Benjamin Mudge is currently researching psychedelics (ayahuasca) and bipolar disorder. He has a background in music, art and political activism, and is now a PhD candidate in the Psychiatry Department at Flinders University.
CV
Benjamin taught himself the science of bipolar disorder while working at Neuroscience laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline, to be able to manage his own personal experience of manic depression. He invented the ‘FM Compressor Analogy’ of bipolar disorder, which inspired the scientific discovery of phosphoinositide turnover in cortical neurons as the locus of bipolar mood swings and lithium efficacy, as published by his mother in Nature and other journals.
After psychiatrists prescribed him 17 different pharmaceuticals over a period of 10 years (all of which were problematic), he gave up on pharmaceutical psychiatry and decided to find his own solution to living with manic depression. He has been managing his bipolar disorder with ayahuasca for 13 years – without any need of pharmaceuticals – and was awarded a PhD scholarship to research whether his personal protocol could assist other bipolar people.
His vision is to make ayahuasca ceremonies available to bipolar people as an alternative treatment to pharmaceutical drugs. He is also an advocate for the religious freedom of ayahuasca ceremonies and led a team of ayahuasceros to the Parliament of the World’s Religions that succeeded in receiving the Parliament’s recognition of ayahuasca ceremonies as legitimate religious practices.
He is, together with his mother, the founder of Bipolar Disorder and Kambo Ceremonies.
“Bipolar Disorder CIC was founded in 2015 by Benjamin Mudge and his mother, Professor Anne Mudge, with the intention of funding and producing progressive scientific research to address these problems, and educational resources to empower people experiencing manic depression and those that support them. This company is motivated and guided directly by the subjective experience of bipolar people and remains independent from the financial interests of pharmaceutical corporations.”
“Kambô is not psychoactive, there are no legal restrictions on Kambô anywhere in the world, and it is safe when given by traditional methods. Kambô is applied through small holes burned into the surface of the skin. Kambô induces a strong detoxifying purge and is, therefore, a challenging process that is best received in a safely-held and compassionate setting.“
Media
- Benjamin Mudge | The Therapeutic Potential of Ayahuasca for People with Bipolar Disorder (ICEERS, 2020)
- Benjamin Mudge – Introducing Ayahuasca (Psychedelic Society, June 2019)
- Benjamin Mudge – Psychotherapeutic and Psychiatric Uses of Ayahuasca (Psychedelic Society, June 2019)
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