This article was incredibly timely for me and I am so grateful for it. In both my personal and professional relationships noticing who consciously or unconsciously cultivates the Guru vs. the Sovereign makes a huge difference on the respect present for all engaging in the healing. I pray pretty regularly to stay humble because I have a fear of this shadow as it has been a part of both my Hare Krsna upbringing and the psychedelic spaces I have occupied. I have really enjoyed your writing Simon. Thank you.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing you experience, Nitai. It definitely is a sort of "once you know, you can't look away" sort of thing. And yes, the continually prayer for true humility is a deep one and certainly very present for me as well.
I am grateful you write about these archetypal dynamics in the emergent psychedelic renaissance. There is a lot of shadow lurking in the movement. Yet the more articulate we can be about potential pitfalls here, the more loving the movement can become. Thank you!
Thanks so much Tara. I totally agree- hence why I wrote this piece and the entire chapter on psychedelic leadership from an archetypal perspective. I’m also not trying to “call out” anyone personally, but rather speak to deeper dynamics in the collective unconscious which we are ALL subject to.
Absolutely. I also think there is a place to call out where some of these dynamics may specifically be happening to support more collective accountability. Abuse of power stays in power when there's secrecy and silencing of victims. We may all be subject to these dynamics, but not everyone plays them out.
I appreciate Jules Evans's substack Ecstatic Integration for naming specific organizations/leaders causing harm.
I, too, have published essays on Mad in America naming some of the abuse of power I experienced in the School of Consciousness Medicine and the theoretical model that is being pushed by MAPS of how psychedelic-assisted therapy should be done.
And cancel culture, the outright demonizing of anyone in a perpetrator position, or seemingly so, is damaging to all of us. We lose our humanity when we categorize a person as just "bad."
There is a fine line between not canceling people and also speaking up about specific instances of guru/abuse of power to prevent real humans from continuing to get hurt.
Anyway, thank you for your writing. I look forward to reading more of your work on this realm.
Really appreciate you taking the time to articulate your points here Tara, and couldn't agree more. I follow Ecstatic Integration as well, but haven't delved into the material yet.
I know a good handful of folks who were apart of the CM community, and I am continually shocked every time I hear more stories from that world. Sorry you went through that. And, thank you for continuing to speak out, especially as the leaders have really refused any real accountability, as you know.
And yes, hear you on the fine line between preventing harm and "canceling" someone. We're going to need more and more structures for accountability, and also for sussing out where harm was done, and where it wasn't. I find that the best thing I can do is just share more information like this to help people track and suss out where there is potential for abuses of power, before it's too late.
Simon, thank you for following up with my comment!
Oh wow, so many worlds crossing. And of course, Cm was such a big community in the psychedelic-therapy world for the last 45 years or so.
Such a fine line. Glad to be in this conversation with you, and part of this evolutionary web of learning how to care more deeply about one another as humans.
I found this warm and rich Simon, I'm sharing widely, telling folks my guru wrote this about me.
So glad you enjoyed it Sooz! Thank you for telling your folks :)
You put names to things I’ve been struggling g to describe. Thank you!
So glad you felt such deep resonance Sara. Thank you for sharing!
This article was incredibly timely for me and I am so grateful for it. In both my personal and professional relationships noticing who consciously or unconsciously cultivates the Guru vs. the Sovereign makes a huge difference on the respect present for all engaging in the healing. I pray pretty regularly to stay humble because I have a fear of this shadow as it has been a part of both my Hare Krsna upbringing and the psychedelic spaces I have occupied. I have really enjoyed your writing Simon. Thank you.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing you experience, Nitai. It definitely is a sort of "once you know, you can't look away" sort of thing. And yes, the continually prayer for true humility is a deep one and certainly very present for me as well.
I am grateful you write about these archetypal dynamics in the emergent psychedelic renaissance. There is a lot of shadow lurking in the movement. Yet the more articulate we can be about potential pitfalls here, the more loving the movement can become. Thank you!
Thanks so much Tara. I totally agree- hence why I wrote this piece and the entire chapter on psychedelic leadership from an archetypal perspective. I’m also not trying to “call out” anyone personally, but rather speak to deeper dynamics in the collective unconscious which we are ALL subject to.
Absolutely. I also think there is a place to call out where some of these dynamics may specifically be happening to support more collective accountability. Abuse of power stays in power when there's secrecy and silencing of victims. We may all be subject to these dynamics, but not everyone plays them out.
I appreciate Jules Evans's substack Ecstatic Integration for naming specific organizations/leaders causing harm.
I, too, have published essays on Mad in America naming some of the abuse of power I experienced in the School of Consciousness Medicine and the theoretical model that is being pushed by MAPS of how psychedelic-assisted therapy should be done.
And cancel culture, the outright demonizing of anyone in a perpetrator position, or seemingly so, is damaging to all of us. We lose our humanity when we categorize a person as just "bad."
There is a fine line between not canceling people and also speaking up about specific instances of guru/abuse of power to prevent real humans from continuing to get hurt.
Anyway, thank you for your writing. I look forward to reading more of your work on this realm.
Really appreciate you taking the time to articulate your points here Tara, and couldn't agree more. I follow Ecstatic Integration as well, but haven't delved into the material yet.
I know a good handful of folks who were apart of the CM community, and I am continually shocked every time I hear more stories from that world. Sorry you went through that. And, thank you for continuing to speak out, especially as the leaders have really refused any real accountability, as you know.
And yes, hear you on the fine line between preventing harm and "canceling" someone. We're going to need more and more structures for accountability, and also for sussing out where harm was done, and where it wasn't. I find that the best thing I can do is just share more information like this to help people track and suss out where there is potential for abuses of power, before it's too late.
Simon, thank you for following up with my comment!
Oh wow, so many worlds crossing. And of course, Cm was such a big community in the psychedelic-therapy world for the last 45 years or so.
Such a fine line. Glad to be in this conversation with you, and part of this evolutionary web of learning how to care more deeply about one another as humans.
And, thank you for the compassion for what I went through. :)
Certainly