Advertise on podcast: Brainforest Café

Anthropologist Michael Winkelman, PhD, joins Dr. Dennis McKenna on the Brainforest Café to compare shamanic and psychedelic healing practices across Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and North America. Winkelman spent forty years researching shamanism, psychedelics, and altered states, and his new edited volume gathers case studies of mushroom, peyote, San Pedro, morning glory, and ayahuasca traditions under a single framework. What emerges is a pattern too consistent to be coincidence: fasting, sexual abstinence, restricted diet, an overnight ceremony, family and community present, songs at the center, and a long integration period built around dreams and behavior change. His argument is that these are not cultural decorations around the chemistry. They are the vessel the chemistry requires, and modern clinical research has quietly discarded most of them. - - - Michael Winkelman is an ASU anthropologist and leading scholar of shamanism and psychedelics, with 40 years of cross-cultural research and editor of the Handbook of Entheogenic Healing (2025). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Brainforest Café, Dr. Dennis McKenna sits down with Kat Maier, a registered herbalist and physician's assistant who has practiced for more than forty years and wrote the award-winning book Energetic Herbalism. Together they explore what modern medicine loses when it separates the body from spirit: how energetic traditions read the body as a living landscape (hot or cold, damp or dry, tense or relaxed), why context can matter as much as chemistry, and where the psychedelic renaissance fits into a much older understanding of plants as medicine for the soul. It is a warm, rigorous conversation about healing, reciprocity, and our estrangement from nature. In this conversation: Why Kat calls herself a "recovering scientist," and why she refuses to choose between biomedicine and the sacred What energetic herbalism actually means, and how to read your own internal landscape Why Echinacea "failed" a famous clinical trial, and how it was being used wrong The drop of Black Cohosh that felt like a DMT journey, and what it reveals about context and healing Drop doses, regional herbalism, and healing at the pace of tissue, not the pace of a pill The Herbal Mutual Aid Directory, bringing plant medicine to communities after floods, fires, and storms - - - Kat Maier, RH (AHG).PA has been a practicing herbalist for over forty years. She is the founder and director of Sacred Plant Traditions, LLC in Charlottesville, VA. She served as President of the Board of United Plant Savers and received their first Medicinal Plant Conservation Award. As a clinical herbalist she has taught at medical schools, Naturopathic symposiums and internationally at herbal conferences. As a former Peace Corps volunteer in Chile, coupled with her training as a Physician’s Assistant, she weaves the language of biomedicine with traditional energetic systems and wisdom. Kat served on the Admissions Committee for American Herbalist Guild (AHG) for professional membership for over ten years She is the founder of Botanica Mobile Clinic, which offers support to mental health and at-risk community members at no cost. Kat is the co-author of Bush Medicine of San Salvador Island, Bahamas, and the author of Energetic Herbalism: A Guide to Sacred Plant Traditions, Integrating Elements of Vitalism, Ayurveda, and Chinese Medicine. This book won the 2022 Gold Medal Nautilus Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For nearly a century, reports of a mysterious psychoactive bolete have puzzled ethnomycologists and anthropologists alike. From the 1930s reports of "mushroom madness" in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, which drew the curiosity of R. Gordon Wasson, Roger Heim, and Albert Hofmann, to modern Yunnan, China, where accidental poisonings from undercooked culinary mushrooms cause people to reliably see visions of tiny, colorfully dressed "little people." In this episode of The Brainforest Café, Dennis McKenna sits down with mycologist and PhD candidate Colin Domnauer (University of Utah) to discuss how modern genomics, natural product chemistry, and fieldwork cracked this long-standing mystery. Colin shares his journey traveling to the markets and forests of Southwest China and the Philippines, using DNA sequencing to identify the primary species responsible (Lanmaoa asiatica), conducting groundbreaking rodent bioassays, and exploring what these non-psilocybin compounds could reveal about the neurobiology of perception and the cross-cultural phenomenon of Lilliputian hallucinations. - - - Colin is a Bay Area California native whose research focuses on unravelling the ethnomycological mystery of psychoactive bolete mushrooms. With a lifelong interest and undergraduate degree in astronomy before changing his studies to the ethnobiology of psychoactive substances, Colin has always felt attracted to explore the mind-bending wonders of nature. In his free time, he enjoys engaging in just about any outdoor activity with friends, most of all foraging for mushrooms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dennis McKenna sits down with scholar, lawyer, and philosopher Tam Hunt (UC Santa Barbara’s META Lab) to dive deep into the mysteries of consciousness, psychedelics, and the existential crossroads of artificial intelligence. Tam shares his unconventional journey, from growing up in a 1970s counterculture commune to transformative, high-dose LSD journeys in Waimea Canyon, and how these experiences led him to co-develop the General Resonance Theory (GRT) with Jonathan Schooler. Together, Dennis and Tam explore panpsychism, Whiteheadian process philosophy, the limits of reductionist neuroscience, plant intelligence, and whether future AI built on electromagnetic "field computing" could become conscious. They conclude with a candid discussion on AI safety, existential risk, the approaching 2030 Singularity, and why the principle of stewardship as love is essential for humanity's survival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Dickinson, CEO and co-founder of Ambio Life Sciences and author of Ibogaine and the Bicameral Mind, returns to the Brainforest Café for part two of his