I'm your host, Dennis Walker.We've got psychedelic neuropsychopharmacologist Molly Hickey in the house today.
Molly was one of the earliest employees at Compass Pathways, one of the largest psychedelic pharmaceutical developers in the clinical trial phase with a psilocybin asset.
So we'll be discussing Molly's career arc through her experience with Compass and onto her work in Madagascar.Fascinating place I'd love to check out and intend to soon.I'm going to the Oklahoma Mushroom Festival today.How about that?
Probably gonna see a few of you there. So I'll be arriving tonight in Oklahoma City and I'm speaking on Sunday.Very much looking forward to that.Huge fan of Oklahoma fungi and the entire community putting that event on.
And before we get there, shout out to our sponsors Real Mushrooms.Pioneers in the functional mushroom game with a ton of different ultra premium Mushroom extracts.This company has been doing it for over 30 years.
I'm still on that regiment with the Real Mushrooms, Lion's Mane, Reishi.I've got Tremella extract from them, a number of other extracts, and I use them regularly.In fact, I'm gonna double down on the dose right now.Check out realmushrooms.com.
Also, huge thanks to Healing Herbals. purveyors of legal entheogens, and they've got a ton of different high-quality legal entheogenic products on their online shop.I'm talking about the best Kanna extract on the market.
K-A-N-N-A, a South African succulent that's been compared to nature's MDMA.Yes, they've also got blue lotus extract, which I'm particularly fond of, in addition to some things you might not have heard of yet, like SunOpener, and African Dream Bean.
Go check out healingherbals.store or find them on Instagram at healingherbals.store and get you some legal entheogens dialed in.We were in Wired Magazine yesterday.How about that?
So check out that article at wired.com titled, Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Getting Much, Much Stronger.And you'll see a couple quotes from several former podcast guests including Ian Bollinger, Reggie Harris, and yours truly.
Alrighty then, please consider rating and reviewing this episode wherever you're listening.Have a splendid day.Thanks for being here.Don't be a stranger.Hit me up.You know where to find me.
Mycopreneur at gmail.com, mycopreneur.com, or on the socials at mycopreneurofficial on Instagram, at mycopreneur on Twitter, at mycopreneur on TikTok.
Okay, without further ado, let's hear what psychedelic neuropsychopharmacologist Molly Hickey has to say.Okay, Pasa, Mufasa, what's up, everybody?We've got Molly Hickey, esteemed neuropsychopharmacologist.Say that 10 times fast.What's up, Molly?
How's it going?How are things in the UK today?
Yeah, peace.Sunny, of course, obligatory comment on the weather.And yeah, fairly relaxed midweek. I've been at festivals all summer, so I'm very happy to be in a bed and chilled.
Well, that's actually where we linked up a few short weeks ago when I looked to my left and there you were on stage sitting next to me as part of a roundtable discussion at the Ozora Festival in Hungary.So let's start there.
What drew you out to Ozora Festival and where did that particular experience fit in and the broader context of your European Summer Festival tour?
Okay so when I went to Azor a few years ago I was still working at Compass which I know we haven't mentioned yet but where I have developed I suppose this expertise in psilocybin that I will say with great humility considering that this is a compound that
continuously teaches us humility both I think experientially and as scientists.But I saw the plethora of speakers and started asking questions because of this background that I had.
And I was really inspired by the power and also the interests of people who were not working in the space in psychedelics and how they functioned.Because I've been, you know, it'd been my job
for years, it was quite surprising to me, I suppose, that people were really interested, actually, in what's going on behind the scenes.
And so I decided that I wanted to make a talk because I felt like the most powerful thing to do with the research that's coming out of what we'll refer to as the psychedelic renaissance and all these labs
is to make it available to people so it can be interpreted, bridged with other areas of expertise and applied directly rather than being like the clinical development process with psychedelics is obviously slow and also quite siloed.
So, yeah, so you met me at Azora giving my talk, which I was using the festival circuit to kind of workshop and an opportunity to share it with an audience that I don't usually have access to.
Yeah, and where it fits in, it was really like it was the highlight of my summer in terms of the the space to share this information.And yeah, it was quite exciting to be on the stage that had inspired me to start off doing this.
It's such a unique opportunity, that festival.
I had never heard of it before last year when I was auspiciously invited to emcee and speak at the Chambok House, which is the stage there amongst this 30,000 person psytrance festival, which curates talks about psychedelics, tech, consciousness, the future of humanity.
And they really do pull out an amazing array of speakers from around the world who all have very different disciplines and focus. So it was a pleasure to be there and I was in very good company with you.
Well, let's rewind a little bit and talk about your entry into the psychedelic renaissance, which was really flying high about the time you started working with Compass Pathways.
As I've heard people in the space, quote unquote, frame it now, we may be in what some might call the trough of disillusionment.
If you've seen this graph of there's this hype bubble, there's this exalted expectations of how we're going to bring these drugs to market and the whole world's going to turn on and everyone's going to be floating on clouds and shooting rainbows out of their third eye.
