There are routine doctor's appointments. Sure, those can be a little unpleasant. But then there are things like MRIs and electrocardiograms, fertility appointments, visits where everything feels a little alien. This was one of those appointments. We were told to bring pictures or anything to have something in the room with us. So I brought pictures of my family and friends and so forth. That's Kathy Kroll. A few years ago, she went to a special clinic just outside of Washington, D.C. The room itself wasn't strange. No beeping machines or medical posters on the wall. Just an average-looking bed and a chair. It was comfortable. And then Dr. Agrawal came in. He had ice-cold water in a cup and the pills in a nice container. Kathy took the pills with a gulp of water. She laid down on the bed. I put on the headphones and the eye shades. And that's when the appointment really started. Waves, tremendous waves. Scary waves. and if you get in them, they'll just throw you out of the water. They could break your neck or anything. I decided to go into them. So I went into the waves. But I was able to just float in them. I didn't have to be afraid of them. and maybe they were the cancer. The waves were probably the cancer. Okay, it's there. All right. Psilocybin says it's okay. You don't have to worry. From NHPR, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I'm Nate Hedgie. You may have heard about a recent executive order from President Trump. It aims to speed up research and development into psychedelic drugs for treating mental health conditions like depression and PTSD. Joe Rogan was even in the Oval Office when he signed it. But strange as this move might seem to some, this isn't exactly a new topic. A few years ago, we sent producer Felix Poon to visit Kathy Kroll and find out whether psychedelics can help patients dealing with cancer and life's greatest uncertainty, death. Stay tuned. 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Thank you. I see the sign here. That's very thoughtful. The sign on your door says, Welcome, Felix. Welcome forward to you. Kathy Krawl is in her 80s. She lives in a suburban raised ranch home, and her walls are decorated with paintings from around the world. As we were setting up, I asked her the classic podcast soundcheck question. Throwaway question. What did you have for breakfast this morning? I had Cheerios and cherries. Ch and ch. What did you have for breakfast? I had cereal as well. Kathy had a habit of asking my questions back at me. It made me feel more at ease, and I felt a lot of warmth and positivity from her. Which is why it was surprising to hear her tell me that she's been focused on the negative her whole life. I see the bad things that happen. I see wars constantly, poverty. spiders, poison ivy. I see a kind of evil out there. Kathy has always felt meek on the inside, almost submissive even. The world has a lot of people that know everything more than I do, and many of them are scary people. They will put me down. so I better be just quiet and not make ripples anywhere. Part of this had to do with going to Catholic schools. But Christian spirituality is a big part of who Kathy is. In her backyard, she has this big garden. It's kind of more like a small private park. Do you come out here every morning? Yes. I walk around, I pull out weeds and stuff like that. And in the middle of it is a small statue of Mary, mother of Jesus. The statue is on a tree stump, and all around it are mushrooms. Not the psychedelic kind, just wild mushrooms. A kind of crust fungus growing in a ring around Mary. Kathy's lived all over the world. She taught English in Turkey, got married in Thailand. Today she's retired and living in Maryland. But in 2019, Kathy suddenly started feeling really tired. She went to see a rheumatologist and got a bunch of tests done. MRI, CT scan, x-rays, blood tests, everything. She said, you are okay. There's just one small little tiny enlarged lymph node in your groin. You could see a doctor or a gynecologist or, you know, someone like that if you want to. It sounded like it wasn't a big deal. So she put it off for a few months. But eventually, she did see a surgeon. And the surgeon did a biopsy of her lymph node. I came back in a week and he said, hmm, that is lymphoma. And I said, ooh, lymphoma is cancer. and in my mind cancer meant death, suffering, terrible stuff. Kathy had seen it personally. Her mom died of breast cancer decades ago. And he said, don't worry, it's treatable. What does treatable mean? Does that mean curable? It doesn't. It means something else. So I was scared because I thought of the pain that would come with it. My mother was in extreme pain. She was an extremely outgoing, active person, and she could not walk, and she just disintegrated. And I thought, well, that's probably what's going to happen to me. No one talked to us about what it feels like for a patient to be dying, or for them to cry in front of you, or how do you handle that. That was just like, you'd go in and tell the patient, and then you'd walk out of the room, or you'd try to comfort them for a little while, but there wasn't a really way to process that. This is Manish Agarwal. For almost 20 years, Manish worked at an oncology center in Maryland, treating people with cancer. It's a tough job, and not just because of the hours. Cancer like any serious illness can leave patients feeling devastated and depressed There isn much an oncologist can do about that To see the suffering of another and not to be