The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #2002 - Amanda Feilding
CHAPTERS
Amanda Feilding’s early life: isolation, faith, and a childhood draw to mysticism
Joe welcomes Amanda and asks about the origins of her interest in mystical experience. She describes an unusual, isolated upbringing, caring for her diabetic father from a very young age, and growing up among Catholic, agnostic, and Buddhist influences that shaped her lifelong fascination with altered states.
Leaving the convent school and self-education: Buddhism, incense, and the ‘psychedelic’ roots of ritual
Amanda recounts her experience at a convent boarding school, leaving at 16 after being denied Buddhist books. The conversation pivots into how incense, chanting, and Eucharist can induce altered states—and the idea that early religious rites may have included psychoactives.
First cannabis at 16 and Oxford tutoring in comparative religion—plus early debate on drug vs endogenous mysticism
Amanda describes first smoking cannabis at 16, the creative/intellectual milieu around Oxford, and being tutored by Professor R.C. Zaehner. They discuss Zaehner’s claim that mescaline experiences differ fundamentally from ‘true’ mystical experience, a view Amanda rejects.
Ego boundaries, language, and the ‘psychedelic age’: a theory of blood flow, upright posture, and cognition
Amanda lays out a broad theory connecting human evolution, upright posture, brain blood supply, language, and the ego’s control function. Psychedelics, she argues, relax ego constraints, increase sensory connectivity, and may help re-ground humans in nature amid modern screen-based life.
Ancient art and mysteries: Chauvet cave, Eleusis, and tracing altered states through culture
The conversation explores evidence for altered states in early human culture, focusing on Chauvet cave art and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Amanda suggests extraordinary artistic and cultural ‘rings’ correlate with societies that integrated altered states, and discusses potential archaeological testing for residues.
Drug prohibition’s ‘lost decades’ and the strategy to restart science: Beckley Foundation and early imaging studies
Joe and Amanda discuss the sweeping scheduling of psychedelics, the collapse of research, and the human cost of incarceration. Amanda explains how Beckley Foundation combined policy work with scientific research to break the Catch-22—leading to landmark psilocybin brain imaging and default mode network findings.
Microdosing and neurodegenerative promise: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, and real-world anecdotes
Amanda claims emerging evidence that microdosing (especially LSD) may support conditions like Alzheimer’s and autism by improving connectivity. Joe shares striking cannabis/Parkinson’s footage; Amanda shares an anecdote of a 97-year-old with Alzheimer’s ‘returning’ after a microdose and discusses planned studies.
Mechanisms and ‘brain energy’: vasoconstriction hypothesis, connectivity maps, and discipline in altered states
Amanda revisits a long-held mechanistic hypothesis: psychedelics change vascular dynamics and increase available brain energy, enabling more simultaneous processing. They discuss connectivity diagrams, the need for training and discipline, and how cognition demands glucose—leading into diet and ketones.
Trepanation: history, theory, and why Amanda drilled her own skull
Joe introduces trepanation; Amanda explains the hypothesis (restoring cranial pulsation/compliance) and its deep prehistoric and religious associations. She describes doing trepanation herself after failing to find a willing doctor, emphasizing she doesn’t advocate self-procedure and wants proper research.
From LSD ‘work culture’ to smoking cessation science: intention, addiction, and early therapeutic studies
Amanda describes years of intensive LSD use oriented toward self-study and productivity, including quitting cigarettes via an intentional psychedelic session. She explains how this personal success informed later psilocybin smoking-cessation research with high reported success rates.
Regulation and harm reduction: access, quality control, UN treaties, and high-THC cannabis risks
They discuss the barriers and risks created by prohibition—unsafe sourcing, the dark web, and distorted markets. Amanda argues for science-based harm reduction policies (including THC/CBD-based taxation) and criticizes international drug conventions for stagnation despite new evidence.
Culture, creativity, and the 1960s: ‘turn on and drop in,’ design trends, and psychedelics as a productivity tool
Amanda and Joe argue that psychedelics fueled cultural flourishing and creativity—from music and spirituality to industrial design. Joe uses the 1969 vs 1980 Mustang comparison as a metaphor for the post-1970 decline in aesthetic ambition and creative confidence.
Next-gen research frontier: 7-Tesla imaging, MEG, mapping mystical states, and the Go-performance question
Amanda outlines ambitious upcoming studies using higher-resolution brain imaging (7T fMRI) and MEG to personalize data and correlate subjective mystical states with measurable neural signatures. They also discuss performance enhancement examples—Go, pool, sports, and the famous ‘no-hitter on acid.’
Anomalous experiences: entities, bad trips, telepathy, and near-death parallels
Joe asks about DMT entities; Amanda distinguishes LSD from DMT/psilocybin phenomenology and shares concerns about darker experiences. They move into near-death experiences, endogenous neurochemistry, and Amanda’s personal ‘telepathy’ stories centered on her pigeon Bertie, concluding with speculation on latent human capacities suppressed by ego/noise.
A ‘Beckley Harbor’ vision and closing appeal: democratizing access, funding research, and how to support
Amanda proposes a care-home/clinic model to rapidly collect data and personalize microdosing protocols for Alzheimer’s and related conditions, aiming to replicate ‘terminal lucidity’ without waiting for death. The episode closes with a discussion of ethical commercialization, the need for philanthropy, and directions to support the Beckley Foundation.
