Ancient civilizations cherished psychedelics as spiritual guides and healing tools. Subcultures embraced them or abused them. And mainstream society wanted just the entertainment from it, to get high on a Saturday night and to escape from the boredom of daily life. Governments demonized them as psychosis-inducing trash, but they quickly realized that a drugged voter was still a voter. Fast forward to today’s world. The only real changes are rhetorical, with a few ease-ups here and there, and some decriminalization. Meanwhile, mental health illnesses continue to skyrocket in our highly controlled and manipulated society while the development of new psychiatric treatments has followed the opposite trend. The Covid pandemic has only further made worse these challenges. Even the hardcore medical communities are screaming that psychedelic medicine is exactly the radical change we need to incorporate into mental health care as a therapeutic tool. In short, psychedelics are suddenly very trendy. And handy almost everywhere, from over-commercialized copycats of spiritual retreats, people vomiting in yurts, happily tripping for three thousand dollars, or ketamine clinics popping up on every single corner to brokers running around and investing in new psychedelic start-ups. Unfortunately, greed can sometimes be limitless. In short, it is as it is. My psychedelic integration therapy is not about favoring pro-psychedelic ideologies. Psychedelics aren’t miracle drugs. Yes, their ability to impart neuroplasticity — reorganizing connections in the brain’s synapse is one of the fastest treatments for resistant depression or PTS. Yes, psychedelics are a very promising therapeutic tool to treat mental illnesses, The use of psychedelics through ayahuasca ceremonies, psilocybin, or even ketamine therapies is one of the fastest shortcuts today to turn on, tune in, and drop out. However, I believe it is important to remind the client that psychedelics, especially synthetic ones are still drugs not made with love. It is important to remind the clients that the human system can create healing alchemy all on its own without using any psychedelics. For instance, holotropic breathwork might be another good choice of therapy. The results are much like classic psychedelic therapy. Another way is to meditate. Activating the pineal gland is a fundamental part of yogic practices, which produce healing states of altered consciousness. However, not everyone wants to do Holotropic Breathwork or meditate for years and access the sacred healing power within. No time to wait. We want speedy work and that’s why the sacred has been trivialized into recreational, or deeply commercialized by investors, corporations, and pharmaceutical companies. Some companies are even hoping to make molecules that drop out the hallucinogenic effects entirely while retaining features responsible for therapeutic benefits. In other words, they will take away the mystical and most profound human experience of psychedelics. In other words, psychedelics are always misused when Mother Nature becomes big business.
