Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. For this episode, I’m doing something different. I’m featuring a very special episode from a brand-new podcast called Altered States.
Here’s the teaser for the episode you’re about to hear: “For the last couple of years, producer Shaina Shealy has been following Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who have been coming together to drink the psychedelic brew ayahuasca in an effort to heal their collective intergenerational trauma. It seemed to be helping them when suddenly the region erupts into chaos and violence.”
Shaina Shealy was a fellow from the Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship, which offers ten $10,000 reporting grants per year to journalists reporting in-depth print and audio stories on the science, policy, business and culture of this new era of psychedelics. The fellowship is supported by my foundation, the Saisei Foundation, and made possible in collaboration with Michael Pollan, Malia Wollan, and others at UC Berkeley.
Altered States looks at how people are taking psychedelics, who has access to them, how they’re regulated, who stands to profit, and what these substances might offer us as individuals and as a society.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Altered States Podcast | UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics
- Funding Cutting-Edge Scientific Research | Saisei Foundation
- The Ferriss – UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship | UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
- Israeli-Palestinian Conflict | Global Conflict Tracker
- What Is Ayahuasca? Experience, Benefits, and Side Effects | Healthline
- The Oslo Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process | US Department of State
- Fostering Peace, Justice, Healing, and Transformation | Holy Land Trust
- Nonviolence in the Holy Land | Metta Center for Nonviolence
- The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin: ‘He Never Knew It Was One of His People Who Shot Him in the Back’ | The Guardian
- What is the Holocaust? | Anne Frank House
- Memorial and Museum | Auschwitz-Birkenau
- The Nakba Did Not Start or End in 1948 | Al Jazeera
- A Look at How Settlements Have Grown in the West Bank over the Years | AP News
- How Generational Trauma Among Israelis and Palestinians Fuels the Cycles of Violence | NPR
- Rwanda’s Resilience: The Power of Forgiveness and Unity | United Nations Development Programme
- Remembering Israel’s Siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem | Middle East Monitor
- Jewish Institute of Religion | Hebrew Union College
- Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research Team | Icahn School of Medicine
- Rachel Yehuda: Intergenerational Trauma and Healing | 18Forty
- Arrested Neo-Nazis Built a Weapon, Were Making DMT: Court Docs | Vice
- Sami Awad and Leor Roseman: Ayahuasca as a Peace-Making Tool Among Palestinians and Israelis | Psychedelic Science 2023, MAPS
- Second Intifada | Wikipedia
- Ya Fatima | Mesum Abbas
- October 7 Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes by Hamas-Led Groups | Human Rights Watch
- Palestinian Poll Finds Big Drop in Support for Oct 7 Attack | Reuters
- Feeding Families Impacted by the Conflict in Gaza and Israel | World Central Kitchen
- Shiva: What You Need to Know | My Jewish Learning
SHOW NOTES
- [00:00:00] An intro to the Altered States podcast and its mission.
- [00:02:24] Shaina Shealy explains what ayahuasca is and how it affects the human brain.
- [00:03:47] Palestinian Sami Awad’s peace activism and ayahuasca journey.
- [00:17:18] Dr. Rachel Yehuda and the science of intergenerational trauma.
- [00:19:27] How the Israeli-Palestinian ayahuasca experiment came about.
- [00:25:47] Participants share their experiences.
- [00:38:35] How the violent events of October 7th affected the participants and the project.
- [00:45:52] Reflections on the experiment’s effectiveness and participants’ continued commitment to peace.
- [00:50:29] Closing credits.
PEOPLE MENTIONED
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
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This is such a powerful exploration of how shared experiences can bridge divides. Ayahuasca seems to create a space for vulnerability and connection. It’s fascinating to see how different cultures approach healing