Love, Sex, and Psychedelics with Dr. Molly Maloof (EP#137)

Mason: (00:03)

Molly, how are you?

 

Molly Maloof: (00:05)

I'm alive and well in the middle of a chaotic world. And somehow I feel like one of the more sane people in the room these days.

 

Mason: (00:14)

You're the sane person. It's great because I like the fact that the sane person and one of the sane people on Instagram. I love your Instagram endlessly.

 

Molly Maloof: (00:23)

Thanks.

 

Mason: (00:23)

And I love you're the doctor whose drugs I want to take.

 

Molly Maloof: (00:28)

Yeah, right. Like I kept on asking myself, "What if we made drugs that people wanted to take? What if we made drugs that actually improve the human condition?" What if we made drugs that actually improved resilience and improved our relationships? How come that's not medicine?

 

Mason: (00:46)

Now, let me start with this little light question.

 

Molly Maloof: (00:48)

Yeah.

 

Mason: (00:49)

Where does the intersection of medicine and love begin and integrate?

 

Molly Maloof: (00:56)

Yeah, right? Okay. Here's what occurred to me. And I haven't really even announced my company because I've been stalled, but I can talk about the big picture because I think it's really important. I spent my entire life trying to figure out how and ever since I was a child, and I was like, wanting to become a doctor at a young age, and then hit puberty in all sorts of hormonal disarray. And I was just like, "What is this happening to my body?" I remember thinking, someday I'm going to figure out my whole body, and I'm just going to understand all this weird shit that's happening to me. And so I spent a lot of my life trying and testing out things to see what would they would do. I would take supplements when I was in ninth grade. I was just constantly doing weird stuff to see what I could do to make my body function better.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:41)

And then, left my residency, started my own medical practise, and really was like, "Fuck, I want to make a practise around optimising health, instead of just fixing sickness." So I want to understand health from first principles. So I spent all this time studying and practising . And fortunately, I had patients who would pay me a lot of money to like, be my lab rats. And they were willing, they were coming to me with experiments that they're like, "I want to do this, will you be help me?" And I'm like, "Sure." So I was one of those doctors that was just like, helping executives find greater performance. And then I had a bit of a come to Jesus moment.

 

Molly Maloof: (02:18)

And I was just like, I did not go into medicine to be doctor just to rich people. That's not cool. And this is like been an interesting experiment. But I should probably be doing more with my life than just helping rich people stay healthy. So it really was that. That was really going through my head. I was at Esalen Institute, and I was just like, "Yeah. I'm pretty sure that there should be more to life than this."

 

Mason: (02:39)

It's an elephant a lot of the time in the health sector.

 

Molly Maloof: (02:42)

Yeah. But at the same time, I'm super grateful that I actually was able to do what I did because A, I could show I actually was part of like a massive trend movement, which was like, precision medicine for individuals was like, not a thing until, a few years after I started practising . So I've always been a bit ahead of the curve. But I've always also been one of those people who's just like, I can't settle for like surface level anything. So I have to get under the surface. So I got asked to teach at Stanford, a course. And she was like, "You seem to be this healthspan expert. So why don't you teach about it?" And I was like, well, of course, I got really insecure. And I was like, "Well, I know a lot. But I can't know enough to teach a second best school in the country." So I went and I started researching even deeper and started studying even more and started like coming up with this framework of what health was about.

 

Molly Maloof: (03:28)

And in my process of studying everything, I was creating electron relationships. And I started figuring, I saw a couple TED Talks, and I started looking into the research of these two psychologists and this researcher from Stanford. And basically, the conclusion was that long term health and happiness is literally dependent on your relationships, like the number one factor in whether you're going to live long and healthy or not is your relationships. And why do you think that is? Well, usually they're the biggest source of stress or stress relief. And we know that stress is a huge source of disease, and yet everybody talks about stress, but nobody talks about what to do about it. Even like some of the best most famous doctors in America.

 

Molly Maloof: (04:11)

Well, even doctors are on stress, like sit around talking about how they don't know what to do with stress. So I was like, "I wonder if we could actually create medicine, that improved relationships." And so I started figuring out through the psychedelic movement, that a lot of what entactogens do is they fundamentally reproduce the neurobiology of love. And so I started digging into the neurobiology of love and I was like, oh, so dopamine, norepinephrine, oxytocin, and serotonin are essentially like some of the bigger molecules involved with love and connection as well as hormones. So to me, it was like kind of a lightbulb moment happened when I was like, "Whoa, what if we actually were to create medicine that can reproduce the love that you had early in your relationship when you first got married, when you first started dating?" What would happen if you could actually reintroduce that feeling again, in your relationship, when you've been together for 10 years, and you're already annoyed by each other constantly. And there's all this resentment built up?

 

Molly Maloof: (05:17)

And what if you could work on that resentment, work on your attachment issues, work on your relationship and your bond and strengthen that bond, through drug assisted therapy? And so that's kind of what I came up with as an idea. And so I'm in this process of investigating the possible ways to do this. But really, it's like a complete paradigm shift in modern medicine because A, it's not about individuals taking drugs, it's about two people taking a drug together. And B, it's not about doctors just handing people drugs, but it's drugs plus therapy. Drugs plus a therapeutic journey that you take, in order to achieve a certain outcome. So not only does medicine have to change in a few different ways, like A, we have to like see if the FDA will even let us give two people drugs. But B like, the payment system of medicine is about you go to a therapist, you go to a doctor, you get a drug, and the doctor is paid for that visit. And that psychologist is just paid for that visit.

 

Molly Maloof: (06:14)

So I have friends that are in payments systems, and they're developing like bundled payment programmes because essentially you need to like create an entire outcome based experience that is paid for in a lump sum. And so there's a lot of things that need to change about in medicine. But I think that fundamentally the human bonds that we create, like are the hugest source of survival that we have. And a lot of people have overlooked this in this pandemic. We know now from isolation, that there's nothing healthy about people being by themselves in their homes, especially the elderly. Come on, and young people and children with families in one house, like we're meant to be in community, we're meant to be touching other people, we're meant to be around other people. And I think it's really a shame that we have ignored this factor for so long, and we're continuing to ignore it while people are killing themselves with alcohol and drugs and other substances.

 

Molly Maloof: (07:07)

And it's just like, and even food, right? Like kids are gaining weight at record rates, people are gaining weight at record rates. And it's all because we're not supposed to be alone. We're not supposed to be indoors by ourselves isolated, like it's not productive, and it's the antithesis of health. So that's my shtick in my soapbox description. And I'm just going to say this, this is a really ambitious endeavour, there is a very good chance that it will not work because the government will stop me. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't be doing stuff like this because we actually need to change the way that people think about medicine. We actually need to change how medicine is delivered.

 

Mason: (07:42)

You know what, like what brings up, I've been reading a lot of like management books because I'm at that stage by my business where I was like Peter Pan and I'm back in the real world a little bit where am I growing up and becoming a little bit adulty.

 

Molly Maloof: (07:56)

We're both becoming adults, dude.

 

Mason: (07:57)

We're both adulting the shit out of life right now.

 

Molly Maloof: (08:01)

We're adulting the shit out of life.

