PT 634 - Brad Adams - LAMPS
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2025
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brad Adams — LAMPS (Los Angeles Psychedelic Society) joins Kyle to trace his path from PhD researcher to community builder. Brad shares how early work in AIDS, Alzheimer's, gerontology, and cancer research primed him to notice Harbor-UCLA's psilocybin pilot for stage-4 cancer patients with death anxiety—where the strongest mystical experiences correlated with profound death acceptance. Teaming with Dennis McKenna, he ran an ayahuasca pilot in Peru and presented findings at Psychedelic Science 2017.
From there, Brad founded LAMPS: first as research meetups at UCLA, then as a thriving hub hosting speakers and, ultimately, an L.A. psychedelic conference. He previews the November 1 event at Above the Block in West L.A.: daytime panels on cannabis, preparation/integration, and music & psychedelics; a vendor hall; and a "Healing Lounge" with bodywork, astrology, human design, and more—closing with a late-night dance party featuring David Starfire.
Brad offers grounded advice for starting local communities (begin small, meet regularly, curate safe dialogue, and moderate firmly), and reflects on platform friction around psychedelics. The conversation widens to DMTx (extended-state DMT), entity encounters, and what humble, relational curiosity can reveal—then to Wetiko, IFS, and the hero's journey as frames for keeping hope alive in turbulent times. A candid and practical tour of research, resilience, and real-world community building.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to psychedelics today, everybody. Joe here. I hope you're doing great. Today on the show, we have Brad Adams with Kyle. |
| 0:06.8 | Brad's a counseling psychologist and researcher turned community builder. He founded LAMPS, the Los Angeles Psychedelic Society. |
| 0:15.4 | After work in AIDS, Alzheimer's, and Cancer Research, co-led an ayahuasca pilot with Dennis McKenna and now |
| 0:21.5 | curates all sorts of psychedelic events all over L.A. coming up November 1st, Lamps will be |
| 0:29.8 | putting together an event called the Psychedelic Insights Playground at Above the Block in West |
| 0:36.8 | L.A. They'll have panels on cannabis |
| 0:39.4 | integration and music there'll be a healing lounge and vendors and um late night dancing with |
| 0:47.3 | david starfire and i assume other uh DJs so check that out if you're in LA and coming coming up here, we've checked out our digital security class at the Psychedelic Education |
| 0:59.5 | Center. |
| 1:00.3 | We've also got a Foundations of Breathwork program coming up. |
| 1:03.7 | And we've also got the Navigators program. |
| 1:06.9 | If you want to become a monthly or annual donor to Psychedelics Today and join our community, |
| 1:12.5 | it doesn't take very much to get in on a monthly basis, and we really appreciate it. |
| 1:17.1 | Learn more at psychedelics today.com slash navigators. |
| 1:19.8 | If you want to work with us, if you want to spend some time with Kyle and I, |
| 1:25.2 | one-on-one basis, we're offering that now too. |
| 1:28.8 | So for right now you can find it at psychedelics today.com slash welcome. It'll be the second link there. But I think that's it for |
| 1:34.8 | today and we will see you on the other side. All right. Hello. Welcome everybody. Welcome back to |
| 1:41.4 | Psychedelics today. Really excited to have Brad Adams here of Lamps, the Los Angeles Medicinal Plant Society. |
| 1:47.1 | Brad, welcome. I don't think you've been on the show yet. |
| 1:49.1 | So excited to have you here. |
| 1:50.8 | First time. It's an honor. |
... |
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