Soonish 5.16 Toward a Psychedelic Future

5.16 | 08.30.25

My guest this week, Adele Getty, is the author of A Sense of the Sacred and an educator in the field of assisted psychedelic therapy. Together with her husband Michael Williams, she started a non-profit here in my adopted hometown of Santa Fe called the Limina Foundation. Its mission is to support treatment for addiction and PTSD through both synthetic and plant-based psychedelic medicines.

On September 7, the foundation is putting on an event here in Santa Fe called The Enchanted State. That’s a play on New Mexico’s official nickname, which is “The Land of Enchantment.” But it’s also a nod to New Mexico’s growing role in the national conversation about whether and how substances like MDMA, mushrooms, and ibogaine should be legalized and regulated.

For thousands of years, people have been ingesting compounds found in plants and fungi to facilitate religious ceremonies or help them access a kind of higher wisdom. In more modern times these substances have been used by people who want to explore their own inner psyches, or people who need help getting past addiction or deeply rooted psychological trauma. The U.S. government criminalized the use and study of most psychedelics back in the 1960s. But in the last decade there’s been a major resurgence in interest in how they work and what they can teach us about consciousness or help us heal. Michael Pollan’s books How to Change Your Mind and This Is Your Mind on Plants have both been huge bestsellers. And lawmakers in Oregon, Colorado, and now New Mexico have decriminalized certain psychedelics and begun to create frameworks for therapeutic use.

Here in New Mexico, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill earlier this year called SB 219, the Medical Psilocybin Act, that sets up a regulated system for people with PTSD and substance abuse disorders to use mushrooms under the guidance of a licensed healthcare provider. That was a big step, and it means New Mexico has the opportunity to help lead the country toward a future where psychedelics and their benefits are better understood and more widely available. That’s why The Enchanted State event feels so timely, and it’s why I wanted to interview Adele.

Resources and Further Reading

The Enchanted State (event information)

Devon Jackson, “Magic Mushroom Medicine,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, Sept. 5, 2025

Adele Getty, A Sense of the Sacred: Finding Our Spiritual Lives Through Ceremony, Adele Getty (Taylor Publishing, 1997)

Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature (Thames & Hudson, 1990)

Ellen Petry Leanse, The Happiness Hack: Take Charge of Your Brain and Create More Happiness In Your Life (Simple Truths, 2019)

Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind: What the Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (Penguin Books, 2019)

Michael Pollan, This Is Your Mind on Plants (Penguin Books, 2019)

Tom Shroder, Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal (Blue Rider Press, 2014)

Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experience (Park Street Press, 2001)

Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

Notes

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Full Transcript

[Music: Hub & Spoke Sonic ID]

[Music: Soonish opening theme]

Wade Roush: You’re listening to Soonish. I’m Wade Roush.

Wade Roush: When I started the podcast, I was living in Boston, but in the fall of 2023, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. And one of the things that's been really amazing about this place is how many people here are exploring the connection between the mind and the body, not just in a scientific way, but also in a personal, experiential way. For a long time now, I've wanted to steer the podcast toward a focus on the nature of consciousness. What keeps getting in the way of that plan is politics. Most of my recent episodes have been about the way American democracy is breaking down under the strain of MAGA authoritarianism and the new form of economic tyranny that one recent guest called techno feudalism. If I didn't feel so distracted by the insanity of the times we're living through, I'd be doing more episodes like this one.

Wade Roush: What I'm going to bring you today is an in-depth interview with Adele Getty. She's an educator and author in the field of assisted psychedelic therapy, and together with her husband, Michael Williams, she started a nonprofit here in Santa Fe called the Lumina Foundation. Lumina's mission is supporting treatment for addiction and PTSD through both synthetic and plant based psychedelic medicines. And on September 7th, the Foundation is putting on an event here in Santa Fe called The Enchanted State. That's a play on New Mexico's official nickname, which is the Land of Enchantment. But it's also a nod to New Mexico's growing role in the national conversation about whether and how substances like MDMA, mushrooms and ibogaine should be legalized and regulated. For thousands of years, people have been ingesting compounds found in plants and fungi to facilitate religious ceremonies or help them access a kind of higher wisdom. 

Wade Roush: In more modern times, these substances have been used by people who want to explore their own inner psyches or by people who need help getting past addiction or deeply rooted psychological trauma. The US government criminalized the use and study of psychedelics back in the 1960s, but in the last decade, there's been a big resurgence in interest in how they work and what they can teach us about consciousness or help us heal. Michael Pollan's books How to Change Your Mind and This Is Your Mind on Plants, have both been huge bestsellers and lawmakers in Oregon, Colorado and now New Mexico have decriminalized certain psychedelics and begun to create frameworks for their therapeutic use. Here in New Mexico, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill earlier this year called SB 209, the Medical Psilocybin Act, that set up a regulated system for people with PTSD and substance abuse disorders to use mushrooms under the guidance of a licensed health care provider. 

Wade Roush: That was a big step, and it means New Mexico has the opportunity to help lead the country toward a future where psychedelics and their benefits are better understood and more widely available. That's why the Enchanted State event feels so timely. And it's why I wanted to interview Adele. Getty. We started off by talking about her childhood. I don't know if you've ever heard a radio show and podcast called On Being with Krista Tippett. It's a show about religion and spirituality, and Krista always starts the same way. And I've always wanted to try this myself, so I'm going to. She always asks her guests to start by talking about whether there was a religious or spiritual aspect to their upbringing.