 

Mason: (08:04)

The one Tani got like the whole management team to raid was like a Patrick Lencioni one. I don't think that's how you pronounce his name, but he's got business fables, and it's the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and one of the dysfunctions, I can't remember if it's an exact dysfunction or just something I took out of the fable, but it's like you get an executive team and you go through all the different departments like what's our goalposts? Like what are we all agreeing on that we're looking at as like what we're all trying to get? Is it like customer acquisition? Is it customer happiness ratings? Is it revenue? It doesn't matter what the hell it is, we just focus on that and we go for it and then that unifies you. I think most people and including people that get into health and are entrepreneurs in the health same doctors what the thing that happens is they still they can't get over the hangover of getting dumped.

 

Mason: (08:53)

The goalposts been put on you by a pretty old medical system that just like, just keep people alive. Just improve the condition somewhat. And I think why when you speak and when people listening, I know people like loving my team like listening to your last podcast in the community really excited is because the boldness that you have and it's screaming me, you're like, "No, I'm creating my own goalpost, not taking on that one, and I can see the bridge, and I'm going..." Like you actually can bridge it. It's not just, I'm defying you. It's like, "No," I'm just like, I can work with in that and I can see what you're focused on. And I'm very clear about what I'm focusing on. It's like relationship and then measure the markers to see that your relationships have improved and we know it because we have these markers. And that focus is really inspiring. It's really intimidating for people that have just allowed themselves to be handed what the goalpost is. So cheers you, I raise my hot chocolate to you.

 

Molly Maloof: (10:00)

It's like I ask myself, "Okay, I've got this personal brand. If I like go and be Dr. Molly brand, Dr. Molly, how is that going to like..." Okay. So let's say there's Andrew Weil, there's Dr. Oz, there's all these, like leaders in the space. I could do that. And I can always fall back on that if this thing doesn't work, like I'll only be 40 by the time I fail at this, right? So I think I'm going to give myself like solid three years before I give up. Look, it's really hard to do this thing, but I'm going to give myself some significant time and commitment, like five to 10 years, then we'll see what happens. If I can get through past three years, I'll be fucking stoked. So point is, is like I can always fall back on like the Dr. Molly brand because it's like, that's cool. But that's just an evolution, right? That's just like, me becoming branded doctor 2.0. But the thing about this other thing is like, if we actually were to accomplish this, this just fundamentally changes medicine, and also could transform human relationships, which are falling apart.

 

Molly Maloof: (11:02)

People are getting divorced after eight years, and kids are getting damaged by these relationships. Kids are missing their relationships with their parents, parents are not bonding, kids are feeling neglected. We've got to save the family unit and I think it starts with the primary relationship. And to me, this is something that is interesting to me that, I just don't think a lot of people work on their relationships, like I don't think it's something that a lot of people consider to be a thing that they should be doing every day. But it's actually so fundamental to survival, right? And yet, it's like when things are getting really bad, that's when they get to work. So we are looking at different indications. But fundamentally, the big picture, what I'm trying to do, it's kind of like bring what people have been doing underground above ground.

 

Molly Maloof: (11:49)

The history of MDMA was like couples therapy, right? And Shulgin was giving it to psychologists to improve couples relationships. And it turns out, like underneath a lot of dysfunction, a lot of sexual dysfunction in men and women is relationship problems. So if you just keep on getting to the root cause of anything, it's like, "Oh, why don't we just like deal with the root cause? And go with that?" So it's pretty-

 

Mason: (12:15)

I've definitely experienced with underground MDMA.

 

Molly Maloof: (12:17)

Yeah.

 

Mason: (12:19)

Therapy?

 

Molly Maloof: (12:19)

Sure. Exactly.

 

Mason: (12:22)

Yeah. With my wife. Can you just enlighten people about how you'd use it in like a clinical setting and why in particular it has been used there?

 

Molly Maloof: (12:37)

So MDMA, we're not technically using MDMA, unless we can't use the substance we're going to work on toward developing which there's a lot of reasons why, like drug developments hard, right? But MDMA would be a good backup solution because of its history. MDMA is essentially an entactogen. So what it does is it means to touch with that it means to generate, it's also known as enpathogen. So it creates a deep sense of empathy and human connection. And that empathy reminds you of like, "Oh, there's this person next to me." And I can actually feel how they feel right now.I can actually, more noticeably understand their emotional experience. And I can be a part of that experience, rather than feeling so separate from someone else. And fundamentally, it also works on the neurobiology of love. So it's a love drug. So it creates a similar experience to what I call post coital bliss, which is kind of like right after you had sex, and you're feeling like really comfortable and really blissed out, it's like, that's kind of the MDMA experience.

 

Molly Maloof: (13:42)

And the interesting thing is that through different types of combinations of different chemicals, we're going to be able to modulate consciousness in ways that we never thought we could do and it's fascinating, just this whole field of psychedelic medicine because it's just beginning like this whole revolution is just beginning. And it's like happening from a place of like deep interested in science and understanding the brain, but also from like a deep reference to the past. So like MDMA, for example, in the past was used in couples therapy. So two couples would come in and take the medicine with the therapist. And the therapist will help them work through their issues whether it be like attachment trauma, or deep seated resentment that's been carried or anger or betrayal or just trust issues. And therapist would use this medicine to help people come together again.

 

Molly Maloof: (14:32)

And one of the rules interestingly, for couples therapy with when Ann Shulgin was doing it and was giving it to other therapists was no sex. So it's funny because I actually think that psychedelics go great with sex. And I think that like, you have to know what you're doing, you have to know the dose, but I do think that there will be a role in the future for psychedelic assisted therapy, and there should also be a role for psychedelic aphrodisiacs.

 

Mason: (15:00)

Speak more about that.

 

Molly Maloof: (15:02)

Well, okay, so I'm giving a talk at delic on this is actually quite kind of interesting. I'll give you a little preview of my talk. So it turns out that psychedelic aphrodisiacs have probably been used since like the beginning of human history.

 

Mason: (15:17)

Cool thing. The two best things.

 

Molly Maloof: (15:21)

Right? So people are fascinating, right? So turns out that there's like a whole bunch of categories of psychedelic aphrodisiacs. And they're so interesting. So there's the Acacia DMT, harmelin combo, there's an Alaska DMT harmelin combo, there's also the combination, that combo the drug. There's also MDMA, and MDA, which is the entactogen class of synthetic love drugs. There's LSD and psilocybin, which are the tryptamines. There's actually like a salamander that in Romania, they put into a vodka, and they use it as aphrodisiacs. There's also toads that people use as aphrodisiacs. There's Morning Glory, which is an LSD derivative, there's Hawaiian woodrose, there's all sorts of cool plants and animals that have been used since primitive times that are psychedelic, and that can turn you on.

 

Molly Maloof: (16:25)

And there's also dangerous ones things like scopolamine, which is not technically a psychedelic, but it's a deliriant. And you don't really want to take like the tour up. But people in Brazil apparently, occasionally accidentally get dosed by like prostitutes, who are trying to take advantage of them. So there's actually a pretty good Vice episode on that. But turns out that it's not exactly a psychedelic, but you can't have psychosis and hallucinations. So I was like, "Wow, these are really interesting. There's all sorts of different mushrooms and fungi that people use, there's also like, what is it called? There's a type of fungus. Actually, let me look it up. I've got my computer right here. So why don't I come out and give you a little bit more detail on this because it's kind of getting good.

