Why Seek a Psychedelic Guide?
Once upon a time, long before modern medicine ever existed or the concept of “therapy” ever entered our imagination, humans from cultures across the world have been guiding people into healing through the use of psychedelic plants.
There is significant evidence to suggest that psychedelic compounds have been used for ritual, medicine, and recreation for at least 12,000 years. We can find the earliest depictions of their use on ancient murals in Australia, caves in Spain, a living history taught in Africa, Siberia, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, across Europe, and Central and South America. Whether we nail down the exact dates and applications of use, we as a human collective have clearly been doing this for a very long time.
Flash forward to the 1940s, 50s, and 60s when psychedelic compounds were being rediscovered by the West and brought into the mainstream by Albert Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Richard “Ram Dass” Alpert, Aldous Huxley, Ken Kesey, Alan Watts, and so many other philosophers, thinkers, artists, and cultural icons. Simultaneously we had a renaissance of research and therapeutic treatments, as well as wild unchecked debauchery as masses followed Leary’s iconic words to "Turn on, tune in, and drop out." Don’t get me wrong, I’m sad about how this part of the story ended, but it’s not really that hard to understand how this movement swiftly got targeted and taken down with Richard Nixon’s “War on Drugs.”
So although there is a history going back 12,000 years or much, much, longer - if you are one of the people who discovered psychedelics in the last 50 years since this War on Drugs began, it’s very likely you’ve been doing it in the shadows. It’s amazing how the threat of a 25-year prison sentence soils the safety of many brave enough psychonauts. But now that the most life-changing, psychological, and spiritual tools in human history had been handed to the masses - of course they didn’t discontinue. What we were ultimately robbed of when they became forbidden was proper education, and in turn safety, and for many of us, access to using these tools to their full potential. There are of course exceptions for some of you to this, but I like many, was taught to use psychedelics by my peers, who were taught by their peers, and I’m pretty sure none of us really knew what we were actually doing.
I acquired my first bag of psilocybin mushrooms at a music festival 25 years ago. I ate a couple of grams with my girlfriend and then we proceeded to wander around aimlessly. I remember feeling confused, sick, scared, then when I got the hang of things, laughing, enjoying “the world is breathing” kind of visuals. I had a delightful last couple hours as I got just far enough from the crowds to the woods nearby, where I rested on a tree listening to the soul-soothing sounds of Santana (for the very first time!) on someone’s boombox stereo not far away. In the end, I called this experience “fun,” but if I’m honest, I don’t think it added significant value to my life other than questioning the society that made this compound illegal, and that I no longer feared the unknown when it came to experimenting with psychedelics.
My first dose of LSD was something similar, a fun day of wandering around on a beach in Northern California. Admittedly after several more attempts, after reading the book BE HERE NOW by Ram Dass and letting this wisdom percolate in me, I did finally have that experience people write and talk about, the one where my ego as I knew it dissolved and woke up as if from a dream to the profundity of the universe and all that is. But then… I had to go to work the next day. I served coffee and frozen yogurt to customers. I had no one to talk to about it. My best friend ended up following the same formula, I made him read BE HERE NOW, then took him to the same beach, then he had some very similar epiphanies. Having him on board was beyond measure grounding and helpful. And then one new person in my community saw some new twinkle in my eye and ended up being a crucially important ally in my life at that juncture. Although this was a breakthrough, it actually eventually led to a full-scale existential depression that was on and off again for a good many years. In the decade of experimentation that followed this epiphany trip, I can admit consistently having fun, gaining some insights, and having unusual and powerful encounters. But if I’m honest, these experiences only did so much to help me grow beyond that one anomaly. It was always helpful to connect to the transpersonal places I would find as a reminder, but unfortunately, I just kept coming back and having very little be different with the boring old heavy personal. The most amazing and powerful insights often had no grounding, no guidance on what to do with them, and within a week, no matter how clearly I penetrated the veils of reality, I always had to return to the material world and felt frustrated I couldn’t hold the “something” I had found.
