Psilocybin, Circles and Healing Trauma with Chi Amsterdam

This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. Welcome to synchronicity. My guest this week is Chi Amsterdam. He told me, I said, "Well, last thing." He said, "Just use Amsterdam." So Chi Amsterdam is a pretty cool name, sounds like a movie character. Great conversation. Chi is in Amsterdam doing these truffle therapy retreats, which is truffles, you'll hear in this episode. Basically, this condensed, I think it's the underground part of before the mushroom comes up. It's like all this compacted stuff in there, and so that's legal in Amsterdam. I guess mushrooms used to be psychedelic mushrooms, but then there was some propaganda, something we get into a little of that too, but now truffles are legal, and they've been doing these therapy things, same active ingredients, silicine and psilocybin, and very cool stuff.

He's up to with a group of people out there. You'll hear all about that in this episode. It was a real nice speaking to him. You know when you talk to someone and you can just sense very early on in the conversation that they're being completely transparent about their experiences and where they've been. Not to say if you don't feel comfortable doing that, there's anything wrong, but some people are like, "You know what? I have a real comfortability. Is that a word I'm going with?" I guess so, level with sharing parts of themselves, and especially traumatic things too, and she is absolutely that type of dude, and I really appreciated it.

We got into some really cool stuff and got into these big questions that I think a lot of people are dealing with. How do we not fuck up the earth? How do we not fuck up ourselves? How do we take more accountability and responsibility for our actions individually and collectively? Try to come up with a few answers to that and see what general themes are emerging. So yeah, that's what this conversation is about. Big thank you to everyone who's been reaching out recently. I just got in. I don't know what it is, but there's been an influx of communications, and I have caught up as of releasing this episode.

I hope I have responded the way you would have liked. Everyone was very friendly. That psychosis and synchronicity episode is really -- the solo ones, I always just feel like I'm rambling anyway in the intros, and so it just feels like for me those solo episodes. But I'm just rambling for like 45 minutes, but apparently people like them, so I'll try to pepper those in as much as possible. I wasn't going to do a sponsorship thing this week, but I realized this episode is about mushrooms, and I have legitimately been drinking my new -- I finally have a favorite product from Four Sigmaatic. This is what I'm trying to tell you.

I have sampled now every single thing that they have sent me, which was an astounding amount of stuff and variety of things. So I really now know what I like, and the mushroom elixir with lions mean. It's a little fruitier than the other ones. I very much enjoy -- I'm going to take a sip of it right now, this is even planned. It's like citrusy. It's really yummy. It's really good. So I recommend that if you're looking to do it. Reminder if you go to foursigmatic.com/synchsync, get 15% off your first order. Go do that. I can see who's going there and how many of you people are going there and getting stuff.

Keep it up. It's a great way to support the show, and see if you like this stuff. Those are good. This episode, if anything you're going to learn about this episode, is mushrooms are friends. And I think the foursigmatic people are doing some cool shit. So there you go. Boom. Nailed it. Anything else I got going on? New music. I've been working on a new music. I picked up a sweet little piece of gear for people who make music. The Arturia keystep. I needed a new MIDI keyboard, a MIDI controller, but a compact one. I could take on me with trips or wherever I'm going. I needed something that wasn't like janky and I didn't need a million fucking beatpads, knobs, and all of this stuff.

And I got this keystep the other day, and it's the perfect thing. It's amazing. I would recommend if you want knobs and faders and things, just get another MIDI controller for that and use it exclusively for that and live it and make some nice stuff. But man, I love it. So that's been good. Music has been happening. I hope all is well with you, let's just get to the episode, how about that? Without further ado, here is Chi. How are you doing, man? Yeah, doing really good, just having quite some calls last few days, just the schedule filling up and just connecting with people all around the world and talking about mushrooms and there's a huge shift happening in this world.

Like people are realizing that they have to wake up a little bit and they have to take action. They're waiting for anybody to do anything for them. That does seem to be a really big message. Well, you want to just get started? We'll just jump right in. Sure. Yeah, sure. Cool, man. Well, thanks for coming on. Yes. Thank you very much for having me here. I'm excited based on our last conversation and just finding out a little bit more about you and kind of what you're doing. I thought a cool place to start. I usually don't do this, but I think you're doing something sufficiently unique that it would be a good place to start is you could.

Did you just tell me what you're doing, who you are and kind of what you're doing over there in Amsterdam and kind of what your vision is because it's unique. It's not something that's available to other people in other parts of the world. Yeah. Well, you know, this is something I can answer in so many ways because part of me, like a very deep part of me, understand that it's not me doing anything. It's really the mushroom working through me. But I will answer it in a conventional way, just so people have some kind of frame of reference. Yeah. We have this little organization called Truffle's Therapy, and we do private and group magic truffle retreats.

So magic truffles are the sort of underground cousins of magic mushrooms, and in the Netherlands, it's openly sold in smart shops and widely available. And yeah, the reason why magic truffles are used and not magic mushrooms is because in 2008, the Dutch government banned magic mushrooms after some stories came out of people supposedly doing some bad things and committing suicide while they were in, you know, regular propaganda that you'll hear. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You know, and who knows? I read one report that said they did a study afterwards and they didn't find any traces of mushrooms in any of these people.