able to do anything it eats away at you It wasn't until later in his career that Manish actually heard someone put this condition into words. It was such a revelation. It actually changed the trajectory of his life. I just couldn't believe that something actually existed. He actually named it. and said, you know, death anxiety. And I was like, oh my gosh, somebody's actually calling it that? Like, as an oncologist, you swam in it, but nobody ever talked about it. There was never a meeting. There was no abstract, and people did not talk about this. Kathy went through the motions to treat her cancer. First, surgery. But they found that the lymphoma had actually spread to her chest, which meant a round of chemo, and then more chemo. Kathy faced the possibility that she was going to die. It was up and down, up and down, yeah. And, well, I got depressed. I got quite depressed. Meanwhile, Kathy started therapy sessions with a psychologist to do something about her growing depression. And eventually, her psychologist mentioned something about a clinical study. It's a study where we give you a pill, and then you might see bright lights and things like that. Ooh, this sounds like LSD, and I come from the 1960s, and LSD is something very bad. I can't understand what you're saying. And he told me it was psilocybin. Psilocybin is the mind-altering compound that's in psilocybe, a genus of fungi also known as magic mushrooms. Magic mushrooms have been used for thousands of years. Aztec shamans used them in healing and divination rituals. They called them the flesh of the gods, or god's mushroom. Research in lab mice have found that these drugs mess with the part of the brain that processes what you see. The firing of neurons gets weak, and their timing goes a little haywire, and so other parts of your brain start filling in the gaps. It also relaxes the part of the brain that organizes and directs traffic. So all of a sudden, different parts of your brain that usually don't talk to each other, they start talking to each other, and it becomes kind of a free-for-all. Neurologically, you've laid down these tracks of the way you just go down the ski slope every time. and psilocybin allows you to like zoom out in a way, put fresh powder down over that snow and give you the opportunity to maybe lay down a new track. The clinical study that Kathy's therapist told her about was being run by Dr. Manish Agarwal. After he found out about psilocybin, Manish quit his job and co-founded Sunstone Therapies so he could use psychedelics to treat the emotional suffering his cancer patients were swimming in all those years. The way he sees it, psilocybin makes the unconscious conscious Hallucinations aren't treated as random images and sounds Instead, they're old emotional traumas bubbling to the surface And bringing awareness to them, they can dissolve And then you can be sort of who you are underneath all of that These trips are meant to be an inward experience But patients aren't alone For the entire trip, which lasts about eight hours, they have a therapist with them to help them get through it. The two biggest fears in doing this, people fear that they're going to go crazy or they fear they're going to die. This is Norma Stevens, Kathy's therapist at Sunstone. And what we will tell them is, if you feel like you're going to go crazy, go ahead and go crazy. If you feel like you're going to die, go ahead and die because it'll bring you to the next phase. You're not going to die physically. The medicine is safe. You are safe. If you feel like you're going to die, go ahead and die? That does not sound like a therapy session. What it sounds like is a bad trip. Now, there's a stigma around psychedelics. In some cases, taking them can trigger what's called HPPD, Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder. Flashback hallucinations that can last for months or even years after the trip has ended. Then there are other horror stories, folks who lose touch with reality and jump off a building or walk in front of a bus. That stuff has happened. But a lot of doctors today argue that the stigma around psychedelics is overblown. An annual survey of global drug use consistently finds mushrooms lead to some of the lowest rates of hospital visits compared to other drugs. You're way more likely to hurt someone or yourself drinking booze than you are taking magic mushrooms. Studies have also found that psychedelics are not addictive in lab animals. There were no withdrawal symptoms and no signs of dependency. It's sort of like the internet. Anything powerful. money, sex, it's like you can use it for good and it can be incredibly transformative or it can cause great harm. Sunstone tries to manage all the risks. There's a big difference between doing mushrooms at Burning Man versus doing it here in a doctor's office with a therapist. But even so, it can still be really scary. Yeah, there are people that have some terrifying things that come up. Some are terrifying, some are just terrifying, some are very difficult things they don't want to look at. But after the fact, they all kind of grow or heal? Yes, because they'll go through that, whatever that is, their worst fear and realize, oh, I can handle this, or they get a bigger perspective on it, and then it doesn't bother them. At the end. At the end. Let's see what it does. And we were told, just accept anything that comes in. If you see a door, open it and go in. And if you see a monster, face him and talk to him and ask him what he's doing there. That's after a break. 