Well, that's maybe my interpretation of it.I don't think anybody really had that vision. Nevertheless, I can say that the hype and the excitement around a lot of psychedelic
The third wave, as some call it in society, has been tempered quite a bit and funding has dried up.
That's not to say that there aren't a couple of companies who are really pursuing it for the long run, but let's go back to 2018 or around then when you first entered this scene and when everybody was getting a million dollars or more with the napkin idea, as people call it.
How did you get connected with Compass Pathways and how did you arrive center stage in the psychedelic renaissance in the first place?
I'm very flattered by that description.So in 2019, I found myself with a pharmacology degree and with the experience of having received SSRIs since I was at school.
And also with an interest in altered states of consciousness slash like a question of what life really is about.And
And I felt quite strongly from these experiences and also from having experienced the capacity of psilocybin to help me reframe stories, even though that might not have been the intention by which I initially sat with. this, these mushrooms.
I wanted to see if anyone was doing that work to bring psilocybin into a situation in which it would be made accessible to people who wouldn't necessarily go and explore retreats or be experimenting.Because I felt that SSRIs
are referred to as antidepressant but that might not be a super-accurate description of what they do.And so I looked to see if anyone was doing this work super-naively to make it psilocybin-packageable for doctors initially thinking that if
doctors were prescribing psilocybin as a first port of call in my dream, particularly to teenagers or people who might be making large decisions about their lives, it would increase the efficacy of therapy and therefore make therapy and work that really looks at what is maybe the cause of any depression
more efficacious in a way that made it financially viable for healthcare systems to deliver it.
And I have a feeling, I haven't seen any actual studies interrogating this, but the SSRIs would increase the challenge in getting to that root cause through therapy and therefore putting people on waiting lists with SSRIs.
is a little bit backwards, in my opinion.Yeah.I felt that after being given SSRIs at the beginning of, at 15, that when I was 22, 23 at the time when I graduated, the amount of space that had come between when I started that course and now,
meant that it was very difficult to go back and examine what had started the whole thing in the first place.
and this being counterproductive and also that they weren't even designed to be used in that sort of way and that we really needed a fundamental shift and that exploring and introducing these compounds to that sort of space would facilitate a revisit of what depression might actually be and what healing might actually look like.
You know, part of the friction that came up when we were at Ozora with divergent viewpoints, people who are very passionately devoted to their worldviews.
So it's natural that friction would come up and I would say it was quite civil actually, but there were some exchanges between people who are very reticent and skeptical and outright
vilifying of the medicalization of psychedelics versus several of us, myself included, who are quite open-minded to it.
I've certainly slagged the medicalized framework before, but always couched within a broader perspective of, it's not my place to deny this to people who want this route, right?
There's a significant portion of the population who's not going to eat fresh fruiting body mushrooms or go to Jamaica or grow their own mushrooms. Now, I advocate that people, if they feel called to try that, do it.
I think that's where the bulk, it's clear the lion's share of use cases, that's where it's happening.However, this medicalized route to me is not a dirty thing.But to some people it is.They're afraid of corporate capture.
They're afraid of the sterilization.And I see it as a both and situation, quite frankly.How have your views changed over time? from working in this environment?Are you quite open-minded to different routes of administration?
Are you skeptical or hesitant about particular avenues?
Well, how have my point of view changed? I concur that I felt that medicalization was a way that I could apply my skill set to increasing access to this medicine to people who might be dubious of alternative routes.
I also felt that it would reduce the the room for potential abuse of people who were going into this space because of the ability to be open about it, basically.
And that I see scientific data as a communication means, fundamentally, especially to get on board people who might be a little bit sceptical or dubious about anything that's kind of got a religious following.
I'm using that term because of the fact that there is a bit of a cult around psychedelics, and people can be really black and white in their views, as you mentioned, and just generally wouldn't consider anything that was not prescribed by a doctor, or consider doctors to be the go-to authority on things, all things mental health.
A big part of it as well is the finances. And that, of course, mushrooms are available on the mountains, pretty much anywhere in the world.There's over 200 species of psilocybe mushroom.
But that if you wanted to be supported by a therapist and be able to do it so openly, that
it would need to be either paid for privately or ideally if we get FDA approved can be supported by one's insurance company or funder be that the NHS in the UK or abroad and so that was kind of the primary mission of Compass was not to be like the
or as I understood it, not to be like the discoverers of psilocybin in its capacity but just to put it into a format that's palatable for the healthcare system so that it can be made available to patients with an awareness of the depressed state and like a sense of comfort that the people that they're working with actually understand
how the way that they may function may differ from other people and other states of mind and be integrated into their healthcare that is hopefully funded for them because of obviously this population tend to struggle when it comes to keeping stable employment and stuff like this.
I think that answers your question, I hope.Also, when I joined Compass's values, they were all about open science, compassion, trust, and this still is true of much of the core team.