Adele Getty: Well, um, I had, uh, one parent who was Catholic. My mother. I wouldn't say that she was overly devout, but it was her lineage and a father who was more agnostic. I probably got my love of ceremony and ritual as a result of those early, early part of my life in the in the Catholic Church. I quite enjoyed, especially when it was in Latin. I really enjoyed the singing, the incense, the pomp and circumstance of it, of it all. And, uh, and by the time I was 13, for some reason I was going into the hospital. Oh, I think it was for an appendectomy, an emergency appendectomy. And I was left alone with the office person who was. I don't know if my mother got up to use the ladies room, but, uh, when they asked me what my religion was, I told them that I was agnostic. And, uh, my mother later came to me and said, oh, I understand you're agnostic now. And I was like, yes, I think I am. You know, it was a it was a new word. And, uh, it seemed to suit me at that point. I think I've changed my mind about a number of things now.

Wade Roush: I guess I'm asking because I feel like we're going to come back to some of these questions about mind, consciousness and spirit. And, um, and I just it's just fun to know where people are coming from and what kind of upbringing background they had. Um, so, so for decades you've been active in education about psychedelics and psychedelic assisted healing. And I wanted to ask you if you could talk about how you first became aware, just even aware of psychedelics and plant based medicines and how the whole topic came into your life, and then how you gradually, um, moved into devoting more and more of your life's work to exploring psychedelics and helping other people explore them.

Adele Getty: Well, it's funny, when I was seven years old, in 1957, uh, life magazine came out with a very large article on, uh, magic mushrooms. Maria Sabina, uh, the Mazatec culture. Uh, Gordon Wasson, who was a seeking out mushrooms and found his way to Mexico. It was a long article, and I actually a friend actually gifted me the original version of that magazine. So I have it here, and I was looking at it not too long ago and thinking, now I was seven years old. I was a reader. I was a voracious reader, and it's a very long article, many, many pages with photographs. And I was thinking what attracted me because I never forgot about this article. And I think it was things like magic, magic mushrooms, healing, uh, ceremony. There's pictures of smoke and fire and an Indian woman and, uh, a young boy being healed. And that article, um, I, A I was fascinated by it at that age. I think for those reasons, you know, the word curandero and healing. And I didn't have any idea what curandero meant. And, um, but the photographs in it were very interesting to me. It was not cowboys and Indians. It was something else and something spiritual, uh, as well, at the same time. So that was probably my earliest introduction to the idea of visions. Oh, that was another word vision. Visionary producing magic mushrooms. Um, and so as a child, that all sounded magical. Yeah. And special and.

 Wade Roush: Exotic.

 Adele Getty: Exotic, you know, different than organized religion. You know, uh, I would say, and then, you know, moving forward. I graduated high school in 1967. Um, that was you know, it was a pretty tumultuous time period, the 60s and living through, you know, the assassination of the president, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and then, you know, 1967, this talk of the summer of love and, uh, these Harvard professors, you know, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner and Timothy Leary, and they were being fired, you know, from from Harvard. And they were giving students drugs and and, um, I had never considered drugs. And even though it was 1967, my small town in Pennsylvania, there was no marijuana. There was there was nothing, you know, at that point, um, a year or so later, the world had changed. Uh, and at that same time was the, um, civil rights movement, the, um, and the Vietnam War. Uh, especially I was very intrigued by what was happening in the, in the larger, you know, world around me. And very curious about these professors from Harvard and these students. And it didn't make sense. You know, it didn't add up that, um, they're intelligent, they're smart, they're obviously, you know, really brilliant people. Why would they be doing this? Why would they be talking about this? You know, LSD or magic mushrooms, you know, or even marijuana.

Adele Getty: So that, you know, that year I went off to college and again I was finding my way, you know, in the outside world. Found myself at one point. I ended up joining a sorority. But at the same time, um, I was not finding the Greek ideal that I knew about was very attractive, but the reality of it was something else. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around drinking and kind of trashing places and excessive partying and all of that. There was just something not very appealing to me around that. And at the same time, there were these hippies. I found myself having much more interesting conversations with the hippies than I was with the the Greeks. And eventually they introduced I watched them smoke pot. I watched, I observed for actually quite a number of months, and eventually I smoked marijuana. And, um, I was very annoyed by the hippies because of one thing. They always said the word wow and far out, and I had never said wow or far out, I think, in my life. Um, and when I smoked the marijuana, I think the first thing out of my mouth was wow. And wow. Far, far out. This is why. This is why everybody says this. You know.

Wade Roush: For context, what little town in Pennsylvania did you grow up in and what college were you at? 

Adele Getty: Oh, I was I grew up in outside of Pittsburgh, um, in the countryside. Um, and I think I was probably, you know, people when I went off to college, I wanted to go to California because I had an uncle there. There was no way my parents were going to send me to California in 1967. My main criteria for an education at that point was that I wanted to be warm. I was tired of being in the cold and in the snow and walking to class and doing all that. So I went to Florida. I went to the University of Florida.

Wade Roush: Okay. So you you partook and you understood the wow, I guess. How did hippie culture become for you an entree into the larger world of psychedelics? Because that certainly wasn't the the path everyone followed, right?

Adele Getty: Right. I think I was lucky because this particular group, they they really, um, curated my experience even with the smoking of marijuana. Um, it was done like they knew that they were turning me on. Eventually they gave me food to taste. They took me for a ride in the car to look at fireflies. You know, in the alongside the road. That kind of set the stage for me. You know, in terms of set and setting, without even being aware of what those words meant at that point. Um, and by the time I had my first LSD experience, which was that that summer, um, and that was up at Penn State and, uh, again, I was very lucky to have an older, slightly older couple, uh, who, uh, did a really beautiful initiation for me with that particular, you know, very strong medicine of, you know, orange sunshine, very strong. Those early those early chemists. And um, again, it was curated. I was given art supplies. I was in a house, uh, I eventually was taken outside into nature with trees. And I think it rained a little bit that afternoon, you know, it was just all very, very beautiful and, um, extremely life, life changing. 

