Altered Mates

About Altered Mates

Altered Mates is a podcast where two mates, each fascinated by altered states, meet to discuss the psychedelic experience and its implications for society, culture, health, science, and philosophy. Alejandro is novelist and a teacher of english and psychology. Tobias is an academic and a lecturer in social work and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Our conversations are always grounded in our own direct experiences with a range of ‘altered’ states of consciousness. Hero of the podcast, William James, suggests that, “Our normal waking consciousness… is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different… No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.” You could say that we are trying to construct a better account of our universe, and we are taking James’ advice to heart, by seriously regarding those “other” forms of consciousness. Through our research and our subsequent discussions, we seek to find, update, and/or create, working models of the mind, and of reality, that help us to make sense of our world. We endeavour to integrate our own psychedelic experiences through the power of conversation. But we also seek to integrate the revelations of “the” psychedelic experience, and come to terms with the implications, from cultural, philosophical, and spiritual perspectives. Having said all that, we’re also just two normal blokes who enjoy each other’s company. And our fancy Socratic dialogues are filtered through our own unique brand of Australian banter. After all, we’re just two mates trying to enjoy our limited time on this planet, and to create a more meaningful life for ourselves and our community while we’re here.

Publisher

Altered Mates

Category

arts · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

27 Oct 2023

Latest episode

15 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

39 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   15 Sept 2026

   Episode 39: On The Society of the Spectacle

   In this episode we discuss Guy Debord’s most famous work, The Society of the Spectacle. Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931. He was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, and founding member of the Situationist International, who was especially concerned by the image-saturated consumer culture of capitalism. The Spectacle is not so much defined by Guy Debord as alluded to across the 221 short theses of the book. We might suggest that the Spectacle represents the total triumph of capitalism in conjunction with the ubiquity of mass media; it refers to the image-saturated reality in which we operate and the way in which these images distort our interactions, relationships and picture of the world; it is “the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life.” Our approach to this episode was to each choose a handful of our favourite theses to unpack. As usual, throughout the discussion we wander down many tangents; from the immediacy of life as a nomadic hunter gatherer to the absurdity of filming a concert on your phone. And as you might expect, we speculate as to whether our beloved psychedelics can offer any assistance in transcending the spectacle. References Guy Debord (1967) The Society of the Spectacle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle) (note: we used the Donald Nicholson-Smith translation) Astral Codex Ten — Book Review: The Society Of The Spectacle (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-society-of-the) Tiernan Morgan & Lauren Purje — An Illustrated Guide to Guy Debord’s ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ (https://hyperallergic.com/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/) John Carpenter (1988) They Live (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live) Altered Mates — Episode 38 — They Live, We sleep: on John Carpenter’s They Live (https://www.alteredmates.com/38) The Wachowskis (1999) The Matrix South Park — Season 8, Episode 8 — “Douche and Turd” (2004) Tara Brach (https://www.tarabrach.com/) Cosmo Jarvis (2012) Love This Scott McGlaughlan — Who was Philosopher Guy Debord? (https://www.thecollector.com/who-was-philosopher-guy-debord/) Links Altered Mates Website (https://www.alteredmates.com/) Altered Mates Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/altered.mates/) Altered Mates Substack (https://alteredmates.substack.com/) Altered Mates Patreon (https://patreon.com/AlteredMates?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink) Music for the show by Si Mulumby (https://www.instagram.com/wildmarmalade/?hl=en) A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama Purchase the novel here (https://books2read.com/u/m2eWjG) (hard copy, ebook and audiobook). Listen to the free serialised audiobook here (https://www.patreon.com/collection/560595?view=expanded).

2. 

   11 Aug 2026

   Episode 38: They Live, We Sleep...On John Carpenter's 'They Live'

