#  Video: Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research: Group 3 

 





April 01, 2023

 

 

On April 1, 2023, The Harvard Psychedelics Project at Harvard Divinity School, a student organization, held the "Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research" conference gathering together faculty, researchers, and students from across Harvard University to explore their diverse, interdisciplinary, and promising research on psychedelics. Speakers came from across the University’s Schools, units, and departments, including the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Business School, Harvard College, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and POPLAR at the Petrie-Flom Center. This third series of talks featured Suzannah Clark, Max Ingersoll, Logan Fahrenkopf, Jeffrey Breau, and Paul Gillis-Smith.



 

**Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research: Group 3**

SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 2: Explorations in interdisciplinary psychedelic research. University speakers, group three. April 1st 2023.

SPEAKER 3: We're now going to bring our final block of University speakers, and then move into our concluding panel. As with our previous groups the following speakers represent the range of psychedelic research at Harvard, and the ways that psychedelic studies is emerging at all levels of the University. From faculty to undergraduates to grad students.

For a final reminder, the full biography of each speaker can be found at the QR code right over there. And concluding our panel, we'll begin a final Q&A before we close and move to the reception area.

So with that, I'll introduce our first speaker here, Dr. Suzannah Clark. Suzannah Clark is director of the Mahindra Humanities Center and the Morton. B. Naple Professor of music. She specializes in the music of, my German name pronunciation is so bad, Franz-- oh, it's just Schubert. Embarrass myself here.

As well as the history of music theory and medieval vernacular music from the 12th and 13th centuries. Prior to joining Harvard in 2008, she taught at Oxford University and was a fellow at Merton College. Please welcome Dr. Suzannah Clark to the stage.

DR SUZANNAH CLARK: Thank you, everyone. It's been really a wonderful and inspiring day and I'm extremely pleased to be here. Unlike the previous speakers my area of expertise is not actually in the study of psychedelics. I somewhat feel maybe I should have been scheduled before noon so I could have still been in the April Fool's zone.

But I am here as the director of the Mahindra Humanities Center. And one of the things that, if you're at Harvard is, you'll know that Harvard never really does something once at a time. They do things in multiple places. And so I'm extremely pleased, if I can weave in my thanks here, I'm very pleased to be here.

Because as the director of the Mahindra Center, a few years ago Michael Pollan approached me to ask if I would like to do some programming in plant thinking and psychedelics. And of course I said absolutely yes. And so we're in the process of thinking about what we can do for programming in the Mahindra Humanities Center.

And so thanks to some thinking with Michael Pollan, one of the things that we're going to be interested in doing is thinking, certainly about the alleviation of human suffering through therapeutics as well as the role that psychedelics has played in religion throughout the world and throughout time and in spiritual experiences.

But we're also interested in fostering some of the following kinds of conversations. This is not an exhaustive list, but research questions in history for example. So the person who asked the question in the previous session, is like how did we come to get to a place where we have a lost history of the engagement with psychedelics since the 1950s, would be a prime question.

We're interested, of course, in a historical and pan geographical corpus of mystic literature, art, creativity and so on. What would, for example, a history of literature look like if the influence of psychedelics and psychoactives were present in that particular narrative. Or what, for example, would a natural history of the human imagination look like? What role would psychoactive play in such a story.

If one is say an anthropologist or ethnobotanist, what is the engagement of, and here I'll use the word loosely, hallucinogens amongst our archaic humanoid ancestors, for example. What is the history of transcendence, transformation, and mystical experience, again across the globe and across time.

What is the reassessment and chemical essays of the herbarium collections at Harvard, for example. We often imagine or understand that psychedelics, even if we can use that phrase broadly, or psychoactives has been an impetus for a lot of creativity across time in art. So again, thinking about that kind of history.

And in a minute I'm going to get to music that goes the other way, because you'll see that I'm also in music. But we can think about questions about the sovereign protection of plants, ecologies, and traditional healing wisdom of threatened groups. If we come to engineering, we can start to think about things like intoxicating cuisine, right? Generally.