It's just they did a rebrand partway through to change those values, but all of this drew me a lot.
that it was really with humility that we're just packaging and looking to understand who this compound may work for, more or less in this setting, and not arguing that it's the only way that people can access it, but a way of getting broad access in a scalable manner, specifically for this group of people.
It fits well into modern society as well.I think there's this romanticization that's happening of people wanting to go back to some forgotten golden age.
And I think we see that when people want to leave the city and go move off to a remote location and build an intentional community.
And whilst I find great satirical joy in that, and it's also quite an appealing option to me personally, we still have a very hyper modern society that we live in with
rapidly evolving systems, including the healthcare system, that are very nebulous and very layered and complex.So to me, the idea of eschewing that or getting rid of it is a little bit short-sighted.It is extremely entrenched.
And we see more and more example of this.We see more evidence of this all the time.And I wonder if these two worldviews are fundamentally incompatible.And in some ways,
It's sort of like driving certain political ethoses as well, when you talk about like, make America great again, or to tie it into Brexit, where it's like, there was this forgotten golden era of the time past, but we're actually headed, arguably, in a much different direction.
So that's a bit of an aside, but I just see these different worldviews and
I think that's what was coming up to the surface when we were on stage there at Ozora with a few people saying, we need to dismantle the corporations and we need to get rid of the medical industrial complex.
And then I'm sitting there with the microphone wondering when I should jump in saying, well, Is that really going to happen?Are we really going to completely dismantle these systems?Or is it wiser to work with the chess pieces on the board?
And that's one way of framing it for myself personally, is that capitalism is a behemoth system.Industrial economies are behemoth.Maybe we're going to evolve past them, but I think that's a quite a long timeline project.
And in the here and the now, there's a lot of people, arguably, that could explicitly benefit from access to these compounds in a way that you've just described, in a way that a number of these larger corporations are working towards.
And I think a lot of people see it as this threat of selling out or maybe more sinisterly, this threat of the corporate capture is what it comes down to is people are rightfully sick of the inflation and the cost of living and just the bells and whistles that
oftentimes seem cumbersome in daily life.And a lot of people pine for a more simplified answer.
And I could tell you how many people I've met over the course of my life and my experimentation with different entheogens and substances who have this vision of wanting to move off the grid and grow their own mushrooms and
you know, be, tune in, turn on, drop out, as some have framed it over the course of psychedelic history.
Fascinating time to be alive, no doubt, and just kind of offering some meandering thoughts there, but ones which feel quite prescient in this time.Now, I'm curious also, please jump in.
Can I jump in?Yeah, I mean, this is what was sort of concerning, so frustrating me about that
Versace and Zora and really is also the fuel of why I made my talk in the first place is that there's so like the deep irony of there being conflict because of attachment to different points of view that are often inherited anyway within this space because it seems that a lot of people find that the healing with psychedelics is a recognition of the fact that we have more
similarity than difference.And we're all actually working on the same thing just from different perspectives.And these different perspectives can enrich each other if we have the capacity to communicate.
And so, yeah, that's why I would like to make it through my work that more people who understand psychedelics from a point of view that may make them very wary of conversation of, sorry, of corporations and medicalizations are able to
communicate with people who are scientists, who are corporates, in a language that they can understand, like meeting people where they're at.And it also seems to me that
I kind of subscribe to the philosophy of spiral dynamics, that humanity is a lot about curiosity and exploration.
That's sort of what it reflects, the capacity of us to be so many different types of ways of living, of so many different types of ways of being human, and like exploring all of these realms is part of the story.
And if we don't do the medicalization route now, then it will be,
done by at some point and it's all really about integrating anyway I mean I've seen it with the um with the way that plant medicine and like the underground route is is developing it kind of is following the same framework as the early the early stages of traditional western medicine where there are charlatans and there are people who um
who are making things up, but they work or that, and like this whole world, like there's been a lot of learning that has gone into the development of the frameworks and structures of Western medicine.
And if we don't like bin it, then we can look at it and see what's actually adding value and leading to a cohesion.And what is, um, and like evolve with what we've got, as you say, um,
And when it comes to these studies that can put things into a language that is palatable by the masses, i.e.
those that subscribe to materialist Western medicine, perhaps, or like looking for molecules and looking for targets and looking for biological reasons for things, then it needs to be funded.
and that funding is why there's a movement to put patents on things because it gives a sense of safety to investors.But there's always the chance that everything comes full circle and then that realisation that there's value in
things like connectedness and harmony and stuff could, you know, we just don't know where this is going to go.It is an experiment.
And to sort of shoot anyone down before we've seen what's happened is assuming a lot of, like, it's assuming that we know what's going to happen, which is, again, I think quite naive.
Indeed.In fact, I can imagine Christian Engermeyer at a drum circle at Burning Man if that hasn't already happened.And vice versa, I can imagine some of the dropouts from the 60s assuming board positions for multinational psychedelic corporations.
