Limits of Medical Models for Psychedelics

For millennia, humans have turned to psychedelic plants to expand perception and access realms beyond ordinary consciousness. This episode follows that lineage, from Indigenous ayahuasca ceremonies in the Amazon to the secret rituals of ancient Greece, revealing how these substances once served as powerful spiritual technologies. We begin with the extraordinary story of Don José Rubio, the Colombian elder who used ayahuasca visions to help locate four missing children in the jungle, and we hear from author Brian Muraresku, whose research suggests that the foundations of Western spirituality, like other belief systems around the globe, may have been influenced by psychedelic sacraments.

We then turn to the modern moment, where psychedelics are reemerging as tools for healing. Marine Corps veteran Juliana Mercer describes how guided sessions with ayahuasca and psilocybin helped her process decades of trauma, while Yale researcher Dr. Ben Kelmendi explains how these substances open windows of neuroplasticity that can transform mental health when nothing else has worked. Throughout, a deeper theme emerges: psychedelics don’t just heal. They reconnect us to an ancient way of knowing, one that blurs the boundary between medicine and the mystical, and invites us to remember what humanity once understood.

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