Featured art credit - Akimov MikhailR. U. Sirius (Ken Goffman) a writer, editor and musician. He is best known for co-founding Mondo 2000 magazine and penning books like Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House.LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHERThese mind melds are brought to you by YOU! Find out how to support us and receive rewards in the process at our Patreon page.

cropped-thirdeyedropslogo-1-1 Discussions about the future are almost always framed in terms of a tug of war for tomorrow between the forces of utopia and dystopia. Prognosticators love to promise us either the apocalypse or immortality, but when have things ever never been that cut and dry? For a more realistic vision, you've got to leave room for plenty of gray area (though I'd love to believe we’re about to come to our senses, cast aside the fossil fuels, build forests of organic vertical farm-filled skyscrapers, make art all day and drink ayahuasca all night).

Despite the nuance and uncertainty of it all, there are a few technodelic unicorns out there with a novel and compelling view of where we're collectively headed. One of them is most definitely our partner in this mind meld, author and countercultural creative, R.U. Sirius (Ken Goffman). He’s written books like Transcendence, the Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity, Timothy Leary’s Trip Thru Time andCounterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. R.U. was also co-founder and Editor In Chief of the far ahead of it’s time, Mondo 2000 Magazine.

Musings in this mind meld :

Are we headed for dystopia with sprinklings of utopia, or the other way around?
How has the "future" turned out to be different from what RU thought it would be?
Ken’s journey from the 1960’s to cyperpunk
Change is usually more jagged and gradual than we'd like to imagine
For real progress, powerful technologies need to coalescence together
Is the cyberpunk vision future is coming to fruition?
Mondo 2000 - the Jetsons on DMT
Black Mirror’s creepily accurate dystopian images of the future
Could psychedelics fill in the spiritual and existential gaps in a transhumanist future?
Is "Big Pharma" poised to cash in on psychedelic medicine?
The noble and important work of MAPS
Why shouldn’t we be focusing on expanding consciousness along with technology and lifespan?
Humans are learning to parse information better and absorbing more from less
Where are the modern-day heroes of counterculture pushing forward thinking and creativity?
Is there such a thing as a guru?
Too many people are letting splintered, shallow information make up their philosophical worldview without a practice
Going back to classic philosophers for knowledge and solid logic
Reality and the future are always more muddled than you think they'll be

Ben Shechet is a Clinical Research Assistant with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) focused on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHERThese mind melds are brought to you by YOU! Find out how to support us and receive rewards in the process at our Patreon page.

maps For the status quo to die, at some point, the subversive needs to overtake the dominant. It would be fantastic if we could topple all of society's flawed, corrupt models and power structures in one sweet swoop of rebellion, but that's not how it usually works. For systemic change to occur, you've got to play the system’s bureaucratic game. You've got to dot your T's, cross your I's and be a force for gradual seepage into the cracks of society’s ideological ivory towers (a lot less sexy than a philosophical coup d'etat, I know).

One of the biggest forces for just that sort of in-it-for-the-long-haul change is MAPS. In a nutshell, they're conducting FDA-approved studies using psychedelic substances to treat psychological disorders like PTSD. With MDMA in particular, they're quite far along in the process. When coupled with psychotherapy, the molecule has been shown to be an extremely potent treatment for PTSD (more on MAPS and their studies in the show).

Our guest himself, Ben Shechet, is a researcher at MAPS. In the mind meld, he opens up about his fantastic, almost archetypical origin story. It's got it all- gnostic knocks on the head, pitfalls and serpentine neuroses to overcome. In other words, he's another brother in the multidisciplinary struggle for meaning this dimension forces us to engage in.

Musings and mentions in this mind meld-

Ben’s personal exploratory journey with psychedelics, meditation and therapy
How soon will psychedelic therapy will be legalized?
The importance of “the sharp knock on the head”
Flying too close to the psychedelic sun
Why the scientific establishment favors narrow research, tends not to value a multidisciplinary knowledges approach
Some of the deepest revelations come from sober reflection
Inherited trauma and epigenetic expressions of it
Judith Blackstone and the "Realization Process"
No matter the trauma, you can work with it and heal it with the right tools and practices
The myth of the atomized individual
Search experiment and dabble. Eventually you’ll find what connects you with your authentic self
The example of Wim Hof as a guide and high-acheiving human
MAPS’ research
Why is MDMA being fast tracked over other psychedelics?
Finding healing in yourself versus seeking it from the outside
Sovereignty over your consciousness and celebrating the gift of your body
People who haven’t had trauma also need healing
How will psychedelics change the way we think about and utilize technology?

Books mentioned-