The Eternal Sunshine of the Clueless Mind

Self-Education and Preparation

If you’re considering a psychedelic experience and the therapeutic use of psychedelics, do your research, and don’t expect anyone else but yourself to be qualified to educate you.

“Beware of wisdom you didn’t earn.”

— Carl Jung, referring to the use of psychedelic drugs.

An email came in from a person asking for advice on using psychedelics. I directed them to my online calendar to schedule a free Zoom call. Instead, through a series of emails, we negotiated a time for a phone call.

Red Flag #1: If you’re asking for help and it’s not an emergency—get with the program

Connecting by phone, this person said they were looking for someone to sit with them through a mushroom trip. I gave them a quick tour through the currently dysfunctional landscape of psychedelic-assisted therapy and told them I was not allowed to do that. I let them know that I offer preparation and integration. Then, I asked them for some background.

This person seeking assistance was a middle-aged woman who had her first child at 17 when she was in an abusive relationship. She didn’t have a job or money, but her family would pay for counseling. I told her my rates and asked her what she was expecting and how she had prepared. She didn’t understand the question.

Every high-energy psychedelic experience invites preparation, whether getting a bank loan or taking a vacation. Psychedelics are especially high energy, yet few people have a clue how to prepare. That includes the provisioners in the medical establishment. 

Understanding the Psychedelic Experience

Red Flag #2: If you don’t know what it means to prepare, you shouldn’t be in the process.

My caller had a traumatic history. She’d taken some doses with a friend, and things were coming up, but she felt she needed more than just a sitter. She wanted help during the trip.

I started to explain the phases of a psychedelic experience, both shamanically and in the as-yet undeveloped field of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Laws of use and standards of practice prevent therapists from creating, supplying, or engaging in experiences with their clients using chemicals that are medically unapproved and legally restricted. The only exceptions to this are limited clinical trials or psychedelically active anesthetics like ketamine.

For nearly five decades, there has been an “underground” of users, facilitators, shamans, and even some therapists who lead psychedelic ceremonies with cultural, exploratory, recreational, and therapeutic goals. These people are still there. 

Compared to the legally approved, medically sanctioned, and institutionally supervised psychedelic-assisted therapy, the underground use of psychedelics has much to recommend. On the other hand, the underground is also rife with abuse. Know your people.

The Challenges of the Underground

The practical problem with the underground is that practitioners are uncontrolled, unsupervised, unsupported, and some are unqualified. On the other hand, the best controlled, supervised, supported, and qualified practitioners practice underground because traditions exist, and they’ve learned through decades of first-hand experience. But you cannot trust the advertising in the underground.

Psychedelics offer an altered-state experience. This dual nature—being both their power and their risk—is what defines their impact. Altered states provide a novel perspective that can reveal new understanding, direction, and meaning. It’s ‌useful not just for you and your problem but for anyone with any issue. As a result, all sorts of people find their way to psychedelics. 

That means there is no one path, no one program, and rarely any place for specific expectations. If you’re looking for freedom, then you’d better know what freedom means and in whose company you’ll find yourself. If you’ve gained any maturity—and that is a real and serious question—then you should know that freedom does not mean milk and honey. 

The phantasmagorical is a realm of chaos and change inhabited by both the heroes you’re looking for and the monsters you’re not. If you have trouble controlling yourself in the “normal” world, then you’re going to need extra levels of control in the extra-normal world of psychedelics. 

Ungrounded people should avoid experiences that may further destabilize them. To be grounded does not mean being happy; it means being stable. You can be stable and neurotic or depressed, or you can be stable and attentive and insightful. But if you’re unstable, and distress is possible, then a mind-altering experience—psychedelic or not—might put you in a distressed state.

Boundaries and Safe Practices

My caller did not know what they were dealing with inside themselves, but it seemed clear it involved trauma. They told me that something needed to come out and, so far, it had not. Whoever had joined her in her previous experiences didn’t have the power to help her. She was looking for someone who could.

This request is reasonable but a tall order. What would you say a person needs to assist and protect you during a 6- to 12-hour voyage to an unknown state of mind? If you’re not realistic about what you’re getting yourself into, then you won’t be comfortable with a realistic answer. You’ll be attracted to unrealistic and unsafe situations.

My caller asked how I worked with people, and I said that we could work on preparation. She said that she didn’t need anyone to hold her hand. When I mentioned I did most of my counseling over Zoom, she recoiled. “I only work with people directly in nature!” This preference explained why she didn’t schedule this call through my website. I told her we could work in person, but the price was higher. In that case, the venue was an office space, not the outdoors.

Red Flag #3: If you don’t know your obligations when working with others, then the process will confuse you. If the confusion pertains to safety, your path is dangerous.

I’m reminded of the women who accuse third-world shamans of sexual abuse. I’ve watched first-world women entice shamans in the shaman’s home environment. I reflect on the clear and stable boundary that shamans draw with their ceremonial clients. If they can, they emphasize that shamanic ceremonies are not therapy sessions. Shamans are not therapists. It is not within their scope of practice.

Personal Responsibility

In Western psychotherapy, people label the danger of inappropriate involvement as transference and counter-transference. It means a presumption and projection of your internal reality onto another person or situation. Transference plays a valuable role in exploring internal realities and extracting hidden details, but it rarely plays out according to convention. You don’t want transference to violate safe boundaries. 

This interplay is the equation for psychotherapeutic progress:

Progress = Directed Person + Controlled Environment + Safe Boundaries + Mental Chaos

My caller hurriedly ended our phone call, apparently satisfied that I was not the hero she sought. Perhaps she knew I would be discouraging, and she would have been right.

A person with such an approach is precisely the one who should be discouraged from using psychedelics. 

Red Flag #4: An insistent, ignorant person on a trouble-filled path into the psychedelic world may get what they need, but they’re probably not a person you want to work with.

If you wonder why some people attract trouble, they often look for it. An undirected person who invites chaos into an uncontrolled environment without boundaries is precisely the person who gets into trouble. They should not be using psychedelics.

I say that primarily for my benefit because it doesn’t serve my needs. But if you need more trouble in your life, far be it for me to say otherwise. Psychedelics are a safer kind of trouble than many other paths you’ll find. On the other hand, if you’re a therapist, know who you’re dealing with.