I'd like to see both happen.I'm a firm advocate for including one psychonaut on your board of directors.I think it makes so much sense.There's been so many biotech companies I've seen come into the space
that clearly don't have a frame of reference for the underground and for culture.And they're approaching their plan of attack or their business strategy exclusively from this clinicalized, medicalized and corporatized lens.
But I believe in a synthesis of the worldviews, because at the end of the day, whether or not these companies know it, I believe that they're competing directly with the underground. And I've heard people say, no, that's not the case.
But then these companies are burning through $100 million and you see what's happening in different states and in the research and with FDA rejecting Lycos therapeutics.
But many of these substances, MDMA included, are available at a pharmaceutical grade, GMP, good manufacturing practices, packaged with test results. already.
And especially when you talk about something like mushrooms or psilocybin, psilocybin containing mushrooms, how are you going to compete against something that's ubiquitously available, especially when you introduce the community therapy aspect.
Now, I totally appreciate some people want to go with their clinical provider, and that should be available.But from a cost benefit analysis, this is what's happening time and time again with these systems as they've been introduced.
And they've been rolled out and introduced into the Western frameworks over the last six plus years.And still, it's kind of a race to the bottom.And you have companies going bankrupt, people spending $100 million with not much to show for it.
I do predict there's going to be a few big winners in that game.That's pretty clear to me.But overall,
It's a tough battle to fight against a substance that's ubiquitously available that's impossible to patent, of course, like these natural ones specifically with mushrooms, and one that's increasingly commonly used in a community environment with community therapists and one example of this
that I've taken note of recently is in New Zealand, there's a Maori community that's doing research with a medicalized focus on treating methamphetamine addiction, which is a huge issue in the Maori communities.
And they're using a local fruit, full fruiting body, salasa bee mushroom called the wee rowa mushroom.And they're doing it with a community led clinical protocol.So again, it's this idea of not outsourcing
your mental health to a third party that's outside of your community, but actually working with this sort of medicalized framework from a community-driven perspective.Now, I'm not an expert by any means in all of these different avenues.
Clinicalization is not my modus operandi, but it's one that I've been exposed to repeatedly through conferences and reading the papers and so on and so forth. Just a couple of thoughts there.
But I also wanted to mention that one of the first great medical breakthroughs in modern scientific history and medical history was penicillin, which is fungi based.And that I believe is produced using mycelium.
And that's a good example to me of nature or this more natural remedy that's organically available, being introduced in a very effective capacity to a global industrialized medical framework. And I guess we're getting pretty deep into the weeds here.
So let's trace it back a little bit.I'm just curious about your initial interest in these medications.You mentioned you were prescribed SSRIs at the age of 15.
Was there ever an experience that you had that really opened your eyes to the potential of psilocybin mushrooms or other psychedelic medicines?And how did that guide your next steps into neuropsychopharmacology?
I mean, I don't know if I would say that it was, it's not that anything was groundbreaking, okay, but when I first had mushrooms, I was like very, I was just super curious.
I mean, when I was a kid, I remember saying, because I was super into the Beatles, I suppose, I was like, oh no, I won't do drugs, but I will do, I would like to try magic mushrooms, even when I was really young.
And so I was aware of being perhaps a little bit unstable and had a lot of people saying like, oh, therefore you should not be the person, you should not explore mushrooms.But, you know, classic story, I was 18 in Southeast Asia.
And I had a smoothie with some friends.And, you know, it was actually really strong, like, considering my experiences since.And I found that other people were, like, seemed a little bit freaked out.
But I felt more at ease and at home in my body than I think I ever have. And I had this feeling of like my spirit being like, I'm happy to be here with you, which was also very interesting.
Like I hadn't, I wasn't cultivating whatever it was that meant that I almost wanted to jump out my own skin and had this like, like inherent fear, like feeling of dread and like, deep emotional rotting pain in my bones.
And I was thinking at the time, because I had an aunt that had died, about how, God, I wish that she could, that I could have a conversation with her about my time in Southeast Asia because she had also, she basically left Scotland and went to Southeast Asia and set up a bar and lived there for all of her life.
And I felt like I was kind of like, really wish that I could share with her my experiences.And then it was like, that thought had been going on during the time that I was in Southeast Asia.
And during the mushroom, I had the thought and then it was like, like, clear as day that like reframing that story of, I am inherently connected with her through sharing this experience.
And that actually when people die, they are, we're more connected with them perhaps than when we are alive.And it kind of surprised me, the capacity to reframe the narrative and that thereafter with any time that I've,
engage with mushrooms, that it's been when I've been the most stuck in a rut, that they've given me a capacity to see that the way that I'm seeing things isn't the only way to see it.And when one's been depressed for however many years,
then just not like just having the experience that there is another way of seeing things is in itself like a real shock slash like reboot to the system.
Guys funny I'm recognizing like how many thoughts I have about this and how to get them out in an order that's mildly um palatable.
But also my perspective of what depression actually reflects has evolved a lot during my time both being a human being working in this space and exploring plant medicine.Yeah.