So who knows what's happening, right? Yeah. Truffle's Therapy started when just I started listening to the call of the mushroom and what it wanted me to do. And it told me to have some ceremonies and yeah, that was the middle of April. And then we organized this event called magic mushroom day conscious celebration in September 22nd. And there's this global movement, the 920 coalition that really wants to turn 920 into sort of the 420 of magic mushrooms. And so we just did it on a whim. We just created a Facebook event that had a vision of what we wanted to create. And within a month we created this event that was almost 200 people showed up and we collaborated with the psychedelic society of Netherlands and yeah, it was our first entry into this world.

And, and then things just blossom like mushrooms have their own way of working and yes, it really just, we just follow the guidance of the mushrooms and, you know, it's expanded into all the different types of projects. But the main one is Truffle's Therapy and taking people out into nature and giving them a beautiful experience and, you know, creating the safe space, allowing them to be vulnerable, open and allowing for healing to take place. Hmm. I'm curious. What's the main difference between Truffle's and mushrooms per? So they're both part of the same fungus and the mushrooms are the conditions necessary for mushrooms to grow are quite stringent.

And so when the conditions aren't ripe for the mushrooms to grow, the mycelium underground, which are the white, yeah, sort of tentacle like things, they sort of curl into each other and form these storage balls of energy and food and water so that when the conditions do turn ripe, then these, the fungus uses these truffles to blossom into mushrooms. Oh, wow. I never knew that. That's really interesting. That's very, very interesting because that's kind of like this reservoir of energy that's going to be put into something that really can have a transformative impact on anything that interested.

Exactly. It's really the unrealized potential and yeah, it has the same basically effects as magic mushroom. I mean, some people say it's weaker or whatever, but in my experience, if you take enough of truffles, it can lead to as profound of experiences as you can have on mushrooms. It has the same chemical psilocybin and psilosin in it. Right, right, right, which are the active compounds. I find this fascinating and I love that you're referring to things like the mushrooms working through you because from my personal experiences and a lot of people who have very much identify and view the mushroom and psilocybin as an ally in a lot of ways, that's the same kind of language that's used.

It really becomes clear that this is some type of other and for some people that can get tricky. It's like, no, how could there be another thing working through you, but when you resonate or identify kind of the mushroom consciousness, it's amazing how it can kind of just work through you. Could you talk about personally what that was like for you because this has been a relatively quick kind of rocket ship journey already for you? Yeah. So talk about a little of your background and maybe usage of psychedelics and then into going into the kind of your mushroom friends recently. Yes. Oh, man, so I was born and raised in New York.

My mom is Japanese, my dad is Chinese and I was always intellectually gifted, but you know, didn't feel like the Asian culture, especially Japanese just suppresses feeling. So I had that deep pain in me and I was always in the minority in elementary school, middle school as one of two Asian kids out of like 300 and in high school as one of five or six out of four around 440 or 450. So I always had this sort of feeling of not really belonging and wanting to stand out and see how we moved to Arizona when I was almost 13 and then I went to high school and college there and you know, some things in the family happened.

My dad lost a lot of money in the real estate market and basically it just tore the family apart. Yeah. Yeah. So from 17, 18, I mean, I was in deep depression for like up until 29 and 30, really, I was in and out of pretty deep and dark depression and addiction, low self-esteem, basically all the issues of Western society nowadays. Yeah. That was like, those are the hallmarks. Yes. And when I was, I had rejected psychedelics, man, I mean, I was on the Buddhist monastic path for quite a while. I was sitting with Posner treats and, you know, quite immature still, no matter how much I sat, I was just so narcissistic and self-centered.

The mind will do that, yeah, it can do that. Yes, and then, you know, still unhappy searching, of course, meditation is beautiful practice and it really prepared me. It really removed a lot of the superficial layers so I could feel myself at a deeper level. And then, and then the mushrooms and psychedelics started calling me and then I, I was in San Francisco with some free time on my hands. Didn't have financial burden. So I just tried acid for the first time. I had five tabs of acid. Oh, nice. Welcome to the club. Heavy dose. First time. Yeah, that was like, that was like shaking my world. That was like, that was like an explosion or earthquake that's just shifted everything I thought I knew about the world.

I had realized how wrong I was and how wrong the society is on psychedelics. And I can see why now is because it really shifts people's perspectives. It makes people a little bit more weary of institutions and authority and it makes us question things a lot more. Yes. Which is, of course, the reason why these things are illegal in most places, yes. And then the mushroom started calling me, you know, it started out with some lighter doses. And then just my body just started. It just really resonated with the mushrooms and the, the healing that can happen in mushrooms. You know, crying a lot and just weeping and wailing and just being really soft and feeling my feelings.

And the more the mushrooms cleared away the debris in my mind, I felt like the more I became this empty channel just to receive the wisdom and the messages and the visions that the mushrooms have seen and have collected over a billion years. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, so that's a little bit of my journey. And then I come to Amsterdam and one of the main reasons was, you know, magic truffles and realizing that the potential of having basically unlimited access to psilocybin is something I wanted to tap into. And it was, it was really just the psilocybin calling, right? It's like this, this deep inner knowing that something is good for me or for us and, and then just following it instead of resisting with our, with our mind and making excuses why not to do it, you know, yes, yes, yes, yes.

