Divergent States

What actually happens when a psychedelic experience becomes overwhelming in the middle of a concert, festival, or crowded event? 3L1T3 and Bryan sit down with Case Newsom , emergency medicine physician and medical director of the Zendo Project , to explore the practical art of psychedelic peer support. Case explains why helping someone through a difficult trip often means resisting the urge to tak...

Dori Lewis is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, Natural Medicine Facilitator, and Co-Founder of Elemental Psychedelics. She also owns Reflective Healing Center, one of Colorado's licensed psychedelic healing centers. As psychedelic therapy moves from the underground into legal clinics and state-regulated systems, a difficult question emerges: what actually makes someone qualified to gui...

Former NFL player and College Football Hall of Famer Robert Gallery joins Divergent States for one of the most raw conversations we’ve had on the show. After retiring from professional football, Robert began experiencing intense rage episodes, suicidal thoughts, emotional instability, brain fog, and severe PTSD-like symptoms linked to repeated head trauma and brain injury from years in the NFL. Wh...

Dennis Walker joins Divergent States to unpack how psychedelic stories actually become “news,” why sensationalism dominates drug coverage, and how media narratives shape public perception around psychedelics. We discuss psychedelic exceptionalism, corporate psychedelics, satire as social critique, harm reduction, underground culture, MAPS, FDA approval, clinical gatekeeping, psychedelic tourism, a...

Psychedelics don’t fix your life. They don’t make you a better person. They don’t replace responsibility. And they don’t solve the problems waiting for you when you come back. In this episode, we sit down with Talia Eisenberg from Beond to talk about what actually happens after a powerful psychedelic experience—especially with ibogaine. What changes, what doesn’t, and why the hardest part is often...

If one or two psychedelic sessions can produce measurable improvements in treatment-resistant depression, why does modern psychiatry still rely on daily medication? In this episode of Divergent States , we sit down with Dr. Steve Levine, psychiatrist and Chief Patient Officer at Compass Pathways, to break down their newly released Phase 3 clinical trial results for COMP360 psilocybin therapy. But...

This is the human center of The Many Faces of Coca. By the time coca enters Western conversations, it’s already been abstracted—reduced to policy, drugs, or crime. But for millions of people, coca isn’t any of those things. It’s daily life. In this final episode of the series, we speak with political theorist and anthropologist Manuela Picq, who has lived and worked alongside communities in the An...

The Many Faces of Coca – Part Two In Part Two of the Many Faces of Coca series, 3L1T3 and Bryan sit down with renowned ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna to explore the science behind the coca leaf. Part One focused on history and politics with Wade Davis, this conversation turns to the biology and chemistry of the plant itself . What actually happens when coca is chewed? What compounds exist in t...

In Part One of The Many Faces of Coca , 3L1T3 and Bryan sit down with Wade Davis to unpack the long history of the coca leaf and how a plant used for over 8,000 years became globally criminalized. This conversation isn’t about cocaine. It’s about coca. Wade walks us through: How coca was independently domesticated multiple times in pre-Columbian South America Why early 20th-century elites blamed c...

Iboga has a reputation. It’s intense. It’s long. It carries real risk. And for some people, it’s life-changing. But what actually happens inside a retreat container? And what does this work look like behind the scenes? In this episode of Divergent States , 3L1T3 and Bryan sit down with Paije West and Fletcher Burdick, founders of ETEREO, an iboga retreat center in Baja, Mexico. Their approach sits...

What happens when a 25-year career at CNN ends — and a new life begins? In this episode of Divergent States , we talk with Cesar Marin , former CNN producer and founder of Microdosing Over 50 , about how psychedelics helped him navigate midlife, identity loss, and personal reinvention. Cesar shares his journey from broadcast media to becoming an advocate for intentional microdosing later in life....

What really happens when psychedelics change someone, and why do some people come back grounded while others spiral into ego, conspiracy, or spiritual bypassing? In this long-form conversation, comedian and science-minded psychonaut Shane Mauss joins Divergent States for a deep dive into what psychedelics do to the human mind beneath the mystical language. Drawing on neuroscience, cognitive bias,...

Season Two of Divergent States is about something simple and surprisingly rare: exploring altered states without losing touch with reality. In this preview episode, 3L1T3 and Bryan share two short moments from upcoming conversations that define the tone of the season ahead. In the first, Shane Mauss reflects on how psychedelics open people to awe—but also to certainty, conspiracies, and belief sys...