Wade Roush: In what way, can you please say more about that? Because clearly it did change your life. And I want to know how.

Adele Getty: Yeah, well, I felt like it was not, uh, it was not excruciating. It wasn't painful. But what I was shown about my life and what I was shown about, um, my family, and it showed me all my neurotic tendencies, basically. But I didn't experience it as being painful in the way that some people might if they go through an ego, you know, dismemberment. Um, I found it wonderful, you know, to be like psychic house cleaning was what it felt like. You know, it felt like the fairy godmother arrived with the broom and was just like, cleaning my psyche, you know, out of different things. And, um, plus, it was extremely beautiful. You know, there was the personal element to the, to that journey, but there was also this very cosmic, um, much, much larger picture of probably what would be called a classic, you know, mystical experience of, like, overwhelming love, appreciation of beauty, nature. Um, we're all one. It's a very unified field of, you know, existence that we're existing in so that, you know, it had this dual reality to it of both the, the personal like letting go of of things and, and and then this bigger transpersonal experience that probably was the real hook in in terms of my, um, you know, future engagement with psychedelic, you know, substances.

Wade Roush: So a lot of people after having, um, a semi-casual or maybe even a pretty intense, um, drug experience when they're in college, we'll just go back to normal life, kind of just resume their lives and take up a career or raise a family. How did you come back to the to the field of psychedelics and psychedelic medicine and decide that this was something that mattered enough to you, that you were going to write about it?

Adele Getty: Yeah. I don't know that it was so conscious, you know, in in it, but on that journey. Um, on that first journey, I said after it was over the next day, I told my friends who had initiated me. Um, I said, you know, I, I don't know who I'm going to be when I grow up. Uh, what exactly? I'm I'm going to be. Or do I think I need to take this substance once a year for the rest of my life to see if I still like myself. And if there's ever a year when I don't like myself, I'll need to change course or change my job, or change whatever it is that I'm doing. So that did actually become something that I've, I've done over the last, you know, 50 some how many years, many years.

Wade Roush: Um, I gotta I gotta stop and ask you whatever the substance is that you're using. What is it about that particular substance? Could be marijuana, could be LSD, could be psilocybin, could be MDMA, whatever it is. Like, how does it help you decide whether you still like yourself?

Adele Getty: Well, I think if if you're seeing behaviors, if you become aware of behaviors that you're maybe not aware of in your ordinary life, um, the way you're interacting with people or your community or your loved ones that, um, or in your business that isn't integrous and, um, with some level of consciousness to it, then something's wrong. Um, and I think that's the kind of thing that I was looking at. You know, if I see flaws in who I'm being or if I'm not being authentic, if I'm, you know, cheating, if I'm lying, if I'm, you know. All the all the basics, you know, the the the basics of right and wrong that if anything like that would show up in my life that I was leading. I would want to make a big course correction around it.

Wade Roush: And do you feel like it's just harder to evade or deny that those things are happening in your life when you have the assistance of a plant based medicine?

Adele Getty: Um, I, I don't, I don't know. Um, but, uh, I, I certainly see, you know, especially in, uh, high functioning, healthy, normal populations who take these medicines. They, they take them because they don't have a diagnosable kind of illness. Um, they're not going to fit into a clinical or research study because they don't have a diagnosable illness like Michael Pollan. And when they do take these medicines, they do see things like that. And it's very it's it's very ordinary things. You know, maybe it's the way they relate to their children. They could be doing it better. They could have better communication with that particular child or or with their partner or their husband or their wife. So these realizations, you know, they aren't awesome, huge, huge things, especially, I think, in the healthy normals. Um, but they, they then allow you to be more awake in your ordinary life. 

Wade Roush: What do you think is going on during and after a journey to help people confront, Um, their their neuroses or their troubles or the things that they've been denying in their lives or sort of, I guess it's both a, um, sort of a neurochemical question and a psychological sort of spiritual question. There's all sorts of things going on. People have all sorts of different experiences, obviously, when they're on a psychedelic substance. So there's no one answer to all of this, but I'm curious about how you think about it.

Adele Getty: Let me see if I can tease that apart. Uh, a bit. Uh, well, one of the things I've noticed, uh, and I've, you know, observed is, um, um, I like to use the metaphor of a house, depending on, I think, the amount of, like, personal work somebody has already done, uh, prior to bringing themselves to, uh, maybe a first time psychedelic experience, if you think of it as a house in the basement is where all the scary stuff is. That's where all the cobwebs are. That's where the there's darkness and doors and the skeletons in the closet and in the family closet and in their closet. And that place in context of a psychedelic journey is very emotional. It's very psychological. Um, it can be physically really uncomfortable. Um, people can feel nauseous. Um, they can, um, really get kind of wrung out the medicine, whether it's psilocybin or LSD. At this stage, most people are, you know, I would say because of the psilocybin research and MDMA research. There would be the two primary medicines that especially novices, you know, coming into the psychedelic space, that level. When that takes over a journey, it can be quite, you know, excruciating. It can be quite, um, it's very insightful ultimately, you know, afterwards. And, um, it's like that place of the psychic house cleaning, you know, the the psychic cleaners, they're kind of sweeping away the cobwebs and clarifying. Clarifying, you know, the the, the person. Um, it's not always comfortable, you know, that. Um, but there's also the main floor of the house, and the main floor of the house is, um, a different experience.

