[Music]
The medicine was offered to me in
what looked like a goblet,
which took me by surprise,
you know, in a clinical study.
I began to make sounds that
weren't words, that seemed to mean
something, and I remember
thinking in the moment, is that
what's talked about in Scripture,
speaking in tongues?
You get to pop a pill and then meet God. Our saints didn't
just pop a pill.
There's a lot of disagreement over
psychedelics and how these
substances should be used.
Are they party drugs,
medicines, religious sacraments,
or maybe even a dress rehearsal
for death?
Very visual, very emotional
memories come back.
You know, DMT has those kinds
of effects as well.
These are sharp, clear,
crisp, absolute, reliving
the events more powerfully
than when we lived through them in
the earthly realm.
I'm Arielle Duhaime-Ross, and on
this season of Altered States, we're
exploring two distinct worlds
within psychedelics.
On one side, there's the realm of
spiritualists, mystical experiences,
and psychedelic churches.
And on the other side are
scientists, clinical trials, animal
studies, and psychopharmacologists.
These two factions are
often far apart, and even
at odds.
The mixing of science and religion
is just kind of explosive and
makes people very uncomfortable.
Scientists think religion is kind of
woo-woo and not serious.
And religious people think
psychedelics are a synthetic version
of what is really
profound and sacred and shouldn't be
messed with.
Team science is formidable.
There are hundreds of clinical
studies underway testing new
treatments for physical and mental
illnesses.
If you have a severe and enduring
mental illness, your mind kind of
gets stuck in ruts.
You can imagine like a sled going
through the snow over and over and
in the same circle.
Psilocybin is like if you had that
in a snow globe and you shake the
snow globe.
And then there's team religion.
The first gulp in the glass of
natural sciences will lead you
towards atheism, but at the bottom
of the glass, God is waiting for
you.
We take this medicine, travel
to the spiritual world, and we
see what is hurting this person, and
we're able to help heal the body.
In the U.S., religion has an
imposing player on its roster,
the First Amendment.
Psychedelic churches around the
country are claiming constitutional
protections.
Some people could say, oh, so you
started a church to get around drug
laws.
I mean, maybe.
Maybe that's a way that you want to
say it, but I think that's very
incomplete answer.
Think of this as the science
versus religion season,
two potential paths towards
expanded, legally protected
access to psychedelics.
That this can come as a result of
a chemical produced by a mushroom.
I mean, how extraordinary is that?
From the UC Berkeley Center for the
Science of Psychedelics and PRX,
this is season two of Altered
States, launching September
24th.