Altered States

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent and former war correspondent at The New York Times. For most of his life, Ernesto was a classic journalist – skeptical, stoic – whose early life in war-torn Colombia and...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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”...