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You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos inventory and shipping Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at Shopify That Shopify It time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side Eventoplossingen besparen tijd voor starters en groeiende bedrijven. Zowel online, persoonlijk, als onderweg. Shopify is gemaakt voor ondernemers zoals jij. Meld je aan voor je proefperiode van 1 euro per maand op shopify.eu. Wait, wait, don't skip this, don't skip this, don't skip this. This is not an ad. This is me, Nate. And I'm here to tell you that it is yet again time to open up the outside inbox to listener questions. We have been getting the most random submissions lately. Like, can bobcats get hairballs? Or why does warm dirt smell so good? But we need more questions. So please send us the weirdest, wackiest questions about science and the natural world that you can think of. It is super easy. You can call our hotline at 1-844-GO-OTTER. Or even better, send us a voice memo to outsideinradio at nhpr.org. Okay, back to the show. From New Hampshire Public Radio, this is Outside In. I'm Felix Poon. In the fall of 2020, Kathy Kral went into sunstone therapies. She got set up in a room with a bed and some chairs. And then Dr. Manish Agarwal came into the room. It was almost like a sacrament, you know. And he said, don't be afraid. Everything's going to be fine. Everything's going to go well. and, you know, here are the pills and here's the water. Kathy took the pills. And I put on the headphones and the eye shades. And I lay down and there was some music coming in. Mostly classical music, some tracks of bird and nature sounds, and some meditation music. Then a chant came on. And it was Om Namah Shiva. And all I knew of Shiva, mistakenly, was that Shiva was the devil. Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. Kathy didn't know much about him, but she knew of his reputation as the destroyer. And I thought, why are they doing this to me? This is not my mind. This is the music that they're putting on. You know, I don't like this at all. So I grabbed the hand of the social worker. She grabbed Norma's hand. To let her know that something's wrong. And finally it ended. And then blackness. Not all those colors of LSD, just blackness. And I thought, what does this blackness mean? And it seemed to go on for a long, long time. And apparently you can't tell time when you have psilocybin. So I don't know how long it was, but it seemed forever. And then some beautiful music came on. Really lovely music. Beautiful music. Beautiful. And it came into me. And besides the music came a golden light. as golden as can be and bright as can be after all this darkness. And then as the music is playing there is Mary and she's looking at me and she does not speak. But I understand better than I have ever understood anything in any language. that she's holding a baby and she says, this baby, I'm going to take care of this baby. You do not have to worry anymore. Just forget. She's saying it, but without words. Don't worry. Don't be concerned. I'm in control. I'm taking care of it. You're okay. You're really okay. Then that vision ended, and then she had a vision of her ancestors. And I tend to think about my ancestors coming from Poland and Lithuania. They were just serfs, you know, horrid life, horrid life, you know. And there I'm seeing each of them getting married, having a wonderful wedding, dancing, singing, happy. Ha! How could the ancestors be happy? They lived in a terrible time. I read these books about what it was like, you know, with the different armies going through. So there is happiness, there is joy in life. Even when they're in really, really bad situations, can they can be okay okay all right for a while there's nothingness nothingness again the blackness and then waves tremendous waves scary waves. Scary waves. And I like to be in the water, I like to go in the ocean, but those waves were terrible. They were so scary. And then I decided to go into them. So I went into the waves. But I was able to just float in them, and it was no big deal. So, then I had to try to figure out what are the waves. I think the waves were probably the cancer. You know, there was a scariness, fear, and then, okay, it's there. All right. Psilocybin says it's okay. You don't have to worry. Eventually, towards the end of the session, the chanting with Shiva came back on. And Shiva reappeared to Kathy. I confronted Shiva and I said, what are you doing here? What do you want from me? And Shiva said, I wanted to tell you that you are as bad as I am. And I said, thank you very much. And then afterward, I was telling my son about the thing, and he said, You know, Shiva doesn't just destroy, but rebirths. She brings forth something better All told, Kathy's trip lasted about eight hours. Towards the end, her legs started cramping, so she got up to move around. And that was the end. But it wasn't the end. Out of the 30 participants in the study, 80% had a significant reduction in depression, and half were no longer depressed at all. These results were pretty persistent even two years after their sessions. Kathy's feeling better too. One change she's noticed is feeling more connected to everything and everyone around her. She even swears that the trees in her yard are waving to her, saying hello when they're blowing in the wind. But there are other changes that's harder for