Dear friends and neighbors,

It is particularly fun interviewing journalists because they love to report and are usually quite articulate. I enjoy a stimulating back and forth and abhor having to dig for responses from my guests (fortunately, this rarely happens). Being an interview guest requires confidence and the ability to think fast and connect that thinking with one's tongue. Some get this ability as a gift while others practice and get the job done. My guest, Don Lattin, seemed to be a natural born speaker.

In talking with me, Don Lattin reported on groundbreaking psychedelic research, but also spoke openly about his own experiences with psychedelics for the treatment of his long-term depression – formerly exacerbated by alcoholism and cocaine addiction – which he conquered over 15 years ago. We touch on fear of death, personal experiences, the hype around psychedelics, and Don's concerns about their growing popularity. Interested in Ketamine therapy, end of life treatments, or psychedelic medicines? This interview is a must listen!

Please watch, read, or listen to the interview, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Mind Body Health & Politics

Is There Too Much Hype Around Psychedelics? –Don Lattin

Listen now (66 min) | The book Changing Our Minds is an experiential tour through a social, spiritual, and scientific revolution that is redefining our culture’s often-confusing relationship with psychoactive substances. Its author (and my guest), Don Lattin, is well-researched and well spoken on the subject of psychedelic medicine. Speaking both from professional and person…

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a month ago · Richard L. Miller

I am currently embarking on a new series featuring healing stories from those who have benefitted from psychedelics at the end of life, or in the face of a terminal diagnosis. I hope to interview those with direct personal experience, as well as relatives, friends, and clinicians with stories to share. Please email my producer if you would like to be interviewed on my program, and featured in a future book on this topic.

Wishing you Golden Light,

Dr. Richard Louis Miller

This podcast will always remain available at no cost. However, I’d like to offer my most loyal listeners additional options for enjoying my interviews – both as videos and transcripts.

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Further Reading:

Psychedelic Wisdom (Dr. Richard L. Miller) ORDER NOW
Psychedelic Medicine (Dr. Richard L. Miller)
A Really Good Day (Ayelet Waldman)
God on psychedelics
Changing Our Minds (Don Lattin)
Distilled Spirits (Don Lattin)

Transcript

Dr. Richard Louis Miller: Welcome to Mind Body Health & Politics. I'm your host, Dr. Richard Louis Miller.

The mission of Mind Body Health & Politics is to enhance your physical and psychological wellbeing and promote community. I say promote community because I believe that human beings are basically friendly tribal animals. We like to hang out together, and when we know one another by name or at least by face, we tend to be cooperative and collaborative.

However, we must also be aware that a very small percentage of us are in a whole different category of being. They are greedy predators and they would have us be subjects rather than citizens.

Remember, it's only a couple of hundred years ago that we broke that chain that was going on for almost 2,000 years where kings led every country in the world, and we became citizens.

We call ourselves a republic, which means no person is above the law. We are an experiment in a democratic republic. If we want to hold on to this experiment, we need to be involved, and we need to be mindful. In the words of one of my heroes, Thomas Jefferson, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Today, it is my privilege to have with us a noted veteran San Francisco-based journalist, Don Lattin, who is the author of many books, including The Harvard Psychedelic Club, published by HarperCollins in 2010, and more recently, Changing Our Minds: Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy. Welcome to Mind Body Health & Politics, Don.

Don Lattin: Thank you, Richard. It's great to be with you here today.

How Aldous Huxley experimented with LSD at the end of his life

Dr. Richard Louis Miller: Don, I'd like to start out by talking about Aldous Huxley. I want you to tell us some about Huxley's experiments, but I want you to particularly emphasize what you can share with us about his taking LSD at the very end of his life.

Don Lattin: Well, I wrote a book called Distilled Spirits and one of the main characters in that was Aldous Huxley. Another character was an Irish-Anglo mystic philosopher named Gerald Heard, who unfortunately most people haven't heard of, but he was very influential in laying the groundwork for what became the spiritual counterculture of the 1960s, along with Huxley. The third person in that trio was Bill Wilson, the cofounder of AA who was also involved in psychedelic research.

Mind Body Health & Politics

A Tell All From Changing Our Minds

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