Five Ways to Cultivate Your Bullshit Radar
Sussing Out Psychedelic Guides: Part I
Hello friends! A few announcements: Last week I opted to not publish an article as I’ve been doing nearly nine months now. This decision came in the wake of finding myself falling into the trap of feeling like I had to crank out “content” on this platform. The reason I joined Substack was not to add one more item to my to-do list, but rather to share ideas and writing that felt important and meaningful to me, to build my community, and to have a practice of regular writing.
I am not here to continually crank out “content” for people to consume, but rather share thought out, well-worded pieces of work that truly serve people.
So, I’ve decided to to shift to publishing every-other week. I’m sure you’ll understand.
Secondly, if you haven’t already pre-ordered my book, Psychedelics and the Soul, now is the time! Pre-orders are huge deal for new authors. They signal to book vendors that people want this book, and to order them and put them on shelves. It mean’s a lot to me.
Third, if you can confirm your pre-order, you’ll get a free month to access my Paid Substack, which will be launching on October 1st. I’ll be offering monthly integration and dream work circles, along with a few other yummy things for paid subscribers only.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for being here. I hope you enjoy this week’s article.
-Simon
It is a blessing and curse that people seeking a psychedelic guide or journey today are met with such an abundance of options. For those of us immersed in this field, it is easy to forget that FDA debates about MDMA therapy or discussing the pros and cons of decriminalization verses legalization were, less than a decade ago, extremely far-fetched and unimaginable notions.
But now, bizarre creations like ayahuasca gummies and psilocybin vapes abound across the US and many other Western countries. Along with these Frankenstein-like concoctions are a plethora of people offering them in increasingly questionable, and often grotesque ways.
Several years ago I was put in touch with a man from San Diego who was starting an “ayahuasca church.” After a lengthy stint in the tech industry, this man (let’s call him Billy) no longer had to work, and began his spiritual journey. Predictably, during his post-tech odyssey he discovered ayahuasca. Feeling inspired by the healing power of this ancient medicine, he felt called to bring this medicine to more people. But there was a catch.
“I think modern people need a modern approach to this medicine,” Billy told me. “I don’t think the Indigenous methods are appropriate or applicable for modern people. I want to create a new way, a better way, for offering these ceremonies.”
Billy would inform me that his vision for a “new and better way” was to use headphones and eye-masks in lieu of the traditional icaro songs and nighttime darkness that accompanies traditional ceremonies. Of course, this latter traditional approach would require an extensive amount of time investment and training with Indigenous stewards, along with months of privation and suffering which the toll that the Amazon inevitably takes. Billy had not experienced either.
“What is your training?” I asked him. Besides several trips to an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, where this medicine has no history of traditional use, he admitted that he had none (Still today, on his website, there is no mention of his training, background, or any associated Indigenous traditions).
My alarm bells began to ring. Hopefully yours are ringing now too.
“What sort of relationships do you have with Indigenous Amazonian people? What are your plans to give back to these communities?”
He had no answer, and seemed perplexed by the nature of the question. My skin wanted to crawl off my bones.
Billy represents just one of thousands of people along a similar arc: a person who spent the majority of their life dedicated to the capitalist grind, who then had a perspective-shifting or perhaps mystical psychedelic experience at some (relatively recent) point in their adult life, and who now finds themselves inspired to share these medicine with others. Training and mentorship be damned. Indigenous relations be damned. Ethics and standards be damned.
(Case and point: Christian Angermeyer, the German financier behind Compass Pathways and Atai Life Sciences, two notorious and ethically problematic psychedelic companies, had his first psychedelic experience at age 35 while aboard a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean. He is now one of the leading forces seeking to patent and privatize many psychedelic compounds and methodologies, essentially directing this field in the direction of the pharmaceutical industry.)
Sure, some people might visit Billy’s church and have a powerful experience. But if it's anything like some of the other “ayahuasca churches” operating across the country, such as Florida-based Soul Quest, where a participant recently died, people should proceed with caution.
My point isn't to call out any particular person or organization or life path. Rather, it is to bring attention to the fact that today, there is a super-abundance of people offering psychedelic medicines, many with varying degrees of training and integrity.
When you combine that with a population that is buckling under the weight of record-levels of anxiety and depression (which leads to many people desperate for answers or relief), along with a legacy of legal prohibition (which leads to limited access to reliable information and genuine knowledge), shit is bound to get weird.
So I wanted to offer you a few key things to consider when sussing out psychedelic guides/therapists, retreat centers, and who to work with. I offer these points not as universal guidelines, but rather as questions to ask yourself and your potential facilitator/retreat center, if you’re going that route.
One person’s values and comfort level may be different from another’s. The point is to understand what is important for you, and to make informed decisions from that place. At the end of the day, all I want is for people to be in good hands when they walk into the realm of the ineffable.