Adele Getty: And, um, especially for people who have maybe been in therapy, who've done work on themselves, have, um, meditated, have done some kind of mindfulness practice where they've already been encountering aspects of themselves and aspects of their awareness and consciousness. That level is more, um, it's it's more insightful. Um, it there's no fear involved in that space in that down in the basement, there's still a lot there's a lot of fear of what you might see. Am I going to die? Am I going to go crazy? Am I ever going to come back? You know, I'm paranoid. I'm afraid, you know. And but on the main floor of the house, it's just like aspects of your day to day, um, way you're walking through your life might be shown to you. And it's just like, oh yeah, this is I get it. This is, uh, insight. This is insightful. I'm not going to forget it. I will remember this. These are the kinds of things that I can do better. I can relate to my partners better. I can relate to my children better. I can run my company better. I can make things better for the people that I'm employed or the groups that I'm involved in. It's very, you know, kind of ordinary in that way. Um, and it's more like, well, here's just the facts, ma'am. You know, here's, here's, here's what you can do. You know, here's here's what we see.

Wade Roush: Is there ever another floor to the house?

Adele Getty: Yes, of course. There's a penthouse. Yeah.

Wade Roush: Tell us about the penthouse.

Adele Getty: Well, the the penthouse. The penthouse House leaves behind the personal. And now you go into the transpersonal and transcendent transpersonal state of awareness where you experience that peak experiences. Maslow, you know, talked about or the mystical experience that they, you know, talk about in different research at Johns Hopkins or at NYU. And those those experiences are, you know, really understanding the nature of love, where it doesn't sound banal, um, which it sounds banal when just hearing it come out of my mouth. But when somebody actually experiences the universe as, as that and they get it in every cell of their body, it's a very profound experience of feeling one and unity and connection with all that is. And of course, that's probably the thing that everybody would love to have, you know, coming into a psychedelic experience. And at this point, enough people have read about it and heard about it. And so everybody wants it. But, um, it's like a Forrest Gump, you know, movie. The psychedelics are a box of chocolates, and you never know what you're, you're going to get. And, and.

Wade Roush: I was going to say I like the house metaphor. And it strikes me that psychedelics can be like an elevator. And you just don't you don't choose which floor it's going to deliver you to.

Adele Getty: No, no, you can't you can't choose. And and quite often there's, um, you you might spend a little bit of time on every floor. Um, and, you know, if, if there's something hard that you're in denial about, um, whether it's forgiving somebody or grief or loss or whatever it might be, you know, that might be emotional and difficult, but maybe you pass through it really quickly. Um, and you end up, you know, then in that transpersonal state as a result of feeling like, oh, I just let go of that, you know, I can I can let that go. And, um, and I think that that transpersonal or transcendent state, it's not as spiritual bypass. Um, um, in, in, in that, uh, you're avoiding that, you know, that other material, more psychological, personal material, but that personal psychological material can actually be healed by the immersion of yourself in that bigger, bigger state. Estate. I think that's what happens with PTSD. And, uh, you know, some of the other diagnosable kinds of conditions that people have. They can work through them, and they can also just merge into that larger, larger place that somehow seems to heal and soothe those kinds of wounds.

Wade Roush: I guess the reason I asked you before, sort of what your spiritual upbringing was like was that and you said you were agnostic, and I don't know if that's still the case, but I'm curious about what you think is happening when people have transpersonal experiences. I've talked to folks who have been on different substances, um, like ayahuasca or LSD or psilocybin, who who will pretty much be convinced that they, they've met spirits or beings who were external to them, who came to them from outside that they can't really explain me kind of. Being an inveterate Western materialist, I'm gonna demur and say I doubt it came from somewhere else. I'm curious to hear what you think is going on, and how these substances may help us have a spiritual experience, whether or not we believe in the spiritual or the capital S. Do you see where I'm going with all this?

Adele Getty: Yeah, I do. I don't consider myself to be agnostic. Um, I also don't consider myself to be religious, uh, in the in that sense of the word. But, uh, like many people, I think at this point, um, I do have a sense of there's a sense of spirit, um, that seems to flow through all, all things. And I think, you know, in this, in the classic mystical experience, It's not so, um, identified with entities or deities or, um, you know, those kinds of things that you were talking about that seem to be outside of yourself. Um, but the, you know, the, the, the qualities of the mystical experience are, you know, there is there's an ineffable aspect to it that's very hard to put into words. Um, unity is, you know, part of it. Love is part of it. Connecting connected is part of it. And it's less about the kind of, uh, phenomena that can also appear, you know, with the psychedelics. And, um, I don't have much explanation for that. Uh, everybody is curious about it, especially with, like, the five Meo, um, or the DMT, where many, many, many, many, many people have been surveyed through Johns Hopkins around these kind of entities that that they encounter. And is it something in the brain? Is it biological, chemical? Is it exterior? Is it another dimension bleeding through? I don't know, there's lots of explanations, but, um, one of my favorite stories is, um, Michael Harner, uh, who is an anthropologist and very, very involved with shamanism. 

Adele Getty: And, um, he was one of the early anthropologists to take ayahuasca in South America, in the Amazon and, um, paraphrase his, his little experience. But, uh, in the ayahuasca ceremony, uh, these four eagles came to him And they they explained to him that we are the lords of the universe, and we'd like to invite you to get on one of our backs, and we will. We're going to show you the wonders of the universe. And so he spent a large part of his trip flying all around. And, you know, with these four eagles and the lords of the universe and, um, and he had a, you know, his fantastic. Right? You know, of course, the next day when he was decompressing, uh, you know, with the, the shamans there and the, the natives that he sat with and he was telling, you know, this. And what happened? They started to laugh and he said, what? Why are you laughing? And they said, those guys tell everybody that.

