In this episode of Brave New World, professor Bill Richards discuses psychedelic healing with Evgeny Lebedev. Bill has studied several experiences in his career as a leader in the field of psychedelic research. He was one of the first to explore psychedelics’ potential for treating addiction as well as end of life anxiety among terminal cancer patients. His passion for this subject began in Germany in 1963, where he studied with the psychologist Abraham Maslow and the psychiatrist Hanscarl Leuner. He returned to the US to carry out psychotherapy research with psychedelics from 1967 to 1977; then, at the height of the War on Drugs, he had to shut things down. It wasn’t until 1996 that the findings of his seminal research came to light: but the resounding, if long overdue, success of his work has more than made up for the decades of silence. The article that relaunched his career, Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism, was published to a rare level of acclaim — one that has never left his side. Today, Bill sits in the psychiatry department of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he led a study in 2016 on how psilocybin could be used among cancer patients to alleviate depression. It was described as “the most rigorous controlled trial of psilocybin to date”. He appeared in Michael Pollan’s 2022 documentary, How To Change Your Mind, and his much-lauded book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences, is out in Spanish this May. Read the full article: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/wellness/professor-bill-richards-psychedelic-mental-health-brave-new-world-b1143774.html Subscribe to the Evening Standard: https://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-Evening-Standard for latest breaking news from the UK, US and around the world, plus podcasts and features. Evening Standard on socials: Check out our full video catalog: null Videos, daily editorial and more: https://www.standard.co.uk/ Like us on Facebook: https://www.fb.com/eveningstandard Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eveningstandard and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evening.standard