   John Carpenter is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor, most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. In this episode we discuss his 1988 cult classic and much-memed sci-fi horror film, They Live. The film They Live is based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story, Eight O’Clock in the Morning, and despite the low budget, dubious acting and general cheesiness, is fertile ground for chats about how to see through the ideology of our ruling capitalist overlords. In this discussion, we draw heavily upon Sophie Fiennes & Slavoj Zizek’s documentary film, A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, in which Zizek analyses the film, They Live. We also find time to discuss psychosis, aliens, conspiracies, exploitation of the masses, and even whether there is any way to ethically pressure someone into a psychedelic experience. And for those of you who are wondering what this film has to do with altered states, take into consideration that the sunglasses that hulking protagonist Nada dons were made using ‘Hoffman’ Lenses… References John Carpenter (1988) They Live (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live) Behind the scenes of ‘They Live’: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yhkofGlIj4k&pp=0gcJCWQCo7VqN5tD&ra=m (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yhkofGlIj4k&pp=0gcJCWQCo7VqN5tD&ra=m) Ray Nelson (1963) Eight O’Clock in the Morning Susan Green — Fiendish Slumber Party: A Movie About Perpetual Shut-Eye (https://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2011/07/fiendish-slumber-party-movie-about.html) The Wachowski’s (1999) The Matrix Rage Against the Machine — ‘Down Rodeo’ — Evil Empire (1996) For the full version of Tobias’ ayahuasca experience, listen here: Altered Mates — Episode 18 — Coming out of the psychedelic closet (https://www.alteredmates.com/18) Sophie Fiennes & Slavoj Zizek — They Live Clip (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwKjGbz60k&pp=0gcJCWQCo7VqN5tD&ra=m) from A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pervert%27s_Guide_to_Ideology) (2012) Altered Mates — Episode 34 (https://www.alteredmates.com/34) — ‘Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder!’ on The X-Files: Jose Chung’s From Outer Space Links Altered Mates Website (https://www.alteredmates.com/) Altered Mates Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/altered.mates/) Altered Mates Substack (https://alteredmates.substack.com/) Altered Mates Patreon (https://patreon.com/AlteredMates?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink) Music for the show by Si Mulumby (https://www.instagram.com/wildmarmalade/?hl=en) A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama Purchase the novel here (https://books2read.com/u/m2eWjG) (hard copy, ebook and audiobook). Listen to the free serialised audiobook here (https://www.patreon.com/collection/560595?view=expanded).

3. 

   30 Jun 2026

   Episode 37: The Exorcisms of Emily Rose & Anneliese Michel

   In this episode we discuss the fascinating and baffling practice of exorcism. To anchor our discussion we focus on the American 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the case of Anneliese Michel, from Germany in the 1970s—on whom Emily Rose was supposedly “based” (although, as we acknowledge in this episode, the film plays fast and loose with the truth, so much so, that we would suggest it shouldn’t even really be considered to be “based on a true story”). The film and the case bring up many of our favourite topics of discussion—complex mental health issues, psychosis, pharmaceutical medication, shamanism, religion—although there is a certain dark quality that imposes itself open the vibe of this episode, even more-so than in our recent discussion of the folk horror film Midsommar. Listen at your peril (…and if you want to hear more then stay tuned for the addendum episode next week). References The Exorcism of Emily Rose (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exorcism_of_Emily_Rose) (2005) directed by Scott Derrickson Igor J. Pietkiewicz, Urszula Kłosińska, Radosław Tomalski, Onno van der Hart. Beyond dissociative disorders: A qualitative study of Polish catholic women reporting demonic possession. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468749921000065) European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, Volume 5, Issue 4, 2021. Altered Mates — Episode 34 (https://www.alteredmates.com/34) — ‘Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder!’ on The X-Files: Jose Chung’s From Outer Space Altered Mates — Episodes 26 (https://www.alteredmates.com/26) & 27 (https://www.alteredmates.com/27) — On the Borderline Parts 1 & 2 Altered Mates — Episode 11 (https://www.alteredmates.com/11) — Giving LSD to kids! (…to treat severe childhood schizophrenia) Iris McIntosh — Film review: The Exorcism of Emily Rose: Demons and Medicine (https://www.cmf.org.uk/article/film-review-the-exorcism-of-emily-rose-demons-and-medicine/) El Alien (Trance Mix) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7jK-cuNydY) — note: I (Alejandro) first heard this song sampled in the introduction to The Psychedelic Salon Podcast (https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcasts/), hosted by Lorenzo Haggarty. If you haven’t checked it out, Lorenzo’s podcast is a treasure trove of audio from Terence McKenna. John Duffey (2011) Lessons Learned: The Anneliese Michel Exorcism Austen Harvey (2025) What Happened To Anneliese Michel? Inside The Horrific Death That Inspired The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (https://allthatsinteresting.com/the-exorcism-of-emily-rose-true-story) Links Altered Mates Website (https://www.alteredmates.com/) Altered Mates Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/altered.mates/) Altered Mates Substack (https://alteredmates.substack.com/) Altered Mates Patreon (https://patreon.com/AlteredMates?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink) Music for the show by Si Mulumby (https://www.instagram.com/wildmarmalade/?hl=en) A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama Purchase the novel here (https://books2read.com/u/m2eWjG) (hard copy, ebook and audiobook). Listen to the free serialised audiobook here (https://www.patreon.com/collection/560595?view=expanded).

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

12 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 52 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

62

Social presence

91

YouTube

0

Engagement

60

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.