Dennis McKenna joins 3L1T3 and Valerie Beltran to discuss the future of psychedelics, indigenous knowledge, and whether we are ready to bring these tools into mainstream culture without repeating the extractive patterns of the past. We explore the gap between good intentions and real reciprocity, what Western psychedelic enthusiasm is missing, and how community-based practice may matter more than...

In this episode of Divergent States , 3L1T3 sits down with Betty Aldworth , the new co-president of MAPS, as she steps into shared leadership with Ismail Ali following Rick Doblin’s four-decade run. Betty brings decades of experience in drug policy reform, from Colorado’s 2012 cannabis legalization campaign to leading Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and now helps guide MAPS through one of the m...

Dr. Bronner’s Cosmic Engagement Officer David Bronner joins Divergent States for a candid, nuts-and-bolts conversation about building an “All One” company culture, pushing for psychedelic policy reform, and rewiring global supply chains to be fair, transparent, and regenerative. We trace the lineage from Rainbow Gatherings to Burning Man , from hemp activism to MAPS , and from commodity brokers to...

Psychedelics are no longer the fringe—they’re reshaping medicine, culture, and consciousness itself. In this episode of Divergent States , 3L1T3 and Bryan sit down with Joe Moore , co-founder and CEO of Psychedelics Today , to explore the messy evolution of the movement: from the chaotic 1960s to today’s corporate clinics and grassroots revival. They trace Psychedelics Today’s origins, dive into t...

Psychedelics are often framed as creativity boosters, but that’s not exactly what’s happening. In this conversation with Reggie Watts, we explore what psychedelics actually do to the creative process, from removing self-judgment to unlocking flow states and dissolving the internal filters that normally shape how we think and create. Reggie shares how different substances affect improvisation, why...

History shows politics can make or break psychedelic medicine, will we repeat the 1960s backlash, or finally move forward?   In this episode of Divergent States , we explore the uneasy intersection of psychedelics and politics. MDMA remains a Schedule I drug—classified as dangerous with no medical use—while at the same time advancing through FDA Phase III trials. This contradiction highlights the...

In this episode of Divergent States , we sit down with Kabir Nath , CEO of Compass Pathways, and Dr. Steve Levine , Chief Patient Officer, to talk about the future of psychedelic medicine. From FDA approval and insurance coverage to patient access, cultural safety, and patents , we dig into whether Compass is truly disrupting the pharma model or just reinventing it. We also share a major community...

In this episode of Divergent States , host 3L1T3 and co-host Bryan sit down with Paul F. Austin , founder of The Third Wave and the Psychedelic Coaching Institute. We dive deep into microdosing psychedelics, intentional use for peak performance, and the rise of psychedelic coaching as a professional path. Paul shares insights from his book Mastering Microdosing , his vision for conscious entrepren...

Amber Capone , co-founder and CEO of Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions (VETS) , shares the powerful story of how psychedelic therapy - starting with Ibogaine - helped her husband, Navy SEAL Marcus Capone, recover from PTSD and TBI when traditional care failed. We dive into the science and controversy behind Ibogaine, the limits of VA mental health care, and how VETS is paving the way for safe...

What happens when the most hunted man in psychedelic history walks free and joins us for a conversation? In this deeply reflective episode of Divergent States , I sit down with William Leonard Pickard: chemist, philosopher, author of The Rose of Paracelsus , and the man once called the “Acid King.” After decades behind bars, Pickard returns with revelations about time, memory, suffering, redemptio...

In this episode, 3L1T3 sits down with Dr. Anne Wagner , clinical psychologist and founder of Remedy, whose research pushes MDMA therapy beyond the individual — into the space between two people. We explore what happens when couples facing PTSD enter treatment together, why trauma rarely belongs to just one partner, and whether psychedelic medicine can transform relational patterns where traditiona...

A former U.S. Senator says the federal government is preparing to fast-track psychedelic medicines, especially for veterans with TBI, PTSD, addiction, and treatment-resistant depression. In this conversation, Kyrsten Sinema explains why the current administration is unusually aligned behind plant-based therapies, how Ibogaine and MDMA could move through the FDA faster than expected, and why small...