That's beautiful.Those were very astute reflections, and I welcome you to share any more as they bubble up.
And I'm curious to move a little bit away from the talk around clinicalization and psychedelics, et cetera, and talk about some of your other work in Madagascar, which is something we bonded over.I've been very fortunate to travel extensively.
It's one of my favorite things to do.Talking about reframing a story, there's almost no better way to do that besides psychedelics than travel.
And to go to a new place and to get totally outside your comfort zone and to see how other people live and their daily rituals and the way they eat and what they eat and the way they relate to each other.
And Madagascar has got to be one of the most remote, beautiful places in this era of increasing global homogeneity, where I've seen a number of different cities recently in different countries.
It seems like this unifying force of globalization has touched all corners of the planet, wherein you could be in Kuala Lumpur or Sao Paulo or Paris, and you're going to see a lot of the same brands and some of the same ideas and the same cultural operating systems.
But Madagascar is kind of totally out there.So yeah, how did you get connected there?What's the story?
That is exactly it.And that was actually what I found when I first started. going on these solo trips, which started when I was 16, I went to Kenya.And it was like, I was so, I was so scared when I first went on my own.
And I even wrote a letter to my mum, like, if I don't make it back, I'm sorry, whatever.But it was going and doing something that I realised that I was actually, I mean, I only realised that I was a bit anxious about it the night before.
Before that, I was like, yes, let's go.But it was doing something and breaking through. that dive into the unknown, that made me recognise and see my own strength, and that my thoughts are not necessarily always valid.
So that's one way in which I consider travel to be psychedelic.Also, to live a little bit of life in an environment that is completely devoid
or as much as possible of all of the cultural little hooks upon which the conditioning is hinged or hung upon and maybe I felt like I needed to be in a completely different environment to be free and to explore like what do I actually think?
And how do I actually want to interact with this environment?And there's something quite liberating as well about being the only person from one's culture.
So anything that one does, it's like, ah, it's just because I'm from a different culture, like I kind of set my own standard.And so, as I may have alluded, I've been
I know I've been in India and Peru and in Southeast Asia and other countries in Africa, including Ethiopia and Kenya and South Africa and West Africa, or East Africa, sorry.But there is nowhere that is more off-grid, if you will, than
Madagascar that I've encountered and it's like going for a total conditioning shower.
So I first was going there because a friend of mine from school grew up out there and so she was going for Christmas and it was just after Covid and she asked, oh would you like to come and obviously I said yes.
and I was getting on the plane and you can imagine that there were heaps of synchronicities or like near misses or like I'd even changed my flight a few days before actually to attend the Compass Christmas party that became a whole scandal but I'll save that one.
That led me to be getting on the plane in Paris
I'd been awake for about two days, drank a load of champagne, gone to my friend's boat, smoked a bit, then taken the night buses through London for a few hours, and managed to get on the flight at 6 a.m.
to Paris, and then was getting on the flight from, boarding the flight in Paris, and the guy, I was kind of a bit giddy, basically, from this whole situation, the fact that I'd actually made it to the plane.
And the guy in front of me had headphones on, so I just turned around like, oh, have you ever been to Madagascar before?Because I was like, oh my God, like, who goes to Madagascar and why?And it was this dude who was like, yeah, I live there.
And then we started chatting, and he told me a bit about his life, which sounded equally extraordinary.And he kind of sparked some sort of inspiration in me and invited me to come
check out his place, that he'd been hoping to make a hostel from this house that he bought, that he'd been doing it with his ex-partner, but she now wasn't coming back.
And I just couldn't believe it because I was like, huh, that's exactly the sort of thing that I've been wanting to do.I've been like so nomadic for years.
to just like, even at uni, I thought, okay, I'll go and do the job thing, prove myself, because I seem to have some addiction to proving myself.And having somewhere where there's interesting people passing through, doing interesting things,
But I can, so I can have that sort of openness and availability to chance that being on the road provides, but also like being grounded and having a space, but being somewhere that also allows me to get a bit of a thrill from dancing to the tune of different cultures.
And I just love how Madagascar shows me like all of the conditioning in the same way that psychedelics sort of do.
Like when I see people with a completely different frame of reference, a different lens, I'm able to reflect on how mine is pulling the strings on how I behave.
And so yeah, things like snowballed where he was going to sell the house after I'd been there for a few, like went back a few winters and he was thinking about selling the place.
I'd found that it had such a healing effect on my general situation to be able to know that I could go out there.I was like, uh-uh, I really want this place to remain available to me.And I started looking to see if I could find ways to buy it.
And then he decided not to sell it.And so we ended up partnering on making this place.And luckily I've been able to add in a few of my, like my vision, which is a little bit more, ambitious perhaps than a hostile because I'd really like to see it as
yeah, a place where we can have projects happening that have an impact on the world, that has that conditioning that you mentioned is common in Kuala Lumpur and Agadir and London, from the awareness of what life is like outside of it.
