In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Ben Malcolm aka Spirit Pharmacist
We touch upon subjects of importance of preparation to Ayhauasca, Ayahuasca diet from scientific point of view, science of psychedelics and how his own journey was inspired by DMT experience.
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Find more about Ben at
http://www.spiritpharmacist.com
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:00)
Hi guys and welcome to Ayahuasca Podcast. As always with you the host San Bolio. Today I’m interviewing Ben Malcolm. Ben Malcolm also known as Spirit Pharmacist. He has a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacology, Master of Public Health and Doctorate of Pharmacy. He thought Psychiatric Pharmacy, Pharmacology. He provides Psychopharmacology consulting services related to psychedelic use.
Sam Believ (00:29)
he’s also a prolific didgeridoo player i saw on instagram ⁓ ben welcome to the show
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (00:36)
⁓ thanks for having me, Sam. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Sam Believ (00:41)
Ben, tell us what came first, Spirit or the pharmacy?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (00:47)
This is a good one. I would say pharmacy pharmacy came before the spirit. I was raised in a very like agnostic type of place where there was just no religion or like I would say like an a spiritual kind of household or if there was a spirituality it was never branded as this is a spiritual sort of like thing that we’re doing right it would be like well if it is spiritual don’t tell anyone that it is that’s for sure kind of kind of thing.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (01:12)
And so I was actually probably an atheist by the time I was like 12 or 13 years old, maybe even younger than that, to be honest. And I read a lot of atheist philosophical kind of like literature in high school. But it never really led anywhere, right? Like the idea that the universe is absurd and chaotic and there’s no rhyme or reason and there’s nothing afterwards. And it’s just like a…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (01:39)
Like a dead end literally was just like a dead end for me. Like it was probably, I was actually in pharmacy school already. And I remember, you know, there was one, probably a weekend kind of day or something like that. And I was just kind of sitting around smoking weed, drinking coffee, playing internet poker in my underpants. And we’re just kind of like, ⁓ there’s gotta be more to life than, than this, but I’d always hated all of the religious cliches. Like everything happens for a reason or.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (02:09)
there’s a purpose or they were sort of beliefs that had made my skin kind of crawl. There was like some kind of spiritual sickness is how I would describe it, where it’s sort of like I was raised in this place where I think that there was a spiritual sickness, like in my household growing up that I’d kind of like caught in this like case of and it led to these sorts of, right, well, if you can’t prove it to me, it’s never going to exist kinds of attitudes.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (02:35)
And I wasn’t leading anywhere that was purposeful or happy for me. ⁓ And I don’t know. Inhale DMT, I would say, like was part of the experience. But there was just some point where I remember thinking, what if you tried? Like, what if what if you just tried the belief on that your life has a purpose? You’re here for a reason. What would you do then? What would it be? I was like, I don’t know. It’s like, well, you would have to go and find what that is then. So it’s like, OK, maybe I’ll just pretend.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (03:05)
So I got to a point where I felt that the faith that I had in a very materialist and physicalist view of science was obviously wrong. It was kind of like there’s just as much faith in that, ⁓ that materialist, physicalist scientific perspective as there is in whatever other religious sorts of beliefs that I thought were demonstrably false and things of that nature. So I just got to the point where I was like, well, I don’t know if I have to like…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (03:32)
believe it with like a level of like 1000 % conviction, but my beliefs shape my reality and I have to like change what I believe if I want to change my reality. So I got open to the idea that I could try on different beliefs and take my life in a certain direction as a result of those beliefs.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (03:53)
without being this sort of like diehard person that’s convicted and could never like shift perspective again or say like, okay, now there’s a different kind of truth that I’m recognizing or realizing. Like I always said, like growing up, there’d be like, what religion you are? I was like, Benjaminism. And like, what’s Benjaminism? It’s like, well, it’s the ideology that I personally hold that I reserve the right to change at any point would essentially be my just canned answer for like, what do you believe in?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (04:21)
And I would still say I’m practicing Benjaminism today, but it looks a whole lot different than it did when I was 12, 13, 14, 15, or in my early 20s. So I’d say that I had a very like hard -headed science mind that kind of led me through this pharmacy path. But somewhere along that path, I recognized that there were drugs that essentially…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (04:46)
⁓ induced a spiritual type of effect or a spiritual type of experience, particularly when taken in an environment where there’s a lot of reverence for what’s about to happen. ⁓ and I did a little bit of that and then all of a sudden I just had this different sort of like path or direction that felt like, Hey, this is my religion. Like this is like, there’s a, there’s a sacrament in a way of reviewing this. And this is how I go to church and this is how I stay in touch with.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (05:15)
God, Spirit, the universe, myself, and all of this. I don’t know. So I would say that pharmacy came before Spirit. But I do remember the day, it was at a conference called Visionary Convergence at the Big Art Church in Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in 2016. And I was just sitting in the chapel listening to some science lecture or something, and Spirit Pharmacist, that’s the brand. Like that’s the…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (05:45)
That’s the thing that recognizes kind of who you are in your past. And it also recognizes that there’s a niche in pharmacy that you can push for that is just not really in pharmacy right now. Like there’s no recognition when I went through the doctor or pharmacy program that drugs can have a spiritual aspect to them or the specific types of drugs may induce very strong spiritual experiences and were reliable types of ways, right? It was all about physical, make your blood pressure go down or.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (06:14)
emotional, like let’s lift your mood or change how you feel or limit how you feel would be another perspective on how those things kind of work. Or maybe cognition. If you’re talking about, you know, things like focus or memory and stuff like that, but there was just nothing. And it’s like, well, a drug can be spiritual. And I think that, well, psychedelics definitely have physical, emotional and cognitive effects to them, but they have real spiritual effects to them as well. So that’s a…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (06:44)
a little bit of background.
Sam Believ (06:46)
That’s a great answer. I remember when I first found you on Instagram by accident, I believe. Just after reading your name, Spirit Pharmacist, I was like, wow, this is really great. This is necessary. And I remember I reached out immediately to try to get you on the podcast. I think you were busy the first time, so I reached out again. So there’s definitely space for what you represent, and I believe ⁓ it’s just a great correlation between those two things.
