With a background in psychiatric medicine, neurology, advanced ayahuasca dietas, psychedelic integration, and neurocognitive restoration, Dr. Dan Engle is one of the most unique and important voices in the psychedelic movement today. As founder of Full Spectrum Medicine and author of the new book The Concussion Repair Manual, Dr. Dan brings together a deep understanding of both the medical world and the psychedelic experience with an eye toward therapeutic personal transformation.
Psychedelic Times founder Joe Mattia spoke with Dr. Dan recently at a mutual friend’s float studio, and their conversation ranges from Dan’s fascinating personal story of ayahuasca dietas in the jungle to his return to the Western world to advance the cause of integrative, soul-centered healing.
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical recommendation, diagnosis, or treatment. The use of information in this podcast is at one’s own discretion, and is not an endorsement of use given the complexity inherent in these medicines, and the current variable widespread illegality of their usage.
You can listen to our hour-long podcast with Dr. Dan Engle here:
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Sponsors:
Dr. Bronner’s
Dr. Bronner’s was founded in 1948 by Emanuel Bronner, a third- generation master soapmaker. He used the labels on his superb ecological soaps to spread his message that we must realize our unity across religious & ethnic divides or perish: “We are All-One or None!” Still family-owned and run, Dr. Bronner’s honors its founder’s vision by continuing to make socially & environmentally responsible products, and by dedicating our profits to help make a better world.
Temple of the Way of Light
The Temple of the Way of Light is an ayahuasca center in Peru that opened in 2007. Their team of indigenous Shipibo healers represents over 250 years of experience practicing the ancient art of ayahuasca shamanism. The healers are supported by highly trained and experienced Western facilitators, who act as a critical cultural bridge between the healers and guests. The Temple was founded on the philosophy that an atmosphere of genuine care and compassion provides the optimum conditions for healing.
Show Notes:
The grassroots psychedelic movement [9:00]
The powerful data from psychedelic research [12:00]
The broken medical system [14:00]
Psychiatry [15:00]
Sustainability [8:00]
Finding your truth [18:00]
Ayahuasca and dietas in the jungle [20:30]
Returning to civilization [26:30]
Being an emissary from the forest [29:30]
Full Spectrum Medicine [30:00]
Western allopathic medicine [32:20]
Pharmaceuticals [34:30]
Detoxification and healing [37:30]
Ibogaine addiction treatment [43:00]
Drug policy and ibogaine experiences [50:00]
Exploring the shadow [54:00]
Being True to You [55:50]
Preparation and integration [58:00]
That place inbetween worlds [61:00]
Kambo [62:00]
Selected Quotes:
On balancing vision and action:
“It can be easy, particularly in the medicine space, to have the grand vision and to see the meta view, but it’s just as important- if not more important- to actualize that and move it into this 3-dimensional reality in the most effective way.”
On returning to civilization after intense ayahuasca dietas:
“I had married the medicine path so to speak, and I didn’t have much of a desire or interest to come back to this way we collectively live in the West. But then I realized that if I was to be of support and a positive impact to the greatest degree that I could be, then it was probably not going to be just hanging out solo in the jungle. It was going to be coming back to potentially be a voice to bridge the psychedelic medicine community with the psychiatric medical community. If we do choose to see the right place that psychedelic medicines have in the unfolding potential of health care moving forward, then it’s helpful to have people who can speak from both perspectives.”
On jungle medicine:
“When we know that the pharmacy of the entire jungle itself, and the river system itself, with the soil and the animals and the plants and the fish and everything is this buffet of potential options for someone’s healing protocol, then all of these things are used synergistically.”
On Deanne Adamson’s program Being True to You:
“The program that Deanne has created with Being True to You does turn the whole addiction frame on its head. It encourages a shift from the victim role into an empowerment role. To be able to say “Ok, this experience that I’m going through is my journey towards personal development and towards a more whole, integrated self.” Some people choose the doorway of depression, some people choose the doorway of chronic anxiety, some people choose the doorway of chronic pain… we all have our own hero’s journey that we’re going through. And it is a liberating frame to be able to try on… all of a sudden, now it puts us in the driver’s seat.”