 

Molly Maloof: (17:14)

So there's like this substance, there's actually a fruit in Southeast Asia called my Marula bean. And it has all sorts of weird ingredients in it, that can make you trippy. And then interestingly, alcohol has the effect of creating beta-carboline in the body, which I didn't know. So it's actually technically slightly psychedelic, which I never knew this. And then absinthe has wormwood which has thujone in it, which is mildly psychedelic as well. So it's essentially there's different doses of different ingredients that are kind of used for different reasons, right? And so there's basically like the medicinal dose, they said, which is the lowest dose, like the sort of the micro dose of medicine. And that's kind of like people taking things just for overall improvement of their health, mental health. And then there's the sort of aphrodisiac dose, which is a little bit higher than that. So it's enough to get you to start noticing a shift in your perception, but not so much to make the trip really hard.

 

Molly Maloof: (18:12)

And then there's the shamanic dose, which is like what's being used in a lot of clinical studies, which is like people try to get to the root of really deep trauma. And oftentimes, getting to the root of trauma is actually what a woman or man needs to do in order to actually heal their sexuality. So I got particularly interested in this space because MDMA kind of accidentally helped heal my sexual dysfunction that I had in my 20s because of some trauma that I had in college, that I didn't even realise was causing sexual dysfunction because I didn't know I had sexual dysfunction. I just knew that I wasn't aroused. I was in pain every time I had sex, and it wasn't orgasming. And then I met a guy, we were using MDMA together and all these problems went away. And I was like, "What just happened"? And I had my first orgasm with a guy. I had orgasmed on my own, but never with a man before because of unfortunately, my history of sex was not positive.

 

Molly Maloof: (19:07)

So I basically been trying to figure this out, "Wow, it seems like there's an opportunity for healing sexual dysfunction." Because a lot of the root causes of sexual dysfunction are relationship problems and trauma. And so then I started uncovering the whole trauma, Pandora's box, and I started discovering natural numbers on sexual trauma. And it became this whole holy shit moment, like fuck the world is so fucked up when it comes to sex. Talk about like, this Me Too movements, just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath all of it is like, clearly dysfunctional sexual upbringing that most people have because of our completely outdated religious culture, right? Basically really religiosity in a lot of ways really ruins sexuality for people because it makes it into this forbidden fruit and then in that you start wanting all sorts of things that are wrong because you're like, "Oh, I can't have it. So I want all these things that I can't have."

 

Mason: (20:05)

Forbidden fruit. And the guys our snake tells us you want the fruit.

 

Molly Maloof: (20:09)

Oh yeah, and women want it too, by the way. I was like, when I discovered masturbation was a sin in like fifth grade. I was like, "Oh, dear god, I've been masturbating my entire life." So funny, right? And there was just this moment I had growing up being like, really feeling like I went from like a really good Christian girl to like, a very bad child because I masturbated. And that's just not okay. So then I get into the history of psychedelics. And this talk and essentially, before Christianity, psychedelics were being used by medicine women and priestesses, and medicine men, and they were given to people as a tool for enhancing their virility and their fertility and their sexual function. And it was like, part of nature, sex was something beautiful, it was something acceptable, it is something that was part of life, right? It was celebrated. And then Christianity basically turned polytheism into this monotheistic culture, and basically started burning witches, and saying that these love potions are evil, and that anything related to sex was wrong.

 

Molly Maloof: (21:09)

And now sex is the thing that you have to have in the bounds of marriage, which the church of course has to govern. And if you do anything outside of that, or let alone, you're homosexual, you're now a deeply evil person, and you deserve to be harmed. And you really think about this history. It's kind of epically fucked how much, no offence to men, but like patriarchy, took over religion, and basically made it all about men being in charge of the religious experience. Even though women were actually very much part of like polytheistic religious culture, and sexuality was part of that culture. And so it's like all this stuff is really went downhill from there.

 

Molly Maloof: (21:50)

And now we live in this modern time where like, the Catholic Church has unending problems with brutalising children sexually. And we have not woken up to this reality that sex is not evil. It's part of life. It's a beautiful part of life. It's a part of life that is one of those magical mystical, if not psychedelic experiences. And it shouldn't be demonised, but I do think we need to return it back into a place of wholesomeness and respect and love and really treating people the way we would want to be treated and I don't think any woman or man wants to be raped.

 

Molly Maloof: (22:29)

I don't think any woman or man wants to be assaulted, and I don't think if any child grows up thinking that, that's normal. And I don't know what changes in culture that makes it okay for kids and adults to like mistreat each other, but I really think that like part of my mission in life is actually to create a better culture around sex and love and really this company that I started called the Adamo Bioscience is basically a company that's dedicated to studying the science of love because I think that if we understood it better, we might be able to create more of it, and through multiple pathways and products and services. And yes, I have a commercial interest, but mostly because like it seems totally a better thing to be spending my life making money off of than anything else right now, which is like why not try to create more love in the world? I think there should be like 15 to 20 companies trying to do this.

 

Mason: (23:22)

I think there will be once you show them the way. That's the that's the beautiful thing about being someone who's charging and leading the way. Something as a couple, I was just like thank you, epic download by the way and I saw... And I think it's nice openly talking about religion this way, we can see that it's gone far away from the natural and the original intentions. And I saw you like, I can just see you reshare the meme the other day. It tickled me the most of it was just like white Jesus cuddling someone going, "I'm sorry I made you a drug addict. Let me a book before I send you to hell." It just popped me in school I was like doing things that potentially was going down the way of being like condemned and told by teachers, "Well, your stepfather is going to go to hell because he believes in evolution."

 

Molly Maloof: (24:16)

Oh my god, I remember being in sixth grade being like, "I think evolution is real and my school thinks I'm..." But they don't believe in it. Like, holy shit, that was our lives.

 

Mason: (24:28)

Oh man, I got a few pop moments. I was like, "Hang on. So I'm going down this route. Where I'm sinning because I'm trying to think critically here and so now I'm going to go to hell, but you created me in your image and I'm doing? You set me off. You know all, you know I'm going to end up here. And then you're going to send me to hell?" I'm like, "You asshole. You sadist." Anyway, that was my pop.

 

Molly Maloof: (24:54)

What got me to like what really challenged my beliefs when I was 18 was talking to a guy who went to Harvard and messenger, you're in messageboard you're talking to people smarter and older than you. And I remember talking to this guy and he asked me this question. He's like, "How can God be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and how can there be a hell? If he's everywhere all the time all at once? How can it be ever a separation from God because hell is a separation from God?" And I was like, brain explode like oh that's impossible logical, total it felt like this doesn't work, right? Like does that work does not compute. And my brain just exploded I went into the bathroom and cried and cried in front of the mirror. I was like, "Oh my god, it means I'm all alone." I actually still believe in God now, but like my belief in God is much different than the patriarchal God that I grew up.

 

Molly Maloof: (25:50)

I still pray to Jesus because I'm used to it's like a pattern, but I don't think Jesus is the only God. I think there's plenty of Gods you can pray to. But realistically I think that God is like infinite intelligence and beauty underneath everything that whether, and it's totally no gender or God can't have a gender.

 

Mason: (26:09)

I'm going to send you my podcast with George Kavassilas. It's another mind blowing one. It's talking about the God matrix and the universe, the natural, the synthetic it's like really, really clear.

 

Molly Maloof: (26:25)

Oh, cool.

 

Mason: (26:25)

I'll send you because it's a very good one. And you know what, you were saying things that don't work and you know what I like that does work is aphrodisiac. So this is like telling before we move on from that point it's something that really jumped out at me that I really love and I might go a little bit of a tangent because I just wrote about it this kind of topic, this nuance. Yesterday we sent out a newsletter around lion's mane and I'm like I really love Lion's Mane because it's a bridge herb and for so often people are looking at, "I want a nootropic and so they go into a narrow," which is nice sometimes. It's nice to go reductionist. And you go, "I want something that's going to increase output and give me something now and I'm going to use this nootropic in order to get something. And then they eventually fall to Lion's Mane as like a nootropic and the word sits there very medical and very [inaudible 00:27:20], which is nice as well I use it.