Sam Believ (07:14)
and regarding your spiritual experience my mind was very similar I was I considered myself an agnostic before which is a form of atheism where you say ⁓ I believe in something but I don’t know what is it and but after my ayahuasca experiences I definitely got some clarity on it and it’s it’s wonderful ⁓ so how do you as a as a spirit pharmacist I think especially with all your accolades and your your your knowledge
Sam Believ (07:45)
What do you think, is there a mechanism ⁓ that you could describe or any theories on how is a spiritual experience induced by ingesting a molecule?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (07:59)
This is a good question and I’m not exactly sure. I think that it was clear that there are certain mechanisms here. ⁓ A lot of the serotonin -based psychedelics work critically by stimulating serotonin two -way receptors. So I would have to predict that that serotonin two -way receptor is incredibly important to the quality of consciousness that we experience overall.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (08:26)
There’s 14 subtypes of serotonin receptor, though, and the serotonin 2A receptor is the most common subtype throughout the ⁓ body as well. I think serotonin is a really ancient sort of molecule. Like it was probably there in the kind of like primordial soup. And we do know, for example, serotonin is more than a neurotransmitter. At this point, it can be found in the bloodstream. It can be released from the gut like a hormone. It can actually have epigenetic sorts of mechanisms like it can bind directly to DNA and change.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (08:56)
how those sequences are expressed, that process called serotonilation. So it seems that serotonin is an ancient enigmatic sort of neurotransmitter that’s incredibly important to so many aspects of how the organism functions and it’s not linked to this raised serotonin, not depressed. Lower serotonin equals depression. Like that is the absolute most reductionistic and probably false narrative about serotonin that exists out there. So I’d have to say that serotonin two -way receptor seems critically important to
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (09:26)
at least the mechanisms of those substances and maybe a biological construct of God or spirituality period and it starts to kind of like get into a lot of interesting questions is because I believe ⁓ I Don’t know there’s an intelligence behind evolution. And so it’s like what is the purpose then because structure determines function in biology and particularly in evolutionary biology like things are created and
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (09:54)
in certain images and forms to serve certain adaptive needs of the organism within its niche or ecosystem. So why would human beings be imbued with a sort of natural spiritual biology? There must be a real ⁓ pro -adaptive advantage of having that kind of construct overall. ⁓ Maybe something to do with hope, right? When times are extremely…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (10:22)
extremely dim and difficult instead of giving up, there can be a spiritual sense that allows the organism to rise up and keep adapting. So thinking about ⁓ what are the mechanisms of psychedelics on coping, it seems like they inspire active coping mechanisms. So instead of weathering the storm, that’s more like a passive coping, it’s more like a dynamic ⁓ problem -solving types of thing. It seems that psychedelic
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (10:49)
experiences share some overlap with near -death experiences, right? So sort of thinking again, like the organisms under an extreme level of pressure or maybe an extreme level of threat, it’s literally kind of a do or die situation where, you know, it’s, you know, cease to exist or adapt and ⁓ evolve. So that kind of dynamic problem solving, I can’t take anything for granted, seems like it’s in that same sort of biological realm ⁓ or…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (11:18)
endogenously produce psychedelics because DMT and 5 -MeO DMT are known to be produced endogenously. So what are the circumstances that those things are induced by? It seems like maybe birth, death, pregnancy, like life transitions, like through the portal seems times where there’s a release of DMT. So I think like, I don’t know what the answers are, right? Like I can answer this question from so many ways. It’s…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (11:46)
cortical processing, it’s stepping on a serotonin receptor, it’s ⁓ a evolutionary ⁓ adaptive sort of advantage for the organism. And I don’t necessarily know what all the answers are, but exactly like that was it. It was like, well, ⁓ spirit has to be part of science because these drugs that work in very scientific sorts of mechanisms and things open these spiritual states. So that means that consciousness and spirituality.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (12:13)
is now included as part of science. And there’s just no map of science will ever be complete without the study of consciousness. So I think that this is really a wonderful place to leave that material physicalist paradigm of science behind and step into what the quantum physicists have been saying for at least 100 years now, that maybe consciousness creates reality instead and approaching science from a different aspect where we’re really studying consciousness now.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (12:43)
I don’t know, that was very tangential and all over the map, I think, as far as like an answer. And I don’t think I even actually answered your original question, but maybe a little wax philosophical on the topic. Yeah.
Sam Believ (12:54)
Well, knowing that there is no definitive answer because we just don’t know, I think it was a pretty good answer to kind of, you know, open up more questions. But yeah, I personally also believe that the deeper we go in science, the more it starts to resemble spirituality. Like as you mentioned, quantum physics is like, ⁓ there is an observer, all of a sudden you have a different result. So which means that your intention and your thought,
Sam Believ (13:20)
effects ⁓ the result as well but as you were speaking I kind of got this revelation which might be not revelation for you but it’s like why do we assume that a chemical process ⁓ cannot be spiritual it’s kind of like you know we all know when we fall in love it’s a very beautiful thing but we all know that there is underlying changes in your brain right so what’s the difference when you ingest
Sam Believ (13:45)
a DMT or a mushroom and you have changes just like where it comes from, that’s the difference. But the process itself, if there is a mechanism for it in our brain, then it means it’s necessary. And even then, from that point of view, a spiritual experience…
Sam Believ (14:02)
of a monk sitting in a cave ⁓ might also be it’s induced by his meditation or you know ⁓ compressing your perineum and moving the energies up whatever but in the end of the day it’s still a DMT experience somehow you either increase your natural levels of DMT or decrease ⁓ the absorption of DMT it’s like so so I just realized to myself now that those are two ⁓ this is the same thing but
Sam Believ (14:29)
And on that note, you know, what do you think ⁓ happens in the brain that short ⁓ term psychedelic experience, like we know that DMT is out of your system ⁓ in six to eight hours, like when it comes to ayahuasca, how comes this short term experience then sometimes leads to life, ⁓ lifelong changes?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (14:54)
Yeah, well, I think like I’ll talk a little about the first part that you’re mentioning and get to the second part. It’s like spirituality and spirit. And I think this is like part of like why I chose Spirit Pharmacist and why ⁓ the version of myself 10 years before I chose Spirit Pharmacist would be like, what ⁓ happened to this guy? He’s a coop that sort of fell off the edge or something like that. Right. Because spirit and spirituality is such an incredibly
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (15:22)
Loaded term that almost has a personal level of meaning to it like if I had to define spirit or spirituality I’d be like Anything that makes the organism sort of feel connected in some way connected to themselves Connects nature connected to the cosmos connected to bigger ideas or connected to God like like okay like I would say that those have like some Spiritual flavor or quality but like what is spiritual versus what is not?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (15:51)
spiritual. You know, like, there are many people that I have spoke to that with ⁓ horrific sorts of addictions, alcohol, like when an alcoholic hits what they refer to as a rock bottom moment, that’s usually a spiritual moment, right? That’s really a very, very spiritual kind of moment. Like, I can’t live this way. I have to change. Right? Again, adapt or not. Like, it gets to this place where it’s like, I have to do this, right? Or…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (16:21)
If you put on a nice playlist and you’re all by yourself and you light some incense and you do a couple of lines of cocaine and you lay on your bed and listen to it, may you not go into an elevated or higher sort of state and think about your life and self sort of differently? And could you sort of think that is spiritual? Yeah, you could. You know, there are people that where…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (16:42)