conversation with Dr. Dennis McKenna. Where part one followed the personal journey, this one goes into the machinery: what ibogaine is actually doing to the mind and to the cell. - - - Jonathan Dickinson, co-founder and CEO of Ambio Life Sciences and founder of Terragnosis, joins Dr. Dennis McKenna on the Brainforest Café for a conversation about ibogaine, iboga, and the Bwiti tradition of Gabon. A Mexico-licensed psychologist and former executive director of the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance, Jonathan helped develop the field's foundational safety guidelines and completed the first Nagoya-compliant export of Tabernanthe iboga root. In part one of a two-part conversation, he traces the path from harm reduction work in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to initiation in Gabon, and explains why ibogaine refuses to behave like a pharmaceutical. It does not reduce symptoms. It opens a door, and the person has to walk through it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Dickinson, co-founder and CEO of Ambio Life Sciences and founder of Terragnosis, joins Dr. Dennis McKenna on the Brainforest Café for a conversation about ibogaine, iboga, and the Bwiti tradition of Gabon. - - - Jonathan Dickinson, a Mexico-licensed psychologist and former executive director of the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance, Jonathan helped develop the field's foundational safety guidelines and completed the first Nagoya-compliant export of Tabernanthe iboga root. In part one of a two-part conversation, he traces the path from harm reduction work in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to initiation in Gabon, and explains why ibogaine refuses to behave like a pharmaceutical. It does not reduce symptoms. It opens a door, and the person has to walk through it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the future of ayahuasca isn’t in the hype cycle, but in safety, tradition, and real transformation? In this conversation, Sam Believ and Dennis McKenna explore Colombia’s overlooked ayahuasca lineage, the importance of set and setting, and why plant medicine may hold a key to healing both people and culture. - - - Sam Believ is the founder of LaWayra Ayahuasca Retreat and host of the Ayahuasca Podcast. ​A former offshore engineer turned modern bridge-builder, Sam is dedicated to making traditional Amazonian medicine accessible, safe, and grounded for the modern world.  He build LaWayra - currently the biggest Ayahuasca retreat in Colombia, while raising 3 small kids all in 2 foreign languages and without any business background. At LaWayra he has guided close to 3000 people through their Ayahuasca experience.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this conversation, Patricia Eastman and Dennis McKenna explore the deeper meaning of psychedelic healing through the lens of ancestral wisdom, initiation, and nature-based practice. Patricia shares the story behind her book Seeding Consciousness and her vision for Hu Azores, a retreat center in Portugal designed as a healing space that integrates architecture, ritual, and circadian-aware design. The discussion moves beyond symptom treatment and into a bigger question: how psychedelics can support creativity, integration, and a more connected human experience. - - - Patricia Eastman, Initiated is a Bwiti Traditional Practitioner for over 11 years and founder of the nonprofit Ancestral Heart, has curated transformative retreats with plant medicines worldwide as well as facilitated the psychospiritual program with ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT at Crossroads Treatment Center in Mexico. A renowned speaker, artist, and writer, Eastman has engaged with audiences at Stanford University, the World Economic Forum, and on Gaia TV's Psychedelica. Eastman is the author of Seeding Consciousness: Plant Medicine, Ancestral Wisdom, and Psychedelic Initiation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2003, Carlos Tanner woke up in his car underwater, having blacked out behind the wheel and driven into a river. Deep in an opiate addiction, he went to the Amazon to save his own life. What he found there became his life's work. In this episode of the Brainforest Café, Dennis McKenna sits down with Carlos, founder of the Ayahuasca Foundation in Iquitos, Peru, for a wide-ranging conversation on healing, tradition, and what happens when a sacred medicine goes global. Carlos recounts his apprenticeship under the late curandero Don Juan Tangoa Paima, who first took him in, and how that path led him to build the Ayahuasca Foundation around one idea: to give the next person the map he never had. He and Dennis also trace a shared history back to their involvement in the documentary The Shaman and the Scientist. At the heart of the conversation is a tension they both clearly feel. Both support plant medicine, yet don’t fully agree on where it should go. Dennis, who first brought the ayahuasca vine to Hawaii in 1976, is openly conflicted about his role in spreading it globally. Carlos presses the question: you can move the plant, but can you move what makes it heal? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Brainforest Café, Dennis McKenna sits down with medicinal chemist Matt Metcalf to explore a genuinely strange frontier: testing drugs in pea seedlings and the touch-sensitive Mimosa pudica instead of in mice. Along the way they circle the question that started it all, why the opium poppy spends so much energy making opioids at all, and what those molecules might be doing inside a plant that has no nerves. - - - Matthew Metcalf is a neuroscientist with a background in the medicinal chemistry and pharmacology of opioids and cannabinoids as analgesic drugs. He is an assistant professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University (MCPHS) School of Pharmacy - Worcester. His current research focuses on the development of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs, sometimes called Non-Animal Models) drug tests to limit the use of animals used in drug testing. His current work focuses on the use of living plants as the biological organisms to replace animal models used as drug tests. Outside of his research he is passionate about auroras and timelapse photography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dennis McKenna sits down with his old friend Dr. Cedric Baker, an ethnopharmacologist and medical herbalist who studies the ethnobotany of food across more than thirty countries. Together they take apart one of modern medicine's most stubborn assumptions: that food and medicine are separate things. From Thai kitchens where every dish is therapeutic, to the world's longevity hotspots, to the ethics of who owns a plant, it's a conversation that will leave you looking at your own plate a little differently. - - - Cedric Barrett Baker is an ethnopharmacologist, food ethnopharmacognoist, medicinal food ethnobotanist, integrative oncology medical herbalist, pharmaconutrition research scientist, & medical botany, pharmacognosy and pharmacy historian. He is also a licensed Rph. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the psychedelic renaissance surges, wild sources are collapsing under demand—peyote takes decades to grow, safrole extraction is destroying Southeast Asian forests, and Sonoran Desert toads are being overharvested. In his book Bioengineering Enlightenment, Prof. Jeffrey Gerst proposes a radical solution: engineer yeast or fast-growing plants to produce psychedelic compounds sustainably. But at what cost? Dennis McKenna warns this could strip these substances from their cultural and ecological roots, veering into biopiracy. Together, they debate biotech vs. tradition, exploring alternatives like community-led agroforestry, symbiotic rights, and the “Om Fund” to return profits to Indigenous stewards. They also revisit Terence McKenna’s “Stoned Ape” hypothesis, asking whether paleogenomics could experimentally probe the evolution of human consciousness. - - - Jeffrey Gerst, born and raised in New York, is a Professor of Biology with over three decades of academic experience. He began his career at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and has since held a long-standing position at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he serves as the Besen-Brender Chair of Microbiology and Parasitology. His research focuses on how proteins are correctly localized within cells, particularly through the trafficking of messenger RNA (mRNA), a process essential for normal cellular function and disease prevention. Among his key contributions, Gerst’s work has demonstrated that mammalian cells can transfer mRNA between one another, revealing a novel form of intercellular communication. His lab is now exploring this mechanism as a potential gene therapy approach to treat rare genetic disorders such as Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, and Gaucher’s disease by enabling targeted RNA delivery within the body. In addition to his biomedical research, Gerst advocates for the sustainable production of psychedelic compounds using genetic engineering. He is the author of Bioengineering Enlightenment and has presented this work at major scientific conferences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dennis McKenna sits down with journalist Mattha Busby to discuss the evolving world of psychedelics, including ayahuasca, ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT, coca policy, drug reform, and the risks and realities behind psychedelic retreats and clinics. Mattha shares stories from the front lines of psychedelic journalism and reflects on the cultural, scientific, and political forces shaping the future of consciousness research. - - - Mattha Busby is a freelance journalist who has covered drug policy, psychedelics, culture and society for VICE, WIRED, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, LA Times and Esquire. He is the author of two slim volume books, Should All Drugs Be Legalized? (Thames & Hudson, 2022) and Psychedelics: A Pocket Primer (Hoxton Mini Press, 2025). He is represented by literary agents Aevitas Creative and is currently working on his first novel. He has also given keynotes on psychedelic culture on both sides of the Atlantic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this rich and thought-provoking conversation, Dennis McKenna speaks with philosopher Mandi Astola about Terence McKenna, psychedelics, epistemology, shamanism, and the nature of knowledge. Together they explore how psychedelic experiences can produce both genuine insight and dangerous overconfidence, why intellectual humility matters, and how science and shamanic ways of knowing can complement each other. The discussion also touches on the “Stoned Ape” theory, the Timewave, the trickster archetype, and the role of psychedelics as tools for understanding reality, consciousness, and human evolution. A fascinating dialogue for anyone interested in philosophy, altered states, ethics, and the limits of what we know. - - - Mandi Astola is a philosopher specializing in epistemology, ethics and ethics of technology. She is assistant professor at Delft University of Technology's philosophy section.  In particular, Mandi's work focuses on character and what features of character make someone a good person, or a good thinker. She is also part of a project, involving multiple universities, that investigates the contribution that various disciplines in the arts can make to ethical reflection on new technologies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Dennis McKenna and Viktor Wynd for a fascinating conversation on dark fairy tales, strange museum curiosities, Papua New Guinea, storytelling, collecting, and the hidden intelligence of nature. Viktor Wynd, writer, artist, and founder of the Museum of Curiosities, shares stories from his travels, his love of folklore, and his perspective on art, books, and the living world. For viewers interested in folklore, ethnobotany, consciousness, rare books, oddities, and the intersection of science, spirit, and wonder. - - - Viktor Wynd is a writer, artist, and the proprietor of the eponymous Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art and UnNatural History in London. He regularly leads expeditions to Papua New Guinea, the Congo and beyond, taking small groups with him via his boutique travel agency Gone with the Wynd. He is the author of Viktor Wynd's Cabinet of Wonders and The UnNatural History Museum, both published by Prestel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices