Today’s podcast is quite different.

It marks the end of the Mind Manifest podcast and is an episode where I turn the microphone back on myself.

The inner healer is a clever and amazing thing. Some years ago, whilst I was becoming somewhat disillusioned with the limitations of conventional talk therapy for my more complex clients, I came across the burgeoning therapeutic and scientific use of psychedelics and became intrigued. My initial curiosity was - I thought - purely professional. A resurgent modality was showing promise in the clincial trials, and I was professionally (but dispassionately) intrigued. That was the extent of it.

But research is, of course, me-search, and after my first few personal experiences with psychedelics, I realized that the true reason I was so interested was much more personal. I had some deep and unhealed wounds that had not been accessible to me by conventional means, and my inner healing intelligence knew as much. It knew it would have to leverage the intellectual curiosity of my mind, and therefore the only way to expose my being to the healing potential of psychedelics was by presenting them to me as something ‘legitimate’ in the eyes of the mainstream. Like I said, the inner healing intelligence is a clever and amazing thing.

I do not think I am alone in this regard -I would posit that a lot of other health practitioners and researchers in the field (if they are truly honest with themselves) know that the prepotent reason for their interest in psychedelics is not the professional or intellectual curiosity of their ‘adult’ selves, but a similarly wise desire to finally listen to the unacknowledged yearnings of their own inner child.

please listen and enjoy, and hopefully, this helps you or someone you know

In today’s podcast, I did a live event with Dr. Ben Sessa. at Luna Palace in Leederville. Ben was in town to help with various Antipodean psychedelic training schemes and conferences, and was kind enough to sit down for a live podcast - and a bit of socializing with the Perth psychedelic community afterward.

It was clear from Ben’s perspective that the eyes of the psychedelic world are now on Australia, and how we move forward as a collective has more import than ever.

In today’s podcast, I spoke with William Sieghart, who is the author of the Poetry Pharmacy. William is an advocate for the consideration of mental well-being in its broadest possible sense, and he is on a mission to help take ‘poetry out of poetry corner’ and put it back into the public square where it belongs. We talked about the numerous overlaps between poetry and psychedelics, and the ways in which they can both act as societal balms.

In today’s podcast We Discuss;

The genesis of the poetry pharmacy,

The link between attachment theory, disorganized attachment, and residential education,

The importance of reading poetry aloud and the layering of great art,

How hip-hop culture captures the essence of embodied poetry

Hafiz of Shiraz

Poetry as the secular liturgy

The book - ‘Poems of the decade’

Winning Words

The Forward arts foundation and the foreword poetry prize

The “Awful Privilege” of Psychotherapy,

Emily sutton’s illustrations and the book Everyone Sang

How psychedelics and poetry may help young people reclaim rites of passage missed through Covid,

Everything is going to be alright - by Derek Mahon

The work of Ian McGilchrist and how it relates to Poetry

National Poetry Day

BIO - William Sieghart CBE

Author, Publisher Philanthropist.

William Sieghart is a philanthropist and publisher, and former chairman of the Somerset House Trust. William has had a long career in the arts. In 1991 he founded the Forward Prizes for Poetry, the nation’s leading prizes now in their 30th year. In 1993 he started National Poetry Day, an annual celebration of poetry, with the BBC. National Poetry Day is the BBC’s longest standing arts partnership after the Proms.  In 2016 he authored The Poetry Pharmacy, the best-selling poetry anthology of the last twenty-five years.

William has toured the country, listening to thousands of people’s problems one on one and prescribing poems and poetry prescriptions for them. He is an inspirational speaker whose platforms have included talks for TEDx, 5×15, literary festivals and corporate events.

William has been a successful entrepreneur, founding Forward Publishing, a magazine publishing company, publishing 80 million magazines a year around the world when he sold it to WPP in 2001. In 2000 he started Streetsmart, a homeless charity that raises its funds by restaurants around the country adding £1 to their bills in November and December. Streetsmart has so far raised over £11m in £1 donations. In 2005 William started Forward Thinking, now one of the world’s leading conflict mediation agencies that works between governments across the Middle East and North Africa. Until December 2021 William was chairman of Somerset House, turning it into the UK’s biggest creative community. Somerset House is one of London’s most visited attractions with as many visitors as the Tower of London.

William has served on the boards of many public institutions and charities including the Arts Council, where he chaired their lottery board for five years, the Royal Society of Arts and the Arts Foundation, which he chaired for 15 years, giving out fellowships to the nation’s most talented young artists. William has conducted two reviews for the UK government on the future of public libraries, hosted a weekly politics show on Bloomberg TV for three years and has been a regular broadcaster on tv and radio, including an appearance on Radio 3’s Private Passions. He has also been a regular interviewer of writers, artists and politicians amongst others, and is a great listener, having listened to the problems of thousands of people since the conception of the Poetry Pharmacy.

In today’s podcast, I spoke with Justin James, who is the current CEO of HIF health insurance fund. HIF was the first major Australian health fund to declare support for medicinal cannabis treatments and offer rebates to members through its partnership with WA-based Little Green Pharma, and it stands to be one of the first health insurers to support the therapeutic use of psilocybin for its members. Justin has taken a different tack from some of his more conservative peers and has been outspoken in his support for the scientific exploration of psychedelic substances as medicines.