talismans and mandalas and counting beads and they’re super duper spiritual and they’re going down to the yoga to get their spiritual mind body connection all worked out, right? And then there’s the guy that’s like, no, I don’t do anything spiritual at all. Like I’m completely a spiritual, but boy, when I’m out there in the woods hunting deer in the morning and it’s absolutely quiet and I’m walking so careful because I don’t even want to crush a leaf and boy, there’s this sense of peace.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (17:13)
like, right, so he’s not labeling that as spiritual, spiritual at all, but boy, the way that they’re talking about the mindfulness of the moment and how they’re just sort of in it in their environment, it’s sort of like, yeah, that feels kind of spiritual in some way. ⁓ So we essentially get to decide what is spiritual and not for us. I think that because psychedelics have this almost like reliable quality of engendering feelings of sacredness.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (17:41)
and positive mood. Like it’s not just euphoria. It’s not just like, well, I just feel really good. It’s like, I feel really good in this experience is special to me somehow. And like, it’s just happening to me somehow. Like that sacredness of it and the fact that it doesn’t happen all the time or very often, I think is like what really makes it spiritual. Like ⁓ commonality would have to be in some way an antonym to sacred. Like something that’s just very banal, common, happening all the time.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (18:10)
it will lose its sacredness over some period of time probably as a result. So first of all, it’s just like, yeah, what is spiritual? What’s a spiritual drug? What’s not a spiritual drug? Like I don’t get to decide that as the spirit pharmacist. Like that’s part of what spirit pharmacist is or like means is like the person gets to decide if they’re spiritual or not and what is spiritual for them or not and what substances are spiritual for them or not.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (18:36)
I’m a big fan of psychedelics and think that psychedelics probably are the class of drugs that are the most reliable Inducing spiritual experiences that are they’re really helpful for the person So that’s just it is kind of when you look at the facets of one of these Strong spiritual experience will take like the mystical experience like the most kind of studied psychedelic mmm spiritual experience through mostly with mushrooms and psilocybin and Johns Hopkins, it’s essentially like it’s a
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (19:03)
euphoria, positive mood and sacredness. Oceanic boundlessness, ⁓ so sort of like really feeling like the drop has returned to the ocean. ⁓ Ineffability, so it’s like very hard to adequately put into words or use language to describe just how special, sacred and meaningful ⁓ it was. Whatever, existing outside of time and space. So I think that, you know, for the most part we’re
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (19:33)
sort of experiencing a fairly linear sense of time as things unfold. So anytime that the sense of time gets dilated, suspended, literally your consciousness drops out of time for a moment, that’s gonna feel like, whoa, like it was an eternity and it was an instant and it was both. And so you’re stuck with that kind of like truth and paradox feeling. ⁓
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (19:58)
And again, like there’s this near death experience, like aspect to it, like a psychological death, like an ego dying. And there’s a couple pulls of that. There’s like a old age ego death where you can kind of breathe in, breathe out and ascend slowly into the heavens. And then there’s anxious dysphoric ego death where it feels like the ego is kind of circling the drain and I’m dying and what’s happening to me. ⁓ And sometimes people will really fight and struggle in that space. ⁓ And sometimes people will be able to kind of…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (20:28)
Relax and allow it and usually they’ll sort of ascend straight to heaven if they’re if they’re able to relax a lot easier to say than to do when the moment comes Yeah, those are some of the thoughts I have about all that
Sam Believ (20:44)
I don’t know if you answered or tried answering the second part, which is what induces the long lasting changes maybe from a pharmacological point of view.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (20:54)
⁓ yeah. So exactly like from a pharmacologic angle. ⁓ well, maybe neuroplasticity, right? But I’m not like, it seems that it’s pretty clear that psychedelics have neuroplastic mechanisms that can help an organism adapt or change. And if I had to like put just one indication on a psychedelic, it would be to change with mindfulness. Like if you…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (21:20)
In just a psychedelic with a change in mind and you’re really mindful about sort of preparing in some way and following up on that with some certain action steps afterwards, the chances of your life moving in that direction are really good overall. But again, like why does a near death experience change a person’s life permanently? Well, because they can’t take it for granted anymore. Right? It’s sort of like if I almost died, my life flashed before my eyes.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (21:47)
And I realized that 50 % of my time is wasted scrolling through junk on the internet ⁓ when I have real responsibilities, children, things that I’m trying to accomplish in the world. All of a sudden it becomes like, ⁓ I know for a fact that time is limited and time is incredibly important. It’s my most valuable resource and I will vow not to waste it anymore. And I can’t take those things for granted. I think it works a very similar way.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (22:16)
with the ego death and the psychedelic experience. I think that there’s a real spiritual reckoning that forces the organism to prioritize things in life in ways that it wants to move in those directions. And frankly, no matter how short or fleeting or whatever an instant or moment a drug experience is, it’s really difficult to unsee what you’ve seen. ⁓ Like,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (22:45)
Like, I don’t know. You’ve never been to the Grand Canyon before. Eh, okay, it’s a big canyon somewhere. I don’t think that’s gonna be life changing. You go and you stare at the vastness of the Grand Canyon and start contemplating the ⁓ geological processes that unfolded over millions of years to carve this absolutely majestic thing and…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (23:11)
You won’t be able to forget that. You won’t be able to unsee that. You’ll never be able to go back to a perspective of thinking, that’s just like a hole in the ground somewhere. Like you won’t be able to. And I don’t know. So probably psychological mechanisms, right? Like I can’t unsee what I’ve seen. That’s a part of it. The intensity of it all, like the near death kind of experience and the ego actually being threatened, not in a physical way, in a psychological way.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (23:37)
and the sort of non -ordinary state that forces the organism to essentially get its priorities straight.
Sam Believ (23:45)
Well it’s the beauty of your explanations as not just a pharmacist or just a spiritual person but as a spirit pharmacist obviously you’re coming up with the more complete version which is both of them together which is also what I believe we kind of…
Sam Believ (23:59)
come to healing with psychedelics and for me personally when I first learned about it and I got depressed so I wanted to drink ayahuasca to undepress myself and the spirituality was not part of it at first but over time you start realizing that ⁓ it is partially spiritual and then the spiritual part keeps growing bigger the more I work with it till maybe I don’t know a few years from now maybe I’ll say
Sam Believ (24:27)
It’s all just spiritual, but maybe once again that’s to another extreme. And you mentioning ⁓ near death as well reminded me of one episode that I recorded where a person had a near death experience and then they had an ayahuasca experience or a mushroom experience and it was very similar. The feeling was almost the same. So, you know, as those ancient Greeks used to say ⁓ when they were tripping on Kikion, I don’t know, maybe you know.
Sam Believ (24:56)
bit about the science of it but they say if you die before you die you don’t die when you die ⁓ and yeah there’s this whole rabbit hole any anything comes up to you when I when I mentioned those things
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (25:12)
Yeah, ⁓ well, there’s this, I’ll see if I can, might be out of, there’s this quote that I know and it actually comes, I originally heard this song ⁓ from an ayahuasca or an ayahuasca facilitator. Let’s see if I can find it. The song is called Celestial Heart, I know that much, but there’s a quote from it that I usually use in my lecture about psilocybin for,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (25:42)
depression and anxiety associated with life -threatening illness, right? Because this is one of the primary applications now for psychedelics or psilocybin is to end this kind of existential suffering or essentially like suffering associated with like fear of death with a progressive life -threatening kind of illness. And it seems very, very effective for that. And so one quote from the Celestial Heart, hopefully I can read it without crying. It usually gets me, but I feel like I can do it right now. ⁓ my Celestial Heart.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (26:12)
with your love that takes me so high, you teach me the way I can live, you show me what it means to die. So it’s like through the psychedelic showing you what it means to die, it teaches you how you wanna live. Because if you’ve seen the end or you’ve crossed the end somehow.