I love travel for that exact reason.And in recent years, it's become extremely convenient, almost too convenient, to have Airbnb, Uber, be able to pay with a credit card everywhere.And on the one hand, that's quite nice sometimes.
I'm getting a little bit older.I got some white in my beard.So I like to be able to have that sense of stability and comfort.But I do sometimes miss the days of being footloose with a backpack, sleeping on a beach, and jumping on a boat.
I had a really unique travel experience after I worked in Saudi Arabia for six months, which was in and of itself an extremely unique experience.And I got to know the Gulf pretty well and Oman and the Emirates and Bahrain.
But a friend and I jumped on a one-way flight to Southeast Asia afterwards.And I had just been given two bonuses because that's how they roll in Saudi Arabia. So I sent one home and I tucked some money away for later.
And then I had $4,000 in cash on me.And it was this incredibly liberating feeling just to realize I can go anywhere.I can show up at a border, take a bus somewhere, change 300 bucks or 400 bucks into the local currency.
I can get on a little boat and I can just point at the map and say, take me there.And that level of traveling was so eye-opening.And of course, there were some growing pains as well.
It wasn't always smooth sailing, but there was really a sense of adventure that I think a lot of the wave that we travel now no longer maintains.And I find thrills in other places now.I'm quite happily married and devoted to my family.
and have friends and projects and things like that.But I do still remember those days of being totally free and literally not knowing where I was going to stay that night, right?
Just showing up in town and talking to someone on the bus and being like, I remember in Cambodia staying in a hostel just because it had the coolest name.It was called Don't Die on the Sidewalk.And I picked it out.I was like, this is a cool hostel.
And then we went and played ping pong with the owner and ate barbecued duck, which I thought was barbecued dog because he said, it's a duck, a duck. Well, I hope it's duck.I'm going to see it.
And then, you know, they play this trick on all the foreigners.But anyways, that level of traveling, same with going to Oaxaca and going up to the mountains of Oaxaca.
These days, it feels far too convenient often just to like boom, boom, two buttons on the phone, and everything's taken care of for the next seven days.So
To me, a place like Madagascar or certain parts of the world really represent that more difficult pilgrimage where you have to earn it.And you really have to lean into the connection with locals, that hospitality.That's the other missing piece.
So yeah, how has your experience been like interacting with locals in Madagascar?And have you come across any mushrooms of any kind, psilocybes or not?
no so i am i mean just on the psycho psychoactives i haven't encountered any mushrooms there or use of this but there are these seeds that are everywhere that they refer to as dream seeds um and there's like a
a kind of spirituality like there's discussion of like oh don't go there that's where the spirit lives and you know they do this ritual of digging up the bones every eight years or something of people who died
So there's lots of rituals and a lot of ancient knowledge that has been preserved through different tribes because of the fact that people live so remotely.
And I do definitely want to acknowledge the mad situation that we find ourselves in, in being able to explore all these different worlds and drop in, like you say, being able to drop into Oaxaca and also Southeast Asia, perhaps even in the same year.
But yeah, it's this, it's like when I personally, it's when I really like throwing myself out into situations where I have to really blag my way that I get a bit of a high.And I admire myself quite a lot for being able to pull it off.
And I'd like to facilitate that for people who only have two weeks off.So the The project with Madagascar, this place called Shambhala, was set up by my friend Max because of him landing there and just being completely like, what is this place?
And like, particularly the way that people interacted with him.How there's a completely different point of view and like, or like reflecting on what happiness is.
And so he speaks the language now because it's all really in conjunction with the village that we've been able to set up. And all of the point of the adventures is to give people, like to create a bridge between these worlds.
Because when I was in Madagascar with my friend's family, they were like the only way that you can feasibly travel in Madagascar.And these are people, you know, who've lived there for like 25 years, is to have a driver and book hotels and stuff.
Because otherwise, it's just like, you just can't do it.But they were also a wee bit older, you know, they were like in their 60s.
I found that you can really pitch up anywhere and people take like, there's the vibe is one of I help you because that's how we operate.And if for example, I get like my motorbike stuck in the mud,
load of people just like it's just a miracle like either there'll be people there you'll just like run up and help or people sometimes just like emerge from the jungle um and they will give me a hand and then sometimes I can like I would try and give them money and they would just be like just sort of be like nah that's not part of that's not the deal that's not how
completely dismiss me, trying to give me money.
And this ethos also is reflected in, and that of the conditioning of the West, in a friction that Max had when he first arrived there, which was that he would help people out, like giving them a lift or something.
And they would just walk off and not look at him when they got out of the car.And he'd be like, oh, thank you would be nice.But then it's like, those things go hand in hand.They're taken for granted that we help each other.
And the, and like not having all of this formality as if it's like a surprise or an honor that someone has helped each other and expectation from one another about how we would interact.
But yeah, I absolutely love the lack of, like there's a general sense of pride in which people carry themselves. and are quite happy to openly laugh at me for being a weirdo because I'm from another land with all of my little quirks.