So I stopped. For 5 years. At the time my second child was turning 2, about 5 years ago, I was out of grad school and making my way as a psychotherapist. My first job was working inside my local jail, which really put a buzz kill on doing illegal things. But after a rather abrupt ending to that job, a horrifically emotional breakup, and a read of Michael Pollan’s “How to Change the Mind,” I took a good hard second look at these “drugs” I’d been so drawn to using and had previously declared a dead-end with. As reality seems fond of doing when the right insight meets the right timing, serendipity led me to my first psychedelic guide. He was an older gentleman who had been practicing for over 30 years doing medicine work with people. What I liked about him was his humility, kindness, and that I felt quite comfortable being myself even after meeting him via zoom for the first time in a meet-and-greet assessment interview.
I am going to spare you the long beautiful story of this weekend experience that followed, but, spoiler alert, this was “the big one.” What is much more important and relevant than the details of what happened is simply the context that allowed the most profoundly powerful psychedelic journey to happen - my guide. After hundreds of hours in psychedelic states, this was the first time I had ever been guided into a psychedelic ceremony by another. He knew about my story, my intentions, coached me on what our ceremony would look like beforehand, the principles behind why we were going to stay still and wear an eye mask. Within the ceremony, he held this “container” by holding me to the rules, whispering to me to put my eye mask back on, and stay with what was happening. I was guided to sit with dignity in meditation the whole time, and at one point I began to fall over and he caught me, held me, and stayed with me coaching my breathing until I was stable. When the day was over he listened to what happened, helped me understand what was happening, and helped me digest and connect it to my life. I stayed and did another day with him and similarly, he stayed by my side and breathed with me, and when I began to cry for what seemed like hours, he held my hand and just stayed with me, gave me appropriate encouragers, and acted as a second nervous system crying some himself. He stayed in contact for weeks following, checking in and seeing how I was doing via text. And, when I was going through a rough patch with integration, he got on the phone and told me some practices to try that were very helpful. What followed was the biggest leap in my personal evolution I’ve ever had. I changed. My body changed. Emotionally I could feel more than I could in years. People actually stopped recognizing me because I had transformed inside and out.
I’m still thinking about this journey years later. It’s still working on me. I'm excited to say that I firmly believe radical transformation and change is possible. There is a concept in Sufism I’ve always loved that there are “states” and “stations.” States change, stations are like new platforms we can stand on. I was often successful at changing my state through the use of psychedelic compounds, but I was only mildly successful at changing my station. Let me be specific: Over ten years, a pound or more of psilocybin mushrooms, 50 or so doses of LSD, roughly 10g of MDMA, some attempts with DMT, Mescaline, San Pedro, and pounds of cannabis (yes it definitely is a psychedelic too but that's for another article) I changed somewhat. The BE HERE NOW trip near the beginning changed me the most but everything else was often just chasing that same experience. Compare all that to 16 hours of guided medicine work - I changed in ways I simply never have. Ways that make life easier to live, has me feel more fulfilled, and has me more “myself” than ever before. Please note that I intentionally left the name of the medicine out because I don't want you to project upon it and miss the most important part: the medicine is an important catalyst, my connection to the guide was the vital ingredient that allowed this to happen. And although I’m partial to my first guide, I’ve since had other guides along the way who also offered me impactful healing experiences. Turns out you don’t need the master on the mountaintop, all it really takes is someone with experience and training, knows the medicine, and that you can trust and feel safe with.
After over 10 years of practicing psychotherapy and seeing people grow slowly but surely, naturally, I was quite drawn to doing radical work like this myself. I began underground like most people. Then two years ago I was privileged to find work at a local clinic The Center for Medicinal Mindfulness that works only with legal psychedelics: cannabis, ketamine, and now psilocybin. What a refreshing change it’s been to practice out of the shadows and offer something that we can be purely transparent about. Given that psilocybin is the newest to the table, you might be surprised to hear that consistently people are having the most profound experiences of their lives on just the first two: cannabis and ketamine. Keep in mind there are some important decisions and critical thinking involved when it comes to matching a particular client to the right psychedelic medicine, some of these compounds will actually make certain conditions worse. But with that said, even if I had every psychedelic compound on the table, any of these three medicines when used in the right way can offer profound healing to people when guided skillfully, with someone who knows your story, holds your hand when you need it, offer verbal encouragers when you need them, and tracks your environment and safety so you don’t have to. It’s not magic that allows these profound experiences to happen, it’s the experienced guide.