So what is the study of the interplay between diet and pharmacology. And what is the way in which the consumption of certain foods and beverages have impacted the course of human life and civilization in sacred and secular settings. What is the depiction of altered states of consciousness across periods and so on.

The list does go on, but I do think broadly speaking, we can think what is the role that psychoactive plants play in human evolution. And now what I want to do for the remainder of my time is jump in here a little bit as a musicologist and a music theorist, and here I'm coming into territory where, as I say, I'm not a researcher in this area.

But I do want to talk about or touch on three kind of musical moments where music serves as an ingredient or in other words, there's a sonic ingredient to the experiences that we're talking about. And we've heard from previous speakers who have mentioned music, and Grant Jones' composing music, which I think is absolutely critical here.

So in preparing for today, I was looking at the history of psychedelics. And I came across an article from the John Hopkins news and publication web page, and it's entitled inside the John Hopkins playlist, right? And this is a playlist that Bill Richards was thinking about and talking about, and it's described as music chosen for its ability to guide and support the participant's experience.

And the playlist that was being discussed dates back from 1967. And then in the article, there were a list of samples from the playlist, and I am a classical musician and I love classical music, and I noted that there was a lot of classical music. To me that's actually a problem, right? Because it comes-- it's not a neutral statement to pick and choose your playlist.

But it's also not a neutral statement just to say something like this. So for the background music there's Antonio Vivaldi, Lago, concerto RV 93, and D major for guitar, right? Moment the word the guitar is put in there we know that this is an arrangement from the past. It is not-- the piece in question was written for the lute.

So I then start to say, well I wonder which recording is being used here. Because this will matter, right? If you play on the original loop the timbre is very different, the way you pluck the strings is very different. So you have a sort of more pointilistic sound on the guitar than you would on the lute, right? And if this is going to be a guide, this guide is going to matter.

And of course, I have no doubt that these choices were made with great care, right? But then another-- as things begin to take effect, Edward Elgar is mentioned. So Nimrod from the Enigma variations. I just want to say that-- so I was born in England and I grew up in England. And I really only like one piece by Elgar and it's not this one, right?

So I was trying to imagine myself in the company of this music if I were to have some sort of experience with psychedelics. And so this particular piece is in three, four, right? And what that means for musicians is that you can have one, two, three. One, two, three, one, two, three. And often there's something very regular about it. But actually, what is worth appreciating about this piece is that Elgar goes against that sense of time.

Now, when Leonard Bernstein records this, he takes five minutes and 48 seconds to play this piece with the BBC orchestra. And he does it serenely and beautifully. He's attentive to every single note as it goes by. So what you end up hearing is the highs and lows of the sound as it goes through. It is in fact, and I mean this mindfully, painfully slow.

Now sir Neville Mariner, when he plays the same piece, takes three minutes and 49 seconds. So he plays it 2 minutes faster. And what you actually get from him is a much smoother sense of an ebb and flow that is much, much, much longer. Despite being played much more quickly. You get the sense of a very long line that ebbs and flows.

So if that's your company, you will have to my mind, a very different experience. Even if you're not of course, in the moment of psychedelics, the music is different. Now the other thing about this particular variation is that it's an extract from a piece where in the score the piece before it says ataka, which means go straight into it. So it's actually a companion but it's extracted from that.

And what happens between the previous piece and the next one is a long note just sounding all by itself in the depths of the orchestra. And what Bernstein does, is he plays that note at great length. Great length. And then begins the melody. But what others do is they begin with the melody. So there's a question as to when exactly this piece or this variation begins.

But there's a very different, palpably different effect, if the first thing you hear is a long note followed by a melodic entry as opposed to the melodic entry coming in right away. The other thing I will say just quickly also, is there's a piece by Mozart, and I'm sure you've all heard experiments that have been done on mice to say that mice love Mozart more than anything else.

