[00:00:20] Raad Seraj: Today, my guest is Joël Briere, who is the founder and CEO of the psychedelic wellness company Tandava Retreats, as well as the co founder of the 5-MeO-DMT education and training platform F.I.V.E. Joël has been a leader in the modern psychedelic movement, specifically in the realm of 5-MeO-DMT, and has spent years helping to create safe and effective protocols around this molecule. With a passion for preparation and integration, Joël and his team are involved in everything from clinical research and trainings to experiential retreats in Mexico and Jamaica. 

[00:00:48] Raad Seraj: Joël, thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:49] Joël Briere: 

[00:00:49] Joël Briere: Rod. Great to be here.

[00:00:50] Raad Seraj: So it's a very interesting time for this interview because I myself have gone through my second ever journey with 5-MeO-DMT about a week and a half ago, and I'm still integrating. And so I'm very keen to hear about your process, your views on what seems like a molecule that is unlike any other psychedelic. It is really a class, a world of its own, and it's shrouded in so much mystery. Given that there's no visions ever, I think Michael Pollan described it as like a category 5 hurricane in your soul or something, and it certainly felt like this every time.

[00:01:21] Raad Seraj: I want to open the interview by DMT, and you have deep experience and knowledge in this. What sets 5-MeO-DMT apart, not only as a psychedelic, but also as a psychedelic? Our medicine, but also apart from N,N-DMT which is what I think most people refer to when they talk about DMT.

[00:01:38] Joël Briere: Correct, correct. Yes, 5 MeO-DMT, not to be confused with N,N-DMT or DMT. Though chemically very similar, experientially they're worlds apart. Almost no similarities besides a short acting effect. What separates 5-MeO-DMT from all other psychedelics and medicines is that with anything else, whether I'm taking psilocybin, drinking ayahuasca, I'm taking something and then I am going on a journey.

[00:02:04] Joël Briere: I go to different realms or different planes of consciousness. I experience certain things. I may encounter entities or ancestors, et cetera, receive information, things like this. With 5-MeO-DMT, the difference is it's that sense of I, that subjective self that is being targeted and dissolving away.

[00:02:23] Joël Briere: And so there is a quieting and sometimes a full dissolution of that sense of subjective self where there is no longer a sense of I, there is no longer anything that we can. Understand, so to say, there's no thinking mind. It is pure, unbound, unadulterated consciousness. And that experience is ineffable by nature.

[00:02:46] Joël Briere: It cannot be understood because it can only occur when the mind is offline. So this is the same experience. We can say this is synonymous with what? has been considered a mystical or religious experience throughout history with what the yogis would call samadhi, the buddhists would call nirvana in islam they call it fitra or faina christians and catholics would call it the beatific vision.

[00:03:07] Joël Briere: There's a word for this in every culture but it is a deeply profound, deeply moving experience and quite potent.

[00:03:14] Raad Seraj: I agree with all of this. And how do you account for or how do you describe? When he said the mind is completely offline. I think with N,N-DMT with visions you can somehow maybe intellectually say that you know what you're still online because you're seeing what's in your mind with 5-MeO-DMT in my experience there is no such thing you're basically thrown into the absolute darkness abyss it even darkness is like too descriptive because it implies that there is it just feels like there's nothing you're just tumbling through a vacuum you

[00:03:42] Joël Briere: Yeah, it's a with DMT, the thinking mind does stay present, but yes, with 5meo, it's not that it's not visual. It's that it's beyond visual. It's beyond the senses. And so sometimes there can be sensory experience in there, but it is beyond our normal way of interpreting sensory input. So it's I like to sometimes think of it as our sensory dial getting turned all the way up, to 12.

[00:04:09] Joël Briere: It's it's it can be an overload of types where some people experience it as a brilliant blinding white light. And Dissolve away and are lost into that light. Some people a perfect darkness, the proverbial void the hollow fertile womb from which creation can emerge. 

[00:04:24] Raad Seraj: Why work with 5-MeO-DMT versus all the other psychedelic? What about it made called to you?

[00:04:30] Joël Briere: So what about it called to me was... I've been a lifelong seeker of whether we want to say consciousness the roots of existence, the meaning of life has always been at the top of my my list of interests, we can say, and, my main pursuits were through the yogic lens yoga, meditation, et cetera upon having my first experience, my first full experience with this, you It was very familiar.

[00:04:56] Joël Briere: I'd had my first what can be called a Samadhi experience living in India living in an ashram back in, this was either 2010 or 2011. And it was a pretty terrifying experience for me then. If you read the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna reveals his true nature to Arjuna, it's a terrifying and yet brilliant moment.

[00:05:14] Joël Briere: And yeah, this time revisiting it, but in a very well held container and feeling very safe to do it was everything, coming out of it. And what so many people, the first thought that comes to so many people coming back is, oh my goodness, if everyone in the world got to have this experience, there'd be no war.

[00:05:30] Joël Briere: Because we as human beings, we naturally suffer from feeling separate then for feeling unworthy or disconnected. And what better a medicine for the world than a separated estate as we are in today, than something that allows us in a very true and visceral way to experience our own wholeness and how connected we really are to everything.

[00:05:51] Raad Seraj: You've had Multiple transformations in your life. You've gone through quite the journey. And again, when we first started our call, you're just describing the things you've done, things you've gone through how you grew up. I just think it's fascinating and it's wild. So I'd love to hear a little bit about it for our audience to hear about it.