This is an interesting point you bring up. I recently, it's funny you mentioned LSD is kind of an explosive catalyst. I had a very similar experience my first time doing it. I was 15. I was pretty young. So it was hard not to. When you take a heavy dose of that age, your mind's going bonkers anyway. But, you know, I started micro dosing recently again after taking an extended break. And that, that what you're referring to there, the not ignoring kind of what is we can call our intuitive faculties, some deeper knowing when you don't ignore that or even resist it like you're saying, the power of that is just incredible.

And it's, it's, it's not something that I want to present as your life just gets better and easier and your intuition is always going to be a hundred percent right. But what I think it kind of opens up is this openness to experiences. And if it's not a good one, you get that feedback and you know, you pursued it kind of wholeheartedly and there won't be this kind of nagging doubt or fear attached to it. So even if it's not a great decision, it still is sits well with your overall being. And it's, it's very interesting because mushrooms had that a similar effect on me, you know, through my 20s, mid 20s, especially in younger 20s, the same kind of being able to drop deeper into your emotional feelings and intuitive faculties, which honestly, Western culture is a huge part of it.

But especially for men in Western cultures, and this is something that I'm getting a little more sensitive to because, you know, I realize a lot of men have trouble with this. And A, don't realize it. They haven't done vipassana or psychedelics and have gotten to kind of these deeper truths of who they are. And there's these resistances that really hurt and kind of hamper people and they hold on to this trauma forever. And like honestly, do also thank you for sharing kind of some deep personal things that happen to you because I think a lot of people can listen to podcasts or read about people who are, you know, influencers or thought leaders and talking about these things and forget that a lot of this has to do with healing more than anything else.

It's not about, you know, being the person who's known for the truffle resort or a person who has the podcast, but it's really about getting to these things that these shared experiences that we have modalities to heal. I'm very much impressed with your kind of overall journey into doing this. It's pretty cool, man. Yeah, it's, it's beautiful. And a couple of comments on what you just said, the, there's a quote that says something like a Zen master's life is one continuous mistake. Yeah, it feels like, and, and really it's, it's really opening ourselves up to imperfection and being just a human being, like we're not, we're just children on this earth, right?

We don't know anything, basically. And it's returning to that not knowing state and living in that question and wonder and curious. And this is a shift that has to happen in human kind and especially Western culture is this, this pursuit of knowledge of understanding. It can be really detrimental when our, our egos and our sense of self is wrapped around how much we know. You know, like we live in such luxury in the West, like, why do, why do we put our stress on ourselves having to know stuff and, and why not just be curious and why label all these everything with science and, and make rationality the king instead of like, what about feeling isn't feeling just as worthy of investigating?

You know, why does it have to be theory? Why can't it just be? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why I have five fingers. I don't know why human beings need water to survive. Like I don't know why human beings die. I don't know why life is only 80 years long, rather than like 500. Why? Why is it that animals have different lifespans like we don't know any of this, basically. I mean, of course it can be explained through theories, but have did anyone of us live like 200,000 years ago? Do we really know what happened? Right. Right. Right. And it is kind of the aim. This is where the logic and kind of analytical benefits of empirical science, which have really just discernibly on the physical plane have helped in many ways.

Like vaccines are generally very, very good. They help millions of people, they eradicate diseases in a lot of places that otherwise would have it. Polio and smallpox. Things that we're just, if you read about historical accounts, we're just devastating. There's clearly advances that are made, but when it does kind of come, or it's at odds with this kind of less rational, more intuitive, more, there's no real great explanation for why this is happening, but yet we feel that this is the right thing to do. It really has a way of kind of flexing its muscles. This is scientific materialism and crushing that.

And I think this is also, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts about this, it seems also like this fundamental energetic conflict that is now beginning to kind of loosen and potentially shift the other way, which is masculine and feminine energies. And I don't mean men and women. I don't mean necessarily that guys are like this and women are like this. These energies that are associated with and kind of these creative forces that create the world we live in. And it's very clear that the patriarchal system that has been in place for Western culture has not done it as many favors as it's done detrimentally to the rest of the world, to entire groups of people.

So it is kind of something that seems to be shifting. And I think that's probably correct me if I'm wrong. One of the reasons that you're really involved with kind of this psilocybin and truffles and mushrooms, is that it really gets to that pretty damn quickly if you get involved with mushrooms. You know what I mean? Oh, undoubtedly. It gets to the core of what it means to be human and what it's not even what it means, but what it's like, you know, beyond all the superficial conditioned layers, those false drives that were conditioned with like the drive for money. You know, that's like a, that's like a man made fabricated drive.

Yes. You know, it was back in the day, the men gathered and they went and hunted together. And then they came back and they were part of the community. And a big part of the healing that has to happen now is people getting together in circles and talking and sharing about their real life, not putting on masks. It's about trusting human beings, each other once again, and yeah, getting off the computer and so forth. I know it's difficult and I fall this into this all the time, but I mean, sometimes I go through days where I check my phone a lot and it's like, it's a sickness, it's an addiction. And it's, of course, this is going a little off tangent.

And also back to the feminine and masculine, really that, that receptivity of the, the feminine, just sitting still and being open is something that's all the shamanic and spiritual and religious traditions. They teach that, yeah, you have to listen to God, basically, you have to listen to the divine or to whatever it is, like that which is greater than your body and mind, and you got to follow that wisdom, right? And all the greatest masters in the Buddhist tradition, at least, I mean, they are all so in touch with their feminine. Whereas in this masculine Western, this financially driven Western culture, it seems like it's portrayed as a weakness to feel things and to not be driven.