 

Mason: (27:24)

But then Lion's Mane is one if you get like a complete non grown on grain, you get one grown on wood, it's got elements of wild to it, all of a sudden you look past the textbook written black and white, in the tropic and you got the same intention here and then you look up at nature and you see, "Wow, my brain is so much more than what I thought it was and the output of my brain and the way the way that it operates in conjunction with my organs in my blood and my outlook in my life, it's connected to where I'm going to be. What I do now is connected to how I'm going to be when I'm 90 years old."

 

Molly Maloof: (27:59)

Totally.

 

Mason: (28:00)

it's not just take something get some output, it's like this pattern you can see the brain function connecting to the constant pattern of like, like the waves in never ending. Internally there are things that are like constantly happening that I can cultivate and work with and look at and ease into that are going to have my brain on the sea of marrow is the Taoists.

 

Molly Maloof: (28:21)

I love that. The sea of marrow.

 

Mason: (28:26)

And the aphrodisiacs are the same like that. And it's a fun one because people go, "Oh, aphrodisiacs great, it'll get your horny." And what you're talking about it's like a carrot that leads like you go and that's what I see. Like how I see Taoist aphrodisiacs as well, like deer antler in your pants.

 

Molly Maloof: (28:46)

Yeah.

 

Mason: (28:48)

Horny goat weed, like epimedium. These herbs cordycep, Eucommia, schisandra. People say the word aphrodisiac, and you go, "Great, okay, cool. I'm going to engage because I want to be horny." And you think there's more substance too, behind it. And then you get onto these aphrodisiacs and you start engaging with your sexuality, and all of a sudden it's an opportunity to connect to yourself and the word aphrodisiac falls away, and you start connecting to the sexuality. And I just heard it, then you're saying we're using aphrodisiacs to go and connect to the sexual trauma so we can connect to ourselves and our partner. And I think it's beautiful. I love it.

 

Molly Maloof: (29:32)

Well, it's actually that the sexual trauma can damage your relationship to sex. So because it actually programmes your brain. There's this thing called the Garcia effect, and it's like when you eat something that makes you sick, you don't want it anymore because your brain associates that with feeling sick. Now not all women or men who have trauma end up with having sexual dysfunction, but a large percentage of women do that. In fact, like somewhere between 60 to 80% of women who had sexual trauma have some form of sexual dysfunction. And like in America, the numbers, which I think are underreported, are like one in five women are raped, one in four women are abused as children, one and three are assaulted in her lifetime. And so there's quite a lot of women who have sexual dysfunction because of the fact that their sexual experience was not pleasant. And it was, in fact, potentially scary and dangerous.

 

Molly Maloof: (30:26)

So now their brain says, "Oh, that experience that's not good. I don't like that. And that's scary." And so it's kind of programmed as a traumatic memory. Now, only 30% of women with sexual trauma end up with PTSD, which is interesting. So there's actually more women with sexual dysfunction, than PTSD from sexual trauma, which is fascinating. So the theory is, is that with MDMA assisted therapy, that the medicine can actually help you revisit the trauma from a place of feeling safe and feeling okay and loved with a partner, preferably with a partner, if you're with someone that you feel safe with. And you can revisit that trauma, and then it gets reprogrammed in your brain, reconsolidated as, "Oh, this is not the worst thing in the world anymore." This is not something I need to like, fear or be afraid of anymore. That was just an event that happened. And in fact I think the real magic will come from when women can experience pleasure, again, through psychedelic medicine. As I did.

 

Mason: (31:32)

How ironic that there's an aphrodisiac involved in that process.

 

Molly Maloof: (31:36)

Well, you think, right? You think that like, that would make sense. It's just funny. I think we're just beginning to understand space. But I don't know if people even though this, but there's actually like three phases of neurobiology of love. The first is like the intense sex drive, which is like, our body is designed to get us to fuck a lot of people when you're young. Actually, the sex drive is like oestrogen and testosterone. And then like, you're horny, and you're young, and you want to have sex, and not everybody does. A lot of young people aren't these days, but the point is, is that it's designed to get you to be turned on and attracted to a lot of people. And then when you meet someone and you have sex with them, what happens is, is that you start activating other hormones. So dopamine starts getting released, oxytocin gets released after orgasm, and that can actually increase the attachment to this person.

 

Molly Maloof: (32:29)

So especially in women particular. So then we start moving on to romantic love, which is actually an attachment device that's designed like we really evolved it in order to basically bond ourselves to someone, become obsessed and addicted to someone, so that we're more likely to have a baby with that person. And then keep that baby alive long enough that they will not die, right? And so the romantic love starts to switch over to pair bonding. And pair bonding is actually designed to keep that baby alive and family unit strong. Because pair bonding hormones are very similar to familial bonds. Like they think it's all mostly oxytocin vasopressin. So like, you actually look at the neurobiology of all this. It's highly adaptive, and it's a huge survival advantage to have love in your life, huge survival advantage to find someone to care about them. You're more likely to reproduce, you're more likely to make a child and a family and you're more likely to have a healthy family if there's healthy bonds.

 

Molly Maloof: (33:26)

And so I think that we should be really looking at these things from the lens of science because a lot of what's happening in society today because I think technology is seeing these bonds decay, we're seeing people give up their marriages. We're seeing people walk away from long term relationships, and we're seeing families affected and children affected. And one of the main adverse childhood experiences a kid will have is divorce. So I'm just like, "Fuck, why are we not looking at these fundamental facets of society and saying, gosh, why can't we do better?" And maybe there's a way we can do better that's ethical, and that's honourable and that's scientifically sound and that will actually leave people better off and we found them. But again, this is like very much new territory. I don't think anybody has tried to do this or thought about doing this. And I'm actually giving you a lot of information that I like is going to keep kind of quiet but whatever you like might as well announce it to like your community first.

 

Mason: (34:20)

Yeah. I think we're worth the drop. It's interesting, it's such a return to the natural. And I've been using that a lot because I feel like I'm saying for the matrix. I'm like nailing all over the bloody place at the moment like people.

 

Molly Maloof: (34:36)

All the time.

 

Mason: (34:39)

And it's so confronting for people which and I agree, as a system we haven't... What you're doing is going like, "Screw it, go to the core and think, multiple generations around leading to the core. Like, let's look at the divorce rates, let's look at the unhappiness and the lack of love in relationships and how that impacts ourselves and children." And I think about it a lot. And it gives me that raw, even talking about it now, there is tingling and there's a rawness and a raw excitement, when you know you're actually in the right place. But it's very confronting, looking at just how much healing there is to be done.

 

Molly Maloof: (35:18)

Yeah. Well, someone told me when I was like, everyone was like, "No one's going to invest in this, and no one's going to do this. And this is crazy." I know, actually, I have a lead investor. So if investors are listening, I'm about to fundraise. So you should probably email me because it's going to be really good. It's going to be a really exciting time in the next few months because I'm actually going to be-

 

Mason: (35:37)

I think I have like, probably $400 liquid at the moment.

 

Molly Maloof: (35:45)

I'm not going to take your last $400. But maybe we could do something with-

 

Mason: (35:47)

But that's not the last 400. We're being responsible in other areas.