[00:06:07] Raad Seraj: How did you grow up? What, where did you find yourself as you were growing up? You got into a lot of trouble in the conventional sense, tell us a little bit of what that was like, and then how you managed to pull yourself out of that.

[00:06:19] Joël Briere: So I was born in Washington DC in the early eighties and when the crack epidemic hit, D. C got hit hard. We were murder capital of the world for a while in the early nineties until the Rwandan massacre. And I on one hand had a beautiful upbringing. My parents are very lovely people, and I was lucky enough to be introduced to spirituality at an early age.

[00:06:41] Joël Briere: Taught to meditate as a kid. Got to go to, my first temazcal sweat lodges when I was very young. I got to have a lot of experience, but for some reason, part of me was drawn towards altered states of consciousness, drawn towards The underground in a lot of different ways, and started to get into drugs pretty heavy as an early teenager and also simultaneously right around when my father left when I was maybe 13 years old, and, I subconsciously created father figures out of older drug dealers in the area and found myself very quickly involved in some pretty deep stuff.

[00:07:19] Joël Briere: And there was a part of me, like I said, that was just very drawn to it. Something about me wanted to get as deep as I could into the criminal underworld got into, moved from dealing drugs, got into selling guns being involved in a gang activity saw some nasty stuff. But considering.

[00:07:36] Joël Briere: was very fortunate. Pretty much all of my friends that I came up with are either dead or in jail now still, or just never really made it out. And growing up between D. C. And northern Virginia moved out of the city when I was a kid, about 15 20 minutes outside. And just going around there. But there was something about psychedelics that stood out special to me. I was a huge psychonaut during all of this too. And I was doing, experimenting with very high doses of LSD. Over 2, 000 micrograms very regularly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the most I did was 22. I did 22 tabs one time and that was it was awful.

[00:08:13] Joël Briere: It was an absolutely awful experience. I had so many just terrifying experiences back then. And, didn't really know much about set and setting and intention and everything. I had some of Timothy Leary's books and, Huxley's books and stuff, but I don't know if I had the maturity yet to really yeah.

[00:08:29] Joël Briere: Approach these substances with respect and reverence. So had some, back then we called them bad trips. Now we can call them challenging experiences, but in sense, my life was in shambles at that time. I was in and out of jail was. Just everything was falling apart, and I was riddled with addiction. I went through addiction with heroin, crack, and 

[00:08:48] Raad Seraj: and how old were you at this 

[00:08:49] Joël Briere: And that, I got out of everything 20. Pretty much by, so this was all between like 13 

[00:08:56] Raad Seraj: Crazy. 

[00:08:56] Joël Briere: Yeah. And I'm 40 now, to give everyone reference.

[00:09:00] Raad Seraj: Now, I'm going to speculate that I think sometimes when you work with psychedelics, I don't know if the sense started at that age or not, but I think there's something about psychedelic that makes you go inwards and find authority inwards rather than externally, right? When did things start to shift for you? They're like, okay, maybe this is not helping me. Or I need to do something else.

[00:09:18] Joël Briere: Things started to shift for me, the, I began, I became acutely aware of how over, Everything I was, all aspects of my life towards leading up to my last arrest. I was just over, I think this is maybe 2002 was over everything. I was so resentful of the fact that I was dependent on substances.

[00:09:38] Joël Briere: I was resentful of everyone around me, everyone in the communities I was finding myself in. And I got clean in jail the last time I was in jail went cold turkey, it was absolutely awful, there's no worse place than to go through withdrawals and when I came out, I ended up going on to methadone actually in jail a few months in because heroin was actually pretty widely available in there and I moved out of the city after I got out and, completely got out of the lifestyle, but I was miserable for a couple of years.

[00:10:07] Joël Briere: I put on a bunch of weight and was just angry. And then it was a, a shifting that happened very suddenly where I re read a book that my dad had given me a while ago, years and years prior Dan Millman's way of the peaceful warrior this time. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. And somehow that was the inspiration to take ownership of my life. I lost 60 pounds in six months completely shifted who I was hanging out with, how I was spending my time.

[00:10:34] Joël Briere: Began exercising shifting the way I was eating exited a a very unhealthy relationship and then found myself in a relationship with a young lady who had never been in the mix. And I'd never been in a relationship with any girl who, hadn't either been really into drugs or the party scene or anything like that.

[00:10:50] Joël Briere: And. She was the first one to drag me kicking and screaming to my first yoga class. And that was where everything started to shift. That's where everything started to shift. And so that's really where I found my initial heal like the great bulk of my initial healing. And addressing the wounds that I was that I had been experiencing.

[00:11:07] Joël Briere: Why I put myself into self destructive patterns. All of that. And then was reintroduced to medicines around 2007 by two of my two of my teachers when I was living in the in the Caribbean and the Virgin Islands. So right when I started to go through this whole kind of healing, I ended up leaving the States and moved to the moved to the Caribbean and And that was really the incubator that allowed that allowed me to completely shift the way I engaged with life.

[00:11:32] Raad Seraj: I hadn't, I have not read the way of the peaceful warrior. What can you talk a little bit about maybe an excerpt or a lesson or something that really stands out from the book?

[00:11:42] Joël Briere: It's really around harnessing discipline and self control. And a spiritual path to maintain awareness in the present moment and to be fully present for every gift this life has to give. So it's supposedly a true story takes place as a young man's going to college he was a gymnast, Olympic gymnast, and ended up getting a a bad injury.

[00:12:06] Joël Briere: And met a random mentor who seemed to be a bit of a mystic. And the whole book is really around him stepping into deeper ownership of of self.

