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Here Today Gone Tomorrow

   2022    Culture
Eric C. Conn became a local celebrity and maybe even became heroic in the eyes of the people they were helping. He put up billboards all over the county and his parties were legendary. Conn took monthly vacations to exotic locations as a sex tourist and his 16 marriages were the talk of the town.
In the third episode, a new U.S. attorney begins working the case. Things take a dark turn when several of Conn's former clients share their experiences. Wanted by the FBI, chased by the authorities, the story soon spirals into a twisty-turny thriller. That’s no coincidence either, given Conn mentions numerous times that he likens himself to James Bond. James Bond with a dash of Robin Hood.
Series: The Big Conn

I Never Left

   2022    Culture
Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver were working for the Disability Administration and noticed all this corruption firsthand. They wrote to the Social Security Administration, wrote to lawyers, wrote to the president of the United States. But nothing ever came of their complaints until the Wall Street Journal story broke. Then, with national attention brought to Conn, the Senate, the FBI and the SSA (who’d been enabling the fraud the whole time) finally stepped in.
Series finale. Eric leads the government on a wild goose chase. The fallout from the fraud takes its toll on a struggling Kentucky community.
Series: The Big Conn

Chapter 4: Mescaline

   2022    Medicine
The last episode explores Mescaline, the psychoactive molecule in San Pedro and peyote cacti, a sacred medicine that Native Americans have had to fight for the right to use. At the Indigenous practices there's always an elder, someone who knows the territory very well, who's presiding. There's usually a group, a community is involved, There's always an intention, a purpose to what you're doing, and you're treating it as sacred, in order to achieve altered states of consciousness, which contribute to worship in various ways, or celebration or healing.
But maybe all this is not so new to Western culture after all. In the old Greek histories of Eleusis, people who were initiated there got the drink, the kykeon, and then they had the illumination. The precise recipe is a mystery, but we know that the kykeon was a psychoactive brew that was used at the Eleusinian mysteries, a sacred annual ritual of enlightenment practiced by some of the world's greatest minds including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. So why did this ritual come to an end more than 1,000 years ago? Was the possibility of illumination or achieving a higher consciousness considered threatening to the powers that be? Have the drug wars been merely an extension of that fear?
Psychedelics has a major part in how we can heal as a community, how we can heal as a city, and how we can heal as a country. The current renaissance of psychedelics could not come at a better time as the world confronts a crisis in mental health. But psychedelics have much to offer. The psychedelic experience changes the mind in ways that will help scientists better understand how it works. All these altered states allow us to probe what is the greatest mystery in all of nature. The emergence from mere matter of something as miraculous as consciousness. But an even bigger question is whether psychedelics might help us address the environmental crisis of how we think about our place in nature. One of the greatest gifts of psychedelics is how they reanimate the natural world, allowing us to perceive the subject, the spirit of all species, not just our own. And to feel a deeper sense of interconnectedness with nature.
Series: How to Change Your Mind

The Whistleblower

   2022    Technology
In the third episode, during cleanup at the plant, insiders claim that cost-cutting measures and intimidation tactics create a danger war force than the accident itself.
Several state and federal government agencies mounted investigations into the crisis, the most prominent of which was the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, headed by chairman John G. Kemeny. The investigation strongly criticized Babcock & Wilcox, Met Ed, Graphics processing unit, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for lapses in quality assurance and maintenance, inadequate operator training, lack of communication of important safety information, poor management, and complacency.
Kemeny said that the procedures and that the control room were greatly inadequate for managing an accident.
Series: Meltdown: Three Mile Island

Chapter 2 Psilocybin

   2022    Medicine
Magic mushrooms, long considered sacred by the Indigenous Mazatec in Mexico, become the subject of scientific studies measuring the intense effects of its Psilocybin and its potential therapeutic use.
In the second episode, we are introduced to Ben, who’s battled with crippling Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) his entire life. When he had his firstborn, Ben’s life became full of panic attacks regarding his son’s safety, and he knew something had to change. Ben signed up for a psilocybin-assisted therapy clinical trial which was testing whether the psychedelic could help people with severe OCD. In the session under the influence of psilocybin, Ben felt decomposed and eventually grew into a tree. While living as a tree, he saw his human self, playing with his child. Though this sounds scary, from Ben’s perspective, it was beautiful. He was one with the universe, seeing himself in the ultimate third-person perspective. Finally, he saw how it could be different if he didn’t let his OCD control him. And several months out, all the symptoms disappeared.
Ben’s story is one of many told in this series, which gives hope that help is right around the corner for the millions who suffer —often in silence— with debilitating mental disorders. But Michael Pollan’s work is showcasing the success stories. Often, even in the most successful trials, psychedelic-assisted therapy only helps up to a third of people enter remission. More frequently, patients are helped —sometimes substantially— but they still suffer with their illnesses and some people aren’t helped at all.
Series: How to Change Your Mind

Chapter 3: MDMA

   2022    Medicine
Championed by both therapists and ravers, ecstasy stands out as the first psychedelic likely to become legalized, thanks to passionate advocates.
The episode about 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), is focused on Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) clinical trials treating Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Series: How to Change Your Mind
Planet Earth

Planet Earth

2007  Nature
Reel Rock

Reel Rock

2014  Culture
Wild Wild Country

Wild Wild Country

2018  Culture
The Hunt

The Hunt

2015  Nature
Space

Space

2001  Science