Danny Jones Podcast
#285 - Psychedelic Test Subject: Billionaires are Funding a Drug Fueled Holy War | Travis Kitchens
10 Feb 2025
Watch every episode ad-free & uncensored on Patreon: https://patreon.com/dannyjones Travis Kitchens was a psychedelic research subject for Johns Hopkins University who eventually uncovered a secret plan to revive religion with drugs. Travis is currently a freelance journalist who writes extensively on the history and philosophy of psychedelic research. He lives in Kentucky. SPONSORS http://evening.ver.so/danny - Get 15% off your first order. https://hims.com/danny - Start your FREE online visit today. https://shopmando.com - Use code DANNY for $5 off your starter pack. https://whiterabbitenergy.com/?ref=DJP - Use code DJP for 20% off EPISODE LINKS Travis Substack - https://vegetabletelevision.substack.com The Most Controversial Paper in the History of Psychedelic Research - https://bit.ly/3WWoayH The Strange Case of The Immortality Key - https://bit.ly/42MzIIL FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - Johns Hopkins' psychedelic study 08:22 - 'Robo-tripping' 17:00 - The Council on Spiritual Practices 25:30 - Can humans summon aliens? 43:33 - How the psychedelic renaissance started 56:11 - Did ancient mystery cults start Christianity? 01:01:25 - Graham Hancock vs Academia 01:11:30 - The fall of Christianity 01:20:47 - What happens to the brain on psychedelics 01:25:34 - MAPS 01:33:22 - The Catholic church is pushing drugs 01:38:10 - The Immortality Key: A New Reformation 01:42:59 - DARPA: Psychedelics on the battlefield 01:48:38 - Travis' weird email from Roland Griffiths 01:52:49 - MKUltra 2.0 01:57:36 - Reviving religion with Psychedelic drugs 02:15:16 - Secret unreleased psychedelic paper 02:24:33 - Who is funding psychedelic medicine research? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
And it's not that so much I'm scared, I'm simply trying to report when you have behavior scientists teaming up with venture capitalists in the Catholic Church, that's worth writing about. That's a story. The pews are empty out for a reason. You lied and covered up a scandal in which you destroyed people's lives. Now let's try to rebuild it with psychedelic drugs. This is an insane idea.
what's up Travis what's happening thanks for coming brother thank you very much thanks for having me of course dude your background is fascinating how you got into journalism and how you got into this crazy weird long investigation on religion and psychedelic research and the psychedelic renaissance and the stuff with the immortality key for people who don't know who you are just can you give us like a background on how you got into journalism and what happened with you being involved in that John Hopkins psychedelic study
Yeah, yeah. I was living in Baltimore and... Sorry. I was living in Baltimore and my background is in engineering. So I was actually working at a local hospital installing and repairing medical equipment. And... I got into journalism because a friend of mine, Baynard Woods, he was an editor at the Baltimore City Paper, which is like an alt-weekly.
I'm guessing your audience knows what an alt-weekly – before the internet, all over the country, you'd have like the Tampa City Paper, the Philadelphia City Paper, the Baltimore City Paper. And alt-weeklies were a place to where – uh, non-credential journalists could write about the local scene, local bands and all of this, you know, like the village voice is kind of the prototype.
So the Baltimore city papers, like legendary alt weekly, I met Baynard woods and he said, Hey, I've been writing this column on country and bluegrass music, but I, you know, they gave me a bunch of other work. Do you want to do it? Uh, I was not a writer at all. In fact, I was making films at the time. And I said, you know what, to hell with it. I love country and bluegrass.
And I thought, why not? I'll try it. He thought I was a writer, I think. And I didn't say anything. So I was like, you know what, I'll try it. And if it sucks, they'll just fire me. So I started doing that. And then every now and then they would send me a different assignment, you know, go to the museum and write this up or go to a concert and write the concert up or interview this person.
And so I started being like, man, this is fun. compared to film where you need a lot of money and four or five different people and all kinds of equipment. You need a pencil and a piece of paper or an iPhone and you're ready to go. So I happen to live in Highland Town in East Baltimore.
and bayview hospital is the site of the johns hopkins psychedelic research center and so they advertised in the baltimore city paper and so it was there was like a novelty aspect when you write an article you want to see your byline to me it was like cool i wrote an article look my name's in the paper so i was down in fells point at bertha's muscles with my friend bernard who was the bartender down there for years and years
and i was flipping through the paper looking for an article i wrote and i passed a page and it said have you done psychedelic drugs we will pay you to participate in a study looking into the effects of hallucinogens on mood and behavior something like that and so i immediately called and some you know i was thinking that you know the bureaucracy of hopkins you know will they ever get back or will it happen but somebody actually picked up
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