[00:12:15] Raad Seraj: Beautiful. Definitely want to check it out. And then what about yoga? You said that it helped you identify your own patterns and why you basically did things that hurt you.

[00:12:25] Joël Briere: Yeah. I would say it was yoga and psychedelics that allowed that those insights, but it was yoga that began to make a way to be able to access those insights. As I began to find a dedicated practice, I began to find myself far more in the present feeling fully in ownership of my Life was able to consciously make decisions and begin to really shift and adjust what patterning was automatic and default.

[00:12:55] Joël Briere: And so then when I began to reapproach medicines and psychedelics, those moments that it was before where it would be felt like it was moving towards a quote unquote bad trip. Where things would start to get uncomfortable. I now had a geography or a bit of a backbone to be able to lean into that uncomfortableness, knowing that it's safe to open up and get to know that uncomfortable aspect, see what was there.

[00:13:16] Joël Briere: And that's where I really started to see things clicking into place. Getting to understand, oh, okay, there's these patterns, this happened because, my father leaving at this time, et cetera, and just tracing back and back, but like I said, I was really into psychedelics beforehand, but I wouldn't say that I gained much insight or understanding beyond deep esoteric interest until I approached them with some sort of geography, some sort of framework to be able to navigate what was coming up and what I was experiencing.

[00:13:45] Raad Seraj: I'm curious. You also have Haitian heritage. I read this book. I forget the entire title, but basically talked about how sugar was the first real global commodity, right? And basically it's what catapulted slavery and how the West African slaves were taken all over South America. And then Hispaniola, right? What is now Dominican Republic and Haiti. And Haiti was the first country in the modern world to be liberated by former slaves. Much like that scene from fuck, why am I forgetting that show now? I can't believe I'm forgetting it. What's the other show that's not Lord of the Rings? Game of thrones. Fuck. Okay. scene 

[00:14:21] Joël Briere: of Thrones. Yeah.

[00:14:22] Raad Seraj: Daenerys goes to goes and liberates these islands of slaves and at one point, I was like, this is pretty much based on Haiti. This is exactly what happened. It's interesting area for me because unfortunately looking at many of the countries in the global south now, again, former glorious places, right?

[00:14:38] Raad Seraj: So rich. Yeah. In culture and heritage, and then because of slavery and extraction, look where it is. Anyway, I'm digressing, but the point I wanted to make is that it's a region that's very close, interesting to me. How do you identify? Do you feel like Haitian, you carry your Haitian heritage really strongly? Is there an influence? How do you work through that, especially in that time of your life?

[00:14:59] Joël Briere: A multilayered question and I appreciate it. First, one of the things, as you can see, I'm very light skinned for being half black, I can pass as many different ethnicities. And so being biracial, but not necessarily looking at or being able to be recognized as part of my own community has always had its difficulties.

[00:15:17] Joël Briere: But, my grandfather was the National Poet of Haiti. He was one of the most respected poets of Haiti. He was involved in getting America out of Haiti. He was a very prominent figure in really he was a leader in black thought. He was a leader in both politics and emotion. He had a beautiful way of conveying deep emotion but had a very strong political presence.

[00:15:41] Joël Briere: He was the ambassador for, I believe it was it Venezuela or Argentina? I just completely forgot. Or he was an ambassador for Haiti there. My dad grew up. With him, he would go missing all the time and they wouldn't know if he'd been arrested. If what was going on, he was a major target of Duvalier aka Papa Doc who was a pretty wild dictator back then.

[00:16:02] Joël Briere: And my father and his brothers, they grew up with the Tontamacoutes, what they were was called the ghost soldiers or thugs that were given badges. They would kick in the door. My dad had a gun in his mouth for the first time when he was four. And so they fled Haiti when he was 12.

[00:16:16] Joël Briere: They they put out I think Duvalier gave the word to kill my grandfather and they sent some assassins out, they got my father's cousin, they almost got my uncle. He literally got away because he was able to get out of his his jacket when they had the sleeve. They escaped and went to Jamaica.

[00:16:31] Joël Briere: They were in Jamaica and Duvalier heard they were there and sent assassins there. And so then they went to Senegal. And so then my dad grew up in West Africa. For his, from teenage through through early adulthood. And grew up in Dakar the city there. And obviously I've noticed that all Haitians carry their trauma in different ways.

[00:16:49] Joël Briere: And my dad, it was a combination of suppression and. And, covering with humor. And so it wasn't that he wouldn't talk about any of it, but there was areas that he just, he didn't go there that often. He didn't teach us how to speak Creole, which is one of my biggest, I would say my biggest regret for him is there's few things.

[00:17:10] Joël Briere: that suck more than living in Miami and not being able to speak Creole when when there's Haitians everywhere. I lived in Miami only for a few years, but yeah, that was that was a bit annoying. You know there I feel and have a deep connection to Haiti and I feel my ancestry within me and at the same time it is coupled with an insecurity around around my appearance and around my lack of linguistic understanding there.

[00:17:35] Joël Briere: And so I would say it's a bit of a mixed bag for me. It's something that I'm deeply feeling called to exploring deeper. I only got to meet my grandfather once and he died in 92, I believe. But I've been to Haiti once or twice very quickly. Very quickly.