Yeah, no, I mean, I know exactly what you're saying. And I don't think there's, it's actually a tangent to, to go off on the cell phone stuff. I'll try to tie it together with what you're saying is, yeah, man, like, and when we refer to as the Western financial system, let's be clear. That's the global system at this point. It has dominated the world, it's how countries and nations and people who want to be in power positions get to that place. It is completely financially driven and it's very clear to see just in our own lives how money has probably an undue influence on our minds. I mean, that's very apparent for anyone who has a family that is dependent on them or they have to just meet ends meet every month.

You know, it is very clear how much this dominates our psyche. It's interesting, though, that the antidote to a lot of this is exactly what you refer to. It's getting together, talking with people and we're allowed to use technology to aid these things. It can be a neutral tool that benefits us. But when it shifts into this kind of, you know, consumptive, I have to do this, I feel like I'm doing this. I don't know why I'm doing it, but it's just habitual. That's, I think, another symptom of kind of this imbalance between what we know we should be doing, which is getting together, communing, forming strong communities to potentially brace for what we'll need to be.

Let's be clear. In the coming decades, we're going to have to change as a people, as society, as a human population, many of our behaviors. If we want any semblance of what it's like now to remain for the people who come after us. We can maybe push this off for another 10 years of actual understanding, and that's what I think a lot of people are thinking. But then shit is going to hit the fan, just ecologically, like that much should be abundantly clear to people. So while I don't want that to sound overly pessimistic or, you know, apocalyptic, the antidote is right in front of our eyes. If we together as individuals and small communities initially start having conversations about this, what are little things we can do to change our lives and make the lives of ourselves and the people around us better, that then does begin to form the seeds of what catalyzes into global change.

So I'd be interested from your experiences working with people, you know, what you're doing over there in Amsterdam, what are some of the themes and changes you see people go through when they kind of get, you know, initiated into this, so to speak? Yeah, and that's a good word initiated. And just speaking on that word, I mean, for me, it's been an honor to be initiated into the magical world of mushrooms and fungi. And it initiated can also have this negative connotation in our Western world because we sort of associate it with maybe like fraternities initiating and hazing people. And it's actually this, for me, initiation is like surrendering our personal small will to that which is, to the will that which is greater than ourselves, whatever we want to call it, nature, God, mushrooms, the divine.

There's something that is invisible to the naked eye, but that moves through life and that carries it forward and that it's a cycle of life and death. Like what does this cycle want us to realize about itself, right? The seasons and human beings used to live in, in rhythm with the seasons. And now we're sort of, sometimes we fight against the seasons, like we want to be active in winter, whereas before, in winter time, everyone just huddled up and they didn't go, go party or anything, basically, you know, just try to stay warm. Yeah. And so the transformations we've seen, I mean, man, my whole life has transformed and everybody around me, basically, there's a sense of hope and unity and togetherness and just eating together, holding hands and saying a blessing, a prayer before meals, something like that.

I mean, some people have never done that in their life and it's just reconnecting with what's most important. Okay. Food and water. Okay. So what does it take to get healthy food and water? Okay. So the earth needs to be healthy and the oceans need to be happy and the animals, if we eat any animals, hopefully we don't eat too many animals or not at all. But if we eat any animals, how have these animals been treated? Yes. It's really asking these questions instead of taking food and nature as sort of a byproduct of life. Nature and food is life itself. The phone is the distraction, right? The phone is something to put aside.

It's not we eat while we're looking at YouTube. It's we turn off our phone and put it as far away from us as possible while we respect the food we eat. So it's really, it's really just getting down back, back down to simplicity. What do you, what do you think leads people to like, what, do you have any insight or I'm curious to your thoughts about this technological kind of drive to, it seems that these things are built to take over our time and attention. And the reason it seems like that is because that's precisely what they were intended to do, right? I mean, not necessarily from a malicious way.

I don't want to make this seem that there's some grand conspiracy, but that if I'm designing an iPhone and I'm designing applications for an iPhone, my goal is to get someone to use this and like you and want to use it more. So these systems kind of take over our consciousness and silo us off from any real type of genuine connection. And I think what you said is important like, it's not necessarily throw your phone away and just ditch technology completely. The phone can be a beautiful thing. I can text someone or call someone or connect with someone on a podcast, you know, very easily from these devices, which is an amazing magical power.

But if it becomes our go to kind of magic wand for every single thing, we then lose that genuine human connection, which I think is like, you know, people always want to know, like, what can I do to make my life better? What can I do to heal trauma? What skills can do I need to do? Do I have to meditate? Do I have to do this? Do I have to do that? And really the simplest answer anyone can provide is that you just need to talk to people you trust and love, right? That's really in all I can tell you, I've done a lot of different modalities, a lot of different things, all have their benefits, all have their downsides, but the most profound like moments of transformation for me, whether on psychedelics or not, are the conversations I'm having with other people.

You know, you can get to insights yourself, you can get downloads, but what use of it is if it's just for you, right? I mean, that's, that's a very important thing. So I love that you kind of honed in on this. But yeah, I mean, what is it about our world that you think drives this kind of conflict between our attention being siphoned off into our own little bubbles and that being at odds against our probably what's best for us is to communicate and talk with other people. What do you think is kind of the crux of that? I know you might not have to. Yeah, it's, you know, I think about this literally all the time.

