#177 — Psychedelic Science

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2019

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Roland Griffiths about the current state of research on psychedelics. They discuss the historical prohibition against their use; the clinical and scientific promise of psilocybin, mescaline, LSD, DMT, MDMA, and other compounds; the risks associated with these drugs; the role of “set and setting”; the differences between psychedelics and drugs of abuse; MDMA and neurotoxicity; experiences of unity, sacredness, love, and truth; the long-term consequences of psychedelic experiences; synthetic vs natural drugs; the prospects of devising new psychedelics; microdosing; research on psilocybin and long-term meditators; the experience of encountering other apparent beings; psilocybin treatment of addiction; and other topics. In his Afterword, Sam discusses his experience on a large dose of psilocybin—his first psychedelic experience in 25 years.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if
0:22.0	you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing
0:26.4	partial episodes of the podcast. If you'd like access to full episodes, you'll need to subscribe
0:31.7	at samherris.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher,
0:37.3	along with other subscriber-only content. And as always, I never want money to be the reason why
0:42.4	someone can't listen to the podcast. So if you can't afford a subscription, there's an option at
0:47.0	samherris.org to request a free account. And we grant 100% of those requests. No questions asked.
0:52.8	Okay, significant housekeeping today and a significant afterward. And new music, as you may have
1:03.0	noticed, courtesy of Sophie Tucker. Thank you to the band. Okay, so I have an announcement to make
1:09.8	about a change to the podcast going forward. As most of you know, the show has relied on audience
1:15.9	support for several years. Ever since I realized I was allergic to running ads. But it's finally
1:21.0	become clear to me that the support model is broken. Probably in principle, the ad model is also
1:26.7	broken, but for very different reasons. First, let me say that those of you who've been supporting
1:30.8	the podcast are total heroes. You are the reason why I've been able to grow it into the platform.
1:35.9	It's become so I want to thank you for that. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have you.
1:42.1	And I doubt there's a podcaster out there for whom the support model has worked better.
1:46.9	But it still isn't working the way that I'd hoped. The percentage of people who support the show
1:51.9	has never climbed beyond the single digits. And I now have several years of data on this. There
1:57.2	seems to be some law of behavioral economics at work here. So those of you who have supported the show
2:03.2	are true outliers. And that's awesome. But the psychological reality is that we've all grown
2:09.1	used to an internet that is almost entirely subsidized by ads. And the negative effects of the ad
2:15.3	model are now legion. It has undermined our politics. It has nearly destroyed journalism.
	...

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