Wade Roush: I'd still like to meet one of those eagles.

Adele Getty: Yeah. Of course you know. But so I mean, so, the Eagles are known to to the, to the natives and um and and yeah they tell everybody that that they're the lords of the universe. So I've always taken that as such a great teaching that, um, even when you're on a psychedelic, um, and after a psychedelic to maintain some kind of discernment, still, uh, have a, your own sovereignty with what you're doing and, and what's really important, um, so that, you know, the, the psychedelics can dismember an ego or take an ego down, uh, which can be quite a relief. You know, they can also make turn an ego into even more grandiose, you know, aspect of the self, depending on, you know, how much self-importance you, you put on, uh, you know, what exactly you're experiencing.

Wade Roush: So the Harner story reminds me, I wanted to ask you about the interplay between modern Western consumerist attitudes toward psychedelics and and their uses and the kind of, you know, ancient indigenous wisdom that a lot of these medicines came from. So Harner was hanging out with indigenous folks in Central America.

Adele Getty: Down in the Amazon.

Wade Roush: And, um, native, uh, tribes and indigenous groups in the southwest have long traditions of using peyote. And psilocybin comes from mushrooms that were known and cultivated for centuries or millennia by by other indigenous folks in Central America. All of these, I guess my point is, these folks have got a lot of experience with these medicines and their shamans and medicine people do anyway. And and so they know the eagles are jokers. They know about how to use discernment, I guess. And yet it feels like in Western, in the Western world, it's only been maybe 50, 60, 70 years that we've been having a serious conversation about these, these substances and, and their power and how to use them. And, and often it seems like we're reinventing the wheel when, when maybe we don't need to. And I'm wondering, I guess I'm working toward a question about whether you think there's enough interplay and enough education, enough learning going on or, or do we need to really pay a lot more attention to where these medicines came from and who's been using them for all this time? And how do you work that into your own, into your own activism?

Adele Getty: Well, I don't want to ignore the role of LSD because it doesn't come out of an indigenous tradition, unless we want to loop way, way back to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Um, and the most recent, um, I was just with, uh, people at the maps, uh, Denver, uh, big conference, uh, a week ago. And there were some, uh, young, uh, Greek archaeologists, um, and they are they finally have, um, their the technology is there now to analyze what was in the, um, the cups, uh, that were that people were drinking like, at the Eleusinian Mysteries that went on for like, at least a thousand years. It was a very secret event, um, in that, uh, every secret in that nobody ever told what what happened. But it went on for a thousand years. And you know, Plato did it. Socrates did it. Aristotle did it. All of the the all the founders of the Western civilization and culture, you know, participated in the mystery in the Eleusinian Mystery at Eleusis. Um, and what they're finding is, um, a form of ergot, which is what is the one where LSD comes from as well.

Wade Roush: Although LSD itself was synthesized by Sandoz like a giant pharmaceutical company in Europe in the 40s, right?

Adele Getty: Well, they weren't a giant pharmaceutical company at that moment, but they be they became one. Um, and, uh, and that was Albert Hofmann, you know, who who synthesized it. And that's a whole other story. But I want so and I also want to acknowledge MDMA. So we're not just talking about plant medicine. Um, we are talking, you know, primarily, you know, ayahuasca is, you know, has religious status in the way, in the same way that peyote does for Native American Church. Um, and then we have the magic mushrooms from wildlife south of, you know, near Oaxaca in Mexico, um, long tradition there. We have ibogaine from Africa. Now, you know, being very much in the forefront. Texas just passed a bill around ibogaine, um, and funded $50 million to look at it because it's so extraordinary for, um, opioid addiction and PTSD and other kinds of addictive behavior. And so there are the plant molecules, but then there is MDMA and there's LSD and a number of other, you know, designer drugs to CB. And so there are the ancient traditions. And there's also, you know, the current, you know, reality of it. And I think the, the one thing I notice with us as the modern world right now, we're so over psychologized that we think everything we do should initiate some kind of growth. We should be growing. We should be working through something we're working on ourselves, you know, and, um, I think, uh, native peoples are not doing that, you know, in, in there there's, I think much more. Well, one, they're if they're still living in any kind of traditional way. There's a huge support system to be able to hold, you know, everybody inside the community. I think probably our alienated life and nuclear family and, you know, has not been the best thing for all of us. And and we are very psychologized. And I think, you know, we we export that into other cultures, you know, in, you know, we can be called, you know, colonialist colonizers. And I think now we're kind of colonizing the mind of other cultures around the world with our Western take on psychology.

Wade Roush: Would you say that the substances are showing up in the in the context of ceremonies to cement and maintain culture? Is that one way of putting it?

Adele Getty: Well, I think, you know, the early ayahuasca, um, the use of ayahuasca was frequently used to find where where the game is. So in sitting there and being in ceremony, they know the next day that the the game is southeast and we can head out that direction and, you know, find protein that way. Um, I think there was maybe more practical, um, Maria Sabina in, uh, what what they were doing or or maybe, you know, they they still do, but, um, she was taking the mushrooms and then being able to read and see, you know, what, what was happening in the person for healing, you know, as a physical healing. Um, and, um, the Native American church, um, has been a, uh, a place where so many of the of the tribes were displaced and put on reservations and sent to the, you know, schools and having their hair cut, not being able to speak their language. And so the the Native American church, which is not that old. Um, and uh, but it, it arises up out of this need for a whole network of tribal people who didn't, didn't get to go through their initiations, you know, in their communities. And so they can come together and they can be Navajo, Arapaho, Lakota, Comanche, you know, uh. Who, whoever. And they can sit all night and and sing in a spirit language, a common language together. And, um, and we know it's also been very useful for, um, alcohol addiction, you know, inside the community. But I think probably the the main difference is, um, most of these experiences, whether it's ibogaine, ayahuasca, peyote, psilocybin, it's communal, it's not individual. And it's about, I think, a collective experience of of spirit, of something larger where healing can take place. The individual can be healed inside that.