I really deep down my mission in life is to, for myself also to reconnect nature because, you know, I was born and raised in New York and Arizona and I grew up thinking that money was the end all be all and it's taken a long time to wake up from that. And it's really just getting back in touch with nature and, you know, a lot of the applications we see for the retreats are depression, anxiety, lack of purpose. Those seem to be the three main issues. And I think a lot of the depression and anxiety comes from feeling unsafe and unseen and not feeling like part of something. Whereas in reality, we are just part of the whole.

So a lot of the applications, especially social media makes us feel like an individual, makes us feel like we have to prop up this image of ourselves to the world. And it really is not how things are. It's normal for people to have ups and downs. It's normal for people to have emotions and to feel sad and angry sometimes and to be able to show and express these things without being judged is the most important thing. So it's really creating that safe spaces, humans, we just need to volunteer our time. So this is a whole nother thing is people think that they need to be paid for everything or a lot of people just have really good hearts and they don't know how to ask for money or they don't know how to be paid.

There's a lot of shame and guilt around the money paradigm that we're seeing now. So it's a huge, it's a huge thing that just starts with every day, okay, so nature, people, connection, love, joy, peace, how, you know, sharing food, being generous. What do I have that I can share with people? I think that's the question that we can always ask is instead of wanting something from the outside world, now what can I give to the world? I think this fundamentally can shift how humanity acts and, you know, if all the wealthy people in the world with more money than they know what to do with for 10 generations, what if they actually put some of this money and influence into action in the world without expecting anything back, right?

It isn't a billion more than enough, like why do you need two or 10? Why not put that billion back into humanity and making this planet a nice place to live for people? Yes, yes. Well, what you're talking about reminds me a lot of the six-paramitas in Buddhism, which is, and there's very specific one, but one of them is generosity, right, giving, essentially. And I think that that's something that is at odds with the way most of our systems are set up. And I think you really nailed exactly what a lot of social media does for people, which is rather than being kind of a connective, you know, tool or platform for people, which can certainly be a lot of these things.

It does feel like a reinforcement of our individual identities, which, yes, on some level are very true. No one's going to deny that you're Chi and I'm Noah. But in reality, these ideas of who Chi and Noah are for ourselves and for other people are shifting constantly. It's not this static thing. So when you were constantly trying to pin down this, what you and I are referring to as personas or identities and social media can do that over and over again, it really does limit you to kind of the broader reality, which is we're all one thing. We're all interconnected. We're all doing this together, whether you realize that from a deep esoteric level and kind of the dreamlike nature of our reality, or you just recognize like, yeah, the golden rule is a pretty good one.

Like do you want to others? It's not that complicated. It does seem like this needs to be reinforced though over time because culturally and in society, the dominant paradigm is exactly what you're describing, which is people are concerned about their individual safety, then maybe their nuclear family and then extended family and friends and kind of weaving this web that incorporates broader and broader, you know, because of humanity, it's kind of the only antidote that I can see having a shot at working of trying, of really changing the way everything works because what we're talking about, and you know, more and more people agree about what we're talking about, but it's still a very small minority of people.

Most people aren't questioning, you know, the deeper nature of reality and how we're going to move this thing forward in a positive direction. They're like, how do I put food on my table or how do I do this or I just got distracted by this thing? And I think a lot of people are searching for answers to these things when, again, a lot of them are really simple, they're just kind of hard and shadow work that we don't necessarily want to do. One thing you said really caught my attention, which is, you know, you're privy to applications of people who are coming for therapy and for healing, I mean, that's an amazing kind of meta view of what's going on, which gives you a cool layer of insights, I mean, what else have you gleaned from the types of like, broad observation, actually, it's two things to say that question, but also, I mean, what's the process like?

Let's say there's someone listening right now and they're like, you know what? I'm fucking depressed. I don't know what my purpose is. I'm really anxious all the time. I might want to be going, what's the process like for someone who's at that stage? Oh, man, this is, it's tough. I mean, I suffer from maybe 10 bouts of deep depression, you know, a few months at a time over the last 12 years or so. So it's really difficult. The thing is to get out behind your computer and to get in touch with nature and just get yourself out of your home and to just be with people, just reintegrate oneself with society, basically.

And, you know, meditation can help, yoga can help, anything that makes us feel even the slightest bit of calm and joy, like we just, especially when we're in these deep depressed states, which I've met many people who are, it's that little oof of motivation that can turn into bigger oofs of motivation and then, yes, sometimes we, you know, we reach a point where we really have to do something radical. I mean, for me, at least it was psychedelics and still it's not a, it's not a one hit wonder sort of thing. You're fixed. Yeah. Yeah. There's no fixing. And maybe that's another one of the paradigm shifts is do it is there what we are not the problem to be fixed.

We are just a process of nature and there are certain causes infinite causes that led to this process being the way it is. And there's no fixing it like a computer problem or a math problem or it's not something we can write about or theorize about or put into a box. It's something that's way faster than, than us and yeah, so I mean, a lot of this depression also comes from a lack of purpose as well. So part of the depression getting out of depression is finding some way to help somebody no matter how small it is and maybe it's, it starts with ourselves like how helping us sit for one minute on a cushion or to go to one yoga class or to go take a 10 minute walk.

