Altered States

Allegations of sexual, financial, and psychological abuse sometimes arise in the growing psychedelic church movement in Utah and beyond. A leader or guide might use their authority to pressure people – usually women – into having sexual contact with them. How might mind-altering substances play into such abuses of power? How should practitioners navigate consent? And what can psychedelic churches...

In November 2024, police raided Singularism, an establishment that claims to be a new religion founded by a former Mormon man. But before the state could press charges, Singularism went on the offensive, saying the seized psilocybin was a religious sacrament. Singularism sued the state of Utah, claiming religious freedom. So far, a federal judge has been adamant: psychedelic religion is still reli...

In South Africa, a former ballet dancer and horseback rider struggled for years with anorexia. After undergoing in-patient treatment and regular therapy, she tried psychedelics, and that’s when she got her first meaningful glimpse into what her mind would be like without anorexia. So is this actually a potential treatment? Early research suggests it could be. And now, at the University of Californ...

Reporter Adreanna Rodriguez gets invited to Texas to harvest peyote, a psychoactive cactus often caught in the crosshairs of the so-called psychedelic Renaissance. When she arrives, she finds a threatened cactus, a community determined to protect it, and an unexpected calling that reconnects her to home. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produced by PRX and the UC Berkel...

How do you know if a mouse is on a psychedelic? It might just shake its head. This behavior, known as the head-twitch response, signals whether a molecule is a psychedelic-like hallucinogen. Head twitch is one tool used by pharmaceutical companies racing to develop new mental health drugs. But does a mouse experience an altered state like a human? Do animals have mystical experiences? And what can...

A former Navy SEAL named Craig deployed nine times over nearly three decades in the military. When he left the service, he felt lucky to have all his limbs, toes and fingers. But he found himself struggling with language and memory and rising frustration. One day he forgot his wife’s name and couldn’t remember it for hours. His wife Gretchen started looking for help online and found information ab...

In 2023, supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro violently stormed the capital in an attempted coup. Among Bolsonaro’s most loyal supporters were leaders in the União do Vegetal, one of Brazil’s oldest and most popular ayahuasca churches. Brazil’s laws state that electoral propaganda is forbidden inside temples and churches but former União do Vegetal members say they experienced wh...

The Noke Koi are an Indigenous group from Acre, Brazil who consider themselves guardians of the psychoactive plant brew ayahuasca, which they call “uni.” This summer, they traveled to the U.S. to spread an urgent message: their home in the Amazon is being destroyed. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produced by PRX and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedeli...

When a neurosurgeon claimed he glimpsed the afterlife during a coma, skeptics offered a more earthly interpretation – a surge of DMT produced by his own body. Was his tale of eternity a trick of the brain, or a window into something science can’t explain? For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produced by PRX and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, Altered...

Vivaldi. Bach. The Beatles. The Johns Hopkins playlist has been the standard soundtrack in psychedelic trials at Johns Hopkins and therapy rooms around the world for more than 25 years. It also skews toward Classical and Christian music. When Sughra Ahmed, a Muslim, enrolled in a psilocybin study that used this playlist, she didn’t love what she heard. So where did this playlist come from exactly?...

Nearly a decade ago, researchers at Johns Hopkins University gave some two dozen religious leaders from various faith backgrounds a high dose of psilocybin. Now, the long-awaited results of the study are out. Journalist Michael Pollan, who wrote about the research for The New Yorker , weighs in on whether science can ever truly measure mysticism. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this...

Over the next ten episodes we’re going to explore two distinct camps in the world of psychedelics. On one side there’s the realm of spiritualists, mystical experiences, and psychedelic churches. And on the other are scientists, clinical trials, animal studies and psychopharmacologists. These two camps are often far apart but when they get all tangled up together things get really interesting. For...

A former Navy SEAL named Craig deployed nine times over nearly three decades in the military. When he left the service, he felt lucky to have all his limbs, toes and fingers. But he found himself struggling with language and memory and rising frustration. One day he forgot his wife’s name and couldn’t remember it for hours. His wife Gretchen started looking for help online and found information ab...

A plan to protect the peyote cactus is taking shape on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska during this summer’s Native American Church of North America conference. Indigenous leaders are hustling to take their peyote proposal all the way to the White House before the November election. Producer Adreanna Rodriguez tells the story. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produ...

When journalist Anna Silman started reporting on ketamine five years ago she did so because people in her friend group had begun taking the drug recreationally. She was intrigued by the ways that interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy meant more people were taking ketamine, both with a prescription and without one too. But as she started to see friends struggle with dependency, something other c...

At first the effort in Oregon to legalize psilocybin seemed doomed. Then the organizers started talking to the architect behind the carefully coordinated, state-by-state campaign to legalize cannabis, an attorney by the name of Graham Boyd. His initial thought was that what worked for cannabis would never work for psychedelics. But what he found in Oregon changed his mind. Producer Damiano Marchet...

Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent and former war correspondent at The New York Time s . For most of his life, Ernesto was a classic journalist – skeptical, stoic – whose early life in war-torn Colombia and reporting experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan left him traumatized, though he didn’t know it. Then Ernesto signs up for a retreat in the Amazon where he drinks ayahuasca. This retreat...

Altered States is taking a short breather and will be back soon. In the meantime, consider joining host Arielle Duhaime-Ross and other journalists for a virtual panel called The New Psychedelic Beat: Unraveling Oregon’s Drug Policy Story hosted by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. September 25, 2024 at 1 pm PT. For a transcrip...

In recent years, an increasing number of international clinics have begun offering treatments using ibogaine, a psychedelic drug that comes from a West African plant, to help treat conditions such as trauma and addiction. Much of the global supply of ibogaine is smuggled illegally out of Gabon. A former NBA basketball player from Gabon named Stéphane Lasme is at the forefront of new efforts to bui...

Several years ago, Heather was given three doses of psilocybin as part of a clinical study for treatment-resistant depression. Ever since, she’s been experiencing strange visual distortions, including “visual snow” and shimmering walls. What’s it like to develop a chronic condition following a trip? And what do scientists know about why it happens and who’s at risk? For a transcript of this episod...

For the last couple of years, producer Shaina Shealy has been following Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who have been coming together to drink the psychedelic brew ayahuasca in an effort to heal their collective intergenerational trauma. It seemed to be helping them when suddenly the region erupts into chaos and violence. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produce...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision on MDMA-assisted therapy for post traumatic stress disorder. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produced by PRX and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, Altered States is an award-winning podcast, taking home a 2025 Signal Award for Science and the 2026 Webby Award for Science and Education . To learn mor...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is poised to decide whether to approve MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. Host Arielle Duhaime-Ross interviews Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling book "How to Change Your Mind,” about how we got here, and what the decision might mean for the future of psychedelics. For a transcript of this episode, please visit t...

In 2020, voters in Oregon passed a ballot measure that allows people to take magic mushrooms, or psilocybin, with a guide. But what does that actually look like — or sound like? Host Arielle Duhaime-Ross follows along with a licensed psilocybin facilitator as she guides a 67-year-old man on his first mushroom trip. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produced by PRX and th...

Psychedelics now inhabit a strange liminal space. Are they party drugs? Medications? Religious sacraments? In Altered States, host Arielle Duhaime-Ross explores how people are taking these drugs, who stands to profit, and what these substances might offer us as individuals and as a society. For a transcript of this episode, please visit this link. Co-produced by PRX and the UC Berkeley Center for...