In today’s podcast We Discuss;

Justin’s professional and academic background,

His support of medicinal cannabis and HIF’s partnership with little green pharma,

His engagement with the press

Medcon 2022,

the stats around poor mental health in Australia and his commitment to explore ‘emerging therapies’ as a way to potentially mitigate some of this burden

possible timelines for the future provision of psychedelics in Australia..

..and much more!

Justin James has extensive experience in the private health insurance and finanical services industries. Prior to becoming chief executive of HIF in May 2020, he spent 8 years with Bupa where he had senior executive roles including as director of customer growth and director of conduct and risk. Before moving into the private health service industry, Mr James held several senior executive and leadership roles across financial services in Australia including at the National Australia Bank, Commonwealth and ANZ Bank. He holds an eMBA from the Australian Graduate School of Managment, a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Indigenous Partnerships from Charles Darwin University, and completed the Social Entepreneurship programme with INSEAD in Singapore.

In today’s podcast, I spoke with Simon Baron-Cohen. Professor Baron-Cohen is a world expert in the field of Autism research, and we had a wide-ranging discussion on this topic. The ways in which psychedelic compounds interface with different styles of cognition is a fascinating area, and the exploration of how psychedelic compounds are experienced phenomenologically by those on the spectrum is largely untilled scientific soil.

In today’s podcast, I had the pleasure of sitting down with a panel of expert guests for the first of our live events. The title of the symposium was ‘non-ordinary states for ordinary Australians’. We had a wide-ranging conversation and an event of connection and live music afterward. It reminded us all that no one is going to lie on their deathbed and wish they had looked at more screens. Breaking bread and talking with other human beings is a powerful thing.

In today’s podcast, I spoke with Shaun Duffy, CEO of Reset Mind Sciences - a company that is well-positioned to become a leader in the push to make psilocybin-containing mushrooms a mainstream medication option for the treatment of mental illness. Shaun comes from an accountancy background and brings a wealth of corporate experience to the psychedelic space, as well as a personal passion to help these remarkable compounds become part of the national conversation.

In today’s podcast, I spoke with Dr. Jeremy Tannebaum. Jeremy has a longstanding interest in psychedelia, and as you will hear from our discussion, he had a childhood and upbringing that was steeped in a deep, nuanced and intellectual exploration of these substances - as well as many other contemplative practices and non-ordinary states of consciousness like hypnosis and meditation. Jeremy took these sensibilities into his study of medicine and now seeks to amplify and optimise the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics as tools in the treatment of chronic pain.

In today’s podcast, I spoke with Tobias Penno. Tobias is a Registered Social Worker with the 'Australian Association of Social Workers', and he has more recently focussed his career to become a mental health practitioner. Tobias believes that individuals have the wisdom necessary to work through their current life challenges, and sees his role as a ‘co-researcher’ working collaboratively with his clients towards their growth and healing. Tobias weaves together elements from a variety of different modalities. One of his central aims is to help his clients ostensibly ‘re-author’ the stories they tell themselves - about themselves.

In today’s podcast, I spoke with Dr. Ian Dunican. Ian is amongst many other things, a sleep researcher and business consultant. As you will hear, Ian has his fingers in a lot of professional pies, but the through-line is that he is trying to optimize performance in many different fields. Ian has a burgeoning interest in psychedelics, and he first came on my radar when I hear him interview Stephen Bright on his podcast, ‘Learning to Die’. Ian is by no means a strong advocate for psychedelics, and we had an interesting discussion in how he has found a plethora of ways to access a transcendent state of consciousness. He also believes that sleep and psychedelics may have interesting overlaps that we are only just beginning to appreciate.

In today's podcast, we discuss... Five to One by the Doors, Ian’s background and time serving in the Irish Military, and his lifelong fascination with learning,

Ian’s early personal experience of the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation,

The overlap between sleep loss and mental health issues, The history of the human study of sleep, The ‘Grandfather’ of sleep Bill Dement, Matthew Walker’s podcast discussions with Peter Attia, Circadian Rhythm,Chronobiology, Leptin and Grehlin and their relationship with sleep, Performance deficits associated with sleep loss, Night shift work as a ‘possible carcinogen’ - Type 2A carcinogen,

Classification of sleep disorders, The difference between a ‘sleep problem’ and a ‘sleep disorder, The societal correlation between poor sleep and lower socio-economic status, The limited efficacy of sleep medicines, the paucity of undergrad education into sleep science for health professionals, and the lack of understanding amongst the general population about good sleep hygiene, The Parliamentary Report ‘Bedtime Reading’ Ian’s business Melius Consulting, and his work with Formula 1 McClaren, and his adjunct researcher work, His two podcasts: sleep4performance, and learning to die,The Stages of Sleep, and sleep spindles, REM rebound, Ian’s theory of REM sleep as a practice of death, The Six Bardos in Tibetan Buddhism, The repudiation of death in our societies, and Ernest Becker’s ‘The Denial of Death’, Zen on the trail and the Marathon Monks, The risks of taking psychedelics, The Effects of Daytime Psilocybin Administration on Sleep: Implications for Antidepressant Action, Sleep as an adjunct for both preparation for and integration of psychedelic trips, The risk of Serious Adverse Events with psychedelic trips, Jennifer Walsh’s study on the impact of CBD on insomnia, The potential need for overnight polysomnography as a preparatory tool for psychedelic trips - perfecting the ‘on ramp’, Ian’s tips for sleeping well, and much more besides!