Sam Believ (26:30)
⁓ Getting goosebumps.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (26:33)
Right? Like it will teach you how to live. If it shows you what it means to die, it will show you what it means to live. And frankly, there’s different, like this is a different sort of like topic, right? Almost like a black and white type of topic, but like the opposite sort of like side. Like we’re talking about a near -death experience showing you how you want to live, right? But there’s a lot of people that are walking around with some level of suicidal ideation or suicidal thought that is very…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (27:03)
passive overall. Like it’s not a, ⁓ well, I have the plan, I’m going to go to the hardware store, I got the rope, I wrote the note. Like that’s in an action and planning stage where it’s quite serious and dangerous and there’s like an imminent risk of them attempting suicide at that point. But most persons with suicidal ideation, it’s a lot more passive and it’s probably more of a coming from a feeling of being helpless, trapped, ⁓ overwhelmed.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (27:32)
or like there’s a very complex problem. ⁓ And usually when the brain is faced with a complex problem, it will present the most simple solution, almost like a reflex really. Like if the doctor like taps your knee and you have like a reflex, that means that your nervous system responded without thought basically. And so there’s almost like this reflexes that will present the option of dying. Like ⁓ maybe dying would be the way out.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (27:59)
And so I think a lot of people are grabbing onto this passive level of suicidal ideation almost like as a comfort mechanism, ⁓ almost as like a life preserver. Like it helps me sustain it here to have this sort of ambivalence. Do I want to live? Do I want to die? It’s like, well, I don’t really want to die. It’s passive, but I’m not really engaged with living either, right? I’m sort of like walking this place where I haven’t decided whether I’m here to live ⁓ or I’m here to die.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (28:28)
And so I think that by going into one of these ego death types of experiences with psychedelics, which is a heck of a lot more safer than a real near death experience where your life is actually threatened. We’re just talking about psychological stuff here. We’re not talking about physical threats to the organism, right? That psychological threat is enough to dispel the sort of passive suicidality and get the organism to choose life like a hundred percent. ⁓ And then if you chose life a hundred percent, then…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (28:59)
and now you’re living, yeah.
Sam Believ (29:03)
Yes, sometimes you need a bit of that actual feeling of dying, whether it’s psychedelic or a failed suicide attempt to like yank you back to reality. That’s what I’ve heard it from some people that come to the retreat that have attended, had suicidal ideation. Let’s change the topic a little bit and talk about ayahuasca. What do you think about?
Sam Believ (29:32)
⁓ first maybe as a pharmacist talk to people about how ayahuasca actually works ⁓ about the two components of it and in your opinion you know knowing the molecules and knowing the nature how ⁓ do you think they came up with it you know to mix exactly those two?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (29:54)
⁓ man, well the last one’s hard. I think that I, like if I had to, like I don’t know how they came up with it, right? I think that there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of biologically active plants in the Amazon. And I think that the chances of just eating or ingesting those two plants, if you sort of think, hey, let’s just eat two plants together and see what happens.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (30:23)
the chances of them hitting on that specific combination is really not very high, which implies to me that either it wasn’t random ⁓ or it was random, but it was done over an extremely long period of time. Because if you have enough time with small numbers, like you will hit eventually, right? But I’m kind of thinking that there was some level of intuitive intuition, ⁓ knowing, ⁓ understanding, observation.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (30:52)
systematic trying of things. I’m not really sure exactly how, but I consider Ayahuasca to be ⁓ an incredible ⁓ biologic technology that was somehow discovered or invented. And it really is like an invention or a discovery the same way that if you came up with some new electronic gadget today that was revolutionizing the entire world, people would be like, whoa.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (31:20)
It’s like people should be having that same level of wow for the invention of Ayahuasca because it really is just an incredible thing that was discovered. And, you know, I don’t have more insight or knowledge except for just to like really think of it as like an incredibly advanced botanical technology that probably didn’t come about by random chance would be about the summary version I can have there. ⁓ What was the first part of your question?
Sam Believ (31:47)
⁓ the ⁓ mechanism of how ayahuasca works, you know, why does it need those ingredients?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (31:50)
The mechanism, yeah. ⁓ So ayahuasca has two ingredients to it. There’s Banisteriopsi copy or the ayahuasca of vine. And this has a group of chemicals called monamine oxidase inhibitors in it. And then there’s psychedelic containing plants. And the most common one is chacruna, which has the DMT. There is at least one other ⁓ dipole terrorist that they can put into it that does have some DMT in it as well.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (32:18)
And it’s really the combination of these things that creates the ayahuasca experience. ⁓ So DMT ingested by mouth by itself ⁓ doesn’t have much or any level of psychoactive or psychedelic activity because you have so much metabolic enzyme, so much monamine oxidase in your small intestine or gut and liver that all of the DMT is metabolized before it reaches systemic circulation.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (32:47)
So the monamine oxidase inhibitors are incredibly important or the ayahuasca vine is incredibly important because it will block monamine oxidase which allows the DMT to pass through and have a psychoactive effect. I would note that this is also like a very like westernized version of talking about ayahuasca’s pharmacology and that a lot of other groups may sort of say, well, you skipped the part of mentioning the ayahuasca itself or the ayahuasca vine is a medicine and ayahuasca vine itself.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (33:16)
can be quite healing. And there are some groups that will serve vine only brews and people can still have good healing processes that come from it. But I think that part of this question is like, how does it produce this psychedelic activity with DMT? So I’m sort of answering it through that lens. And I do think that it’s reasonable to think that the DMT adds something as far as healing potential or spiritual experience like we’ve been talking about.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (33:43)
So a lot of times because monamine oxidase inhibitors, I mean, yes, they’re found in the ayahuasca vine, but monamine oxidase inhibitors were the first class of antidepressants that really were discovered or came on the market either. And it is very well known and notorious from monamine oxidase inhibiting antidepressants that there can be some very serious types of toxicities or adverse reactions that could come about when the wrong food or drugs are mixed.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (34:13)
with monamine oxidase inhibitors. So some persons that, you know, maybe start reading about different psychedelics and different psychedelic mechanisms that come across ayahuasca may kind of get the impression from the internet that ayahuasca is inherently a really dangerous psychedelic because it has monamine oxidase inhibitors in it. And that’s not really true at all. Monamine oxidase inhibitors create a metabolic vulnerability.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (34:37)
that when mixed with the wrong things can be very safe, but just having the metabolic vulnerability for some short period of time, if you avoid the interacting food and drugs, is not a high risk type of thing to do overall, or it’s not an unsafe thing in and of itself just to use monamine oxidase inhibitors to boost the concentrations of DMT. ⁓ Yeah, so that’s roughly how we believe ayahuasca is working as far as blocking
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (35:07)
gut monarhominoxidase, which has allowed DMT to be psychoactive.
Sam Believ (35:12)
It’s great that you touched upon the antidepressant part. That was actually my next question that ⁓ now I know a big part of your work is helping people get ⁓ taper off antidepressants in their preparation for a ceremony and also explaining them ⁓ how and why and when it’s a good idea and when it’s not. But what is the, why ⁓ is MAOI so dangerous to mix?
Sam Believ (35:42)
with antidepressants, what is happening there, which kinds of antidepressants. So let’s say for people who are listening and hopefully
Sam Believ (35:50)
planning to come to Lowire and they, you know, we’re going to send them the instructions that say quit antidepressants ⁓ four weeks in advance for them to understand why and which antidepressants ⁓ like SSRIs and ⁓ basically ⁓ talk to us about that. What’s the difference between SSRIs and benzodiazepines? Which ones are dangerous? Which ones are not? Hopefully, yeah.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (36:13)
Yeah.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (36:16)
Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. So I mean, it’s all in a name mono amine oxidase, right? So the, the, the name of the enzyme is very descriptive to what it does. It oxidizes mono amines and the three major mono amines that it oxidizes are serotonin, norepinephrine and ⁓ dopamine. So these are the neurotransmitters that monoamine oxidase is heavily involved in ⁓ removing from the synapse, right? So there it’s, it’s usually.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (36:44)
a neurotransmitter breakdown type of enzyme found in the space between two neurons. That’s how monamine oxidase is functioning in the brain. So when it comes to what is dangerous with monamine oxidase inhibitors, it’s other drugs that increase those mono means, serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. So it’s actually relatively simple to predict if a drug is going to be dangerous with ayahuasca or with monamine oxidase inhibitors.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (37:13)
All’s we really need to understand is does that drug increase norepinephrine, serotonin or dopamine somehow? And so ⁓ selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs, yeah, they block the serotonin reuptake pump and increase the amount of serotonin. They’re gonna be dangerous. ⁓ SNRI, serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. Okay, now we’re blocking serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake. Those are gonna be dangerous.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (37:42)
Cocaine, that’s a dopamine norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. It’s gonna really boost dopamine and norepinephrine. Probably also gonna be dangerous with monamine oxidase inhibitors. So you have lots of different types of substances maybe from different classes of drug, but the crux when you sort of think about which ones are dangerous with MAOIs is they all inevitably have the ability to boost serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. If you’re talking about serotonin syndrome and serotonin toxicity with monamine oxidase,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (38:11)
Well, you’re talking about drugs that increase serotonin. Whereas if you’re talking about hypertensive crisis, which is the other type of adverse reaction or toxicity that you can get with monamine oxidase inhibitors, you’re probably talking more like the cocaine, the stimulants, or maybe just tiramine -containing foods, or ferrets that are very high in, ⁓ yeah, tiramine, usually from a process of fermentation. ⁓ So it’s sort of like…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (38:35)
like you can kind of look at, hey, what drugs are dangerous with MAOIs? And you get this kind of like laundry list, but I would say that strong stimulants and most antidepressants are probably going to be like, yeah, that’s like your main share of them. But there are drugs in other classes that might be able to block serotonin reuptake when other drugs in that class really don’t. Or I would say like the over the counter cough and cold section is another place you’re going to have to be pretty careful. Stuff like pseudoephedrine and stuff like dextromethorphane can interact.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (39:05)
negatively with monamine oxidase inhibitors. And to an extent, certain supplements too. Any supplement that says enhances focus, I think that’s supplement code word for treats ADHD and likely has a stimulant in it. Any supplement that said, hey, this is a stress buffer mood enhancer. I think that’s a supplement code word for treats depression and anxiety. And it likely has psychoactive ingredients that modulates serotonin or penephrine or…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (39:34)
or dopamine in them. So some of it is a little bit of a prediction ⁓ game, but the cool part about all of this, right, is that the pharmaceutical monamine oxidase inhibitors came onto the market in the 50s and 60s. And so as far as like a Western science goes, we actually have a very strong understanding of what drugs truly are dangerous with monamine oxidase inhibitors. And without getting too…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (40:04)
nitty gritty in the details, there’s a couple of reasons to believe that the pharmaceutical monamine oxidase inhibitors probably have a higher degree of causing toxicity with these types of substances than ayahuasca. That doesn’t mean there isn’t this risk with ayahuasca. Sometimes I hear that. It’s like ayahuasca is not a pharmaceutical, so all those pharmaceutical warnings are total bovine excrement. And it’s like, they’re not total bovine excrement, but some of the washout time, some of the ways that we…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (40:31)
conceive about the breaks or their reaction potential might be slightly different. Like, yeah, like that’s fair enough. So yeah, that’s just it. Just avoid the interacting foods and drugs and ayahuasca is, it’s really a very, very safe substance, like overall, like if you start looking at the measured kind of cardiovascular increases with ayahuasca, you know, sometimes people are really, really worried about it. And it’s like, well, it’s less than psilocybin or LSD actually.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (41:00)
like monamine oxidase inhibitors tend to cause an orthostatic hypotension or a lowering of blood pressure or vasodilation. So like sometimes in ceremony, you might get people that are sitting or laying for a long time, maybe sitting cross -legged, they can stand up and they can actually get kind of dizzy because they’re having this orthostatic hypotensive type of effect. So anyone that has like orthostasis in their day -to -day life or meds that they take, or maybe they’re a little bit elderly, I’m always kind of saying like, hey,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (41:27)
If you need to stand up, use the restroom or something like stand up pretty slowly and maybe even flex some of the muscles in your legs first if it’s really been a few hours. And if you stand up and the world starts going white, sit down immediately, you’re probably fainting rather than having a mystical experience. ⁓ I kind of switched topics there on you. At the end, just started talking generically more about monominoxidase inhibitors. Yeah.
Sam Believ (41:50)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (41:53)
No, it’s all good. I think it’s all educational. But yeah, let me first of all appreciate that bovine excrement, bovine excrement phrase. I’ve never heard this before. It’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I’m probably gonna be using it. And ⁓ so ⁓ regarding the blood pressure, right? That is confusing because you reach some places and it says, don’t do it if your pressure is low because…
Sam Believ (42:23)
it will lower it even more and in other places it says don’t do it if your pressure is high it will raise it even higher and for us as facilitators and retreat operators I mean we can’t you know fund science or even ⁓ be able to to get this information so once there was one person who kind of sneak his way around our forms and did not ⁓
Sam Believ (42:47)
disclosed some stuff and by the time he came over and he told us he had the high blood pressure it was too late and he basically ⁓
Sam Believ (42:56)
he said you know it’s all on me i i completely i want to do it no matter what the map blood pressure goes up a little bit he did the design so we decided you know we’re going to give it a try we’ll go slow and we kept measuring his pressure as we were starting with smaller doses of ayahuasca and going up ⁓ and in the end his pressure actually went down a little bit so it was very unpredictable what do you think ⁓ what is the rule of thumb there like does it raise the pressure does it lower the pressure or what is it?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (43:25)
Yeah, ⁓ so just monamine oxidase inhibitors, like just dosing monamine oxidase inhibitors to persons, you’re expecting low blood pressure or orthostatic hypotension. So like a low blood pressure that might cause a fast heart rate if they shift positions, right? So that’s what you’re expecting out of just monamine oxidase inhibitors. Monamine oxidase inhibitors plus DMT. Okay, DMT.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (43:53)
is a serotonergic psychedelic. It causes vasoconstriction and probably can increase blood pressure. So as far as like, ⁓ hey, what are the overall cardiovascular effects of ayahuasca? It tends to be almost blood pressure neutral and small increases in heart rate or maybe small increases of blood pressure. But they’re very, that’s what I’m saying, like nominal compared to other psychedelics. And it’s probably because…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (44:18)
the MAOIs are kind of lowering it and the DMT is kind of raising it and you sort of get almost like a wash as far as like how it’s affecting the person overall. Now you’re on monamine oxidase inhibitors and you start adding drugs that have tiramine or foods that have tiramine I should say or drugs that increase norepinephrine or dopamine. Now because of that metabolic vulnerability, you’re at risk of very high blood pressures, hypertensive crisis.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (44:45)
So I think that’s where a lot of the confusion comes in is some persons are thinking, ⁓ what happens to my blood pressure if I mix it with the wrong stuff? Okay, it’s all over the map. You get autonomic dysfunction and you might get a hypertensive crisis. It might be so high that you have a hemorrhagic or bleeding type of stroke inside your brain, right? But just dosing MAOIs without those interacting types of substances like stimulants or tiramid containing foods, you’re expecting it to be neutral or kind of decreased.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (45:15)
I think that there’s like other layers to this when we’re talking about blood pressure effects with psychedelics too. Like I’m just trying to answer the question based on what do I think the intrinsic actions of the substance are? I think that there’s something to be said about the psychic material that a person is experiencing as well. So for example, I take a dose of ayahuasca. Now I’m not expecting it raises my blood pressure. I might even have a slight blood pressure lowering effect. But if I start…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (45:44)
reliving the time that I was forcefully arrested against my will and was the most traumatic thing that happened to me. Well, geez, maybe the anxiety and panic that comes along with that all of a sudden causes some kind of spike in blood pressure. Panic and anxiety is usually not a pathologic type of thing. Like you’re not expecting a cardiovascular event out of it per se. But I think that those are some of the reasons why.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (46:11)
you might get such disparate information about how ayahuasca affects blood pressures because depending on ⁓ what they mix it with or what’s going on with them, then it might be quite different in different persons.
