PLANT MEDICINES, PSYCHEDELIC-ASSISTED THERAPY and the GLOBAL PSYCHEDELIC MOVEMENT

Feeling to add my two cents about some of the big shifts currently unfolding in the global psychedelic movement. Particularly the legislation of certain substances for use within the context of Psychedelic Assisted Therapy. I’ll say off the bat, that I’m ultimately for full legislation within all contexts and generally prefer an atmosphere of trusting adults to make their own decisions about what they do and don’t ingest for whatever reasons they choose. A healthy ecology has diversity, and a diversity of approaches feels more necessary now than ever in my opinion. However, with the exception of a handful of countries like Peru, that is not our reality at this moment. Instead, we are seeing mostly only psychiatrists and in some places, psychotherapists being given the green light to administer these medicines and only within the therapeutic context.

Having a background as a traditionally trained Ayahuasca ceremonialist (curanderismo) within the Shipibo tradition, part of me has felt quite ambivalent about this sudden enthusiasm around psychedelic plant medicines and the ways they are now being embraced by mainstream psychology (I’m speaking specifically to plant medicines, not MDMA, Ketamine etc. which I think is fantastic!). Until very recently, these institutions have demonised and pathologized these medicines and the altered states they engender (of course there have always been certain individuals who are/were exceptions, Stan Grof being one of the many who comes to mind), so it seems a little bizarre to me that they are now the only legal keepers of these medicines.

Naturally, I’m celebrating the fact that suffering people will have an easier time accessing plant medicines that can provide genuine relief. I’m also enjoying the ways in which it seems to have softened some of the judgement towards these medicines culturally and provoked much-needed conversation around their use.

How could I not?

But another part of me is concerned that “The Spectacle” to use Guy Debord’s words, is attempting to co-opt, decontextualise, standardise and monetize a powerful rewilding force (and of course, we can argue that it was already happening within the psychedelic tourism movement to a lesser degree, which I believe is true). That the prioritisation of this one context over the others is just another attempt to gain control over something powerful that it was starting to lose its grip on. That part of me also really laments what will now be increased use of these medicines outside of ritual containers and Relational Living Earth cosmology/frameworks.

And if I’m honest, I suppose I’m also frustrated that folks with a psychotherapeutic background are being given the go, while those of us with years of traditional training would still have to practise illegally and at great personal risk. Not to mention the fact that indigenous peoples, the root keepers of these medicines and associated traditions, who have hundreds if not thousands of years of history and unbroken lineages of practice and transmission would also fall under the banner of “illegal” practitioners. Doesn’t make any sense to me.

It certainly does feel like the pharma economy machine is attempting to “psychologize the revolution” to use Josh Schrei’s words (I will link his excellent podcast on this topic below as well as his podcast on decontextualisation as both are highly relevant to this conversation and he does far more justice to the topic then I can in this one post).

I’m also perplexed by the number of people being certified to administer these medicines with little to no direct experience themselves – as if being a psychiatrist/psychotherapist somehow automatically qualifies you to hold space for entheogenic/ neurognostic medicine experiences Being a therapist and ceremonial plant medicine facilitator are two different skillsets in my opinion. Complimentary, absolutely!

But not the same.

In fact, I think it’s very wise for most folks from Western backgrounds to have ongoing therapeutic support both before and after the ceremony (just like I’m totally on board with more traditionally trained and underground facilitators being trauma-informed), but to leave out the animistic relational side of this work is a devastating fragmentation of something precious in my opinion. And it is a continuation of a very dangerous trend of de-nanimation that I believe is responsible for so much of the mayhem unfolding in the world today.

I sat in ceremony with my teachers in the jungle, every second night for years! Years!!! Underwent (and continue to undergo) dozens of master plant dietas and diligently apprenticed to the many different aspects of that tradition, a tradition in which ayahuasca ceremony is actually only a tiny part of a much larger, nuanced and multifaceted system of healing. I am still considered a rank beginner by their standards. There are very good reasons for that, and if you have gone deeply enough into that world, then you understand why that is.

But all this is happening regardless of what I think about it, and I suppose I’m also curious about where this will all lead and its impact on the larger pattern… And that part that doesn’t really know much about much, also wonders if this might be part of a larger plant-based/earth-based agenda Maybe I need to trust the plants a bit more, maybe it is they who are co-opting the industry and not the other way around?

Well since it’s happening anyway, I’d like to add my voice to what I’d like to see happening in this emerging field – because even though I’m a beginner that knows nothing from one point of view, I’m simultaneously someone with a great deal of experience from another, even if I don’t talk about it openly very often.

So firstly, I’d like to see the people who are being certified to administer plant medicines having direct macrodose experiences within different contexts. And ideally, some of those experiences should be with skilled practitioners from traditional shamanic/animist lineages, to be introduced to the roots of this work and hopefully gain an appreciation for those profound old-world ways of working.

Ideally, they will also be intentionally encouraged to have challenging encounters with their own psyches on these medicines and then given the opportunity to work through them with skilled support from both Psychotherapeutic and Shamanic perspectives. Hopefully, this will foster a better understanding of the forces their clients are meeting from the inside and then come to see the value of the different approaches depending on what’s required at the moment.

And I suppose I would like to see therapists having a direct experience of the limitations of their paradigm and be humble enough to call on traditionally trained animist/shamanic practitioners if the situation called for it (and vice versa of course!).

I’d like to see a strong focus on bringing awareness to and mapping the contours of the unconscious, unquestioned assumptions of our cultural story…Because these experiences are ALWAYS taking place within a context and that context DOES matter and DOES influence both the experience and the integration/sense-making of that experience. For most of us in the West, that will be the ‘anthropocentric’, ‘hyper-individualist’, ‘reductive’, ‘rationalist’, ‘materialist’, ‘consumer focused’, ‘profit prioritising’, ‘desacralised’, white, male-dominated culture of objectification and de-nanimation in a time of late-stage capitalism and ecological collapse.

Following on from that, it feels really important that other more life-affirming stories and meaning-making frameworks/cosmologies are identified and introduced in its place; Deep Ecology, Cosmogenesis, Systems Thinking, The Holistic Gaian Sciences, Taoism, Eco-Buddhism, Paganism and Earth-Honouring Animistic Traditions. If you can’t find a Relational Living Earth framework to embed these experiences within – then the Story of Separation will likely be the default soil these experiences take root.

So much to say on this point in particular. I’m of the opinion that engagement of neurognostic plant medicines, in individual and group settings, centred within relational living earth cosmology is deep medicine for the very particular wounding of the Western psyche. This is an area of particular passion and interest to me, one I intend to write more about and I suspect it will be in this area that Miraz and I might serve the movement taking place.

Essentially, I want to see these medicines respectfully embedded… Not extracted! As is our habit with everything we take a fancy to in the West.

So much more to say on every point I’ve already mentioned and so many more points I could mention (such as cultural appropriation, part of the profits derived from plant medicine work going back to indigenous wisdom keepers and protection of forest ecologies, taking medicines out of the office and onto the land, bioregionalism and soooo much more)…

But I think I’ll leave it here for now.

Always feels a bit edgy throwing my own words out into the world, so I’ll just say that I totally reserve the right to have a different answer if you ask me about this again tomorrow