 

Molly Maloof: (35:50)

... Lion's Mane. Yeah. No, but it's interesting. So like, I have a lot of people from biotech say, "This is absolutely never going to happen. It's impossible. Don't even try." And then I had a lot of people who are starting biotech companies say, "Fuck, if this problem is as big as you describe it is, then I'm pretty sure we should be throwing like a billion dollars at this." And I was like, "Fuck. Yeah, dude. Totally."

 

Mason: (36:16)

Absolutely. Is there a market for this? If the people who would poohing it are probably the ones that just can't look in the mirror and be like, "I am the market." It's like, it's in your backyard. It's everywhere. Every time you go to a family reunion, every time you go to bed.

 

Molly Maloof: (36:40)

I shouldn't say this out loud, but family members of mine-

 

Mason: (36:43)

Just say it in a monologue.

 

Molly Maloof: (36:44)

Yeah. I know my family story pretty well. I like deconstructed all of our problems at this point. I've plugged my computer in. And having deconstructed a lot of these problems, and really examined the people in my family who struggle with different problems. In my extended family, in particular, like my aunt and my grandmother, and just people I know. There's a lot to be said about early relationships, and about how important families are to the long term health of children. And when things go wrong in families, it can really, really hurt people long term. And I just looked at like, my great, great grandparents and their relationship with my grandmother. And I looked at my grandmother's relationship with her daughters, and I just looked at all this, and I was like, "Wow there's so many things that we don't realise that if we just fix that one thing, right, then it would have transformed the entire rest of a person's life."

 

Molly Maloof: (37:59)

But there's a lot of things, we don't have solutions for. A lot of things we don't have pathways for, and a big one of those is healing trauma. And I recently did about 21 hours of deep, deep neuro somatic trauma healing from a friend of mine who's like a super gifted healer. And I can't explain in scientific terms what he did with me, but I do know one thing, and that's that we do not do a good job in our society, helping people who have trauma, heal, and express it immediately right over this happened. In fact, the medical system typically, when a girl has raped, she'll basically get a rape kit, and maybe sent to a psychologist. And if she's lucky, she'll get in, in a few months. And it's like, we don't actually have pathways for healing and caring for kids who've had major... I saw this, by the way, in health care system. I saw kids who were abused by their parents. And they go to social workers, and they kind of handed around the foster care system.

 

Molly Maloof: (39:00)

And it's really crazy how much people experienced trauma in society. And there's really not a lot of good solutions besides talk therapy. And if talk therapy worked so well, we probably not be seeing so many problems. Like if talk therapy was like a really effective solution for all of our problems, we'd probably be seeing a lot of problems solved. Now I'm not saying talk therapy doesn't work.

 

Mason: (39:23)

It doesn't pop the champagne. I think that's where I'm with you on that. I'm at the point in my journey where I'm like talk therapy with someone who's got a Jungian background is like perfect for me because I went so hard on psychedelics. And so I'm loving just the groundedness of it. But to get it going-

 

Molly Maloof: (39:36)

Totally. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I think talk therapy is very much like working on your consciousness, right? Your conscious brain. Everyone actually need to talk therapy in order to fundamentally create sense, sense making around their life experience. Like that's the best thing it does. Is it creates a framework of understanding of like, "This happened to me, this happened to me, this happened to me and I understand why, and I understand how I dealt with it." And I'm trying to do a better job at it, right? But I think what's really more interesting about like, what's happening in psychedelic medicine is what's on a subconscious and the unconscious level, right? Like hypnotherapy does a pretty decent job at getting into the subconscious level.

 

Molly Maloof: (40:27)

But what's fascinating is like all this stuff that's buried in the unconscious, right? That comes out in your dreams, that comes out in your... A lot of people have nightterors. That is most definitely a bunch of unconscious process trauma, like unprocessed trauma that needs to be like addressed. And I don't think people see it that way. They're just like, "Oh, it's a nightmare disorder." It's like, "No, you probably have like a major unresolved trauma from your childhood that you really should look at." And oftentimes, I know, multiple people who've taken psychedelics, and it just comes up to them. They're like, "Oh, my God, I was raped in high school by a few guys." And it just like comes up. Or they're like, "Oh, my God, I was sexually assaulted as a child." And this stuff comes up underneath because it's lifted out of the subconscious and unconscious.

 

Molly Maloof: (41:21)

And that's what we don't talk enough about in like modern medicine. And even like psychology, I think, is this like, "Oh, wow," like everybody has deep trauma. But if you do have deep trauma, and it's like running in the background, it's like malware, it's just draining your energy. It's draining CPUs, it's actually playing a huge role in your behaviours and your triggers and how you interact with people. And if it's not looked at or addressed, and especially if they're things like internal family systems, like there's a lot of good forms of talk therapy that can really do a good job of bringing you back to your childhood or bringing you back these moments. And I don't even think drugs are completely necessary to get to these places. Meditation is also a phenomenal tool that a lot of people don't take advantage of. And there's a bunch of different types of meditation that are fairly obscure that can do a great job at helping people get underneath the surface of their pain.

 

Molly Maloof: (42:11)

But a lot of this stuff is isn't mainstream. And it's a shame because a lot of people are still just like, "Where do I go to deal with all this stuff?" Most of the stuff that's worked really well for me has been very obscure stuff that I have had to find through word of mouth. And it's like not highly advertised experiences and therapies and meditation schools and it's like a lot more on the realm of like woo, but it works these things have worked. And it's like strange to me that they're not more well studied and in the mainstream.

 

Mason: (42:46)

Yeah. We've got such a wide array of people with such a wide array of histories at different stages in their processes. And there's naturally going to be different therapies and different angles that are going to pierce the veil to whatever is sitting there behind the curtain in the subconscious and I definitely, like for me it was like personal development back in the day going like you know landmark forum was like one of the things to kind of like a bang. And I could see behind it and then okay that lost its relevance at some point. And then psychedelics became very relevant, got me probably went a little bit too hard into identifying with that community and the mannerisms around taking medicine and like that feeling like I finally belonged rather than doing the work. And then getting beautiful lessons and now it's like getting to the point where talk therapy for me 10 years ago just would have been like I think just sort of lapping up against a great wall.

 

Mason: (43:48)

Whereas now I know how to scale that concrete wall, and I know what it looks like when I do connect to the subconscious. And I understand my processing bringing it out and what my process is, thanks to the work I did with psychedelics. I know how I'm going to bring that into awareness in my everyday and that's when personal practise comes in. That's where I know to the extent of like, with my exercise regime, I know keeping me strong enough and healthy enough to be able to handle staying in that space, where I can constantly acknowledge that part of me that wants to hide behind that veil and run everything. And I know someone like Tani she's like, there was a point where psychedelics were like, incredible. She goes, "I know I need that." And then she's like, "I don't need that anymore." And my meditation practise is exactly where I need to be and that's where I'm going to get the biggest bang.

 

Mason: (44:39)

Not that it's about a bang, but she's going to get the rubber hitting the road. So I think that's like that integration because you see a lot of people in the psychedelic world, kind of pooh poohing therapy going like modern therapies like this domesticated little dog and psychedelics are this big dog in terms of what it can do. And it's like, true in one context, and in another context, if it's just integrated, you have an array of ways of approaching as you're talking about them. Then all of a sudden, the approach becomes multicoloured and multifaceted. And hopefully, it becomes more effective.

