he jumped off dodge the whole nother lens.
Well, And that's part of the dark side of ketamine is it does have greater potential for addiction compared to some of these natural plant medicines. So what I tell people is it's a launching off point, it's a transition point.
Don't get stuck there, right.
Do you like it as a starting point? Though Paul is it because it's more easily accessible or the experience is measurable.
So an experience with ketemine usually lasts about ninety minutes. You know, an experience with psilocybin mushrooms is about six hours, so for people who are new to psychedelic work, ketamine is a much shorter window. It also doesn't really have any contraindications, so, especially at high doses, certain psychedelics are
contraindicated with SSRIs. Ketamine is not contraindicated with SSRIs. And I think the most important thing, Cliff is it's legal and FDA approved, And so I think when people are coming into this space right knowing that it is legal, there's no potential risk of anything happening. It goes back to that mindset, that environment going into this. Some people just want that extra assurance that they're doing everything by
the book, and so ketamine is a great starting option. Now, with all that being said, it looks like psilocybin, LSD, MDMA will all be approved by the FDA in the next year or two. So although you know we're recording this in June twenty twenty five, ketamine is the best legally available option very quickly, there will be other psychedelic compounds that will become accessible and available in all fifty states through doctors.
We're going to take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will return shortly with my guest today, Paul Austin, talking about microdo scene will be right back. I'm fascinating with microdosing. I honestly haven't partaken in this phenomenon on my own. I'm just
kind of a scaredy cat. But I'll tell you after this interview, it made me think twice about it, and a great way to start is to get the book Mastering Microdosing, which is a step by step gradual program of taking small doses of psychedelics and experiencing individual sessions. I love to hear that. I've been waiting for cannabis to get legalized nationally and it just seeps falling behind the times. You know, I don't see Trump as an advocate, but maybe he is, you.
Know, Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of the downside of the cannabis state based legalization effort is there wasn't enough emphasis put on the clinical research side of things. So it is I think approved for epilepsy, maybe certain forms of THHC, but it's very limited. And I do think it's like almost all the harms of drugs come from prohibition with cannabis, with a lot of these. So I just don't understand why something like alcohol is totally legal and available and cannabis is not.
It's a bit of a mind fuck. Still, let's go.
Talk about the protocol a little bit. We're talking about safe space, camaraderie groups, whatever, And I wrote a book on cannabis a few years ago. The intention when using psychedelics or any kind of stimulant is really critical now,
and we hadn't thought about it until really recently. Using this what I call brain software to drive the hardware, which is the experience or the body, and having an intention, it's my intent for this to happen, it's my intent to get knowledge on my relationships, so forth and so on. Give us a little sense of how you use intention in your protocol.
So intention I see as like the through line. It's the thread that keeps us tethered. And I'd say that's true in a high dose experience for the day, right the journey, if it's a four to five to six hour journey that intention is Usually it can be just a single word, sort of like a mantra that we come back to breathe their presence or surrender or opening, because that allows us to have sort of an anchor.
I often use the breath as well as.
A really good anchor and sort of a way to keep us grounded in the intention. With microdosing, it's a little bit different, and that we're really looking at the intention over those that trajectory right the four to six to eight weeks that someone might be micro dosing, and sometimes that intention grows and evolves. And so what I invite people to explore is to set an intention to journal, to have some time for reflection, to have an understanding
of where do you want this to go? And oftentimes I find intention is balanced in both the experience of it, meaning how do I want to feel while I'm doing this, what are the practices that I want to explore as part of my micro dosing protocol? And what is sort
of the outcome or the objective. I find if we focus too much on the outcome or objective, it brings us away from the sort of moment to moment attunement of what's happening in our nervous system, what's happening in our brain, what's happening, you know, in our sense of self. So it's important with intention to both balance the sort of present moment, the experience of it, with the objective or outcome. And then the objective or outcome really depends
on the individual. Some folks, you know, they've been on SSRIs for a decade or you know, fifteen years or twenty years, and they really want to get off SSRYZ. So some folks have an intention, whether like I'd really love to wean off my prozac or maybe either they have ADHD they love to get off their riddling or ater all medications. Some folks have an intention where they'd love to write a book, you know, some form of
creative project. Maybe they want to get back into music and perform a piece in the piano or the guitar.
You know.
Some folks have an intention to really just connect in a deeper way with their partner, their spouse or other loved ones in their life, so to or intimacy and connection and what that might be like. So I think the intention is really depending on the context of the individual's life and microdocing I look as sort of a like a lubrication. It just sort of makes the process easier of not only living but also growing and developing.