Although I put myself at some amount of risk by even sharing some of my checkered past here, I have come to be a very strong advocate for sharing our stories. Unless someone takes these risks, many in our culture will remain uninformed, stuck using powerful tools in the wrong ways, and many will be too afraid to move forward with changing their lives for the better. I believe these tools used in the right way can change each of us in profound ways. By extension, this is exactly what the world needs at a time when I think it needs it more than ever. But I’m also a little worried…
Here we are today at what many are calling a “second psychedelic renaissance.” Psychedelic therapy is hitting the mainstream again, and plant-based compounds are now decriminalized in Oregon and Colorado and very likely this fire will spread. Although this may be one of the most exciting developments in my career path, loosening boundaries means that people are going to use these medicinal tools in ways that could also be harmful. I’m not saying people shouldn’t find safe ways to experiment with these compounds on their own. If you want to do that, you’re lucky, today there are lots of great resources online to create a proper set and setting. If you’re going to do it anyway, please do your homework with a minimum of Google searching: “How to have a safe psychedelic journey.” But I have a prediction that it’s only going to be so helpful for you. If you’re listening to the buzz of possibility around psychedelics, often they’re talking about the guided experience. All of the clinical research and radical results you may have heard about are with a sober guided facilitator.
It is my strong belief that the psychedelic model involving a therapist or guide offers the safest, most reproducible, most reliable, and most beneficial results that a psychedelic experience can offer. There is a radical difference between having a recreational experience with these medicinal compounds versus a therapeutic one that addresses deeper problems and concerns. This kind of work is actually really difficult to facilitate by oneself and you will still need a “guide” in the form of resources you find for setting up the experience. But even then, having someone you can share this with who understands, who helps you put the pieces back together, is not only valuable it’s sometimes crucial. And if you’re one of the many people working through capital “T” Trauma out there, it can be quite difficult to stay with the extraordinary discomforts that are often part of healing. Pulling away from trauma’s painful release can actually make things feel significantly worse. It’s exceptionally hard to stay steady when there may be an instinct to get up and pull away from the content at hand, especially without an assembled ego to hold your own structure and intent. Without proper guidance, one may have a higher likelihood to have what feels like stuckness or an unfinished/incomplete experience. I often explain to my clients that the journey begins before the psychedelic experience and continues long afterward. The preparation can be instrumental to the outcome of a journey, and oftentimes the most delicate and important work actually takes place afterward during the integration phase. Having a relationship with a professional therapist or guide that includes this before and after is often the most important ingredients to a successful outcome.
Furthermore, find the guide that fits. If you want to do trauma work, I’d make sure your guide has some experience in this area. If there has been a history of mental health concerns, I recommend finding a psychotherapist. If what’s most important is the mystical and/or spiritual layer, you might choose a minister or someone with relevant synergistic background to yourself. This is a good time to selfishly choose exactly what helps you feel seen, safe, and understood. If you're most comfortable with a specific gender, sexual orientation, age, or whatever it is, these might be important factors for you to consider.
I know it’s exciting times. We have more knowledge at our fingertips and tools available than ever before in history. If you can relate to the story I’ve told here and are hoping to take the next leap in your evolution (and you’ve found the journey discouraging at times) I recommend taking this step. I know - it’s expensive. I know, it can feel like a big commitment and process. But if you want to change your mind, change your life, and feel better about this mixed bag called “life” consider what I have found to be the most efficient option out there, finding the right psychedelic guide to help you get there much faster.