 

Molly Maloof: (45:16)

I really think that we just maybe just need to marry them more. Even like MDMA assisted therapy today, is largely like, hands off. It's largely don't talk to the patient, let them do, they have their own experience, and let them do whatever they need to do to heal, it's not really guided at all. It's mostly kind of like, it's guided, but it's not really like lead. It's like, you're there. You're like going through this process, and you're having these experiences, but they're not actually trying to get you to go anywhere on your trip, they're trying to let you have your experience. Whereas like, I think that, in particular, it may be possible that like, we can give people medicine that gives them have the... I think that the idea is that you have the preparation. And then you have the creating the right set and setting. And then you take the medicine, and then you have this like deep integration experience. And that's typically what the experiences for psychedelic assisted therapy today. The question is, will the FDA let us give people drugs that turn them on unsupervised?

 

Molly Maloof: (46:26)

Because you kind of need to be a little bit... You don't really want anyone watching you while you are with your partner. So I got a lot of questions, I need to figure out to make this thing, an actual proper model. But I think that it'll be really interesting to see how this thing evolves because I'm at the very beginning of this journey. I have an idea of what I think that this business model could look like. I have no idea what I think this therapy could be. But a lot of it is I'm like figuring it out, right? I'm like in this total creative mode of what will the future of medicine look like, if you could create it from scratch? And I've already done this once, and it turned out really great for me. And I could easily have just gone and scaled personalised medicine clinics for wealthy people. But now I'm like, "Let's see if we can create a democratised version of this medicine that actually is like it's going to start out expensive, but let's figure out how we can make this something that's eventually affordable for people." That's the goal.

 

Mason: (47:28)

I think the other thing, that's why it feels like a safe bets. And interesting way to put it, but it makes sense, and has substance is because I think a lot of people approach this, and what we've always been taught how to do, lecture people on how they should be, and I'm going to create a product based on how I think you should act. Whereas what you're talking about, is going there's, let's say we're looking at, like morality around let's stay in our marriage, so that we don't destroy this family unit. There's a way that, that's been happened, we've been told what to do by the media. And therefore the part of us goes, if someone goes you have to stay on your marriage because it's the morally right thing to do. You're bad if you do that, there's no attraction there because it's an external like judgement , and we want to revolt against being told what to do, especially by society.

 

Mason: (48:31)

It's why we get your rage against the machine, etc. And then, if you just understand the patterns that emerge when people do connect back to themselves, and do deal with their trauma within a relationship, what's natural for people and seems to be the pattern is people do naturally resonate with maintaining the relationship that they've chosen or maybe in some instance. Like a very conscientious uncoupling in a way that you're very connected and aware to the way that children are going to be affected by it and minimising that impact. Either way, there's an emergence of morality an emergence of ethics, rather than being told what to do.

 

Molly Maloof: (49:19)

Yeah. There's emergence of just like, knowing what's right and wrong. Like, "Oh, yeah. We're not meant to be together. But we're also not meant to destroy each other's lives as we get divorced." I think if we were to be able to help people stay together, that would be ideal. But if we're also able to help people consciously uncouple in a way that doesn't destroy their lives. And I've heard this from multiple people, like one of my friends did MDMA with his ex wife when they were getting divorced and it completely transformed the divorce process because they were actually able to love each other through the process, and they're now really good friends. They're like super good friends. They just didn't want to be married. And it's like, that's appropriate, right? Like, it's also appropriate not to hate people for years. Just the number of people I know that have deep seated resentment for their exes. And it's like, that's not healthy for your nervous system, that's not healthy for your long term health. That's not going to keep you well.

 

Mason: (50:20)

So we've both dived into exploring what health is, especially in the context of, and in this what we're talking about in this context of like synthetic morality, versus what emerges as right. I've just started in the last few months really feeling icky about the way I've used the word health and the way it's been used because it's natural, if you talk about healthy, then naturally, there's an opposition of unhealthy there. And so much of what's implied is basing yourself on, "I'm healthy because I'm not that." And so there's this intrinsic opposition, that... An opposition and kicking back against something in order to form identity around health. And we need the word because healthy, it's just a fun word that everyone knows. But kind of similar and synonymous with what we're talking about, and the emergence of morality and the emergence of ethics coming just through whether it's psychedelic therapy or whatever, how are you relating to health now?

 

Mason: (51:28)

Because I definitely am finding, the more I move away from being wrapped in and around that world of being healthy versus unhealthy, and the more I kind of sit in that middle and see. What's emerging through the patterns of myself doing, I don't know, finding harmony for myself, delving into my shit, coming out the other side. Doing things that are maybe I've seen is unhealthy in one way, in one ideological circle. So I want to talk about dropping that coming back to what emerges within me. It makes the space, I don't know, I feel very roared and identified in terms of, even though we're leaders in the health space, I feel very, unidentified with anything that revolves around that word healthy. I'm curious as to where you're at, in your relationship to what is healthy.

 

Molly Maloof: (52:25)

I used to think it was what the WHO said, which was like the complete absence of disease or infirmary. And then I was like, "No, it's not realistic." Health is actually a dynamic function of life. And to me, I have a very unique perspective on how I think, and it all stemmed from this other definition, that was the ability to adapt and self managed in the face of adversity. But I started digging under the surface, and I really started understanding things like biology, and fundamental human anatomy, and microbiology and physiology and molecular and cellular biology. And I was really thinking about it from like a mechanistic perspective as well. And I think that if you actually just look at any system, you can ask how healthy a system is based on its capacity. And whether it's able to perform its functions properly, basically, whether it's able to maintain its integrity of its structure. And that's usually a function of how much energy and how much work capacity is available.

 

Molly Maloof: (53:31)

So, for example, the healthcare system, deeply unhealthy in America. Demands outspent capacity and it just completely started crumbling, right? Like just did not work, was not resilient, was not flexible, it was actually really struggling and breaking a lot and a lot of people have been broken through the experience of going to the healthcare system. So capacity and demands, if there's more capacity than demands, you're usually in a really good healthy state because you have enough energy to maintain the structure to do work. Now, when your demands are really high, and your capacity is really low, shit starts to break down. And so this is like the mitochondrial theory of ageing, which is fundamentally that when we lose about 50% of our functional capacity of organs, they start to malfunction, they actually start producing the ability to do the work functions that they had. And then we start to break down.

 

Molly Maloof: (54:27)

And largely this is driven by metabolic dysfunction and stress. And like lack of exercise is really a big huge driver of disease because it's the number one signal for making more energy. So basically, I look at how we... If you actually think about like the biology of like metabolism, when we breathe air, we drink water, we eat food, it goes into our cells, it gets turned into substrates, those get put into the mitochondria, which are like little engines that could of our cells, and they have this called the electron transport chain which pulls off electrons kind of like power line. Like electrons are running through this electron transport chain. And they're powering this hydrogen turbine that creates an electrochemical gradient. And that gradient creates a battery and a capacitor. So a battery is like a differential charge between two, it's like a charge polarity. And then the capacitor is like a differential charge between two late membranes.

 

Molly Maloof: (55:22)

And then so capacitors can deploy energy quickly. Batteries store energy as potential energy. So when you really look at it, like most people have broken their metabolisms in modern society, there's so many people with diabetes, so many people with heart disease, somebody with cancer, so many people with dementia. And those are really symptoms of broken metabolism, broken mitochondrial function. And it's funny because like, we look at all these things as separate diseases, but actually, they have the same root causes and like half of cancers are made up of metabolic in nature. So everyone's been kind of obsessed with this like, DNA and genetics theory of ageing. I'm just so unconvinced because it's kind of like, okay, that's like the architectural plans of the body. But in order to actually express those plans, you need energy. You actually need to make energy to take the plants and turn into a structure, which is proteins, right?