These are little things that we can do, you know, or just going, even using social media and saying hi to somebody and starting a conversation, just something like that can help. How do people typically find you and what you guys are doing in Amsterdam? Like, what, who are, who are the contingent of people who end up, you know, wanting to take one of these retreats or come visit and stay with you? What's that? You know, I, it seems like most of the people who come are relatively physically healthy men from like age 28 to 40 something who lack meaning and purpose in life. Like they have money, they have a job, they're doing fine on the surface, but deep down they have this existential crises.

They feel like they aren't doing anything meaningful or that they're stuck somehow. This seems to be the majority of course, you know, those are for the paid retreats and for by the by donation retreats which we put on, which we want to shift more and more to. It seems like a lot of young people who want to heal, who have seen how, how their misfits, they just feel like they have to heal and a lot of these are young women who aren't in touch with their femininity. They've been sort of, they've been sort of put into this system where they have to put on this masculine face and this, this armor and the shield and they just feel like they're not aligned with themselves.

So I mean, it's a, it's such a broad spectrum of people to be honest with you. You know, but you said two things that I think are probably tapping into one of the special things that you can provide with what you guys are doing there, which is there's a lot of masculine trauma and I don't just mean men, I'm glad you brought up that that women can experience this too. There's a lot of trauma that comes along with that and trying to have to fit into the system that we do and that can get lost in the conversation when we see what is a righteous and necessary backlash against patriarchal systems of abuse, sexual power, all of these things, that needs to happen.

It needs to be called out. There's no doubt about it. But we can get lost in that kind of necessary moral outrage and indignation is that there's a swath of people who just grew up in this who have no fucking idea how they got here, why it is the way it is, but yet they carry that with them and are seeking that to be healed. And there's not a lot of people, man, just to be clear about this. And that's why it's really cool that you guys have been, that's a cross section you notice, is there's not a lot of people offering that type of space to heal in. Usually for men or masculine trauma that's associated with that, it's a, it's a method.

It's a thing you're paying for routine or you take this and it's new tropics or you work out this way with the kettlebells and go and do ayahuasca twice a year and you're definitely going to be fine. You just focus on making more money and all these things. And that's really doing a tremendous disservice from people who are in touch with the trauma from being, you know, masculine energy and the paradigm we live in and like providing a space where you can use psilocybin to kind of navigate and be a bridge into a more kind of holistic way of being. That's really fucking cool, man. That's like, that's very, very cool because I know of almost no other, I mean, we were speaking about a little bit, um, off air last week, but a lot of these big organizations, you know, in this country, you know, that were psilocybin isn't legal, the, the masculine ego games that can get in there from all sides, it's just destroys the, the pure intention of using these things to help people, but it seems like you've kind of found a cool subversive way to do it.

Yeah. And this, this conversation can go, you know, to very, very deep levels. It really is this, it's human beings being turned into machines, um, in the, in the system. This is the trauma. Like the young girls we see, and of course, although also the older women, they weren't meant to be cogs in the machine, they weren't meant to rise up in hierarchies. And it seems like, I mean, not to say that women can't, there are people who rise up and male dominated hierarchies and that's fine. And also look at what these women turn into. They're not the, they probably are not so in touch with their emotions because they have to suppress it, you know, and, and, and this is, this is also, this is getting in touch with the greatest pain is there is pain in the, in all women in general being suppressed over the centuries of millennia.

And it's totally understandable and it's really real and it's deep, really, really deep trauma of being raped and used and abused and just held down and not being given a voice. Yeah. And not being given the ability to achieve. And also to understand that sometimes the things were taught about the feminist movement and the independent woman and the career woman, like who is putting out these agendas? Who wants women to be career women? You know, who wants women to not create families and to go into the workforce instead? Who wants to use young girls just for their pretty face and body and just toss them aside as they get older, just for the new round of, of, of young women.

So it's really asking the deeper questions, like, is this really serving me? Is being an independent career woman really what deep down my biology and my body and my mind really wants, you know, I know so many women who can't have children either because of hormonal issues or, and also there's issues with male sperm, like male sperm is getting weaker in, in the world and people might say this is like a conspiracy or something. But man, there's when many women I've talked to that are like, yeah, just, there aren't very many strong men in the world. Well, I will tell you this, the myth of smoking weed and not being fertile is just a myth.

And I proved that very clearly by siring at this point, which is going to be two boys come this summer. So yeah, man, like, here's the truth, like there is, what you're saying is absolutely true. And what really has got me thinking about how movements evolve and kind of manifest and the feminist movement is one that admittedly, I don't know nearly enough to comment, you know, cogently on the subtleties and where these things evolve from. But I have been really listening to this Frederick Douglass biography that just came out last year. And it's fucking amazing because they give you all of these different scenarios for the abolition of slavery, for what that actually means for reconstruction.

And you realize how people who share the same ultimate goal, which is equality, right, can come at it from so many different angles and ultimately, because these people are advocating for something pretty radical that they can be at odds with each other because they're so believing and this is the way it's supposed to be. And yeah, I think a lot of this, what happens with a lot of these conversations is we lose the nuance and the subtlety of what actually driving a lot of these motivations, either collectively or individually. And yeah, I mean, the hormonal stuff that's happening, I mean, there's, I don't view it.