That language of humor is so transcultural.
It's such a beautiful thing to witness in real time where oftentimes you might not even share any language whatsoever or a few words with someone and you can make each other laugh and they can laugh at you and you can laugh.
And to me, that's a universal language and reminds me of a lot of larger than life characters I've met.One comes to mind, I was in Thailand at an elephant sanctuary near Chiang Mai, and it was quite a hike to get there.
It was one of the cheaper ones, not one of the big kitted out touristy ones.So it took maybe eight hours.For all I know, they were walking us in circles as part of the charade.But when we ended up there, it was very remote, not developed.
They had a little 7-Eleven, quote unquote, which was a bamboo hut with an ice chest selling beer.They had opium there as well, which was really interesting to see.And
the main host was the only one who could speak in English and he had functional English, but he was hilarious.Just all of the jokes he would make and his sense of humor and vibrancy, it communicated.
Even when the jokes didn't really make sense or the one-liners, the fact that he would laugh so much about it and be in such jovial spirits totally translates.And I've always taken that with me, these types of characters when I'm in those scenarios.
And I found myself oftentimes in places like in Ukraine, in the South of Ukraine, like I took a train for 14 hours and I'm in this little cramped up cabin with three other strangers and we're trying to communicate and they're offering me cookies and you just resort to body language.
And there's this primal instinct of, if you can have laughter together, I trust you. And we're in this journey together.And it's so beautiful to hear you mention the way that people are helping each other and not expecting a payment or a thank you.
That's just how society functions, is one day you're going to need help and I'm going to be there to help you.And today I need help, so you're going to help me.And so many things, we can tie this back into the psychedelic renaissance in some ways.
It feels like a lot of things have become transactional in our culture, where if I do something for you, I inherently expect that you're going to pay me or you're going to return the favor.And that might not be the best way to frame anything.
It might just be, I'm going to do this for you because this is how I treat my friends and there's enough for all of us and I'm doing well.And I'm not going to say that all of the people and companies are transactional exclusively.
You know, there's plenty of people offering pay what you can for services or scholarships or things like that.
But that merit of, or that key point of, I'm not going to do this for you unless you do this for me, I think has really picked up the social fabric in a lot of ways and conditioned people arguably to not trust each other and to expect
that someone's gonna return a favor.So just some off the top of my head thoughts there.Well, let's talk about, yeah, please jump in.
Or I just wanted to respond saying that importantly, when I'm thinking about this response, I'm thinking about the fishing village and the local kind of area, which is rural.
And I see the difference in the island, like off of where we are, that's got a lot more of a financial
discrepancy because of the fact that there's actually a lot of white people there um or westerners and i mean i'm saying white because they're like mostly french um and white people white people yeah like it's really crazy the difference in the vibe and the thing that seems to
The magic thing is that people haven't really needed money so much to survive, so it's been actually quite hard to get people to want to do things for money in Madagascar, but the thing that seems to be changing that is phones.Phones is something.
I mean, there's vehicles and phones being the two things that people need money for. I mean, a beautiful example of the thing with the transaction was like, I was asking, Oh, is there somewhere that I can buy a jackfruit?
And Max was like, Oh, you can't buy a jackfruit because they grow in the forest.So like, no one is going to sit around trying to sell jackfruit when it's already there.
and like they do all this stuff in the village, this is a bit of a splatter in response to what you said, but that kind of unites everyone as well and builds that community that I feel like we could maybe learn a lot from.
They do this clapping thing that's kind of It creates music, but they all know all these different techniques of how to clap, and they do it together.
And I would love to look at the neuroelectrical activity before, during, and after doing this activity, and how people sync up in the vibe.And there's also this principle of if I'm storing food in the belly of my brothers,
Cows is a big thing in Madagascar.And when a cow is killed, it's like a big deal.It's like a huge ritual.It's like people are dancing and drinking rum like all through the night, all through the morning.
And then they kill the cow and then eats like the whole village gets together and they, you know, and they eat the cow basically that day or within like a few hours, like skin and everything.
And this also, I think like creates these bonds that I don't really see. in other places.Yeah, I just wanted to add that in.
I'm so glad we're talking about travel.It's something that I think fits so well into the psychedelic conversation.
Yeah, it's like mind revealing, like revealing how we operate in new circumstances.
With a lot of psychedelic journeys, it's inward travel, so it makes sense that people who would have a proclivity or an interest in that would also be interested in outward travel.A lot of these mind states can reflect themselves.
If you've been jet lagged in a foreign environment where you don't know anyone, it's a truly psychedelic experience oftentimes that completely challenges your ontology or the way you make sense of the world.
So many good stories are bubbling up, but one that comes to mind, two brief ones, is I was twice, I've been stuck in perilous situations because of a vehicle in the wrong place in Mexico.And not in a sense of the people, but more like in the desert.