And I have things to say about that. It's actually to do with the mice hear the top range of the piano, but that's a different question. And so when they compare it to Beethoven, the music is lower and the mice can't actually hear it, so. Anyway for this adagio, again we have a range of playing that's two minutes different, either 7 minutes or 9 minutes. This is a long time, right, in music.

And I've just been shown my two minutes. And so basically, you can play that with a sense of optimism or can emphasize the melancholy. And this is effect theory from the 18th century was emphasized that a good musician could bring out these differences in the music. So it not only matters what music you play, it will matter how you play it, obviously.

These things are pretty obvious. But when one reads a playlist, or reads about a playlist, which performance it is and what experience you have in that music, whether or not you're in a psychedelic framework, is critically important. And if we then go back in history, and I'll just conclude with this. We don't have recordings for history.

So in the 12th century there's Hildegard von Bingen who wrote about 42 different visions. Well, she had sonic experiences, touch experiences, all senses. Sense of time, sense of space. And sense of time and space is very much created or influenced by music. And I think this is why Grant Jones's work is in fact so critically important, as well as yours, you didn't talk about it, but this is really important work.

What is the sonic ingredient in these particular experiences? We also do know, despite the fact that writers of ancient Greek, the mystical experiences, they're desperate to know what the substance is, right? I understand that, I am too. We're also should be desperate to know what the sound was like.

And in the frogs by Aristophanes, one of the things it says, is the chorus, there's this moment where it says, those of you in the chorus, who have not experienced the muses, that is the musica which is the dance and the-- dance and the music, and the words of being in the mystical experience, please leave the chorus.

So that meant that the sonic sound in that particular play, the people remaining would have had some sort of sonic experience. It's an engagement back and forth. Both with the creation of the sonic experience and with the sonic experience that one introduces as an ingredient into this equation.

And so just to end, I will say one of the great things about today, is I got reading. And I think I will be doing more thinking and I might even be in this field. So thank you.

SPEAKER 3: Now how about that playlist. Has anybody check that thing out? Every once in a while. Next up we have Max Ingersoll. Max is a junior at Harvard College, and he is also from Cambridge, Massachusetts. And he's studying sociology. He's been co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate psychedelics club alongside Yanna Lazarova Wang since the spring of 2021.

He's interested in the creation of psychedelic organizational culture specifically focusing on the question of how to facilitate and create systems that reproduce trust, vulnerability, and authenticity. And he's also a designer, musician, and visual artist. Let's welcome Max to the stage.

MAX INGERSOLL: Thanks so much, Paul. Thanks so much, Jeff. Funny little anecdote is all, I'm actually a Mahindra scholar from Dr. Clark's program. So that's a great, You didn't even know that, but it makes sense that we're back to back. Really happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, so this talk is about building psychedelic community and organizational culture at Harvard College through the Harvard psychedelics club. So big emphasis of what we're doing over there is thinking about 50% community, 50% mission and creating an organization that has both these elements but that also has boundaries between them. So that people amidst their busy schedules don't get overwhelmed by work but also have the support of a community.

Yeah, so reflecting this year. Creating dialogue and awareness about the impact that psychedelics have had on culture, science, spirituality etc. And working to destigmatize psychedelics and advocate for decriminalization. And then also building and co-creating a community based on trust, vulnerability, and authenticity to assist in the development of deep relationships for their own sake and also the growth and healing of members and supporting each other in that kind of to whatever capacity each individual wants.

So really kind of thinking about balancing, having structure in a container, also with leaving room for creativity and for individuals and students to make psychedelics their own. But also be in dialogue and conversation and learn from traditions that have been going on for thousands of years.

Here's a little history on a fun side. So obviously I'm sure you all know about the history of psychedelics at Harvard in the 60s. But there was a bit of a drop for a while. So here we're back again on the undergraduate level. And so another group founded the club as the science of psychedelic club in 2019, and they did the amazing work of getting an officially recognized Harvard undergraduate club.