You know, a lot of people say, well, it's just the food. The food is a huge problem with a lot of these things. But to me, it always is a holistic thing, right? And one aspect of society is going wrong. It's going to affect all other things, the spiritual emotional bodies aren't working well together. We're going to see this manifest symptomatically across society. And yeah, I mean, I agree, I wonder, you know, how many people have felt that in the name of equality, men and women, that they need to achieve this kind of ideal of, you know, being successful in Western culture's eyes, which may just be a total ruse, right?

And which really is, let's be clear. So yeah, it's a very important thing you're mentioning for sure. Yeah, and it really is systemic. It's what is driving people? What is this feeling of scarcity and insecurity where we feel incomplete, no matter how much money we have in our bank account, we're always at, and when we say we, I'm saying collective as a human being, especially this Western culture is just chasing that dollar. You know, of course, we do have to make money, but when is enough enough? Like, does a family of four need like a hundred thousand a month to live? No, no, and again, it's returning to simplicity and going back to what you were saying about not many companies doing this kind of work with.

So Simon, we really feel blessed to, it's really a calling to be called into this world of the magic mushrooms, a magic fungi, and to be able to be a representative of it. And this is what's missing in society, for the most part, is this calling of people dedicating their lives to something that is beyond themselves, not to a company, not to Google, Facebook, Microsoft, whatever the big names are, not to a bank. How can you dedicate yourself to a bank, you know? And how can you dedicate your, all your skills and talents into going up this hierarchy, whatever it might mean, and making millions? And this is, this is stuff that I think a lot of people need to discuss, and it needs to be more in the open, you know, what is, what is the underlying system in which all of us human beings are in, and what are the parts that are working, and what are the parts that are not working, and really holding space to listen to people's pains, and suffering, and not covering it up with, you know, going back to what we were saying about experts is, who cares what the experts say, what do, what do the masses say, right?

If experts say one thing, but the masses say a whole nother thing, then who do we listen to? Do we still listen to the expert? You know, and, and it's this kind of feeling of solidarity with other human beings, with normal, ordinary human beings, and it's, it's, it's the whole idea of seeing ourselves as ordinary, feeling that we are just a little, we're just a little speck of dust, like, how are we any special, one human being, how many beings, human beings have come and gone through our history, like billions, right? Like how, how are we the one thing going to be so special and so different? No, we're actually not that different from each other.

We're really the same. We have a face, we have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears, you know, we have to go to the bathroom several times a day, we have to sleep, we can only live under one roof, we can only eat so much food in a day, so it's really connecting to how similar we actually are and I think dialogue is a big part of it and having compassion for both our own suffering and for the suffering of other people and, and letting go of these ideals, these high benchmarks we have for each other and for ourselves, you know, we look at people in the scientific world, they look at someone with the batches and say, they say, ah, you haven't done anything and then you get a masters and you go, I still only have masters, I don't have a PhD and then PhDs look at MDs and think, oh gosh, I'm just a fake doctor so like where do these ideas of insufficiency come in and how do we learn how to become sufficient and to be happy and content with what we are and what we have?

Yeah, I mean that I think you just summed up what is a struggle for the majority of people who find themselves kind of implanted in this system. The beauty of it is, and something you said reminded me of this is while we're all part of, we are, we're specks of dust if you zoom out far enough and not even that far, the beauty and kind of the art I feel like of being alive and living is you get to express that sameness in your own unique and creative way and that seems to be one of the core components of reality that I enjoy so much, is that it is endlessly astounding how everyone is pretty much the same, like the same shit makes us upset, there's gradations on it but for the most part it's pretty similar but how different people, I have a lot of these long form deep conversations with people and you don't meet the same person ever, people look the same more than they are actually the same, so it's a very interesting thing and I love that we are able to both zoom out and recognize our kind of smallness and how infinitesimally small we are but also we can zoom in and appreciate like, what the fuck am I here for?

How do I contribute to this broader thing and I think what creates so much of this trauma and stress for people and just anxiety and all of these things is when we just make the misapprehension that we that little thing that is very cool and very special and very unique is all of it and that we're living the illusion of central position and this is all for us all the time and if I get this much then everyone will love me and it's like oh well we see what happens when you're that type of person and you end up with Donald being Donald Trump and it's like that's his thing man, like if that's her hand, cool but yeah it's a very delicate dance because it feels like we're still very much in a transitional period between the industrial age and another coming age which we don't really know what it is because we're in it and it feels like if we're gonna bridge that gap doing a lot of the things you've been speaking about, like healing these traumas in a very natural and kind of organic way, like that's our bridge, that's our bridge to a society, you know our grandchildren's grandchildren can be talking about can you believe that you still like fight over this shit or there used to be like a monetary system where like everyone couldn't have health care or like beating bed and they'll be like yeah those people are idiots so we had this our job as idiots to get to that reality and start building those things and it's just it's cool man that you're actually doing doing that so how would people go about working or coming and visiting you?