Wade Roush: So let's talk about healing. How do you think it is that these these substances that for a casual user, they can dump them on a certain floor of their house and maybe help them do some house cleaning for other folks who have much more serious problems, like post-traumatic stress disorder. These substances can be absolutely healing and curative and transformative. Can you talk a little bit about what kinds of what kinds of healing you've witnessed and how how you think it works, sort of. How is it that these substances are so useful for certain things? How did you become convinced that this was a field that needed more attention?

Adele Getty: Well, um, let's look at MDMA, because MDMA is a really interesting one. And in terms of brain chemistry, um, now that we can look at the brain on these substances and have people who are willing to take them and then go into an MRI or a Cat scan. Um, so we know that MDMA suppresses the amygdala and that's the fight or flight, uh, area of the brain. So for people with PTSD, they are able, for the first time to access the memory of the trauma, um, without reliving it. Somatically without the adrenals, the cortisol, everything just going off. As a result, because they're actually reliving the whole experience now, they're able to, like, step back and see it and witness it for the first time, which can allow them to forgive or forgive themselves, uh, depending on, you know, what their, their situation is. And that experience of not reliving it, um, seems to be, you know, very healing for them. And sometimes they have a more of a mystical experience. And, um, most of the studies, like with MDMA, is like three sessions. Sometimes the first session can be, you know, more in the basement in the sense that it's more emotional and anger and, you know, various emotions come up. And, uh, by the second or third session, um, there's much more like resolution around it, like where they're, they're no longer at the effect of the trauma. They can recognize the trauma, but they're not in constant reaction to it. Now, you know, which allows them to go into their life and maybe hold a job for the first time in ten years and maintain a relationship, you know, for the first time in a number of years and stop with the, the drugs that they might be on. Um, you know.

Wade Roush: My impression of Western scientific medicine is that, um, it very much prefers to have a mechanism we kind of know in general, like these molecules get into our brains and they. They change the, the mix of neurotransmitters in the synapses between our neurons. Something. Something biological is going on. And we're getting better at understanding those things. 

Adele Getty: Well, we do know that all the all this psychedelics, uh, seem and not so sure about ibogaine. Where? Exactly what ibogaine is targeting in the brain. But the classic psychedelics, uh, are working on the serotonin receptor and on the dopamine. And, um, and it was research before 1965, in LSD that the serotonin receptor was discovered. Um, most of the serotonin is in the gut. And so the science community just assumed that was that was that serotonin is is in is in our in the gut. Well then with the LSD research, they discovered that what's being activated with LSD is in fact the serotonin receptor. And there's a flood of serotonin that's released. And, um, and then 1965, that research all became illegal. There were at least a thousand papers written about LSD and in particular. But it was that discovery that there's actually serotonin in the brain that allowed the pharmaceutical companies to create Prozac.

Wade Roush: Right? SSRI, which everybody knows that acronym. It stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, which means basically a drug that is intended to increase the supply of serotonin in between your neurons. The mechanism for how that improves mood, that's still uncertain, but but I guess what you're saying is that we actually know more about the the neurochemistry of some of these drugs than we than I, than I was suggesting earlier.

Adele Getty: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think we do at this point. We, you know, we certainly do both the pharmaceuticals and the and the psychedelics. Um, and I mean, all you have to do is if you're watching TV and you see an ad for, uh, the latest wonder drug to cure whatever, and then where they talk really fast at the end of it, and, and it's like, oh, this causes suicide. And it can actually increase the very condition that you're trying to, you know, recover from. And should, you know, your kidneys fail, your liver fail, you might go blind, you might become suicidal, but, hey, it's approved by the FDA. You know, I can't help but feel like especially with like, the the plant medicines and LSD and end MDMA. Enough research has been done, you know, to, you know, and over thousands of years of of, you know, citizen science that um, that of course, you know, somebody can eat a peanut and die or somebody can take an aspirin and die, but they're the exception to, you know, that. And the aspirin can cure most people's headaches or reduce your fever. And, um, and so there's always a balance, I think, in, in all of these things. And, and the psychedelics are interesting because the way they're being, um, regulated at this point, it's um, and here in New Mexico passing the Senate bill, um, it's not like now you're going to go to the pharmacy and pick up your mushrooms and go home. You're going to you're going to qualify to be treated with the mushrooms, and you're going to go to a clinic and there's going to be trained, you know, skilled facilitators there who will administer the mushrooms to you. So it's a whole new level of, um, of health care that the FDA has never had to deal with before, where you're not just prescribing something to somebody. But, um, it has to be taken under the guidance of a trained practitioner.

