Unofficial Vital Student ‘Zine
Notes from Vital Psychedelic Training class of ‘23
Integration: planning and meaning making with Kyle Buller
Top integration tips from the Vital Psychedelic Training founder and friends.
My unofficial Vital Study Zine #18 with observations from Vital Psychedelic Training and recent happenings in the space
From Transcendent Country of the Mind by Sari Soninen published by The Eriskay Collection
‘Integration is something that the psychedelic space talks about a lot, without ever going into detail about what it is.’
Thjat’s according to Jungian psychoanalyst Scott J Hill in his seminal work, Confrontation with the Unconscious: Jungian Depth Psychology and Psychedelic Experience. (On which topic, much more later down the line).
And it’s fair to say that early integration programs were pretty toss: some progressive psychotherapy here, some wellbeing basics there, plus some toned-down underground and/or Groffian tactics drip-fed to the receptive.
To be fair, rectifying the psychedelic experience and life in post-industrial society is hard enough as it is. Helping a vulnerable individual to navigate it while reamaining within the bounds of a socially acceptable therapeutic practice arguably more so.
Nonethless, unprepared clinical trial psychologiosts and wellbeing hustlers in plausible knitwear alike mostly ended up fruitlessly recommending meditation apps to mind-blown metropoles, after they’d seen ayahuasca on Netflix and naively presumed it’d be like that immersive Salvador Dali show.
“No dramatic life changes within the first fortnight”
Psychedelic integration therapy was showing the whole space up, frankly.
So fair play to Vital Psychedelic Training headmaster and consciousness thought leader Kyle Buller. He took time to assemble a worthwhile integration manual while interning at MAPS, and presented on the topic to begin Module Five of Vital’s year-long psychedelic training programme.
Even for total edgelords, actual integration is not to be sniffed at. Because it concerns the subject of… making your trip go on forever.
Sort of. The golden you who blossoms under the medicine can be ‘integrated’ to a certain extent.
Using techniques like Jungian depth analysis, those seemingly fantastical visions can be understood as unconscious guidance; in a similar manner to dreams. This is good news for those of us who receive a sensation along the lines of ‘Why are you worrying about that? Think about this,’ when we run our carefully prepared list of neuroses – ‘intentions’ – past the medicine.
Likewise, going for a walk in the woods while listening to John Hopkins does help one not feel so shitty to be back in reality. Troopers like Dr Sam Gandy (coming up later in the integration module) have got stats on the benefits of setting trippers free into nature. Which is the one thing us recreational yobs could’ve told you about integration. (Back the outlaw days we made do with a KLF CD, David Lynch’s version of Dune and lashings of soap bar.)
Guess what also helps with your psychedleic integration? Meditation, which, long story short, aids effective neuroplasticity, clarity and homeostasis.
It’s all in this laudable round-up paper from Geoff J. Bathje out of Chicago’s Adler University, Psychedelic integration: An analysis of the concept and its practice.
And here’s my edit of Top Integration Tips from the week’s barrage of alternative self-improvement intel. And remember everyone – “No dramatic life changes within the first fortnight following the experience,” says Kyle, “…preferably longer.”
These five items I pulled from the week’s research are themed along Vital’s natural element-themed structure. Air provides an overview of psychedelic use, Fire concerns therapeutic applications, Water covers ‘space holding’ – the art of keeping it together, Earth is where you’ll find medical matters, and Ether discusses integration, the process of bringing psychedelic power into regular life.
Into the Unknown?
Your voyager no idea what to expect? Whip up a quick mock ceremony for a taste of the sacred and profane.
Approach
Virgin voyagers come to psychedelic specialists for advice on what to expect. Break them in gently with a mock psychedelic ceremony
Casa Organica, Mexico City
“Some people don’t know enough about set or setting,” says Dr Kyle Buller, while lecturing his Vital students on the reality of providing a psychedelic integration therapy service.
Edgelords like us might consider it borderline basic to bust out the tarot cards.
But this is the general public we’re taking out to the edges of consciousness here. It’s probably a good idea to ease them into the whole tripping thing kind-of gradually.
Kyle’s trade secret solution? A mock min-ceremony.
“You can run, say, a thirty minute breathwork session to find out what clients are comfortable with,” he advises the seasoned transpersonal therapist, cannily.