And that's amazing, but kind of fell dormant during COVID as many things did in the college and everywhere. So my co-president Yanna and me, we picked it up in the spring of 2021. Changed the name, dropped the science of. Of course science is still important part, but more than just that. And then we've been really working on building out an organization with systems, with traditions, with all these things.

So that it'll propagate and continue and hopefully be institutionalized going forward. So we've had three kind of onboarding periods of bringing in new members and really co-creating this culture and getting to know each other in a deep way. I realized I have to go a lot faster because I have a lot of slides.

A little bit about me. I've had personal experience with psychedelics. I had pretty intense depression throughout my adolescence and psychedelics and medication have been incredibly helpful for me, and that's really why I'm here today. And I also-- and those experiences really, really inform everything that I do.

And then also, I really love design thinking and creativity and the intersection between healing and creativity and all these things. And I'm really-- they're all connected, but thinking about in the world that we're in with these different disciplines and categories, how we can bring them together.

I also want to acknowledge Yanna who's an absolute legend, who's been my co-president for two years. And she's like a complete rock, incredibly great work partner and none of this would be possible without her. And it's been such an honor to work with her for these past two years and to become close friends.

And then also to our-- to our executive directors, Ricardo and Michael, who have been also incredibly hardworking. And the club is really a team effort, and it's like, it's so fun to have a lot of passionate people coming together and working and really taking Initiative and just putting on events and making it their own. So a lot of love for all these people.

So yeah. I'm really interested. We could talk and talk about for so long about all the different aspects of the club, but I know I'm already running low, so. I'm really interested in organizational culture and how to balance inclusivity and really having that be a core value of the organization.

But also really protecting this countercultural space. Cultivating and protecting this counterculture space in the heart of Harvard College. Which as many of, is a pretty intense culture. So how do we juggle these two things where we're inclusive and we let people in, but also where we really protect this culture that is countercultural.

So the way we've kind of thought about this is creating different layers. Kind of concentric circles. There's theories of organizing relating to this that my sister told me about. But kind of at the very core, we have the executive board. People who've really put a lot of energy and a lot of time into shaping the organization.

And then we have the board which requires a comp process. Which is like an onboarding applications. So people who really-- the biggest thing we look for is demonstrating interest and enthusiasm and ability to commit time. Because that's the most difficult thing. It's like everyone's like, oh, that sounds great. And then they're so busy that they can't devote time.

And then we have the broader Harvard community people who come to the public facing events we put on. And that's really like the lifeblood of the community. Like, all the people who come in and join in and share their experiences and perspectives. And then the broader kind of reach. We have five or six, I think, thousand. Maybe something around there on our mailing list. And then on social media, as well.

So working on reaching a broader audience out there. And here's a picture of the board of the organization. And there are even a few other people here I don't have pictures on. But it's really a large group. And everyone comes in and makes it their own. And it's really fun, because it's very interdisciplinary. So people study all different things from neuroscience to sociology, like me, to history or to anything.

So we have a bunch of different initiatives going on. You could talk a lot about each of them. But the biggest ones we've got going on are events, social media, kind of merch, visual culture, editorial, and website. So I'll talk a bit about events. So we have open events and then board events which are-- oh, two minutes.

OK. I'll just breeze through these. So we put on events, bring people together, both educational events and kind of art and cultural events. Art making nights, panel speaker series, art shows. So our art show is our big tradition that we put on each semester to celebrate student creativity and art. And kind of art for its own sake as opposed to art because my art is so good, or something like that.

Which, I think, at a place that's very elite like Harvard it can be difficult to share one's work. Because oftentimes the frame that's put on it is this frame of judging the quality. But so many of us love to make art. And not because it's such great art, which it might be, but just for the joy of being a creative being. So really cultivating that non-judgmental environment.