And I think again that comes down a lot to the support that we have, whether that's coaching or therapeutic or group and community support, and it comes down to the neuroplastic benefits of microdocing, how it's helping our brain to become more plastic and more malleable, which allows for greater and easier change on a day to day basis.
Let's talk briefly in a time that we have left a little bit about results. And you mentioned neuralplacicity, which is brain learning. Are you doing any studies or are you kind of watching team members grow and become more creative, become more I don't know, I don't want to say superhuman, but you know, having new skill sets.
Yeah.
So there are a lot of anecdotes, Like we just did a microdosing experience that we finished up on Monday. It was a six week group coaching experience and the intention for that was creativity, and so we had an individual who through that process they ended up making a drum. He lives I think in Missouri, and he went out hunting and then took the hide of the skin and
ended up making a drum out of that hide. Had never made a drum before, but was really inspired to be able to do that because then he can use it. He helped with facilitation and the drum can be a
really powerful tool that way. We had another person who was working on a memoir and so they were able, you know, through that microdosing process just to have a little more access to that state of flow and ended up finishing the first few chapters of their memoir, something they had wanted to do for many years and just
hadn't really set aside the time for. And then we had another woman who had played piano at a much younger age and you know, just hadn't really touched it in a long time, and she ended up, as part of that microdocene experience, committing to playing the piano every day and was performing you know, pieces by the end of it. So I think these results vary depending on the intention. But the clinical research just talk a little bit about that because you had asked about the research.
The clinical research tends to show these three main benefits. Greater energy, better mood, and more sleep. Those are the clinically established benefits. Because psychedelics are still quite illegal, it's very expensive to do high quality research still because of their illegality, there's still a lot we don't know. So some of the interesting clinical trials and research that they're exploring is how microdosine can help with PMDD, which I
believe is post menstrual dysphoric disorder. Yeah, they're also looking at how microdocin can help with inflammation or immune relate autoimmune conditions like lime disease, shingles, and other potential things like that, because it seems to be having some sort of physiological effect. My you know, I talked about the neuroplasticity and the sort of effect and the amigdala. The
more sort of foundational clinically established benefits. Psychedelics are anti inflammatory, and so inflammation in the body relates to a lot of chronic disease, and so I think some of these holistic benefits that people are noticing with microdosing is because it's helping to lower something that's called CRP, which is C reactive protein, which is a blood marker that's related to inflammation, and that's also helping what's sort of called
like opening up the inner healing intelligence, so the body has more capacity to heal itself and be in sort of a healthy, regulated state.
Talk a little bit about emotional deep depression. I've always been concerned about psychedelics and somebody who's got an emotional disturbance, but apparently in certain situations it's actually a benefit. Can you address that a little bit.
So, depression has many causes, a lot of it they think is related to something called aces adverse childhood experiences, and this sort of early childhood early adolescents trauma tensively
to states of depression, addiction, anxiety. So part of the efficacy with psychedelics is at high doses it opens a window of catharsis where these early traumatic experiences can be healed in many ways, and that's often in a therapeutic container, therapeutic alliance with someone who's well trained and well established. So all this to say, like, if someone is depressed and they're interest in psychodelic find a great therapist, go to our directory.
We have some.
So part of it from an emotional well being is the sort of sadness, the grief, these these difficult emotional states that have been repressed for so long. Psychedelics allow an experience of that to come to the surface. The second thing that I'll emphasize based on what we've seen is going on in the brain is people who are
depressed have an overactive default mode network. And a default mode network is a network in the brain, and the default mode network is tied to like what our brain is like in our sort of habitual just default state, and people who are depressed have a very overactive so it's very sort of rigid and constrained, and when you take a psychedelic it softens that default mode network, it.
Sort of opens it up.
And we even see this with brain imaging where psychedelics actually help to regrow dendrites, and dendrites are sort of these tips of neurons and and regrowing dendrites is helping to create once again greater connect greater connectivity between both hemispheres of the of the brain. So it's partly emotional, it's partly neurobiological, and then I think at high doses
it's also partly spiritual. And people have these high dose experiences and they feel connected to source, God, nature, the mystery, you know, whatever you want to call it, aliens even something greater than ourselves that we don't really know anything about.
It allows us to heal.
And we've seen this in clinical research where they've given people with terminal cancer high doses of psychedelics with very high levels of depression and anxiety. And now for people go through with the experience, you're like, oh, death is nothing to fear. Actually, it's just a transition into what's coming next.
I know you're not running a clinic there, Paul, but do you have some case studies of people that may have been not necessarily or maybe necessarily chronically depressed who use your protocol and kind of saw things a little differently after a few weeks of therapy.
Yeah.