Sam Believ (46:25)
It is pretty complex. If it is unpredictable even for you as a pharmacist, you know, it can be hard to predict for us. We spoke about high thiamine foods and generally it’s fermented foods, citrus fruits and milk products and ⁓ what else, overly ripe ⁓ fruits. But why do they generally also…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (46:48)
It’s really mostly like really smelly age fermented stuff. Like it’s true that overripe fruits can start to have some level of tiramine content in it, but it’s going to be relatively low and not enough to cause the problem. Like you can eat a ripened avocado, you can eat ripe bananas, like things like that. Like I’m really not worried about a fruit that’s a little bit ⁓ on the ripe side or something like that. It’s really more like the…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (47:18)
gorgonzola cheese, pickled herrings, things like that that have really been through an aged and fermentation type of process that are probably to be avoided. And I don’t know, with drugs, ⁓ oftentimes you do need to avoid them for a good long period of time before ayahuasca. With the tiramine -containing foods, I think a lot of diets and dietes advocate cutting it out.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (47:46)
you know, a good period of time ahead of time, five days, seven days, two weeks, it sort of depends on the data. And there might be some advantage to that. Like I think a lot of like gut enzyme stuff is inducible to the point that if you’re eating a lot of fermented stuff all the time, your body might respond by increasing the amount of monamine oxidase. And that might make it harder for the medicine to cut through all of that kind of chemical noise or upregulated monamine oxidase. So there may be some advantage of cutting out tiramine.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (48:16)
in the diet as far as like potency of medicine, that’s pretty like speculative. That’s just kind of like what I’ve thought about it. But in reality, right, if you were starting one of those pharmaceutical monamine oxidase inhibitors that have a more serious risk of hypertensive crisis than ayahuasca does, my counseling would be you don’t have to start the ⁓ low -tiramine diet until you put the first pill in your mouth. So this kind of like you’ve got to avoid tiramine containing foods for a week, two weeks ahead of time.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (48:45)
It’s not necessarily like a scientific reality that you need to do that to avoid a hypertensive crisis. Probably just need to avoid ingesting blue cheeseburgers with bacon while you’re on ayahuasca, which probably wouldn’t be too hard to do at all, I don’t think. ⁓ But yeah, maybe there’s ⁓ some kind of biological downregulation to gut monamine oxidase that could come if you cut the tiramine out some period of time, and that might make the first cup especially stronger. Yeah.
Sam Believ (49:16)
Well thank you for telling that because when it comes to food we generally lean towards being a little bit more relaxed than some retreat spaces which our visitors appreciate tremendously because they expect ⁓ saltless, sugarless oatmeal every day and they get pretty delicious food of course we but my approach was always very
Sam Believ (49:40)
scientific in a way, okay we understand the thiamine so no thiamine so yeah we don’t do overly ripe fruits and then nothing fermented. So with that what you said just now I can also maybe reintroduce some of the fruits. We’re in the mango season right now there’s a lot of ripe mangoes falling off the trees and I was like I would like to give people some mango juice and I was like why can’t we and if it’s not really that high in thiamine I mean we might do it so…
Sam Believ (50:08)
I will quote you and this is a great excuse for me because people will… What I realize now is that ⁓ everyone gets their information from the internet and the information is not that reliable. So people, if they follow, I say, I always tell people if you follow…
Sam Believ (50:26)
⁓ that recommendations from two three different retreats and maybe even more you end up with just drinking water maybe not even that because that there’s the the the seems to be this movement for the more restrictions i have the more professional i am which in the way in reality is like you just don’t know what you’re talking about so it’s it’s great to have that clarity
Sam Believ (50:49)
and be able to say you know well there’s there’s science behind this this is why we do it this way not that way because some people come and they say you know it’s it’s to this or it’s to that because they they want it to be more stricter because to them it represents ⁓ you know ⁓ more more professionality or more orthodexality what about salt and sugar you know ⁓
Sam Believ (51:12)
Why some places recommend to moderate it, some places recommend to cut them out completely. Is there any mechanism behind salt and sugar?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (51:22)
Yeah.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (51:26)
Probably some. ⁓ So my sorts of thoughts around it are that ⁓ I really don’t want to step on data. Like I think that there’s an aspect to it. Like even if there are restrictions are not necessarily for, ⁓ wow, ⁓ avoid red meat because you’re going to die if you eat red meat a week before this. Like, okay, you’re not going to die if you eat red meat a week before this. Right. But I think that there’s probably, well, every time that
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (51:56)
I was going to put that spoonful of sugar or normally I would eat this way and ⁓ I couldn’t because of the diet. It’s like that person just reinforced their preparation. They just I’m giving up something that I would normally find a short term gratification on because I’m focused in preparing for this thing that’s going to catalyze a healing process. So they are really priming the pump. They’re making changes already.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (52:24)
they’re getting into the habit of practicing restraint and discipline and giving up the sort of short -term, feel good, gratify me, ego, needs a life preserver in this moment types of things for long -term gains and goals as far as what they really want to like focus on. So I think that there can be a lot of really good reasons to do a dieta as far as like preparation, ⁓ spiritual focus.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (52:54)
You know, I think that it’s also very true that particularly a lot of North Americans are living lifestyles. ⁓ They’re very fast paced, burn out lifestyles where there’s a lot of hyper stimulation, either in the types of TV advertisements, like the types of foods like could be laid in with salt and sugar and things of that nature. And it’s just sort of true that the quieter you are, the more you can hear.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (53:22)
And so I think cutting out stuff that’s very, very noisy ahead of time puts the person in a place where they’re going to get more out of it or could potentially get more out of it. Like maybe you’ve been to a rock concert at some point in your life and you forgot to wear your earplugs at the concert and then you’re driving home in the car and your friend was like, hey, you want to stop in and get something to eat? And you’re like, what? It’s like because your senses down regulated that quickly.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (53:52)
in response to being hyper stimulated overall. So I think a lot of persons are a little bit out of touch with their senses or their senses have been down regulated in some way because they’re bombarded by this hyper stimulatory kind of world and kind of slowing down, cutting out the instant gratification things and letting the senses come up a little bit before these experiences really is helpful. You know, I think that again, like to me, it’s a little bit more like,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (54:21)
Well, sugar itself has drug like properties to it, right? Like there is a nutritional substance to it. Like there’s a carbohydrate, but it functions like a dopamine releasing addictive substance in the person’s brain. So it really is like that very like short term, like feel good in the moment, get a hit of something to make it to the next minute of my life, even though I know I’m gonna be crashing in the next minute of my life and wanting to have more sugar at that point, right? So there’s.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (54:50)
I think really good reasons to reduce the amount of sugar, not just to drink ayahuasca, just period, like overall. And then salt, I’m a little bit more, like I think that probably cutting out processed junk foods that are really high and laden with sodium chloride, like iodized table salt, that sounds like a wonderful change to make. Going on a no salt diet. I don’t know, I think your body needs electrolytes. I think that…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (55:19)
you know, the ayahuasca experience, there might be some purging. You know, I typically don’t think that there’s a huge volume or electrolyte loss that’s associated with the purging, but maybe in a person that had really cut out sodium completely ⁓ and was just drinking a lot of extra water or something like that, I think that there might be some risk of kind of bottoming out electrolytes. So I tend to think that don’t go excessive salt. If you’re, if you’re,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (55:46)
eating a diet that’s high in processed salty stuff, you got to cut that junk out, right? But if you want to put a little bit of like mineralized sea salt or something on your food, I personally don’t really have any kind of problem against that. And almost like, ⁓ like, I don’t know, like, like the first few times drinking ayahuasca, my advice to the person is usually listen to the people at the facility and follow it.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (56:15)
Right? Like follow it, right? Unless that there’s something in it that just sounds crazy and you can kind of ask me about it and I’ll tell you if it sounds crazy to me or not. But like the first time, like no matter what I am saying in this sort of interview or what you’re hearing or what you’re reading, just follow it, right? The second, third, fourth, and fifth time, you know, you have a relationship with the medicine now. You might be able to ask it questions. Mother ayahuasca.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (56:44)
Do you care if I eat some onions in the week prior to? She’ll give you a clear answer whether she cares about that or not. And then you can kind of change your approach to something that fits you. Or maybe you want to look at the list of 15 things that they tell you to cut out and identify the three things that you really don’t want to cut out because then that just showed you where all of the attachment is. And you might be attached for a very, very good reason. Well, I don’t want to cut out salt because I have…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (57:14)
Disease that causes me to have low salt my doctor said I need to medically take salt a few times a day so that I don’t bottom out my salt and have a seizure ⁓ Great reason to continue taking the salt right? I want to quit ⁓ I want to keep ⁓ Whatever having candy bars and smoking pot and drinking booze because I can’t It’s like okay. Stop kidding yourself and make some changes and do some hard work ahead of this right like there’s a
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (57:42)
Lots of good reasons to do diete and a lot of good reasons to follow some sort of instructions that may not necessarily be grounded in a life or death physical reaction leading into these types of things.