 

Molly Maloof: (56:15)

So my perspective is that, like life is this interplay between energy matter and information. And essentially, like life itself, is negative entropy. So we're just constantly trying to fight against entropy, and the best way we know how to do that is like, maintain our functional capacity and be able to repair ourselves. And so this lack of being able to repair ourselves is often a function of the fact that a lot of people are just like, the biggest complaint in medicine is, "I'm tired," right? Being tired all the time is actually a reflection of energetic inefficient, insufficient energy production.

 

Mason: (56:56)

Is that in particular with like the battery storage as you work-

 

Molly Maloof: (56:59)

Yeah, exactly.

 

Mason: (57:00)

Which is funnily used when you talk about, like his Yin and Yang.

 

Molly Maloof: (57:05)

Yes. There you go. Right? We need time off to store energy. The most interesting thing about the Yin and Yang, is that there's this clear relationship between this toggling of switching between different states in biology to flourish. So you actually have to go from intense work to relaxation or rest. You have to go for ideally if you actually just look at all the best [inaudible 00:57:30] stressors, it's like, hyperoxia hypoxia breathwork. What is that? It's breathwork. Right? If you look at cold and heat, that's sauna and coal plant right? What are these things work so damn well, for making us feel healthy and feel good? Well, they're literally boosting mitochondrial biogenesis. And in some cases, like eating fasting is my toffee G, right? It's throwing-

 

Mason: (57:53)

Being awake, being asleep.

 

Molly Maloof: (57:56)

Being outside being indoors, like we actually need to spend way more time outdoors than we're doing. And like being in buildings and having your feet grounded into the earth, like being alone being with people, like life is this constant interplay, right? Yeah, there you go.

 

Mason: (58:14)

That was earthing that I just mumbled.

 

Molly Maloof: (58:16)

Yeah. So like today I've been experimenting with like different ways of movement throughout my day because I'm kind of sick of being in front of the computer constantly. And it makes me feel really unhappy. And there's this great meme you posted, feel dead inside, go outside. Fucking love that meme. And it's like, everybody loved that meme. I got it posted so many times. And it was like, actually, I spent two hours today on phone calls outside. And like, people get annoyed when you're not on a Zoom call. But I'm like, "Look, if I can walk, I will walk." And I got two separate workouts and that were like about 10 minutes each in the gym that were like broken up throughout the day. And it's like, holy shit, did I feel better today than I did for like many other previous days where I was just in front of a computer the whole time? Like, we're not meant to be in front of screens all day long. It's not healthy.

 

Molly Maloof: (59:06)

It's not a healthy period. So the more that we can try to align our lives as much as possible with something with how we're actually like primitively programmed because our genes have not evolved since primitive times. We're the same genetically, there's been a few changes, but fundamentally, we're basically the same people as we were in hunting and gathering times. So it's no question that we've lost a lot of our health in the process of becoming more modern because we basically hijacked all of these different pathways that are actually ancient pathways of survival that are now being used to take advantage of people. Like the salt, sugar and fat in foods, the convenience of cars, right? Like humans are designed to conserve energy and to find food.

 

Molly Maloof: (59:53)

So the society is now designed to like make everything ultra convenient, and eat too much. And it's like, okay. We don't move our bodies enough, we drive everywhere, we know what that's done to society. And so it's kind of like the real process of becoming a truly modern human is to actually try to like life according to your genetics, while also existing in a modern culture. It's a huge challenge.

 

Mason: (01:00:19)

Can be a great thing. This is like the Taoist and the Yogi's would need to go outside of society to go and live in a cave so their life could revolve around the cultivation of Qi. And in this day and age, we don't really need to leave anymore. Earning your daily bread, it can be done in a way where you're not sacrificing your Qi or your Jing in order to survive anymore. As you said, just like driving around, you don't need an excessive weather conditions anymore, really, unless you're in some particular trades. So we are set up, if we wanted to get that convenience, so that then you can leverage it and have your lifestyle revolve around the cultivation of energy and the Yin. And that means like there's... I won't go too deep into it. Because I think people get confused sometimes we talk about western, we talk about biomarkers, we talk about western medicine and looking at the anatomy of the body.

 

Mason: (01:01:24)

And then you talk about classical Chinese approaches, and Taoists ways of looking at the body, you can't overlap them, it just doesn't work. That's modern TCM, that's not the dullest approach, but you can talk about them side by side and say, "Oh, that's interesting. And that's interesting." Can you say, "Oh, that's what Qi is." No you can't, that doesn't work. But you can say that's really interesting how they kind of there's a connection there. And just giving that little spiel beforehand, disclaimer. In what is being discovered in each of the major organs that the Taoist used to and like to get access to understanding of who we are and how we are in harmony with nature. Each of those organs in western anatomy has a like a little battery, an aspect of the body which is very electrically charged and we increase that charge and we cultivate charge there with that organ. With wouldn't you believe it, the exact practises with the Qigong sequences that the Taoist said you use in order to cultivate that organ system. And so our life can revolve around it, and we can measure it.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:02:41)

Please send me all of your best Qigong resources because I need to do way more Qigong.

 

Mason: (01:02:46)

Yeah. I will do. To be honest, I'm not like a Qigong person, I just talk about it because that kind of level of energy cultivation that movement, energy cultivation through movement, is like that people understand exactly what I'm talking about. But my process is much more intuitive, but meaning, hang on the best woman to like she's so cool. I'll try and find her Instagram right now. Tiny does her Qigong. I can't find it, but Mimi Kuo-Deemer. Mimi and then K-U-O-D-E-E-M-E-R. I'll send it to you right now. That is wonderful. Her books are really great. The way she communicates. It is like, based in the classical and just the grounded.

 

Mason: (01:03:44)

But for me like a lot of like getting it and taking it away from even Taoism isn't this package. There's different schools, but even those different schools, they just originated with some legend in nature, just flowing and noticing what was happening within their body and resonating in between it and going, how young and strong and erect do I need to be? And then in some seasons, it was really important in relation to when can you feel and see that something's yielding right now? So allow that strength to yield and that bend and that relaxation and watching the interplay between erectness and strength come through with flexibility in that bend in yield. For me, I don't love the structure of being told, hey, do this sequence and discover that within the sequence, although it is very useful. I work in more of a rebellious scallywag where I'm like, "I want to discover it for myself. So don't you tell me what to do, which is I need to grow up and get told what to do a little bit more, so I'm getting better."

 

Molly Maloof: (01:04:53)

Yeah.

 

Mason: (01:04:54)

So that's my work with Benny Ferguson, the movement is what... I'll send you his stuff as well. He's really wonderful because it gets to the core of like, what are we talking about with these Tai Chi Chuan sequences? And this Shaolin sequence. What are they getting to? What's at the core of it? And his work is really amazing. He's got a great Academy with you can choose your own adventure in the day and also a couple of like lead courses around embodying what flexibility is and releasing tension. I'll send you Benny's stuff as well. It's called the Movement Monk, movementmonk.xyz is where you find that.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:05:30)

Cool. Love it.

 

Mason: (01:05:33)

We've been jamming for a while and I've loved it more than I thought I would. Every time I get pleasantly surprised about getting a fresh download from you. I love talking to you. And there's only a certain echelon of doctor and person who, when you talk to them, you don't get the rote lecture download and that you've heard before. And they're just on autopilot.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:06:03)

So many people do that shit. That is like a thing.