[00:17:49] Joël Briere: So he was staying in the DR and getting over there, but, depending on what time it is, my name's a bit. It's, it can be political. And so there's, there can be a bit of a risk there, but it's something that I've really been feeling called lately to explore deeper, go and meet more of my family there, go and really get to know more of my ancestral roots because I don't feel that They were shared, passed down as much as they could have been not due to anyone's fault, but just due to, turbulence of the times and how, how my father grew up. But I would say I feel that there is that revolutionary aspect that I've always felt. And one of my other one of my other passions is writing, particularly poetry. And so I've written poetry for essentially my whole life. 

[00:18:31] Raad Seraj: I think that's certainly a lot of people in the diaspora, including myself, you grew up, there's a word for it. I don't know if it resonates with you, but third culture kid, right? Where you were born and where you grew up is not where you live. And so you just have this sort of layered textured identity that, maybe in time it could feel beautiful, but it could feel really chaotic and confusing, especially as young men, I think, cause Society says that we can only channel our feelings in one way, which is anger or productivity. You can't you're not allowed to be sad, 

[00:19:04] Joël Briere: Yeah.

[00:19:05] Raad Seraj: So I really

[00:19:06] Raad Seraj: I think being in the middle. Also, I think there's a strength if you can come to that, which is you carry different worlds with you and you can be a bridge in ways that a lot of other people cannot be because they're too immersed in one thing or in one identity.

[00:19:18] Raad Seraj: So I appreciate you sharing that story. I think that's really inspiring. Do you have a poem? Have you read your grandfather's poems?

[00:19:25] Joël Briere: I've read some of them. They're all in French, of course. But they are they're beautiful. 

[00:19:28] Raad Seraj: I want to come back to how you were growing up, and I think, I want to touch on how you caught the entrepreneurial bug later on. Obviously, near the end of the interview, I'm going to talk about what it is you do now, but somewhere in the sort of self exploration, I think you started your first company or your first yoga company, I think.

[00:19:45] Raad Seraj: Why were you called to that? Not everybody ends up being an entrepreneur, but why did you feel like you have to start something?

[00:19:50] Joël Briere: That was a calling that goes back even earlier. I think it was in my late teen, or I think it was in my ear. Yeah. My very early twenties. I, my vision was to open up a cafe. Call I think it was called the cosmic lounge or something, but it was a hub for people to come and connect to share wisdom, to deeper engage in the human experience on a more meaningful level and you know Then as I really got into yoga that became a yoga studio But quickly pretty quickly a retreat center was the vision.

[00:20:20] Joël Briere: But yoga studio was how it first manifested

[00:20:22] Raad Seraj: is in

[00:20:22] Joël Briere: and 

[00:20:23] Joël Briere: you know In Australia? Yeah. I moved there from India in 2011. It was funny getting to know business or any of this hardly even crossed my mind then it was just mission. It just felt that it was a drive and a mission. And so got to experience it there.

[00:20:36] Joël Briere: And then, really going forward the vision just stayed as a retreat center, but just things, hadn't clicked into place yet. And it wasn't until I think maybe 2016 when I started to really hone in and start to move towards opening a full time retreat center, because around 2006, I started holding retreats in 2011.

[00:20:58] Raad Seraj: it's at the stage for what you're doing now, in some ways, right? 

[00:21:01] Joël Briere: Exactly.

[00:21:01] Raad Seraj: I want to pivot to talking about psychedelics or transformational experiences for a second. I'm keen, in all the work that you've done, is there any one particular transformational experience, with or without psychedelic, that you can, that you remember, that you go back to as a reference point?

[00:21:18] Joël Briere: Yeah. My my first, what we can call a full release with five 5-MeO-DMT, as many that was, I would say the most meaningful, impactful experience of my life. And yeah the feeling of being absolutely held by infinite consciousness in the most loving way, the feeling of being, of everything being so perfect.

[00:21:40] Joël Briere: In every way, in all of the imperfections, being able to see the grand scheme behind all of the mechanisms, being able to witness and experience the mystery of life was the most satiating and comforting and inspiring event of my life.

[00:22:00] Raad Seraj: When you said a sort of a full release, what does that mean? I think I know what you mean, given that I know. I've had my very spectacularly full

[00:22:09] Raad Seraj: release, but what is it to you?

[00:22:11] Joël Briere: Full release, is the term we use for, where with DMT, you would say a breakthrough it's the... shifting, there's a lot of different layers to the 5MEO experience. And sometimes when we've surrendered completely or let go completely, full release just makes sense. It's literally feels that every part of our mind that is attaching to the past or the future, every wound, every automatic patterning, every survival mechanism, everything is released.

[00:22:40] Joël Briere: The Sanskrit word moksha really resonates here to extinguish, it is that. It is that temporary full cessation of the chaotic experience of humanity. And it is it is that release to which I speak of

[00:22:53] Raad Seraj: I had a full on physiological experience. And even though once I'm out of it, I can definitely relate to what you're saying. In the moment, it's it's interesting, right? On one hand, I see I'm the person having the experience is full on physiological experience like a fish out of water.

[00:23:09] Raad Seraj: And then there's another one that is very aware. And it's present and watching the other part have this experience. I'm the seeing self and the experiencing self. It's a very bizarre thing to experience because the experiencing self was terrified. It was a terrifying experience. Absolutely terrifying.

[00:23:28] Raad Seraj: And then physiologically not having any control over my body. Twitching, I feel like things were breaking and not physically hurting but emotionally hurting and grunting. Things like that, right? It was it's a And when most people hear about it, it's what the fuck would I want to do this?