And, if i’m being honest, an end to the conditions which create opportunities for the many psychedelic-wellness charlatan archetypes that I’ve written about in before.
If psychedelics weren’t involved, would you still feel comfortable or inspired to work with them?
When I was a teenager, the dude who sold me mushrooms was about the last person I wanted to trip with. The fact that someone simply can offer you a psychedelic should not be even a remotely appealing reason to trust them as a guide or facilitator.
Possession of a substance does not equate to a competence in working with it.
Rather, what is it about them that inspires trust? Do you feel safe with them? How do they relate to you and others? Do you find their energy inviting, inspiring, or somehow appealing? Could you sit and have a conversation with them and still find it a rewarding experience? Does their lifestyle align with yours and inspire you?
These are the markers to look for in a guide, facilitator, or healer - not the fact that they have a psychedelic substance in their freezer.Are they transparent about their training and teachers?
I once worked with a woman who would frequently say things about her “elders” and the many “traditions” she was “initiated” into. When I asked what particular elders or traditions she was speaking of, she would hem and haw and dodge the question.
I eventually asked her pointedly who and what she was referring to, and she became quite defensive.
She never did disclose where she learned her “ceremonial skills” from, and what her actual training was. In fact, she made a point of never invoking her teacher’s names. To me, that was a massive red flag.
While I can respect someone’s refusal to name drop and flaunt their credentials, this felt different. It is one thing to tout or claim an alliance with a famous person or tradition.
It is another thing to clearly address how one came by the knowledge or skills they claim to hold. It is an act of humility to share about one’s teachers, their journey of becoming, how one came by the knowledge they may or may not possess.
If someone is unwilling to share or discuss their training or lineage, that may be a good sign to look elsewhere.What is your “woo barometer"?
I’ll be honest: I’ve seen some weird shit. There was a period of time in my early twenties, especially when I was working the West Coast festival circuit, when I would go in for just about anything. From shamanic-didgeridoo cuddle-puddles to extraterrestrial channeling circles, I’ve seen a thing or too in the realm of “woo.”
But around the time when I started grad school, my tolerance for these sorts of experiences dwindled to something paper thin.
I don’t like being forced to hold hands, make noises together, repeat words, and be subtly coerced into any unconscious agreement around worldviews or complex ideas that have not been clearly defined. I simply don’t have it in me anymore to remain in sharing circles that drag on for hours with no clear time container. I will not eye gaze with you.
Everyone’s “woo barometer” is different. What works for one person might be vastly different from what works for someone else. Both of those things are ok. And, it's also ok that not everyone, or everything, is for everyone else.
We are all allowed to have different levels of tolerance and preferences for the ways we choose to connect to spirit, the ways we define “spirit,” and the ways in which we share space together as people. We are entitled to not believe in the idea of “spirit” at all.
In an age of increasing polarization and division, I think it is a noble thing to respectfully know what is for us and what is not, without belittling or influencing another person’s trip.What words or phrases are a red flag for you?
Personally, I have a hard time with the word “ascension.” It leaves a New-Agey, spiritually bypassed sort of taste in my mouth. I feel like it's going to try to upsell me on a $10K coaching packing. It sounds suspiciously similar to the idea of the rapture. I just don’t buy it.
Maybe the idea of “chakras” throws you off. Or the notion that psychedelics are simply tools to reset our “default mode network,” a theory I’ve heard questioned by many neuropsychologists working in the field.
Whatever it is, knowing what words or phrases or conceptual frameworks irks you is a good way of sussing out who you will resonate with or not. If you encounter language or concepts being used that simply does not resonate with you, that’s a good enough reason to look elsewhere.The difference between woo and lineage
All that being said, there is a palpable difference between woo-woo, or someone playing shaman, versus someone embodying a lineage that breaks the mold of modern, Western cultural worldviews in favor of something animistic, ancient, or what seems to be non-rational.
I’ve witnessed ceremonies with Indigenous groups on five continents. I’ve seen and experienced things that I hesitate to talk about openly because of how strange they might seem, and because I don’t want people to take them the wrong way. These experiences, seen through an ethnocentric lens, could certainly be deemed as weird or bizarre.
But to me, these experiences were emanations of the sacred, and some of the few glimpses I’ve had of ancient ways of knowing that my culture lost long ago.
Psychedelic spaces are one of the few places that modern Western people might encounter something like this without traveling across the world and living in a remote community for months at a time. It is important that we can understand the differences between our feeble attempts at adapting Indigenous or ancient traditions, which are often seen as “woo-woo,” and genuine traditions of animistic, Indigenous culture.
They are not the same.
Great read! Thanks Simon
Did something specific change your woo barometer or was it an evolution?