Kathy to put her finger on. It's not always easy to interpret hallucinations. Kathy has to tease out the meaning from them and figure out what to take away from all of it. Like Kathy's vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Her original theory was that the baby Mary was holding was a baby Kathy miscarried decades ago, and what Mary was telling Kathy was to let go of her feelings of guilt and inadequacy. But Kathy sounded skeptical of this, even as she was telling it to me. I didn't have that concept before the psilocybin, unless it was deep, deep down inside of me. It's like I could see on Kathy's face the gears working in her mind. I cannot quite understand. I don't know. I do believe there's a spiritual realm that perhaps she was an agent in the spiritual realm. When we started the study, they said, make an intention. And I said, I want to see the face of God. And I think that that might have been the face of God. Realize who you are, Kathleen. I mean, you're an okay person. And I want you to know that. And you didn't realize that before, but you better know it. Kathy's 84 now. She still has cancer, but she's on a drug that should keep it from spreading further. She's tired a lot of the time. But overall, she's doing pretty well. just pain and death I really was afraid of. But now I'm not afraid of it. Yeah, and so when you were afraid of death originally, what part of it were you afraid of? Because for me, when I think about death, the thing that scares me, it's more the idea that I won't exist anymore. So I'm curious for you, are you afraid of that non-existing part? Are you afraid of the pain in the moment? What part of it were you afraid of? Not being able to do all the things that I want to do beforehand. Get all the things done. Tell all the people what I want to tell them. What were some of the things you hadn't done yet that you wanted to do? clean up my emails those never get clean but i'm not afraid of of what you're saying you're afraid of um i have a feeling that i will be aware of what's going on in the world with my grandchildren and children and there's that that connection that's still there whether i'm beyond or on this side. So, um... Yeah, what do you think it's like after death? What is there? What do you think? I... I mostly think that there's nothing. however I do believe in a higher power but I don't think that I will continue exist like I don't think my I don't think there's a individual soul that will continue to exist in some kind of afterlife it's almost like uh like uh like returning a drop of water to the ocean does the drop still exist anymore not really does the water itself still exist it sure does where is it I can't. That's interesting because I kind of connect with that. And I think that that situation with Mary gave me an idea that I'll be different. I won't be this body, and I won't just be my mind, but I'll be something maybe more that has more understanding, more love, more of all those good qualities. But I don't know what it is. But I, yeah, I think, you know, when I die, I don't know what I'll be or who I'll be. but I think it'll be superior to what I am now and that I like I'm going to get there before you do Felix and I'm going to send you a message I'll be looking forward to it If you'd like to see pictures of Kathy and the statue of Mary she has in her garden, you can visit our website, outsideinradio.org. If you liked today's episode, be sure to tell a friend. Share a link. You can also leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps others find the show. This episode was produced, reported, and mixed by Felix Poon. It was edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, Jung Yoon Han, and me, Nidheji. Our team also includes Marina Hanke and Jessica Hunt. Our executive producer is Taylor Quimby. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR's director of On Demand Audio. Special thanks to Evan Craig, Heather Honstein, Catherine Tucker, Aaron Baldischweiler, and Zane Bader. Music in this episode was by Blue Dot Sessions, the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Rand Aldo, Hannah Lindgren, Paul DeBraw, and Pawan Krishna. Outside In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. Have you ever asked yourself, can the president really do that? Or wondered if there was too much money in political campaigns? Then check out the new season of You Might Be Right, hosted by us, former Tennessee governors Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam. We're back for a brand new season now, and You Might Be Right cements the idea that constructive disagreement can lead to real problem solving. This season, we're going to dig into the role of the National Guard, AI regulation, and a lot more. New episodes drop every other week. Follow You Might Be Right wherever you get your podcasts. We all need advice, but it's not always clear who to ask, even in 2026. Enter How To, the longstanding advice show, an Ambie Award-nominated Best Personal Growth podcast that's back with new episodes and a new host. Who? Me, Mike Peska. Each week, I tackle a listener question, ranging from travel to finance to relationships and beyond with help from a world-class expert, you know, someone who actually very much knows what they're talking about. Think of it as eavesdropping on someone else's therapy session without the copay or awkward silences. You've got questions, we'll find the experts and the answers. So follow How To with Mike Peska wherever you get podcasts.