[00:23:42] Raad Seraj: I'm like but I'm like, it showed me for the first time that pain and suffering it's not something that you can intellectualize. It can just be deeply ingrained in your body. And you have to expunge it. It's like an exorcism in a way, right? wIth mushrooms and other medicines, you can somehow, you can talk through it, you can have visions, and then you, that can, you can tie back to what you may have experienced, or what you may be holding in.

[00:24:07] Raad Seraj: Thymibium is not like that. It just like shoots you through a cannon, and it breaks you open, whether you like it or not. I think it's a very powerful thing. Speaking of 5M and DMT, I want to ask you as, again, an entrepreneur who is deeply in the, both the work of 5-MeO-DMT, and also the business of retreats. What is your feeling around the ethical debate around 5-MeO-DMT I think for most people who don't know, 5-MeO-DMT in the natural world is commonly known as the most powerful psychedelic in nature, and it's, and I, the source of it, I think Hamilton Morris had a documentary about who first figured out that, hey, here's a toad, I'm going to lick it, right?

[00:24:46] Joël Briere: But not like it.

[00:24:48] Raad Seraj: Don't lick the toad, but the idea that this sort of like

[00:24:51] Joël Briere: Do not.

[00:24:52] Raad Seraj: powerful psychedelic, it comes from the secretions of the Bufalovarius, and it's one incredible mystery is like, why, on the other hand, as with everything else that humanity, like this sort of constant tension of commodification, people are now milking this toad to death.

[00:25:09] Raad Seraj: very metabolically heavy for the animal. Yes, it can, you can squeeze it once, but if you keep squeezing it, milking it, it will eventually die. I'm curious about your thoughts about synthetic versus organic 5-MeO-DMT and how do you approach this topic?

[00:25:24] Joël Briere: We are strong proponents of synthetic 5-MeO-DMT for many reasons. One, of course, there is the sustainability aspect. There is not enough. This is a toad that's in one small part of the world and only comes above ground for a few months every year. There is not enough toad secretion to supply the world.

[00:25:42] Joël Briere: The toads don't need that. I think there is an automatic tendency to go towards that because it's what most people think is the source of 5-MeO-DMT. But funny enough, synthetic 5 MeO was actually being smoked before bufo was being smoked. Bufo, bufo secretion just started getting smoked in the early 80s.

[00:26:01] Joël Briere: Synthetic 5-MeO-DMT was already being explored by people like Dr. Ralph Metzner. Stanislav Grof had experienced it. We didn't come to find out about 5 MeO because of a natural source. We came to find out about 5 MeO through, I would say a bit more chemical psychedelic pioneering. And so it was, through a toxicology report on an amphibian on a, group of amphibian bones where, the late Ken Nelson recognized that there was 5-MeO-DMT in this one toad.

[00:26:28] Joël Briere: And so already knowing what 5 MeO was, that's how we knew what to do. 5 MeO, synthetic 5 MeO is safer to use. More effective on all levels. With the bufo secretion, there's a, I think about 12 additional alkaloids. They're in way too small amounts to have an effect on the experience, but they do affect the safety profile.

[00:26:47] Joël Briere: So there is a much greater risk for, to the heart with bufo secretion, there is also the lack of dosage specificity. There may be 10%, five 5 MeO in this one sample, there may be up to 30 percent in this one sample. And we have no idea. This one piece of bouffant that I'm serving John here with, if I give, another piece from the same, batch to Jane, they may, this may have doubled the amount that I've given John.

[00:27:11] Joël Briere: So five 5 MeO is something that you do want specificity with. And so we really highly encourage people to, to work with synthetic. And then there is, the other hand where we've been getting to watch in real time. New practices being formed and integrated into indigenous communities in the Sonoran desert.

[00:27:30] Joël Briere: So the Seri tribe and the Yaqui tribe. Certain parts have, they've been able to, or begun to integrate this medicine into their tribal traditions and customs. And this is a very beautiful thing. And I think Bufo secretion definitely has a place in Sonora, in the desert. I really feel that it should be kept there.

[00:27:50] Joël Briere: I really feel that it should not be taken out of the desert. The main issue is people are mailing it all over the place and over extracting. But yeah, it's a tough one. There's a, very fierce debate. But I don't think the answer is no Bufo at all. I just think Bufo should be the right of the indigenous caretakers and best practices, which have already been written up and introduced at the World Bufo Agrarius Congress back in 2019, provided best practices for toad handling are observed.

[00:28:17] Raad Seraj: Much like peyote, right? It's not about it should be preserved for people who have a, ritualistic and a pedigree and our entire lineage generationally use. Thank you for that. What about this other part of the conversation, which is that the toad secretion has spirit versus the synthetic.

[00:28:33] Raad Seraj: And I think this is talks to the larger suspicion around anything that is synthetic nowadays. But how do you approach that conversation, particularly from you. Participants or other facilitators? 

[00:28:44] Joël Briere: I think that's trying to use our little human minds into complex, ineffable matters. iS it, if it was the spirit of the toad, then people wouldn't have been using five MEO DMT beforehand. It was known as something that brought a vastly diff, mystical experience before anyone knew that there was a toad involved.

[00:29:04] Joël Briere: Five MEO DMT is also not restricted to being found in the toad. It's found in numerous plants in nature. It's also found within the human body. It is produced by many different animals or mammals. It's, I think it's a case of the finger pointing at the sun rather than looking at the sun itself.