Sam Believ (57:56)
Yeah, I definitely agree with the psychological side of it when you ⁓ cut things out from your diet.
Sam Believ (58:04)
maybe it’s not going to have any real effect on the strength of the medicine or any adverse effects, but then ⁓ it’s that reverence is that intentionality behind eating that will make your ayahuasca experience better because you are ⁓ more devoted. What we have done and I also use myself as a guinea pig is some things I observe and I noticed that there is no difference. For example, if ⁓ I have salty food or if I don’t have salty food, there is
Sam Believ (59:04)
What ⁓ are ⁓ the worst supplements to take that are absolutely not allowed and why?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (59:35)
Probably a lot of the supplements like like I was mentioning like without coming up with like a list of like hey these are the three supplements that you want to avoid like the supplements that start to be on my Notorious suspect list right would be supplements that seem to make some kind of claim about ⁓ changing mental status or mental health right so supplements that increase or boost mood focus energy stress reducing
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (60:03)
those types of things. Like again, like the supplement manufacturer is trying to tell you this has a psychoactive in it. A lot of the times it’s unclear what psychoactive that they do have in it. And frankly, a lot of supplements have stuff in it that they don’t tell you that is in it too. Like weight loss supplements, ⁓ my goodness. I think a lot of them have like your hydroxy cut types of stuff, like invariably have some kind of stimulant in it that is probably gonna be.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (60:32)
Contra indicated. So I’d say like the stuff that’s like neuro hacking, right? Or where it’s sort of like, yeah, I am using a stack of things to change my mental state and mental status. Like, okay, like there might be ingredients in there that don’t mix very well. Maybe really big doses of lithium or rotate, maybe stuff like St. John’s wort. You know, those are the kinds of ballpark things. But when a person’s like, hey, I got my, you know,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (61:01)
Centrum, silver, one a day, multivite. Is that gonna kill me? It’s like, no, not at all. And I think when persons take huge amounts of supplements, I am encouraging to take some time off of it. Like it just almost does a chemical reverence. Like I can’t really see into this black box of supplements that you’ve got going on, but it seems like there’s just a lot of inputs that are coming into the body and.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (61:28)
If you’re not going to notice much in the way of overdraw syndrome from cutting them out for a few days, then let’s cut them out for a few days. This is almost like my default. So I think inherently with the world of supplements, because the number of things, because they come in stacks, because generally you’re less sure they are what they are than some other things that you might be buying, ⁓ then practicing cauch, cautiously makes sense. ⁓ And…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (61:57)
sort of keeping in mind that there’s very few cases that I’ve found where there’s a real serious toxicity that occurs, where it seems like supplements are the things that are pegged as the causal sorts of agent. So overall, I’m kind of thinking the world of supplements is relatively ⁓ safe, but there’s probably, ⁓ yeah, like don’t take weight loss supplements with ayahuasca, please.
Sam Believ (62:22)
One last thing on the topic of preparation for the ceremony. We spoke about antidepressants. Let’s say somebody is on SSRI or SNRI antidepressants, the ones that don’t go well with ayahuasca. Any recommendations from pharmacology point of view, how to taper off? And in that case, some people really like to…
Sam Believ (62:50)
lower their antidepressants amount and start taking microdoses of mushrooms. What are the, is that a good technique? What are the good techniques ⁓ for people that let’s say are preparing for an ayahuasca retreat?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (63:04)
Yeah. Well, I think like sort of showed him backing up and kind of thinking like, hey, what’s my history with mental health? And like, why, why was I prescribed these antidepressants and have they really served me and done what I’m hoping to? And why am I doing ayahuasca? Am I doing it because I’m trying to find a different treatment strategy for my mental health condition. And my goal is to absolutely leave these antidepressants behind forever.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (63:33)
Or is it to have a psychedelic experience and experience some of the spiritual effects safely, but hey, there’s some upsides to this antidepressant therapy and I probably would go back on it at some point in time. I think if it’s sort of the latter, you may just want to consider other types of psychedelics because you could probably have those spiritual experiences without going through the kind of like disruption that tapering really is going to probably be for most people. Whereas if it’s a little bit more of the former,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (64:03)
then okay, like let’s engage with a taper process. I generally think that dose reductions of 10 to 25 % every two to four weeks as tolerated is a good rate for a lot of people. If you really sort of do the math there, then it’s a pretty big range. 25 % every two weeks, it gets you off in two months. 10 % every four weeks gets you off in 10 months, right? So that’s a pretty…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (64:29)
big sort of range still, but I’m kind of thinking that most people should be budgeting at least ⁓ a month and a half and probably more like two to four months to complete their antidepressant taper before the washout period, which I think for antidepressants with the exception of Prozac is almost universally two weeks. You know, you said you like four weeks at your center. I’m totally okay with centers picking four weeks because I think two weeks later, persons can really sometimes be in a
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (64:59)
in the thick of like a withdrawal reaction, whereas usually more like four weeks, the acute withdrawal has had more time to pass and you may have just a better sense of the person’s overall stability off of ⁓ the medication at that point, whereas two weeks, maybe a little bit early days for some people, or they may just still be in a very intense level of withdrawal. I liken this process a lot to weight loss, right? It’s like you’ve got,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (65:29)
50 extra milligrams of your antidepressant you wanna lose. Well, you might be able to do that by starving yourself for four, six weeks. But if your goal is to sustainably lose weight, you already know that’s just a terrible crash diet yo -yo plan ⁓ where you’re probably gonna put all that weight back on and maybe even end up heavier than you were before. So I think that sometimes it can be very exciting to think ⁓ the retreat has
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (65:59)
a ceremony in three weeks. I’m free in three weeks. I should go. But then it’s like the planning for the time to taper and discontinue is so short and so tight that you’re on this kind of crash course. And even if you can white knuckle it through that period and get there, the chances of you getting that healing experience that allows you to leave the antidepressant behind.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (66:24)
and or the chances of you having like a really tough integration period that’s hallmarked by a lot of antidepressant withdrawal ⁓ is going to kind of go up. So I think like slow and steady wins the race here. Like, okay, tortoise versus the hare and the antidepressant taper, the tortoise is going to win this one if the goal is to be off of it for a long period of time or for the long term.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (66:51)
And if a person is in this taper process and they get to a point that feels pretty difficult and they’re not sure if they’re able to continue, there probably are other types of supplements that could be added. And I do think that microdosing psilocybin mushrooms or maybe microdosing LSD is one thing that doesn’t have a whole lot of supportive clinical data right now, but is an emerging strategy that I hear a lot of positive stories about from people that I’m talking with, not everyone.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (67:20)
Not everyone has this kind of beautifully dried up some of the withdrawal symptoms, but a lot of people do. My thoughts are to start the taper and try to take a couple of steps and wait till you’re feeling some level of withdrawal and then see if microdosing can kind of take away those things. I think that when you’re sort of thinking about ⁓ withdrawing from antidepressants, that’s one variable. You thought adding microdoses, that’s another variable. I mean…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (67:47)
I don’t know, as a scientist, I just hate experiments with two variables because it’s going to be really difficult to figure out what’s going on. So instead of like, let me prophylactically immunize my taper by starting microdosing first. I would actually start to taper first, take a few controlled steps down, wait till out. Yeah, I see the mood going lower. I see my stress is going up. I see that, you know, stress is going up and it’s getting harder to fall asleep or, you know, I’m getting some level of withdrawal. OK, what if I introduce?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (68:17)
some very small micro doses now, does all of a sudden some of those things start to improve? And that’s how I think a person can taper their antidepressants safely and maybe help to understand if microdosing is gonna be an ally for them or not.