And then also featuring and showcasing student musicians, and just enjoying live music for its own sake as well. I'm really interested in also merach and visual culture. And thinking about how can we bring psychedelic insights and sensibilities into design and into visual culture. Which is so much more immediate then like through writing and books.

If it's just like you see the image and it resonates immediately. And obviously they serve different purposes. So we've got-- I've got one example here. It's a tote bag that we made, the merch team. Which, a lot of fun. So just an opportunity for us to be creative, love fashion and designs, opportunity to do that. And then doing a photo shoot, kind of a fashion shoot on top of that. And a merch drop. So practicing all these different aspects.

We also have a social media team who's amazing which is led by Kate Tindall. She's wonderful. And Yao Yin also for a long time was the steward of it. And we work on educating and sharing, connecting the community and also educating about a lot of thought and research that's going on and looking at the history as well in culture impacts, spiritual impacts.

And I wish I could talk about it, I got time. But really working to-- there are a lot of difficult things about the culture of Harvard, which I could give a whole hour long talk on as an individual. But really, really quickly, this culture of competency where people really feel like they have to prove that they know, which prevents them from entering into the state, I'll speak for myself, prevent me from entering into the state of not knowing, which is essential for learning and for creativity.

So really working on creating an environment that, in reaction to that, allows for that humility and safety. And then also this toxic busyness where everyone's so, so busy because there are so many opportunities that it's difficult to actually get people to focus. And all these amazing people but they're spread so thin. So really work on trying to create that critical mass of attention.

Here are our values. I won't go too in-depth, I'm out of of time. But inclusivity, individual expression, passion, and quality, and integrity, which is really kind of subjective and up to one's own. But yeah, a couple of things. Next steps for us. We're really working to institutionalize the club, as I said, and make it a really fundamental part of the Harvard community going forward in the undergraduate landscape.

And to do that, and to continue to build out the psychedelic network to connect students to mentors and really get young excited people into this burgeoning field. And then also continue to establish traditions that recreate these cultures of authenticity. So I'm doing a research project right now and thinking about, OK, how can we-- what's a program or what's a tradition that we can design that does this and allows for the renorming and storming of values.

And then ramp up fundraising if anyone has any loose money lying around if they want to get rid of. We're really excited about what we're building here as a team, and hoping to institutionalize it. And a big part of that is getting access to a physical location and a physical space which is expensive here. So that's kind of another next step.

But thanks so much to you all Sorry for taking up extra time, but I appreciate you.

SPEAKER 3: Max, if people are so inclined to find this tote bag somewhere, is there anywhere we can direct them?

MAX INGERSOLL: It's sold out.

SPEAKER 3: Of course.

MAX INGERSOLL: Follow the Instagram. You'll be able to see when the next merch drops.

SPEAKER 3: Nice. All right. For our last individual presentation. And then we'll follow by our panel on regulatory and legal contexts. We have Logan Fahrenkopf from the law school. Logan is a GD candidate at Harvard Law. Prior to law school he worked on monoclonal antibody production at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.

At Harvard Law School, he serves as a research assistant for the project on psychedelics law and regulation, and is pursuing independent research on psychedelic legalization. Please welcome Logan to the stage.

LOGAN FAHRENKOPF: Good afternoon, everyone. Echoing for the penultimate time, a big thank you to Jeff, to Paul, to everyone who worked so hard on putting this event together. Now that the day is coming to a close I think we can all agree it's been a resounding success, so well done.

My name is Logan Fahrenkopf. I'm a student at Harvard Law School where I work as a research assistant at Poplar, the project on psychedelic law and regulation with professors Mason Marks and Glenn Cohen, who you will hear from shortly. So hopefully they have few, if any corrections to make to my remarks.

My past is psychedelic regulation, and the law more broadly, is a circuitous one. I studied evolutionary biology in undergrad with a plan to pursue a PhD in the subjects, like Justib whom we heard from earlier. Instead, I found myself in the world of pharmaceuticals where I was introduced to intellectual property, and that set me on a path to law school.