[00:29:23] Joël Briere: I think the toad is just a carrier, a messenger of, carries that particular alkaloid. But I think it is the alkaloid itself that gives this experience. If you took 5-MeO-DMT out of the toad secretion, you're not going to feel anything. It's going to be a completely different experience. So I think if we're looking at spirit, what we can consider spirit, I've come to feel or believe that spirit is all pervasive consciousness, that it is in everything, that there is nothing in this world that is void of spirit.

[00:29:53] Joël Briere: And so I think, our human minds end up creating dogmatic systems and spiritual hierarchy and in these concepts. And I think that's what's responsible for the assumption that the toad secretion must be more effective because it's coming from natural sources.

[00:30:09] Raad Seraj: with you. I think the veneration of the toad versus synthetic is more about our suspicion of big pharma and pharmaceuticals and synthetics and relationship to drugs in general rather than, so the magnificence of naturally derived five 5-Meo-DMT. I'm gonna pivot again to the last part of the interview, which.

[00:30:30] Raad Seraj: I want to come back to given your entrepreneurial bend from early age. You are an accidental entrepreneur in some ways. Yeah, like to your point, it was about the mission. It wasn't about starting a company per se, this sort of Tandava came up during the pandemic, I believe, right? This idea. How did you learn what is learned entrepreneurship to you?

[00:30:51] Raad Seraj: And, why a retreat, particularly. In the middle of a pandemic, or maybe that is the reason why you were inspired because people were separated and they wanted somewhere to go, experience the medicine. Tell us about Tandava Retreats and the Genesis story.

[00:31:07] Joël Briere: So Tandava actually, has its roots for years and years before the pandemic, I was hosting 5 MEO retreats in Jamaica from around 2016, I believe. And starting 2018 started moving them here to couples land and right around then started really becoming interested in opening a center down here.

[00:31:26] Joël Briere: And I started putting together a little business model and reaching out to the very few people I know that may be connected to investors and had some things set up finally around early 2020. And to where some people were going to come down and check out the area. And then the pandemic hit and that's probably the best thing that could have happened for my business ever because the business model that I had drawn up was absolutely absurd.

[00:31:51] Joël Briere: It didn't make any sense and it showed a clear lack of any business understanding. So the pandemic hit and it gave me the opportunity to step back and to get to learn business. So during that time, I reached out to the few people I knew who seemed to understand business or were in business or new investors and just started picking their brains and asking questions.

[00:32:15] Joël Briere: I started reading everything. I could every book I could around startups and around entrepreneurship. The people that I was asking questions to started introducing me to other people. So I would pick their brains. They would introduce me to more people. I started stalking people relentlessly on LinkedIn.

[00:32:30] Joël Briere: A lot of people and just asking questions and just getting to understand the landscape. And that's what really helped. And then I was lucky enough to have Ari and Richard the guys from the conscious fund. I very naively I think they were the first VC group that I pitched in 2020 for our seed round.

[00:32:49] Joël Briere: And, when I look at our, even our seed round, what it first was. It was very acutely naive that I was pitching, larger VCs and stuff like that when it was, that round was definitely an angel round only. I just didn't know it yet, but I pitched them as the first people I pitched, but I think they showed mercy on me and just started giving me some good feedback.

[00:33:08] Joël Briere: And started coaching me unofficially for a while and then came on as our advisors maybe about a year later. And they've been amazing mentors for me along with a few other notable people in the psychedelic business space. To really help me, to cut my teeth a bit to understand the bits of naive fallacy that I had around the business to get to understand what it was actually going to take to create a, an operational business that could grow, that could scale what it was going to take to put something together that is investable, that could take on investor money.

[00:33:41] Joël Briere: And starting that hero's journey was I'd say this has been a deep as a ride as any medicine experience I've ever had. Few things have ever triggered the deepest insecurities and deepest parts of my psyche like this. I found it deeply exciting and terrifying all at the same time, but I love it, it's like real world magic.

[00:33:59] Joël Briere: It's taking something that just exists in the mind or in the ethers and creating real world systems out of it. Creating something that. becomes its own thing. That's deeply appealing to me. And luckily, we were already very perfectly suited when the psychedelic renaissance, kicked up.

[00:34:15] Joël Briere: We already had a reputation in the underground. We already had a reputation as a 5-MeO retreat. And so got to ride a little bit of a wave into it. And since then, it's just been nonstop growing. It's been nonstop evolving our protocols. Here at the center, we were, this was the first above ground 5-MeO-DMT center focused on safe and effective use of this molecule.

[00:34:34] Joël Briere: And it's been amazing getting to evolve and grow how we work, getting to. work with so many different types of cases, so many different types of people. And what it's really been amazing to do is, at first giving us anecdotal data and now, we're collecting real world evidence, real HIPAA compliant data that can really show the safety and the efficacy of this molecule when used in safe and tested protocols.

[00:35:03] Joël Briere: So it's really given us an opportunity to To grow in real time and to and to really get to apply everything we've been learning to a population that is, our demographic are people who are deeply suffering most often, and really working through some heavy stuff. And it's been.

[00:35:17] Joël Briere: Wonderful to be able to present a safe place for them to come and unfold into what they're experiencing and to really have a safe place to stretch out and to get to know their own patterning and to get to shift their life into something desirable, something more in line with with how they feel and would like to experience this life.

[00:35:37] Raad Seraj: I'm curious from the perspective of a retreat business, stands out? There's lots of retreats. What in your mind as a business sets apart a good retreat business versus a bad retreat business?

[00:35:51] Joël Briere: Experience is going to be the first thing. There's been a lot of cases over the past few years of funded individuals who may have had a very impactful experience at a retreat. And then naturally Oh, I want to do this. And so then they open up a retreat center, but don't know what to look for in facilitators.