Sam Believ (68:37)
Thank you. I think it was a great explanation of how to do it and very reasonable, very meticulous. I think that ⁓ this episode was very entertaining and very informative as well, so I think we can start to wrap it down and…
Sam Believ (69:01)
What are your last parting words? Maybe something that as a spirit pharmacist specifically ⁓ you’d like to tell to people that are in the psychedelic space for healing some words of recommendation. And then what do you, where can people, yeah, tell us about the consultations you do and then where can people find you?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (69:24)
Yeah, ⁓ I’ll say one thing about ayahuasca first that we haven’t said or talked about yet. And then I’ll do the kind of, you know, ⁓ shameless spirit pharmacist self -plug. Yeah, so the first thing that I just want people to know and understand about ayahuasca and the DMT in ayahuasca that is very different than other classic tryptamine psychedelics like psilocybin is that with DMT,
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (69:53)
you do not, ⁓ or if you do, it’s extremely minimal, get a tolerance to the subjective effects with repeat dosing. So psilocybin, you get a rapid tolerance to repeat dosing as far as the subjective effects to the point that if you ingest a dose of psilocybin mushrooms and then try to boost yourself, even ⁓ three or four hours later, the chances of getting much higher aren’t very good actually.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (70:21)
things tend to fizzle. You’ve already accumulated a tolerance to psilocybin in that period of time. And if you try to use it several days in a row, by the second, third, fourth day, you might be eating mega doses of mushrooms, 10, 20 grams, and not very much will be happening. So that’s why that a lot of clinical protocols don’t involve boosters of psilocybin right now. And that’s why you’re gonna be hard pressed to find a psilocybin retreat where the people know what they’re doing anyway.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (70:51)
that involves giving mushrooms two nights in a row because the second night it’s like, you’re just gonna dud the experience. Like give at least a couple of days, like some five day retreats, you know, could have a couple of ministrations, right? But the cool part about ayahuasca is this does not exist. So a lot of people are thinking, well ayahuasca, no, whoa, whoa, that one’s like way too scary and it’s just crazy and ⁓ my God, like the barfing and the vomiting. It’s like, no, no, no, no, no, I wanna stay away from all of that, right?
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (71:19)
But what they don’t understand is that ayahuasca is completely titratable. ⁓ And that’s an incredible property as far as dosing goes. You can give a person, like this person, ⁓ they didn’t, they didn’t unfill out the intake ride or they slipped through or they weren’t 100 % truthful. And now they’re here and they got this blood pressure thing and they traveled all this way. What do we, we do not serve them, we send them home? Or can we actually just give them, okay, we normally give 15 mls, 30 mls, whatever it is, the strength of the brew to start a person.
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (71:48)
This person, we can give him two and a half or five mls and observe him for an hour or two and take a blood pressure and hey, it’s still normal still. All right, now I’m gonna give him five mls. All right, okay, first night we gave him 10 or 15 mls kind of spaced out, no problems there. Second night, I can start them higher, right? So with ayahuasca, in any particular night, you can titrate a person up with a dose. And on subsequent nights, you can choose to have a warmup, a welcome night, a…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (72:17)
a customize you to the medicine because you’re a lot more fearful than somebody else, whatever reasons. You’re 85 years old and you’ve never done psychedelics. Sure, you can you can start people in really tiny doses of ayahuasca and build them up. And because it will work throughout a night and over several nights, I just think that that’s one of the most under leveraged sort of properties and principles when it comes to dosing ayahuasca that, yeah, people are thinking that it’s like the scariest one because you bar for something like that. And
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (72:48)
It’s actually the one that’s the most approachable as far as dosing goes because you can literally do just about anything with the oral dosing as far as titrating people where some of the others it’s almost like you have to pick a dose and hope for the best that day. So that’s the one thing about dosing ayahuasca that I want everyone to know. ⁓ And then yes, spiritpharmacist .com is where I live. I’m a psychopharmacology consultant and psychedelic educator. So that’s just what it means. I have different types of
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (73:17)
Consulting services. I do individual consults for absolutely anyone. They’re always 60 minutes long I also have a subscription or a member program that offers a drug information or email question and a ⁓ question and answer like base service and some more flexibility as far as consulting appointments And then have psychedelic education. So I have different written information guides that are freely available to download I’ve got different blogs
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (73:44)
webinar workshops and then I have like full length like kind of premium courses in psychedelic pharmacology. So check me out, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook. I think some of the best ways to stay in touch with what I’m doing is joining the mailing list. I always give my mailing list just the best of what’s going on with me. I try to keep the signal to noise ratio nice for my email list overall. And you definitely won’t miss anything if you join the list. I do a monthly ⁓ news roundup that…
Ben Malcolm, Spirit Pharmacist (74:13)
talks about different research in psychedelics. That’s mostly me and my practice in a nutshell. Spearfarmacist .com, again, is where you can find me.
Sam Believ (74:23)
Thank you Ben, appreciate you coming on and educating us. Once again, really glad you exist because this is very necessary to have somebody both spiritual and an actual pharmacist. So thank you a lot for coming. ⁓ Guys, thank you for listening. As always with you, the host, Sam Belyev. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a like wherever it is you’re listening to us and subscribe and follow.
Sam Believ (74:53)
Yeah, thank you and I’ll see you in the next episode.