Upon arrival, I reached out to Professor Cohen who serves as the faculty director for the Petrie Flom Center. Which is basically the hub for the intersection of law and biology at HLS. He told me there was an open position at Poplar and asked if it was something I'd be interested in.

Now. I had a personal interest and curiosity, but also a more professional interest from the aforementioned Michael Pollan's, How To Change Your Mind, and I read that at the tail end of my undergraduate education so I left with a chance to join Poplar. And that is how, through a series of fortunate events, I found myself speaking to Harvard University on psychedelic regulation.

Now, the relationship between law and psychedelics is fairly complicated. Our featured panel will speak on it to more depth shortly. So I hope this will kind of serve as an intellectual appetizer for everyone. For better or worse almost every advancement in psychedelics is going to require the blessing of the law. Or so the people who work in and study the law would like you to believe.

But in all honesty, in order to do any of this at scale in a safe and effective manner, the law must be involved. And that begs the question, which law? Under whose authority? The most shocking experience that I've had while working on psychedelics thus far, is discovering the nebulous web of current and potential claimants to psychedelic regulation.

For starters, we have the federal government and its myriad administrative agencies. Drug Enforcement Administration which tells us that psilocybin is a Schedule I drug, and thus has no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. I think most of us here would disagree with that statement.

You have the Food and Drug Administration which lays claim to the regulatory, the regulating, the approval, testing, and marketing, but not necessarily the prescription of psychedelic compounds. The Department of Health and Human Services, which operates Medicare and Medicaid, and thus determines whether those programs will cover psychedelic substances.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which does the same to determine whether or not the countless veterans suffering from PTSD will have access to these treatments. The US Patent and Trademark Office which has the authority to grant a monopoly on specific compounds or aspects of the treatment.

The Internal Revenue Service which levies harsh, harsh tax treatment on businesses that engage in trafficking Schedule I and schedule II substances as determined by the DEA. The list goes on and on and on. Now we can turn to the states. As most of us know, the people of Oregon and Colorado have elected to take matters into their own hands as many states did with cannabis.

They are explicitly thumbing their nose at the federal government. The only thing that will prevent the Department of Justice from raiding psilocybin services and frankly current cannabis dispensaries, is a show of self restraint.

The Constitution developed a system of federalism that divides power between the federal and state governments, but it's a fairly dynamic balance. With each side in a struggle for power and control that must on occasion be arbitrated by the courts. It's not exactly a model of stability that offers fertile ground for a nascent industry to grow.

And I don't want to paint the picture that law only serves as this oppressive, patriarchal monolith that prevents access to beneficial compounds. Law and regulation is undeniably necessary in the path forward towards promoting safe, affordable, and equitable access to psychedelic compounds.

One can imagine a wild west of psychedelics, where unknowing customers are ingesting benign inactive compounds at best. Many, many people would not be as lucky. Regulation is critical to ensuring information generation, patient protection among other things. But we have to find a way to strike a balance between oppressive and unprotective, and that's no small task.

We experienced a psychedelic winter with little to no research or legally approved use for half a century due to the law. And now, nearly 60 years, to the day, that a disgraced Timothy Leary left Harvard University. And over 50 years since President Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act into law, here we are, on Harvard's campus, once again talking about psychedelics.

We lost decades of potential research and a generation of Americans missed out on potential treatment, because the law dropped the ball. This time through the hard work of my colleagues and many other people, and with a little bit of hard luck-- little bit of good luck. Hopefully no hard luck. But through the hard work and a little luck, we won't drop the ball again. Thank you.

SPEAKER 2: Sponsors. The Harvard psychedelics project at HDS, the Center for the Study of World Religions at HDS, and Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 1: Copyright 2023. President and Fellows of Harvard College.



 

 

 



 

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