 

Mason: (01:06:07)

Boring. Boring.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:06:09)

I know. It's like, you're doing the same fucking stick like a lot of like, really famous book writers in America. I've seen them speak. And it's like, literally every time you talk, you say the same stuff. You're just like in-person. And it's like, okay. I think maybe I just read a lot. It's funny. I'm writing a book right now. And at some point, I'd love to come back on and talk about when it's ready to be published. But my ghostwriter was like, "Molly, you have enough." Because I definitely could write the book. But instead, I just talk the book and she writes it down and writes it for me. So I've been reading through all my lectures that I've created and giving her all this content, she's like, "You have to understand, you have enough content for 10 books." And I was like, "Well, I'm really glad I'm paying you to help me figure this out. Because this is really I could not do this myself." I could not actually write the book because I would just sit there and write literally, reams and reams of paper.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:07:08)

Because I think I'm one of those people who just overcompensates by, like any vague sense of insecurity with like, not knowing something by like, just going incredibly deep. And now that I am actually kind of pretty blown versed on a lot of topics. I'm like even more insecure because I'm like, "Wow, now that I know so much, I know how little I know." And I'm actually really confident, but there's just this thing about knowledge where you're just like, I have read literally 1000s of papers in my life, and many more books than I can count. And I actually can speak to a lot of different topics, like articulately. And I still am now in this place where I'm like, I barely know anything. There's so much to learn. And it's unending knowledge. And I'm glad that I've spent my time learning so much. But it is one of those things where you're just like, humbled by, just like the immensity of life and how much there is to spend learning.

 

Mason: (01:08:00)

The difference is a lot of people are spending their time trying to become an expert. And there are people who are expertly sharing their journey as they go and explore what it is to be themselves and that's where you're falling. There is a glass ceiling on me say like, I'm getting further and further into comedy. And I can see there's a glass ceiling on how much I can engage and be a fanboy of those comedians who refused to let go of that hour of the good stuff that they do on stage. They're like, "No, I can't let the public know about that. Because I need that, it's mine." And then there's those comedians they've got the balls and the boobs to go, "You know what, I'm putting that out there, and I'm not going to do it on stage again, even though it killed," and they make way for new stuff to emerge.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:08:57)

Yeah. It's like a great musician like they really produce. Brian Eno come on, that guy is prolific. And I guess if there's one goal I have in life, it's that I was prolific at something, many things. Like I want to say that I look back when I'm like, 85 be like, "Yeah. I fuckin lived. And I did a lot of things. And I tried my best and I tried to make a dent on the universe. And it's so funny because life is so less about this ultimate achievement, and so much more about this constant journey of discovery, and just seeing what's possible.

 

Mason: (01:09:40)

Prolific not perfect.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:09:42)

Yeah, exactly. I love that.

 

Mason: (01:09:47)

Yeah.Yeah. And it just makes it a pleasure to-

 

Molly Maloof: (01:09:50)

Well, before we go, I want to tell all of your listeners because I can, that I have been using Superfeet products for a while. And in fact, the deer antler velvet is the first reason why I even discovered the company because I remember ordering it back in the day. And then I actually ran into you at a conference and I'm like, "Oh my god, you work at Superfeet. I saw your video and like totally, totally love your products." And you're like, "Which one?" I'm like, "I love the deer antler velvet." And you're like, "Really?" And I'm like, "Yeah." And then, I recently got a hold of it again. And I was like, surprisingly turned on and really motivated to go to work every day. And I was just like, and I've been like pushing hard for years at this point, like I need everything I can get. And basically, I definitely was like, "Oh shit, this stuff is really good as an aphrodisiac.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:10:46)

And I started doing research on it. And I was like, "Oh, it's got growth factors and helps boost testosterone and IGF one. And all this all sorts of cool things in the body." And I just think it's such a cool thing that you do because like you're like, unapologetically not a vegan company. You're like we have deer antler velvet. It's like from a deer. We didn't hurt any deers. But I just love that you have this product.

 

Mason: (01:11:12)

It made them uncomfortable.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:11:12)

It made uncomfortable, but like it's a cool fucking product. And it's so obscure, and most people don't even know about it. But I found out about it actually at Erewhon market first. And I remember having this drink that was like a tonic drink. And I was like, "Oh my god, this is crazy. I feel so good after I drink this crazy tonic drink." And it was that I ordered all the ingredients and the only ingredient I couldn't find was deer antler velvet. So anyway, I started recently, I got the deer antler velvet. I liked it then, but I didn't really like it as much as I do now. And I'm making this elixir with this thing called... I don't know if you guys can get a hold of this, but there's this product called the toasted matcha. And it's like a it's like a roasted matcha. It's like matcha that's brown. And like they roasted the leaves and they ground it and it's so tasty.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:12:00)

And I mix that with deer antler and Jing and salts and a little bit of stevia and almond milk. And I give it to my sister. And she's like, "This is amazing." She's like, "It's kind of savoury, but it's sweet." And I'm like I really ended the things that are kind of tipping like the somewhat savoury scale, but like that elixir is fucking dope. And if anyone's listening you can get... There's this company in Berkeley that has roasted matcha, but it's really hard to find.

 

Mason: (01:12:30)

I'm going to probably ask you because that sounds good. I'm probably going to ask you to-

 

Molly Maloof: (01:12:35)

Let me find it.

 

Mason: (01:12:36)

Yeah. Cool.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:12:38)

It's this stuff. It's Third Culture. It's actually a donut company that has Japanese. Third Culture, and it smells like it's actually malty and it's definitely like a richer deeper flavour. It's got more antioxidants and less caffeine, which is cool. Yeah.

 

Mason: (01:12:58)

I'm sure there's a bunch in Australia. I'm just like if you go and look up.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:13:03)

So and you can find it. It's like one of those products where like, I don't think people even understand how good roasted matcha is. It was like a very cool discovery. So anyway, thank you for keeping me aroused. By the way I did go, I did leave and like I started travelling and I was in LA, and I did not have my deer antler and I definitely noticed a difference in libido when I was not taking this. So this shit works actually, and I think I may have been responsible for selling it out in America.

 

Mason: (01:13:35)

Yeah, you were. I think like Kelly was very pleasantly surprised.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:13:40)

That's so cool.

 

Mason: (01:13:44)

In terms of the savoury, amazing. I think we've got Charlotte who I call her our flavour bae over in LA. She made a recipe like a deer antler cheesy, like cheese toastie. And she put like this [inaudible 01:14:00] it works well in that-

 

Molly Maloof: (01:14:03)

Oh, now I need that, that's really good. I actually have something in the fridge. I can play with it. That sounds good.

 

Mason: (01:14:10)

Love you work. encourage everyone to go over and check out everything that you do.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:14:15)

Follow me on Instagram at Dr.Molly.co. Listen to me on the app Clubhouse on Fridays, 11:30 Pacific. It's a podcast called the Psychedelic News Hour. And psychedelicnewshour.com also works. And then, just add Dr.Molly.co on Instagram.

 

Mason: (01:14:34)

So good. Thanks so much. I can't wait for your book to drop. I'll be chatting with you in the meantime. But yeah, let's line that one like when you get run up towards that, book in with me. And I'll send you another calendar invite that goes for 10 hours instead of one as I did for this.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:14:51)

Cool. Amazing. Awesome.

 

Mason: (01:14:55)

Have a great night.

 

Molly Maloof: (01:14:56)

Thank you. All right. Have a great day. Bye.