Sensing out what trippy vibes a virgin voyager’s into – and which they’re decidedly against – could make the difference between them bathing in transcendent bliss – or suffering a total bummer.
How much woo-woo does the client fancy during their experience on a scale of one to ten? Perhaps world music reminds them of their dad? Does incense give them a headache? “Some people simply don’t like those strong smells,” says Kyle.
And may their taste be better suited to a jungle retreat than a western clinic? All this even before we get on to the hugging or not thing.
“A set-up of a ceremony is also a good opportunity to show them how to breathe through difficulty, how to intensify the experience, how to titrate it”
Nervy initiates might just answer ‘I don’t mind’ when asked what their preferences might be, whether they’re deciding which exotic plant medicine to choose from, or how to set out their lounge before a Bloombox-style at-home medical experience.
But their subconscious might be more assertive, once unleashed. And decide it’s really triggered by classical religious music like an Arvo Part composition say, when you didn’t even twig it was a christian jam.
Or they may seriously not like being touched when they’re coming up, and dislike even a supportive pat on the shoulder.
“A set-up of a ceremony is also a good opportunity them show to breathe through difficulty, how to intensify the experience, how to titrate it,” says the seasoned transpersonal therapist and Vital course leader.
Easy on the sacred tobacco.
Attention Ideology
Someone to listen to our trippy BS is often all we want when we first get back to Earth.
Therapy
Someone to listen to our trippy BS is often all we want when we first get back to Earth
From Transcendent Country of the Mind by Sari Soninen published by The Eriskay Collection
Like all things consciousness-expansion related any integration practice will be highly subjective, and complex.
And somehow, simultaneously, dazzlingly, beautifully simple.
Vital students, including storied specialists, were in agreement as to what many voyagers seek from their post-trip debriefs.
“Just being witnessed, or seen, or heard, is so paramount,” says one wise Vital student in the question and answer session after Kyle Buller’s lecture to open Vital’s training module on psychedelic integration.
“Just be open, without really much of any judgment, or even too much feedback”
Indeed Dr Timothy Leary, for it is he, wrote in The Politics of Ecstasy, ‘Close your eyes and listen... and learn that it's the oldest message of love and peace and laughter.’
Another Vital learner, recently returned from retreat, says of his own touchdown: “It's very important for the listener to just be open, without really much of any judgment, or even too much feedback.”
So, do say: ‘Wow’.
Don’t say: ‘Rr… right.’
Conversation stopper: ‘I think you should stop hanging out with those people.’
Calling Interdimensional Rescue
Crisis management is the reality of integration therapy. And this is what it looks like.
Space
Crisis management is the reality of integration therapy, professionals say
From Transcendent Country of the Mind by Sari Soninen published by The Eriskay Collection
Lisbon-based psychotherapist Marc Aixala says the reality of psychedelic integration is most clients come seeking help, having a bad time of some description.
“So my expertise is more focused on people in difficulties,” Aixala told Vital lecturer Kyle Buller on the Psychedelics Today podcast: “When I talk about integration, that’s what I’m referring to the most.”
Aixala crunched the data on years of psychedelic damage limitation. The most common issues are presented in his book Psychedelic Integration out now.
“Psychedelics teach us that the greatest healer is in ourselves”
Among the top comedown crises: anxiety and insomnia obviously; struggling to process what emerged from the experience; inner conflict with an instruction supposedly delivered from on high; actual flashbacks and HPPD; reality breakdown; plus good old edgy, lingering discomfort.
“Don’t create a need for integration in people that don’t have it”
Apportioning blame, Aixala’s figures cite lack of suitable preparation, exacerbation of existing mental health issues, dodgy healers, and what Aixala calls “Repeated intakes without integration, a new trend in which people go from experience to experience. They for instance care more about transpersonal entities, losing reality in quite a severe way.”
Of depth work, journaling, downloading-but-never-using meditation apps, and the other trappings of vanilla, middle class ‘integration’ Aixala says: “Most of the time we can do that on our own.”
The former telephone engineer adds, “I’m careful as a therapist not to create an additional need for integration in people that don’t have it. One of the things that psychedelics teaches us, is that greatest healer is in ourselves.”
