Into the Unknown?

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.

Transcendental family systems

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Integration

Ready for ceremonies with mum and dad, the grandparents plus your kids and even the dog?

Shanthi Chandrase, ‘Neural Introspection’

Tribal gatherings could be on the cards for all the clan.

Phase one tests showed microdoses of LSD did no statistical harm to Alzheimer’s sufferers.

“LSD’s complex pharmacology works on so many different 5-HT receptors,” 17 to be exact, “that it impairs several of the various functions that lead to Alzheimer’s Disease,” says Vital neuroscience lecturer Dr Charles Nichols.

Testing LSD on Alzheimer’s patients is an adaptation described as “surreal” in the post-lecture discussion by a psychiatrist studying on Vital. 

Corresponding tests in the UK are taking place around Liskeard in an idyllic corner of Cornwall, England. Phase one tests for safety have indicated no harm using microdoses of up to 20ug.

There was however a noticeable increase in ‘psychotic episodes’ amongst the placebo group. Suppress your giggles triggered by thoughts of oldies on an LSD placebo turning up at the health centre convinced they’ve seen a pink elephant. 

“Psychedelic protocols with children will happen”

Sounds like the elders can join in the ancestor ceremony; as befits them.

So can the younger generation.

“Absolutely there's a place for effective and safe psychedelic therapy in younger people,” said Dr Ben Sessa in the Q&A after his Vital lecture back in the Therapy module.

“I have seen too many teenagers lose the battle to mental disorder and kill themselves in my career,” continued Dr Sessa in fine style, “I have no doubt that psychedelic protocols with children will happen.” 

It’s on already in fact. "MAPS are currently leading the pack in terms of MDMA for PTSD, are going to be doing PTSD research in initially teenagers 14 to 17 then younger age group 11-14, and then possibly six to six to 11,” says Dr Sessa.

And mum? She can feel really special down at the ceremony.

“Hormone replacement therapy significantly increases 5-HT2A expression”

Charles’ is admired for his ‘animal models’. Not a collection of balsa wood dinosaurs that adorn his lab windowsill; rats bred to be especially sensitive to psychometric testing. This sensitive rat pack is mostly female, which has led Charles’ team to discern a key detail for menopausal psychedelic voyagers.

“Oestrogen, and hormone replacement therapy significantly increase 5-HT2a expression,” he reveals, “So we have to optimise women and men differently.” 

To test for depression whether treated with psilocybin, ketamine or SSRIs, rats are usually challenged to swim across a small basin of water towards an exit duct. Paddling around searching around for the way out is known as ‘active coping’ and therefore healthy. Zoning out in the middle of the water awaiting your watery end ‘cos what’s the point anyway? is ‘passive coping’, and bad news of course.

Plus with dogs and cats taking Prozac and other SSRIs it can’t be long before your favourite furry fellow sentient beings are in a higher state of consciousness too.

Fun for all the family.

Ceremony in Jamaica with Sacred Transitions Retreats and New Psychonaut

Treasure Beach ‘The Cornwall of Jamaica’ is where I’d send anyone close to me pondering a first experience.

Take a look.

Let them know it’s Saturnalia time

Integration

Heal the world from collective trauma says Thomas Hubl

2022’s Medicine Festival in the UK

My journalism network brother Matt Green is the author of Aftershock: fighting War, Surviving Trauma and Finding Peace (New Statesman: ‘Outstanding’, Spectator: ‘A work of integrity and substance’, TV’s Bear Grylls: ‘Compelling, humbling and inspiring’).

He examines collective trauma in his new blog Resonant World – and ways to heal it. Like the UK’s Medicine Festival whereupon he has hence returned. 

“I’m going to sound too idealistic and starry-eyed about what is basically a fun gathering in a field,” Matt reports, “But a core part of me knows I came away feeling more peaceful, grounded and inspired than when I arrived — and I’ve learned to trust that felt-sense more than my fear of sounding naive.”

Matt, who’s on the environment beat for Reuters right now, worked as a war correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spoke on the launch address call for The Collective Trauma Summit 2022 (oh yes), cooked up by guru Thomas Hubl author of Healing Collective Trauma. Which features basically everyone from the wonderful world of 21st century wellbeing. 

“Trauma on a personal level is energy, on a collective level it’s a storm,” says Hubl, who talks about activating our ‘collective immune system.’ He maintains “it’s an important function of collective health and if we don’t even have it, that’s a sign of our health.”

Matt addressed journalism’s part in mankind’s burnout. “The media is frozen, reporting what’s ‘out there’ as if it’s on a glass screen, stuck in a psychic sludge,” says the father of two married to a children’s therapist, “we’re ‘looking at broken glass through broken glass’ to borrow Thomas’ own phrase.”

Us media scum need unconditional loving too, says Matt: “That’s true of journalists as much as the rest of us who were born into this traumatised society. Journalists are recognising they need to be healing themselves as individuals, having perhaps been part of environments that encourage trauma-causing behaviours. Clinging to the notion that objectivity could protect us, was a fiction.”

When Sunday Times suits wouldn’t sign off heroic war reporter Marie Colvin’s expenses, hacks left a cow’s eyeball on the accounts desk in reference to the eye Colvin lost to a rocket propelled grenade blast while covering the Sri Lankan civil war in 2001 (it gave her PTSD). She sported her signature eye patch thereafter.

Driven on by her own unique quest for homeostasis, Colvin died reporting under news blackout from the siege of Homs in 2012 when her building was hit by Syrian artillery.

“Journalism can be a form of healing too though,” says Matt.

Decorated foreign correspondent Dean Yates was shattered by PTSD after two of his team were killed by an Apache gunship crew. Wikileaks dug up pilot cam footage that made for difficult viewing. Yates beat himself up further for not making enough of a storm with it. Eventually he was admitted to a psychiatric ward.

Now, Yates talks about his experience at edgy institutions. He and Reuters set up a blog site and mini-community where burnt-out broadcasters and wobbly world-slingers could exhume a bit of trauma by banging out some posts. 

“Slowly the culture started to change a little,” says Matt, “I’m not saying there isn’t a long way to go for the media…”

My cousin’s in Ukraine right now with the BBC. The most traumatic my journalism career ever got was when I reviewed Ian Schraeger’s new hotel and the remote for the TV in the suite didn’t work. No it wasn’t. It was when a close colleague and I were on the wrong end of a corporate ‘moral injury’ and he killed himself. 

Not that I, he or anyone in that position was, or is, above such behaviour ourselves. Neither are we discouraged to be, like Matt points out. And we’re the lucky ones. “None of this is possible without a community system that offers support, equity and justice,” points out Matt’s fellow host on the Collective Trauma summit, heavyweight sociologist Dr Ruby Mendenhall. Her work highlights the need to address racism as a health crisis given its eventual, detrimental effects on health, lives and budgets.

“Our own experience of trauma is not deep enough to feel deeper traumas holistically,” says Hubl of social engineering, “We provide properly; we see them as problems and patch them up with ideas. Yet there is an intensity of emotions we are not able to address.” Mendenhall’s work with communities in Illinois includes community wellbeing centres like those in Compassionate Care Frome, plus business incubators, career roadmaps and personal financial advice. 

When not kicking ass, Medenhall dabbles in poetry. Jotting down some rhymes has sort-of neuroscientific healing properties according to the summit’s Dr Laura Calderón de la Barca: “It’s using imagination as a container for healing. Beyond words alone, elements from the future and the past can meet.” Careful or I shall be forced to publish my Burroughs-style cut-ups.