Wade Roush: It does feel like there's an interesting push and pull going on at different levels of government and different levels of society. You said you just came home from the Maps conference in Denver, which is the kind of the big annual psychedelics conference. Maps owns or established Lykos Therapeutics, right? And Lykos Lycos is in the news the last year or so because they were running a big trial of MDMA for the treatment of PTSD. And took the data and applied for approval to use it for that purpose. And a panel of FDA advisers turned them down. And so that you could see that as a huge setback, or you could see it as a bump in the road or. And there's all sorts of, um, sort of particulars that you could go into, I think in the way that that trial was organized, and there were all sorts of reasons why the FDA might have been reacting to Lycos rather than to MDMA specifically. Right. So, so. And yet at the same time, you've got other developments happening, like the the passage of Senate Bill 219 here in New Mexico, signed this year by the governor, that sets up, as you just said, a system of. Well, it sets up a board that's going to create a system of regulated sort of psilocybin therapy by licensed professionals. Right. But but they're way out ahead of the FDA, right. Which hasn't even looked at psilocybin really yet. So it feels like we're we're at we're at multiple different places at once. I mean, how do you make sense of the the regulatory, institutional kind of legal situation around psychedelics? And are you are you flummoxed or are you optimistic or are you pessimistic right now?

Adele Getty: Well, um, I'm I'm very optimistic about New Mexico. Um, we we did what no state has done, um, in that, uh, we passed it legislatively, uh, both through the, the Senate and the House and, uh, even funded some money for it. And then the governor signed it into law. And now, as a state, we have two years to, you know, actually implement it. And um, and I like that it really restricted it to organic mushrooms. Um, and it also, uh, focused on how to bring the cost down. And so that means that the sessions will be run in groups, so there'll be groups of people rather than the kind of one on 1 or 2 therapists with one, you know, um, you know, client, um, and New Mexico's very aware of kind of its vulnerable, vulnerable populations. And, um, I have I have great faith in what's happening here. Um, and in talking to, uh, Senator Steinborn, I moderated a panel at maps with Senator Steinborn and Dominick Zurlo from the Department of Health, and I think they, um, uh, the the implementation will be very interesting, you know, to watch and, um, and the same in Texas with what just happened with the Ibogaine Initiative. They're going to be doing clinical studies in, in Texas with ibogaine.

Adele Getty: What's happening in New Mexico here is actually on the ground treatment centers, you know, for people, um, not clinical studies. You know, one of the problems with the clinical studies and what happened with Lykos and, um, uh, that was interesting is it's really hard it's impossible to do a double blind with psychedelics. Everybody knows who, you know, if you got it and, you know, if you didn't get it, you can give people niacin and create a body rush for, you know, a few minutes or something. Um, but, uh, the those kind of old, old rules that the, that the FDA was imposing and that was one of the issues of like, there wasn't really a double, you know, the double blind didn't really work. Well, no, the double blind is not going to work. You know, so, um, and we'll see. I don't think, uh, MDMA is is over by any means. Um, it's too important. And it's, uh, such a a wonderful therapeutic substance that, um, I think, uh, Lycos, uh, like Lycos is about to continue with, uh, uh, Antonio. Gracias. Um, and we'll see what direction all that leads into, you know, when the, the billionaires get involved in in it all.

Wade Roush: So you and your husband, Michael Williams, have been working behind the scenes to plan this event on September 7th, the Enchanted State, downtown Santa Fe. And I wanted to give you a chance to talk about why you why you decided to organize an event like this and what potential attendees can expect to hear there. And what would be your fondest goals for that event?

 Adele Getty: I think, uh, you know, we have kind of a double pronged, um, hopeful intention around it. Uh, one is to, um, uh, stigmatize and educate, uh, you know, the whoever attends, I imagine we're going to have a number of enthusiasts as well. Of course. Um, so, you know, education is is a big part of it. And then the the other one is we hope to generate a enough proceeds from the event to be able to help in the implementation of, um, you know, the, the rollout of SB 219, the psilocybin bill. So we want to take all the profits from this event and find ways to keep it and have it be accessible here in, in the, in the state of New Mexico. And in terms of the event itself, uh, we're excited about it, obviously. And we started this, uh, a year ago March, uh, before the bill passed. And we kind of dovetailed into the bill and we feel like, oh, maybe we can celebrate the enchanted state. Um, now, you know, as well, the day itself will be, uh, actually much more of a production than a conference. Um, we will have, um, live music. We will have, uh, different film clips that will weave in and out of the, of the program. We have an incredible list of speakers and, uh, three areas that we will be focusing on, uh, throughout the day. And the first one will be on mental health and addiction. Um, we have Dr. Andy Weil opening the program. We have Bryan Hubbard, who's really been behind the ibogaine initiatives around the, around the country, and Larry Leeman, who is the researcher at UNM.

Adele Getty: He's been doing really interesting work with, uh, postpartum women and bonding with their their babies and coming out of addiction, both with psilocybin and I think with MDMA too. Um, more clinical research there. So we have, you know, a section on mental health and addiction, and we have a section on policy and philanthropy. And in that section we have our local senator, Andrea Romero. And, uh, and then we have, uh, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who's um, just, uh, retired out of the US Senate and very much a now a vocal proponent for the use of psychedelics with healing and particularly with vets and with ibogaine and, and psilocybin as well. And we also have, uh, a descendant of Maria Sabina, Eugenia Casimiro. She will be able to talk about, you know, that tradition and the interface with the modern world and what we're what we're all involved with. And also a wonderful, um, uh, Danny, uh, a woman named Marlena Robbins who is at Berkeley right now at UC Berkeley, finishing up her dissertation in public health. And, uh, she her whole dissertation is around the interface between, you know, tribal cultures and the modern world with psychedelics. So I feel like, um, that perspective is super important and super important here in New Mexico with our pueblos and Pueblo culture and, um, and, and in New Mexico in particular, because of the, uh, um, you know, amount of, um, addiction that we have per capita. It's it's pretty, pretty large, you know, and and then we have, uh, philanthropy from the Steve and Alexander Cohen Foundation. Ben Nemser will be talking about the role of philanthropy, because all of the research that's been done for the last 20, 25 years has been privately funded.