[00:36:08] Joël Briere: Don't know what to look for in program development. Don't know how to support the people that will be coming to them in the right ways. That's one of the biggest issues So I would say what allows a good retreat center to stand out is it's run by an experienced faculty that has both personal experience and already has experience serving other people. A good balance, I generally like to look for a good balance of mental health professionals and More seasoned veterans of the of the psychonaut space or the medicine community, we can say. We will always want to make sure there's integration included. I think that's a, I think that's a must for any retreat center.

[00:36:46] Joël Briere: There should be aftercare support provided as an automatic part of the program, not as damage control. Oh, if you need it, this is here. Integration is how we make this all make sense. Integration is how we make these changes last or else they're going to fall away four to six weeks down the road.

[00:37:02] Joël Briere: When those dendrite growths, begin to fall away. But integration and a, looking at as a process and a container is what's needed from retreat centers to really be effective. And then of course, where are they engaging with in reciprocity and they're in the area where they are doing business?

[00:37:18] Joël Briere: Are they working with locals? Are they honoring the surrounding community? Most retreat centers are opened by, expats who are moving down to Costa Rica or, in my case, Mexico. And so I think it's a very big duty of retreat center owners to both give back to the community that nurtures the center.

[00:37:36] Joël Briere: We benefit from the specific laws in Mexico. And so it's our duty to really, and support and pollinate the local area. It's also the duty of any retreat center that is working with indigenous medicines and ancestral medicines to hold the highest integrity and make sure that they are paying their retreat leaders, make sure that they are paying the curanderos or healers, what they are worth and in numbers that are relevant to what they're actually charging. 

[00:38:04] Raad Seraj: I love the last part, especially because I think it's really important to your point now that we can work and live wherever we want. That we have this responsibility to be good stewards of the local community and not just go and colonize these little enclaves where people don't upscale, don't interact with the local population, the community, particularly around medicine work.

[00:38:26] Raad Seraj: And we have to like, we have to look, have a holistic aspect of this, particularly around economic development. I think that's really important. So I appreciate you saying that. Is there anything specific about 5-MeO-DMT or specific to the integration? are on 5 MA DMT that sets it apart that you focus on.

[00:38:43] Joël Briere: One that it's even more imperative integration with five MEO DMT is imperative really to have these effects last. Because the experience is so far beyond the mind and what it can understand that after the experience, the mind will, whether we know it or not, be running back towards familiar, be running back to the comfort of familiarity.

[00:39:05] Joël Briere: And so those new pathways that we're forming can easily just get dusted over and vanish if we're not actively doing something with them. We. Again, rather than looking at it as damage control, this is benefit optimization. And one of the important things with 5MEO particularly, and I could, we could say this with anything else too, but integration begins during preparation.

[00:39:27] Joël Briere: Integration begins before the experience itself. And setting intention and planning ahead for the integration period. And that's something that we take really serious with our participants. With our retreats, each participant gets assigned their own integration specialist from our team who they then work with for the next four weeks after their stay.

[00:39:45] Joël Briere: And how that's going to look is going to be deeply individual. We have a very individualized approach and a great team of highly skilled integration specialists. Some who are mental health professionals, some have more clinical backgrounds and work more with trauma. Some are more working with modern therapeutic modalities, internal family systems or young in parts work.

[00:40:06] Joël Briere: How come he, things like this. And some have more backgrounds serving this particular medicine for 15 years or so under a much more spiritual context. And so that's going to be a bit more relevant to some of our participants who aren't necessarily coming for a healing process.

[00:40:20] Joël Briere: And this is much more of a spiritual 

[00:40:23] Raad Seraj: Fantastic. Tell me some, tell me a little bit about 5 and your, the clinical work you're doing.

[00:40:28] Joël Briere: Yeah. Yeah. So five, which stands for five MEO DMT information and vital education. I co founded with my partner, Victoria Wushner, and this was, at first intended to be just a centralized hub of information and resources and education around this molecule. Five MEO is a new medicine.

[00:40:47] Joël Briere: There is no indigenous ancestral lineage that we can look to for wisdom here. There was a lot of mistakes being made and not a lot of information on dosage and what this is all about. And so a lot of people have been harmed by their experience due to improper facilitation and due to them not knowing what they were getting themselves into.

[00:41:04] Joël Briere: And not knowing what to look for in a facilitator. So at first, this was just a free platform that had, all of the information you could ever need to know about 5MEO, everything from all published research to different documentaries and videos, to all the information about the experience about.

[00:41:21] Joël Briere: The pharmacology about everything, full list of contraindications, FAQs, what to look for in a retreat, what to look for in a facilitator, red flags, all that good stuff. And then from there we did our training program which we're now in the second cohort now wrapping up and we are opening we have the third cohort.

[00:41:38] Joël Briere: Beginning in January in a few months. And so this was the, we can say it was the first ever above ground 5-MeO-DMT training that was created by experienced facilitators. There was one more 5MEO above board training out there that came out. But no one had ever done 5MEO who made the training.

[00:41:58] Joël Briere: And so we heard some very not so good talk about it and wanted to present a solution. Because we believe in this molecule. We really believe in this molecule's ability to create significant shift in this world. But that shift isn't going to happen if a biotech company is on phase two of their clinical trials and One of, because their clinical staff has been trained, in a very haphazard way, they end up harming a participant or a participant has a psychotic break two weeks after their experience that really inhibits the progress that we're going to be able to make here.