So we have we partner with a company called mind Bloom that has telemedicineketymine, and so we've had dozens of people in our community go through that protocol and that experience.
And you know, there's one person in particular who was in I think she was in her late thirties who had been struggling with suicidality for a long time, and ketamine is really effective and useful helping to get someone out of suicidality, and ever since she started her ketemine treatment and then had ongoing microdosing and therapeutic support, none of that's come back. It's been really powerful and helping to manage the suicidality.
I'd say.
The other interesting anecdote is there's a woman probably in her mid fifties who has gone through several of our microdocene experiences because a lot of people do it the first time and then they want to come back, and we allow alumni or folks to come back. And she's gone through three of our experiences now. In the first one, which happened about a year ago, very depressed un SSR eyes,
you know, was really struggling. About a year later, she's off ss her eyes and it's over zoom, but I can still tell she has much more vitality, vivaciousness, ormood or energy has improved quite a bit. And so we see this again and again and again. But I think the key thing to emphasize with this is that microdocing and psychedelics generally are not a magic pill. We're so conditioned to think, oh, if I just take this, it'll
fix it. The key oftentimes for long term support with something like depression is there's actually behavioral changes that are implemented as a result of that neuroplasticity that occurs as psychedelics, so eating differently, moving more, getting better sleep, having the courage to form intimate relationships. A lot of these practices also relate to depression, and so by actually weaving in practices that support and psychedelics are a tool or a
catalyst to help that. But I'm always hesitant to over encourage people or to encourage people to overrely on psychedelics, because I think it can be kind of we get back stuck in that loop of oh, the only way I'm going to feel better is if I take this drug. And I think we want that drug with psychedelics to help. But it's really the integrative practices on a day to day basis that make the difference.
That's fantastic. I got a copy of your book late last night. I didn't get a chance to really look at it, but I want you to talk really briefly about this book is available on Amazon, and when did you release it? Was it a couple of years ago?
Yeah, twenty two, And.
It has a protocols you're discussing with us right now, but it goes into a number of different chapters on specific applications, and give us just a highlight about it. And if you could. Towards the end, you got a chapter called better Leadership through MICRODOS, which I thought was and I didn't get a chance to read it, damn it. But give us just a hint of what you're hope is for the leaders in the company CEOs.
Yeah, So the sort of the quick overview of this is, you know, in business, we live in an environment that's more than ever constantly changing, and it's also you know,
being asked of more than just bottom line. And I hinted at this before, and so in my understanding of the sort of entrepreneurial landscape, substances or tools that can be used with intention that help facilitate neuroplasticity, to help us become more adaptable, to help us have a more regulated nervous system, they're going to be more and more
in demand. And also in the age of AI, creativity innovation is a lot of what's talked about, because the capacity to be creative is really, I think our sort of human calling, and so substances that help to facilitate greater creativity will help in this landscape of what's called the Fuka landscape, so volatility, uncertainty, and there's the CNA I don't really remember, but it's it's fuka if.
You look it up.
Yeah, And so my hope is that the use of psychedelics will help people to come back into their heart, will help them to make choices and decisions from that place, while also supporting you know, cognitive function and and sort of day to day mood and energy and so that that sort of fleshed out in Mastering Microdocing and even the title of the book, Mastering Microdosing, a lot of what we talk about is how microdocing and psychedelics generally
are a skill that we can cultivate. So just like we can learn to read, write, cook, you know, martial arts, play a musical instrument, we can also learn to work with psychedelics in a way that is that is beneficial, and it requires mentorship, it requires education, and it requires community. Right those those I think are the three things. Mentorship, education, community, and that allows us to really cultivate that that skill of microdis and your that skill of psychedelics.
This has been amazing, Paul, I want to thank you for joining me. I was like, I mean, I'm listening to you going and I have never taken LSD or any of that. I've always been a little fearful of it because I always consider myself half crazy and if I take it, I'm going to go off the edge, you know. And in the when I was a kid, you know, it's like you drop acid, you think you can fly, and you always heard about these idiots trying to jump off of buildings and all that kind of
crazy crap. But this is a whole different era and a whole different way of looking at it. So give us the contact information how people can get a hold of you and your social media.
Yeah, so I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. Paul Austin three W I think is my handle there the third Wave dot co. So the third Wave dot Co. That's the main educational platform. You can find all of our free guides, the podcast, the directory. We also have a training program for practice coaches, doctors, therapists if there are any folks who are interested in deepening in this work. We do a ten month training program that includes a retreat in Costa Rica and then my my personal.
Website is Paul Austin dot Co.