Explore Links Related to this Podcast:
Full Spectrum Medicine
Science, Spirituality and Ayahuasca: Interview with Joe Tafur, MD
The Medicine is the Teacher: Dennis McKenna on Ayahuasca, Shamanism, and Psychotherapy
Being True to You
Kambo
I wish Dr. Enge would reconsider his belief that modern psychiatry should continue to play its customary pill-prescribing role in a new healthcare paradigm. Psychiatry has addicted me for the last 40 years to its “wonder drugs,” including a 10-year addiction to Valium, a five-year addiction to Ritalin, a 10-year addiction to Buspar, and a 20-plus-year addiction to Effexor (20-plus years and counting). I recently asked my psychiatrist to get me off of Effexor, and he told me not to bother. He says an NIH study shows that there is a 95% recidivism rate for those who attempt to quit the drug, making it far worse than opium or heroin in this respect. Meanwhile, Big Pharma is now pushing to give this same class of medicines to toddlers!
Although Dr. Enge states correctly that psychiatry does not treat the “core” condition of patients, it should be remembered that this was the whole rationale behind psychiatry’s introduction of SSRIs, the idea that they treated the “core” problem of depression by correcting a chemical imbalance in the brain. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a lie, as Roger Whitaker demonstrates in “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” where he reveals that SSRIs actually cause the imbalances that they purport to fix. This, in turn, is why SSRIs cause chemical dependence, because they create a new biochemical baseline that the body comes to expect. In the absence of these SSRIs & SNRIs, the patient often has bizarre withdrawal symptoms, especially in the case of Effexor, as any online search of Effexor user horror stories will quickly verify.
I therefore urge Dr. Enge to consider the entire abolition of psychiatry as we know it, to be replaced by a new shamanic practice for treating psychological problems, with the goal being not to fix a chemical imbalance but to teach the patient about him or herself with the help of nature’s psychoactive plants. The main requirement for this system to work is that the shaman be legally able to use any plant in the rainforest, each of which the shaman would have an intimate knowledge of with respect to both its chemistry and its historic uses.
There’s another problem with the status quo that Dr. Enge does not address: namely the fact that psychedelic therapy, generally speaking, is contraindicated for those currently taking SSRIs, and so folks like myself who are hooked on Effexor are banned from using existing psychedelic treatments, even if they can be located legally overseas. So far there’s been no efforts on the part of researchers to help folks in my position, however. As a result, the so-called psychedelic renaissance is practically useless for the millions who need it most: those who have become addicted to the inadequate pill-popping treatment of the psychiatry that Dr. Enge seems to support.
There’s one final problem that Dr. Enge does not recognize, and this has to do with the use of the term “treatment resistant depression.” This is a misleading term because most depressed people do not have the ability to know if their treatment is really working. They can’t know because, having never had a psychedelic experience, they do not know what their mind is actually capable of.
Take me, for example. I used to think that things in my life were going okay as a young adult – until one day when I took a mind-expanding substance. I suddenly saw the world full of opportunities and loveliness – and this feeling was so different from my everyday malaise that I actually started crying, as if I were in mourning for my life that I was wasting in my so-called “sober” state, for all those wasted opportunities. Now, before that experience, I may have told you that my antidepressant — a mind-fogging drug called Sinequan at that time — was “working” and so my depression would not have been considered “treatment resistant” by folks like Dr. Enge. But I would have been wrong. The second I saw my black-and-white world turned to color with the help of a psychedelic, I knew that there was a wider, greater world out there, and that I was not getting it with Sinequan. There was no mistake about it, my antidepressant was not work. Suddenly I saw that all too clearly.
So again, my plea to Dr. Enge: let’s aim for a new shamanic paradigm to replace modern psychiatry; let’s not try to salvage the pill-popping status quo. There’s nothing there worth salvaging. The only reason we think so is because the DEA has outlawed almost all psychoactive drugs that could help heal patients psychologically in a non-addictive fashion. The answer to this is obvious: the creation of a new profession known as Western shaman, an empathic man or woman who treats the depressed using any plant in the world that might be found useful for that purpose.
This should just make common scientific sense, after all, that a scientific country should be able to research and use plants without regard to government interference.