Wavy Garms
What the modern-day professional psychopomp is wearing this season.
Medical
What the modern-day professional psychopomp is wearing this season
Not this, unfortunately. It’s from ‘Ikon’ by Nick Knight available now
In his definitive book Psychedelic Renaissance, Dr Ben Sessa of Bristol’s Awakn Clinics writes: “An unfortunate but necessary truth is that professionals working in this field must remain as boring and staid as possible.”
No ceremonial robes allowed?
What’s the sartorially minded integration coach to do?
Faced by this matter of cosmic import, I turned to Vital’s students for answers after Kyle Buller’s lecture on ‘psychedelic integration’. Which is, for the uninitiated, ‘the process by which a psychedelic experience translates into positive changes in daily life.’
“I'm a professional therapist and I've got tattoos on knuckles and neck,” says my Vital colleague Mackenzie Amara.
Also from ‘Ikon’ by Nick Knight available now
“My image filters out the people that would be distracted by that,” says the head-turning Jungian depth psychologist, based in Zurich. Though, “the flipside is more likelihood of extreme projections” she says, referring to a client’s tendency to act out behaviour patterns on their therapist… that’s often intensified in psychedelic sessions.
“Image considerations are more about what projections you might be managing”
Sporting a strong look might muddy the astral airwaves once the archetypes start flying: “Image considerations are less about fitting in with the crowd, and more about what projection you might be managing,” Mackenzie advises.
The general concensus from the students is that the culture behind whatever medicine’s going down can be respected in the ceremony. Personally I take that as a green light for cloaks and headdresses.
Also from ‘Ikon’ by Nick Knight available now
You’re not at an after party, though. Even the most progressive psychedelic ceremonies demand some decorum.
“It goes back to: how much are we influencing people?” says integration lecturer and Vital founder Kyle Buller, “I wanted to wear a shirt in our last Jamaica retreat of this reindeer eating a mushroom. And I was, like… maybe I'll save that and just wear something bland…”
Heoric Doses of Reality
Peak existence is the new peak experience, says 5-MEO DMT expert Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug.
Peak existence is the new peak experience, says 5-MEO DMT expert Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug
By Trulee Hall from ‘Plays on Foreplays’, at Rusha & Co, Los Angeles, February 4 till March 11, 2023
The strictest lesson psychedelics taught me, is that they themselves are not important. It’s lived experience that is.
I don’t mean a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers existence. (Although I am all for that too, especially as part of some ‘path of excess leading to the palace of wisdom’ thing). I mean stuff like Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug does.
The 5-MEO DMT research maven took up free diving while stuck in, y’know, Egypt during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I believe our society has emotional constipation. We need to get that shit out”
This helped over come her fear of deep open water – ‘thalassophobia’ – and since she’s set two free diving records in her native Norway.
“I believe our society has emotional constipation. We need to get that shit out,” says the firebrand, who’s swift to remind us that “different diets lead to a different psychedelic experience,” certainly according to plant medicine purists.
This is felt on the material plane: “Putting the body back into the equation, is the way forward,” Dr Uthaug claims.
This could mean bioenergetic therapy to encourage consciousness ‘integration’ on a physical level. Or… actually doing things as opposed to just talking about them.
“Changes need to be actively translated into your life,” says Dr Uthaug… which admittedly is likely to mean unexpected challenges, hard truths, and personal growth generally earned the hard way as per usual.
“In the light of day, insights are about lifestyle”
The trip is only part of the healing. You do the rest with the actions you undertake. That the mushroom or whatever told you to do.
“A more holistic framework is what I’d love to see going forward, here in the space,” says Dr Uthaug, “Take an exaggerated example: when an addict take a psychedelic, they realise, oh, I shouldn't be taking this substance anymore because it fucks me up, right? And so in the light of day, insights are about lifestyle.”
Each ‘Zine features the most mind-blowing bits I scrawled down during each of Vital’s exclusive live lectures by the finest minds in the space. Browse them by issue or go straight to the introductions with lecturer details.
And search by the topics: Traditional and Modern Approaches, Therapy, Space Holding, Medical and Clinical, and Integration. Funnies at the end too.
Your voyager no idea what to expect? Whip up a quick mock ceremony for a taste of the sacred and profane.