Yes so our website is www.trufflestherapy.trufflestherapy.com and yeah just look around, feel around and if you resonate just send us a message or an application or we can hop on a call and of course if if you don't resonate with what we're doing we also have another website called tripsiders.org which is t-r-i-p-s-i-t-t-e-r-s.org and that lists you know most of the other tripsiders who are making it known that they're holding space for people for psilocybin ceremonies in the Netherlands and there's many other retreats in the world, not many but maybe yes seven or eight other retreats in the world so it's just go with what is in your heart and feels right and just it's really just having the courage like if you have a bunch of money sitting around in your unhappy spend that money on yourself be happy right what's what's all the money in the bank, a number, a figment of our imagination when we're so depressed and don't have a purpose in life and I just want to I just thought of one quote that always rings in my head is Ms. Sargadha to Maharaj. Oh one of my favorites. Yes you know wisdom tells me that I'm nothing and love tells me that I'm everything and between these two my life flows or something like that and yeah and really it's loving loving ourselves not at the sense level not eating and not listening to music you know all that's great not feeling good things it's about what our deep down spirit what nature wants for us is silence and quiet and peace and love right this is this is what it wants it doesn't want more inputs in terms of words and sounds it wants harmony with nature being in touch right how many of us get out into nature for a day even or for a few days a month to spend time connecting with trees and animals and not on our phones right and I think reconnecting with nature can really humble us and it can show us that we're just part of something bigger right the trees are just as alive as us the water is just as alive as us the birds have a life they cherish just as much of us as as we do and it's just being in touch with this yeah I I love it dude I I love what you're saying you reminded me of one of my favorite screen is Sargadha to Maharaj quote which is the mind creates the abyss the heart crosses it and I think we're very much aware that we've created an abyss for ourselves collectively and now the way across that is by kind of dropping into the heart and actually get it these things done that's that's the that's the answer that's dropping from the head to the heart you know you can still be intellectually intelligent you can know all your theories and also to know that those theories are just man made right human beings have just been on this planet for two hundred thousand years and who knows how many eons and how many universes in this in this in this thing we're living in there are so it's realizing that we don't really know too much about anything and being humbled by that I like that I mean I had a couple conversations with a guest whose podcast is coming out today and I was on his radio show and he was he's a psychiatrist he has his MD and he was we're talking about psychosis and synchronicity and he was asking me about you know what I was saying you know when I was in this state at one point in my life it was like a dream like reality and became clear to me that you know this is very much like a dream and he kept asking me questions about it I'm like I'm trying to get trying to explain but I think you just kind of clued in touched on something that makes sense to me is like think about dreams think about how little we understand not only about the phenomena of dreams but when we're in a dream assuming that we're not lucid dreaming all the time we understand such a little sliver of what the hell is going on in our dream state and to me reality is not that much different than a dream state yes we have some observable rules that we can agree on but it's still pretty fucking crazy what goes on here and a lot of these little things that pierce the veil at times can remind us that whether it's psychedelics or synchronicities so yeah man it's certainly this dance of recognizing that you know maybe this isn't as real as we think it is but we do have some reason it certainly feels intuitively and experientially for those of us who have these experiences that there is a reason for it and if we can identify that reason which I think you is it's like it's identifying with the heart recognizing the balance between the the mind wisdom and the heart wisdom and when to apply them and when that that really does seem to be the goal for most people but man this has been an amazing conversation I'd love to actually have you back on some other time for another hour I I asked three quick questions at the end and then one broader one so okay I didn't know that yeah yeah you're supposed to not know it okay so first question what's your favorite color blue nice what's your favorite number the nine it's always been I knew that I just it popped in my head great I just it was with synchronicity I'm like reduced today and that is a good thing for pre-cog what's your favorite animal oh gosh well my spirit animal is definitely definitely the lion it used to be the cheetah but now I feel like I've grown into a little bigger cat and also sometimes I also feel like a butterfly as well so the lion and the butter oh I like that the twin answer so much would make a drawing of that and then the last question what is a practical tip that's helped you in your life and you've been dropping these all throughout the episode but another practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening and it could be anything it's really love it's really caring and it's caring for ourselves our family all the animals and the plants and the planet and it really is about realizing that we belong to the earth and the earth doesn't belong to us and really getting in touch with learning from indigenous people getting in touch with the indigenous aspects of ourselves getting in circles circles more circles less stages you know more let's listen to more suffering less expertise net less knowledge let's let's connect with each other on the heart level and not the theoretical intellectual level oh man you just dropped bombs with those last three to print those on t-shirts somebody you'll be rich uh Chi thank you so much for doing this man let's stay connected for sure hey thank you so much now it looks look forward to staying in touch with you guys [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] Thanks for listening to that episode new music coming you heard some of it there go check out Chi at trufflestherapy.com you can see what he's up to with a lovely group of other people or should I say a group of other lovely people I think that's what I meant to say uh support the show rate it on iTunes some podcasts will tell you go rate my show five stars and you know what great they got all the five stars they're looking go with their five stars you I just rate it like your honest feedback I don't think it does anything besides boost my ego but uh it's good enough reason for me to go do it so yeah iTunes I'm on all the other things that spotify is the apple musics the whatever we got stuff there too but I don't do it on iTunes it matters I'm a little loose this lion's main stuff is no joke um alright that's it I will see you next week Lincoln Tech provides career training that keeps America working at Lincoln's Maawai campus you don't just sit in the classroom you train in fully equipped labs work with industry leading technology and learn the skills that hiring managers are looking for with personalized support and connections to top employers your future in fields like advanced manufacturing with robotics automotive electrical HVAC and welding starts the day you enroll visit linkintech.edu for details