Like I'm driving, following Google Maps. I'm on my way to a surf hostel in Baja, California.It has a lot of desert where the beaches are.And then the next thing you know, you're too deep into the sand and you can't move at all.
And you're 10 miles away from the hostel.You cannot see anything in any direction.Your phone has no service and you're just completely stuck there.No water or very little water and food.And then after an hour or so, a fisherman pulls up and
I'm fortunate to speak some Spanish and just tell him and without even hesitating, this guy could have milked me and said, I want $800 or whatever.And that's actually happened before in a different place.Nope.Let me get my tools out.
Let me call a friend.He's on his way.20 minutes later, two people are using machinery and tools to dig my car out and tow my car out. expecting nothing.And I've got 20 bucks that I give them and they seemed completely uninterested in the reward.
That was one.Another one in Saudi Arabia, I used to live on a military base for a couple months.It was a very strange scenario.
And I went into the capital city of Riyadh to visit a friend for the weekend, but I didn't have good communication at the time. and ended up at the hotel where he was staying, and he wasn't going to be there for hours and hours.
So not really knowing what to do, I literally kind of sat outside of his door just thinking, well, at least I'm going to catch my breath, figure out what I'm going to do next.
And then this Pakistani gentleman shows up, he's his neighbor in that hallway, and he goes, what are you doing sitting on the floor in great English?And I just explained the situation.He goes, You can't wait out here.You're coming into my home.
I'm going to prepare lunch for you.I'm going to host you."He had zero incentives, zero need to do it.Brings me into his house, prepares a lunch for me, tells me stories.We become good friends.It ended up being the highlight of my weekend.
It's like, oh, now I got another good friend who's friends with my neighbor or neighbors with my friend.
what a world to live in where those things happen, as opposed to how we've often been socially conditioned, it feels like, with a lot of what's happening.
And the media narratives you see about, like, don't trust the others, you know, the foreigners pouring in, the undocumented migrants.There's, you know, a lot of unfortunate framing.
And obviously, I'm not going to say there's not no problems related to some of these meta issues.But I want to live in that world where you're friends with the people who you help and vice versa in a non-transactional manner.
And it doesn't matter where you come from.It matters that you're there at the same time and you're able to uplift each other.Rant over.
I do want to kind of bring this discourse back towards a nice resolution here and ask about your next couple months.What's on the horizon for Molly Hickey, the neuropsychopharmacologist moving forward?
Well, I guess like recovering and reflecting and integrating the summer.And I'd like to get at least one good recording of my talk that I can make available to people who aren't necessarily going to be like in person.
And then and then I'm going back out to Madagascar in October or November to
It's like my time to really like, I lock myself basically on this island so that I don't get swept up in invites and opportunities that come that distract me from some of my core projects, which is like, I write short stories and illustrate.
And I'd really like to dedicate some time properly to this and to getting them formatted for printing and sharing.
I've been working with some organisations using my illustration to create materials for communicating scientific or clinical processes stuff to patients and to
to like investors basically um and I've I mean really it's just seeing what comes up I'm really impressed by life um for how things are kind of like weaving together I've got this dream right that next summer we can do the festival season or like a tour of conferences or whatever in a slightly more sustainable way where one isn't traveling alone
I can get together a group of interesting, engaging speakers and we can form kind of a bureau and like operate as a crew.So there's sort of a, yeah, like a momentum, a morale and logistical
sustainability basically to do these talks because I do think that like it can be like a highlight for some people to have to have this um available in that environment that's about expansion and exploration and experimenting which is
at least how I perceive festivals.But so many people do it for a year and then don't do it again and get burnt out.Kind of like DJs when you're operating solo.
and then using my artwork to amplify the messages of scientists and kind of thought leaders or circuit breakers that I believe in, like I have an ally called Robin Lockhart who has an amazing way of asking questions that can completely like knock people out of
destructive thought cycles and so to take his anecdotes and use illustration to make them, yeah to publish them that way and generally just see how things weave together and find that icky guy which requires a bit of honesty with oneself and clarity and
Yeah, I mean, this is the first time in my life that I've been not in an institution, basically, apart from gap years where there's been kind of intentionally no distinct plan.
And I'm pretty sure that I would like to kind of remain a non-employee, but working with collaborators that excite me.So I hope that that's on the horizon.
Here, here, that sounds lovely.I'm in for the caravan, the brigade of interesting speakers and captivating circuit breakers.I'm gonna definitely recycle.
Or any PhD PIs who would happily have me as a PhD student, I also welcome that.
There's your call to action, everybody.All right, well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you.Let's keep this discourse going and you're welcome back anytime.So Molly Hickey, thanks for joining us on the Mycopreneur podcast.
And that is a wrap.Thank you for sticking around to the bitter end.It's very sweet of you to commit so thoroughly.Don't be a stranger.
Let me know what you thought of this episode, and please consider checking out the substantial backlog while you're at it.
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Have a wonderful day.I'll see you back here next week on the Micropreneur Podcast.
