Episode 95

full
Published on:

15th Aug 2025

Dangerous Psychedelics - The LoveWisdom of Microdosing, with Jim Fadiman and Rachael Henrichsen

https://dangerouswisdom.org/

Does a psychedelic microdose offer dangerous wisdom?

Jim Fadiman, one of the most venerable leaders in the psychedelic renaissance of the dominant culture, together with Buddhist yogini and holistic health practitioner Rachael Henrichsen, join us to discuss Jim's new book, Microdosing for Health, Healing, and Enhanced Performance---the first comprehensive book on microdosing. Microdosing potentially offers some wonderful dangerous wisdom. You can find the book, and also report your experiences with microdosing, here:

https://www.microdosingbook.com/

Find Rachael here: https://redgateintegrativemedicine.com

In the introduction to his book, Jim writes:

I’ve been investigating psychedelics, professionally and personally, since the early 1960’s. Until 15 years ago I knew nothing about very small doses, nor did anyone else I knew. However, I’ve focused on little else since then, discovering, reviewing, and sharing the extraordinary results that people have reported after taking a 10th or less of a full-on psychedelic trip dose. During all those other decades I was fixated on transcendent doses (not concert, not recreational, not therapeutic, not even problem solving). As I reflect on what I know now, I am filled with wonder and chagrin as well as gratitude and humility.

I was introduced to psychedelics one night at a sidewalk cafe in Paris in 1961, when my favorite professor, Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass), put a pill into my hand and said, “The greatest thing in the world has happened to me, and I want to share it with you.” A few months later, no longer in Paris, I was a draft-dodging psychology graduate student at Stanford University. Apart from my academics, I worked off-campus with a private clinic that was pioneering psychedelic psychotherapy. There, I took a high dose of LSD in a safe, guided environment and had an incredible awakening, becoming aware of the interconnectedness of all things. That realization and its aftermath has shaped the rest of my life.

These days, there is an ever-expanding number of books by people recounting how all of those astounding, amazing, fantastic trips changed their lives.

This is not one of those.

It is, instead, about how thousands and thousands of people all over the world have improved their health and their capacities without the razzle dazzle, heaven-opening, reality-expanding experiences that made the 60’s such an optimistic culture-changing decade.

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About the Podcast

Dangerous Wisdom
Journey into Mystery
A podcast for wild souls who want to live with open eyes and an enlivened heart. The world needs dangerous wisdom, and our education system functions primarily to keep us away from it—to stop us from taking the journey into the mystery and magic of the world. Because of this, we have achieved a catastrophic level of confusion, anxiety, and ignorance—with boatloads of tame wisdom, false wisdom, and self-help nonsense that only adds to the challenges we face. The path of wisdom—the path of wonder—deals with how things really work, and how we can become skillful and successful. Following it leads beyond concepts to a wonderstanding that can heal us, and empower us to help the world, realize our hidden potential, and experience the profound meaningfulness of life. In this podcast, we turn toward the dangerous stuff, the wild stuff, and confront the need to handle authentic wisdom with skill and grace, making sure the medicine doesn’t become another poison. If you want an inspiring space to explore the big and sometimes scary questions, a space that opens up into insights that can change your life and the world we share, join us. Find out more at https://dangerouswisdom.org/

About your host

Profile picture for nikos patedakis

nikos patedakis

“Vain is the word of the philosopher that heals no suffering.” ~ Epicurus

Following in the footsteps of Epicurus, nikos patedakis works with individuals, groups, and organizations, bringing to bear the most powerful and holistic teachings of the wisdom traditions in relation to our most daunting personal and global challenges. nikos works with the unity of Nature and Culture, drawing from the sciences, the arts, and the wisdom traditions.

His educational and consulting practice offers a genuinely holistic approach to creativity and critical thinking, ecoliteracy and true sustainability, achievement and excellence, mindfulness and attention, wellness and stress reduction, burnout prevention and recovery, and more.

This work encompasses the traditional areas of ethics, knowledge, meditation, creativity, beauty, being, and metaphysics, remaining rooted in the ancient Greek orientation of philosophy as a way of life, in which philosophy is seen as therapy for the soul and fundamental to the healthy transformation of self and society. This is the tradition of Western philosophy that influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the approach of world philosophies that have shaped our world.

The philosophical traditions serve as a sacred storehouse of practical wisdom, trainable compassion, and effortless beauty that can help us resolve complex personal and global challenges, uncover our hidden potentials, and realize our highest ideals. Wisdom is what works.