I do some one to one work with folks as well, like more entrepreneurs and and folks like that who are looking to work with this. So that's Paul Austin dot Co.
So and the and the book again, is it a self guide? You actually have the protocol listed, people can follow through and do it on their own.
Yeah, and the book is a great place for that mastering microducing. On Amazon, you can order hard kindle, Paperbacker, or hardcover.
Paul amazing, dude, fantastic. Uh before I let you go, are you, guys, is third Wave unique or are you seeing competitors? I don't think. I mean, I'm here in California. We're pretty much on the top of stuff. I think you're totally unique. But maybe you know more about it than I do.
I'm glad. I'm glad that you have that impression.
That's a that's that's great for you, you know, great for me breath. So I would say we're unique and that we're probably we're the only really educational platform that's exploring this overlap of microdosing, psychedelics and leadership, performance and well being. There are there are a couple other podcasts and educational platforms, but they're much more focused on you know, the clinical
application or drug policy. There's there's also you know, a lot of biotech so drug development companies that I've started, and also training companies. So like three and a half billion dollars has been invested in the psychedelics space over the last five years. There's several publicly traded biotech companies that are bringing certain types of psychedelics through clinical trials
to get up to approval. But again I'm I'm less interested in this is a whole nother conversation, the overt medicalization. I'm more interested in supporting the my celial network. And I think third Wave is that my celial network, and I see it both as an educational platform but also a movement that if we can integrate uh, these these these these substances, these tools into our day to day, I think they'll just help everyone at least a little bit, which which we all need.
So what do you see How do you see yourself evolving in the next five or ten years? What do you see you see like offices in every major city, do you see yourself? I mean, because you can do a lot just where you are in San Diego. You can just have you know, have people in different locations.
My love is teaching and education, so I would love, you know, we have our own training program where we developing more. I'd love can we get you know, training into medical schools and graduate programs and undergrad so folks can start learning about psychedelics in professional education. I also, you know, I'd love I'm looking forward to the day when you know, I can train the creative team at Apple and how to use microdosis and it's totally illegitimate.
And above board.
So I'm really curious about this overlap of you know, business and and microducne and and you know, can can we support people and in doing that? And then and then I have a second book coming out as well next year, and so a lot of my time and energy has really spent on writing, reading, kind of thought leadership, cool, tough podcasting.
But those are those are a few of my hopes. There you got you.
Got really good energy, Paul. I think you're going to be like a keep keep doing it. You're going to be a steak jobs on your own. Thanks. I appreciate he Thanks for journeing me. Man I appreciate it.
This is fun.
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slash tours. This is not to be missed. I'm looking forward to reading Paul's book. I have a lot of questions about LSD. I did mushrooms when I was in college, and for the most part I enjoy them, but asually would get a really strong But I think I've done a handful of time, maybe three times. The first time was crushed up. My cousin gave me a couple of gel caps that were crushed mushroom and it kind of reminded me of a really strong cannabis, except there was
more visuals. And then the second time, it was actual mushrooms that I somebody baked for me. And I think at that time, I we're talking decades ago. I think at that time baking mushrooms was not advised. But they baked them in a cake or was it a brownie? Might have been a brownie. And I was at a party and I had those and a couple of glasses of wine and I was toast. And then the third time, I was just bored and someone gave me some mushrooms.
But they weren't they had been dried too much or something. They were they were they weren't very very powerful. So the experience that Paul is describing maybe something to consider if you can take low enough dose. I mean, he's taken LSD micro dosing LSD for work. It's funny as hell, But I guess if it's a microdose, I guess you don't have to worry about getting incapacitated, because that would be my fear or being you know, so involved in
the actual experience that you can't function. So this microdosing is is great, and I'm glad we had him on the program because I just didn't understand it, you know, And he didn't talk once about ayahuasca. I don't think you. I don't think ayahuasca falls into the psych second. It's a psychedelic, but it doesn't fall into microdosing narrative, which is it's an entirely different animal because I think the properties of that of that plant medicine are much different.
But that was fun and I got to get that book Mastering microdose scenes and I'll let you know what I think. Wow, amazing. Hey, if you're enjoying Destiny Earth Ancients and Earth Ancients Special Edition in the Archives, please consider becoming a subscriber. For as little as five dollars a month, you can support the work we do here on these podcasts and it's really really helpful. It really helps us pay the bills, keeps the lights on, keeps
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Ancients and subscribe. Really appreciate it. All right, that's it for this program. I want to tek my guest today, Paul Austen, coming to us from San Diego, California. As always, the team of Gail Tour, Mark Foster, and everyone who makes this thing happen. You guys rock, all right, take care of me well, and we'll talk to you next time.