Rick Doblin's MDMA Story | Psymposia
Rick Doblin, PhD, founder and director of MAPS, shares his story.
"The most mystical experience I've had was with MDMA. I felt cradled in the arms of gravity, a sense of being woven into everything."
Filmed by Evan Roberts, Roberto Farruggio, Laura Krasovitzky.
Edited by J Warner
psymposia.com
MAPS.org
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically from YouTube's captions, then cleaned up by removing filler words, repeated words and background sounds. It may still contain errors.
[00:00] And so we'll give a story from Rick doblin who figured out a way to make a [Applause] difference thank you thank you well one of the ways that I made a difference was being inspired by my own psychedelic experiences and so I think thank you for the opportunity to tell some a drug story and today there was a fair amount of discussion about the mystical experience and how the mystical experiences connected to therapeutic outcome with psilocybin but how that's not the case with MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder and yet for me the most mystical experience I've ever had was with MDMA so I've been thinking about that a lot and thought that that might be a story to share how that came about and it began at elen
[01:01] Where I was learning about MDMA back actually in 1982 and it was a monthlong workshop on the mystical Quest taught by Stan and Christina gra and it involved holotropic breath work and a lot of guest lectures and one of them was Brother David steinel Rost who's a Roman Catholic monk who is U amazing he hasn't been excommunicated but he's not a he's like a Mystic ecumenical very openminded and when I learned about MDMA was legal 1982 and we were starting to think we needed to approach other people U from not stereotypical kind of drug using groups but just people like monks and rabbis and meditators and so with and I started talking about MDMA with
[02:03] Brother David and it made it felt to me like it's very peaceful it's very self-accepting and that in half dose it could be really good for meditation so Brother David tried it in the monastery and T talked about some of the one of the other monks started trying it as well and I got called to the father Superior like I and what is these monks and you know and it was really helpful that it was legal still and I said it it's part of this understanding of mysticism and Global spirituality and there's this you know deeper kind of respect that's being paid to the experience and it's not something you do all the time but you can deepen your meditation practice perhaps and it's people have used fasting and all these
[03:03] Ways and this father Superior said okay they can keep doing it which was kind of amazing and so I just was thinking about that a lot and there was this part of this suing the DEA where it was a little bit unclear for me how to do it in a skillful way and not get really you know smashed and yet at the same time I felt it could be done and I had through these workshops at aselin and the meetings I'd gotten pretty comfortable at being there and I'd found my spot I found a place to camp out you're not supposed to camp out there but there's a place right down by the ocean where it was kind of private and when the tide went out I could gather up some small stones and stuff and buckets and create this little bed
[04:05] The mountain came straight down to the ocean there was big rocks out there that that block the W the waves you know there's a freshwater stream going right by there mountains right behind you and the high tide would come like on the stage the high tide would come like right where you guys your feet are right there but you could have this and then the mountain is right here but there was this little spot that was like perfectly safe throughout the night throughout the High Tides the low tides was just you know Exquisite little spot there and I got pretty comfortable camping out there and you know walking around there at night and I thought okay this is a really good spot to take MDMA one night and you know I felt like I could do it by myself that there was people there if I needed to talk anybody it was you know I felt really protected in that way I didn't have to worry the phone was going to ring the police were going to come
[05:05] By nothing and so I did it at night it was just incredible night and I spent a fair amount of time looking at a tree and imagining it was different like dea people sort of looking at me and I was trying to figure out well how do I build this relationship and I thought well okay you know I find you know could see ominous figures or friendly figures and I just somehow came to the idea that sort of that they're looking for what's under the rock they're looking for what's hidden the whole thing is conspiracies and secrets and all this kind of stuff and you just come at them straight directly it's probably a safer way to do it you know even if you're still occasionally having these experiences yourself and talking about it and being
[06:06] Willing to acknowledge that but it's something that I felt like okay I could do it in that way and that there's a part of the DEA people that really want to know what drugs are like I mean they do because the stuff that they've been told about how bad it is it's like nobody would want to take this stuff but people do so they're kind of curious about it and it it's good to I think help him see sometimes so I found myself even sometimes explaining what it was like to be I or stuff with some DEA people and so I sort of worked through that kind of process and then the tree came back to a tree and then I just was like amazed it's like it was now in the middle of the night and the stars were just so super bright and the waves were
[07:07] Crashing and I just felt like the universe was so big and I was just this little speck and then I felt scared I could just disappear like there it was like and I just almost like thrown up into the universe or just be connect just somehow lose it just was a little bit scary part for a moment and then I felt like well I haven't disappeared somehow I am still here I mean just like and it was just this kind of recognition there was something that was keeping me there and that this something was gravity and this gravity was in of this loving force that was keeping me together and I was wondering like how does Brother David live a celibate life you know why does among why do you want to do that I mean and then I kind of saw
[08:08] That that the good part of it is that then I felt like this gravity that I was cradled in the arms of gravity and it was like a lover I didn't have a girlfriend at the time it felt like so warm like it was actually a real person and but it was this gravitational force gravity and I felt this cradled in the arms of gravity and it made me feel connected in a way that it U I never was quite so lonely ever again after that and it felt like a sense of yeah this was the most woven into everything me disappearing and still being there and feeling this loving connection and that was 19885 5 it did have those positive effects and then a few months ago I had a chance to sit next to Brother David after all
[09:08] After 30 years and at a conference in Madison and so I was able to talk to him a little bit in DIN and I kind of was able to share with him that this most mystical experience of my life had been about contemplating him and his life and that that U I wondered you know what and he's an amazing man and so he I said it was about gravity that that for me it came to be the loving force of gravity and he looked at me he said you know I think about gravity every single day thank you [Applause]