Adele Getty: Um, it's just in the last year that NIH has given some money to psychedelic research. So, um, it's really required, uh, you know, people in the, in, in philanthropy and it's cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It's not light. It's not a little bit of money. You know, maps spent $200 million on trying to get MDMA to schedule three. And then the final section that we'll be dealing with is the mystery, the transpersonal aspect of it. And we'll have, uh, Doctor Anthony Bossis talking about the role of psychedelics with end of life anxiety and what he's witnessed. And he also was a lead researcher with the Clergy Study that was done at Johns Hopkins, where clergy from all the different faiths volunteered to come and have psilocybin administered to them and to, you know, then report back how you know, what that was for them. And, uh, and then Mary Cosimano was the lead trainer at Johns Hopkins and has sat with, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people. She will be speaking and and then, uh, Jamie Clark-Soles, who is a, um, a Baptist minister who went through the, um, went through the religious studies, uh, research. Search, and she'll be speaking about how that has affected her and with her congregations and and her own life. And, um, and then there's music and there's films and there's veterans that will that will be sharing stories. And, you know, a lot of human interest that will be woven into it.

Wade Roush: Final question. What's the best case scenario in your mind for what things might look like here in New Mexico? Um, 5 or 10 years from now? Can you imagine a New Mexico being a a leader in the sense that this is a state where you can come to and get safe, supervised healing for whatever your trouble might be. Because because it's a place that has kind of left behind, um, the fear and confusion that has stigmatized psychedelics for so many decades. Can it be a place where we move beyond that, and kind of find a more adult, grown up way to integrate it into the larger field of healing and medicine.

Adele Getty: Yeah. And you know, what's interesting is, uh, New Mexico has this long history of, um, engagement with. I mean, we only became a state in 1912. Uh, so we were Mexico, and, uh, and Mexico has a long psychedelic, you know, history with both the mushrooms, the peyote, um, and even the toad, you know, the with the DMT or the, you know, the five meo. So, um, it's not so foreign to us in some way. And, um, and then in the early 1990s, Rick Strassman did the first bit of psychedelic research Since 1965. 

Wade Roush: From UNM.

Adele Getty: From UNM. And he was doing, um, you know, with, uh, DMT of all things, um, and, you know, very, very interesting. And he went on to write that his book, uh, The Spirit Molecule. And then, uh, in the early 90s as well, the Heffter Institute, uh, which was a consortium of top notch scientists from around the country and in the best universities, um, formed. And they're headquartered right here in Santa Fe. And they have been, you know, since, uh, since the 90s. Um, and then, uh, ayahuasca became church status as a result of also New Mexico, um, here in New Mexico. Um, so we have a long history of being, you know, a legacy of connection to psychedelics here. And of course, there's there's Native American churches here, chapters, you know, that that regular ceremonies that take place. So we're not so foreign to it. And, um, and I think that's a real, uh, a real advantage. And because of the problem we have with drug addiction and our and our veterans, which is everywhere across the country, um, we're it's a really good place, you know, to be instituting this kind of thing.

Wade Roush: Okay, Adele, this has been really wonderful. I want to thank you for all the time you spent. And people can learn more at the Limina Foundation website. Right? liminafoundation.org/enchanted-state.

Adele Getty: Yeah. Or just liminafoundation.org. We wanted it to be liminal, but that was taken. But the liminal state is that betwixt and between state, where the old world is falling away and the new one hasn't quite revealed itself to you yet. So, um, that's that's that space where healing happens.

Wade Roush: Where healing happens. Right. Well, New Mexico feels both liminal and enchanted. Yeah. Thank you so much Adele.

Adele Getty: Yeah. Thank you to Wade. It was fun. It was really a pleasure. Yeah. 

Wade Roush: Soonish is written and produced by me, Wade Roush. Our opening theme is by Graham Gordon Ramsay.

Wade Roush: All the other music in this episode is by Titlecard Music and Sound in Boston. I'd like to thank my friend Ellen Petry Leanse for introducing me to Adele and to so many other cool people here in Santa Fe. Ellen is a neuroscience educator and a co-organizer of the Enchanted State event, and she has an excellent podcast that you should check out called The Brain and Beyond. 

Wade Roush: Speaking of podcasts, soonish is a proud founding member of The Hub & Spoke Audio Collective, which is dedicated to supporting independent voices in podcasting. This week, I want to tell you about a remarkable hub and spoke show called Open Source. It's hosted by veteran Boston newsman Christopher Lydon, and it's assembled by one of the best producers in the business, Mary McGrath. And believe it or not, it's the world's first and oldest podcast with a two decade archive of interviews about arts, ideas and politics. One of my favorite recent episodes featured Chris's conversation with the beloved novelist Marilynne Robinson, who's been stepping away from her usual literary pursuits lately to become a vocal critic of the Trump administration and its project to destroy our democracy. 

Marilynne Robinson [audio clip]: In the traditional way of talking about the country as polarized implies that if we just compromised, if we could find intermediate places where we could make acceptable adjustments to each other's preferences and so on. But that is not how things are now. The position of the people in charge of the red side of things is so, so alien to American tradition that it's really a change of character in the country, as if someone had come from the outside, from the, you know, the philosophical outside, say, and simply erased a great deal that has accumulated as the character of the country and the genius of the country over time.

Wade Roush: You can find the whole Marilynne Robinson interview at radioopensource.org. And you can learn more about all of the Hub & Spoke shows at hubspokeaudio.org. That's all for now. Thanks for listening and I'll be back with a new episode....soonish.