[00:42:33] Joël Briere: And so getting out front and center with best practices and a real comprehensive course was our mission there. And so we've got a nine month, very well rounded, very involved training with weekly classes weekly videos that they receive. They're on site here at the Tandava Center for two weeks as well.

[00:42:50] Joël Briere: But it is, covers everything from pharmacology and neuroscience to. Integrating the mystical experience. We brought on over 35 guest teachers for this thing to really make sure that we are bringing in experts to share their wisdom in areas that they've put mastery into that they've really taken time to hone in their craft, knowing that my knowledge is limited.

[00:43:10] Joël Briere: Victoria's knowledge is limited. The rest of our team's knowledge is limited to certain areas. So we wanted to offer training that covers the full spectrum of what can come up in the five MBO experience. And then from there, we began into research. We've got an exciting upcoming study in January. We have the University College of London team down here along with 32 healthy volunteers to capture the peak four to six minutes of the 5MEO experience in a, 64 point EEG headset.

[00:43:39] Joël Briere: And so this will be the first proper usable data of its kind around the neurological mechanisms that are occurring in this deep state. That's very exciting for us. We've got some more research studies we're looking at as well.

[00:43:51] Raad Seraj: How are you planning to leverage this research because you are not building a drug discovery pipeline or platform. How is this research going to be used?

[00:44:00] Joël Briere: This research and all the data we draw from it is able to be used as real world evidence that is able to be accepted by the FDA going to supporting justification, going to support safety and efficacy in our protocols. It all just helps build our case and support our our entire IP portfolio.

[00:44:17] Joël Briere: Our entire IP is really built around tried and true protocols that has data to back it up.

[00:44:22] Raad Seraj: This is very exciting. Like I said, 5 MDMT is a different class of its own. And I think specialized expertise. Protocols, knowledge after care as well as thought of leadership is really required here, and I really appreciate all the hard work that you guys have put in. My last question to you is from the perspective of both a again, an accidental entrepreneur, a business owner.

[00:44:46] Raad Seraj: And a expert on the profile and experience around 5MA DMT. What would you recommend to people? What's your advice as somebody who is coming in, who wants to experience 5MA DMT, but also wants to be an entrepreneur in the psychedelic ecosystem?

[00:45:03] Joël Briere: Ooh. All right. Those would be two, two very different ones. Someone who wants to experience 5-MeO-DMT do research, read into it and look into if this is really something you're feeling called to. I believe it's every human's right to have this experience at least once in their life. It generally will be the most impactful, most meaningful experience we can have.

[00:45:22] Joël Briere: There's a ton of information on the five platform. So check the five platform, look into everything and really make an informed decision. For people looking to get into the psychedelic space. First thing I'm going to say is go slow. And, know your role. I think there was a lot of overexcited eagerness that came into the psychedelic space in 2021 to where we saw insanely overvalued companies doing IPOs left and right and raising hundreds of millions of dollars based on patents pending or regulations shifting far sooner than is even humanly possible.

[00:45:58] Joël Briere: And therefore there was a whole lot of. Absolutely hollow business models that did not have the world's interest in mind, this, the implications behind the psychedelic renaissance go far beyond a good payout for all those involved. We're talking about something that absolutely has the potential to shift the trajectory of this world and of humanity.

[00:46:20] Joël Briere: Something that allows us access to a tool and tools powerful enough to give us more direct access to the psyche than we've ever been allowed. Essentially expediting the world's therapeutic needs in exponential ways. And so there's a lot riding on this. Let's not move too quickly. There, I know with startups, we say move fast and break things, but that's not going to apply.

[00:46:44] Joël Briere: That's not going to apply to the psychedelic space. We saw what happened. What's the average share stock share price down 80 something percent since 2021 things are seeing a good little bounce up right now, but I think let's do away with the smoke and mirrors. Let's do away with the.

[00:47:00] Joël Briere: Press releases left and right advertising, nothing. And let's get to the work. I think people looking to get into the psychedelic space, if your background and your community is not already deeply entrenched in the psychedelic world, then team up with people who are, do not try and do this just as a group of entrepreneurs, approaching something from the outside that you may not understand, work with people who get this stuff.

[00:47:23] Joël Briere: That's the way this model can succeed because people who have spent a lot of time around these medicines We understand how they are responded to we understand all the nuances that are needed to allow them to be effective and what goes into Helping shift people's minds around the stigma of this so I would say experience is an intrinsic and necessary part to this whole equation And then again, remembering that there's people behind this, remembering that there's people on the other side of all of this.

[00:47:52] Joël Briere: So sustainable integral business models that are of course meant to thrive, meant to flourish, meant to scale, but are also meant to create change. Let's have a real impact here. Let's not just go for a quick payout and say

[00:48:06] Raad Seraj: beautifully said. I couldn't agree with you more. I this element around knowing your role, that is super important. I speak with people all the time who might have had their first experience and feel very strongly. And that's something that sets apart the space quite a lot, which is the amount of conviction.

[00:48:20] Raad Seraj: But with that also comes, You have to have a pedigree. You have to do your time. You have to learn and help out without maybe an expectation of a payout, because you know what? This space was always built by people who cared first. And in the process, if you build a really resilient business, great.

[00:48:36] Raad Seraj: But it's also about caring first. So Joël, thank you again so much. This is fantastic. Really appreciate your time and all your wisdom and knowledge, and I wish you all the best.

[00:48:44] Joël Briere: Likewise. Thank you so much. Thanks again for having me on. It was great to chat.