Goodbye Psychedelic Community

[Jungleheart]

This post isn't for everyone. It is about how our efforts are better served outside the psychedelic community.


1. Gender Inequality

Women are often relegated to the "divine feminine," a concept that subjugates them under the guise of reverence. I see this evidenced in how the women influencers in the psychedelic community tend to have aligned themselves with high-status men, for example, Ann Shulgin, Kat Harrison, and Krystle Cole. This is in contrast to academic and professional spheres, where women are undeniably leading and excelling.

2. Cultural Stagnation

Members often use Indigenous aesthetics to bolster their own status, creating a cosplay-like environment rather than engaging with the cultural wisdom. Many people consider themselves shamans without doing any healing in the community. I believe we should be orienting with medicine wisdom traditions in a future-focused way. This cultural stagnation prevents the psychedelic movement from addressing broader societal issues, such as climate change or systemic inequality, whereas they are being addressed outside the psychedelic community.

3. Decline and Irrelevance

Festivals are prohibitively expensive, and the community’s subculture is being absorbed into the mainstream. Leaders like Sasha Shulgin and Terence McKenna are gone, and no one has risen to take their place. MAPS failed to legalize psychedelic therapy, partly because their approach allowed facilitators to touch participants during sessions. Does the average person want a stranger touching them on their first MDMA trip?

Conclusion

The real world demands tangible contributions, like supporting small businesses, non-profits, and the arts.

Goodbye, psychedelic community. I can see your death throes. From my view, the world will be better off without you.

 

[Varallo]

Thank you for this, it resonates deeply with me. While I consider myself not part of the community you describe, your assessment feels painfully accurate.

I’ve had a hard time seeing how the psychedelic movement has shifted into something that feels more like a hollow shell, full of delusional ideas and empty assumptions. It’s frustrating to watch so much of it devolve into superficiality and ego, wrapped up in traditional aesthetics or language to pass as something deeper. Quacks run rampant, preying on anyone gullible enough to hand over their wallet or fuel a messiah complex. Stories of abuse, manipulation, and exploitation seem to be everywhere, and it’s heartbreaking.

Honestly, this is the reason I don’t talk much about my hobby. I don’t want to be associated with what everyone else sees when they look at the psychedelic community. It feels easier to keep it private than to have to separate myself from the shallow, harmful aspects of that culture.

And yet, these substances have been pivotal in my own life, showing me a kind of mystery and wonder that I can’t explain but feel in my core. They’ve been a source of real inspiration and growth for me.

So, what now? I agree with your conclusion. I think the path forward has to be about cultivating healthy relationships, with each other, with the world, and with ourselves. Stay curious and enjoy the arts, to learn, to share, to expand, and to genuinely help others along the way.


Take care

 

[rkba]

Maybe 'it' went from the 'choosen' few to the many.

Stay curious and enjoy the arts, to learn, to share, to expand, and to genuinely help others along the way.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Hot damn! Short and sweet and things I vibe with. There's so much that I could say here.

Women are often relegated to the "divine feminine," a concept that subjugates them under the guise of reverence. I see this evidenced in how the women influencers in the psychedelic community tend to be tangential to high status men they've associated with, for example, Ann Shulgin, Kat Harrison, and Krystle Cole. This is in contrast to academic and professional spheres, where women are undeniably leading and excelling.

As is the case with many of the things you mentioned. This one is tricky. It has only been in the last 100 years that women have started to be able to have a voice, and so it takes time for the tide to change in many ways including having more women that are heard in such spaces. However, this is the present case in any sphere where the overall interest is male dominated. We can still be tribal creatures in a lot of ways and we often want to listen to those like us, and the closer to us they are the more likely we are to listen. As an African-American, this is a concern of mine because I know that the sphere is also dominated by mostly white people. I am less likely to be listened to. Not only because I'm not like them in certain ways, but also because of many other variables that I'm sure you can imagine.

Obsolete Use of Sex and Gender in Esoterism?

This has been something on my mind for a very long time. Within multiple different kinds of esoteric practices, there's the attribution of traits to various kinds of matters that are symbolically embedded. They are often reduced to some binary set. What I feel has become outmoded and outdated...

forum.dmt-nexus.me

I am reminded of this thread with such a topic. There seems to be a need that is inherited from generations past to really flesh out an identity and that identity to align in pertinent ways with one's experience of the world. Our obsession with relative sex and gender and how it permeates so many of our interactions and thought-forms is really only a deterrent to our conscious consensus development. And it seems we have a long way to go. Take certain social frame-works in many different parts of the world that always mandate to keep women in check. There are some countries where women are only recently getting certain "rights" like to vote, drive, get educated. It's perturbing, because the standard created is black and white, when the reality doesn't seem to be black and white. Many cultures that are still extant today and some that have long since passed, have had discussions about people that we might likely today call transgender, yet, we have people, who haven't really thought about it, contradict such a person and such a phenomena. And their propositions are poisoned by their own bias that they are only trying to bolster; it's not about the truth. To elaborate further, take an intersex woman for example. Many of them have testes... their testes are just still inside them... and many still have two x chromosomes. Then we can also look at expression of sex and gender through different augmentations of androgen receptors.

Members often use Indigenous aesthetics to bolster their own status, creating a cosplay-like environment rather than engaging with the cultural wisdom. Many people in the psychedelic community consider themselves a shaman without doing any healing in the community. This cultural stagnation prevents the psychedelic movement from addressing broader societal issues, such as climate change or systemic inequality, whereas they are being addressed outside the psychedelic community.

There's a fine line between adoption and appropriation with most people ending up on the latter side. If one comes across some amalgam of information they find to at least be true for them, deeply resonant, sound, appropriate, or whatever other aligned state and they choose to subsume that into their practice, that's fine. We live in a globalized world and now have access to information we didn't years ago. However, donning the appropriate garb, and stating the right buzzwords, and parroting whatever other juggernaut has said, and aligning with something because the ideas share a certain ubiquity amongst others, is simply acting. I find a lot of people on this side as well. The level of critical thought that goes into these matters is savagely underestimated. As a result, they're trying to appear not trying to be and as a result, there is very little impact on the community.

At the same time, a lot of communities I think are trying, but we don't have individuals at the forefront with the sagacity and frame of mind to aptly break these things down. I think many people also don't have the means to effect change in the same ways that it may be impacted outside the space. And in terms of community, most communities are naive to psychedelics and likely have strong negative biases against those into such a thing... ya know, "drugs."

Festivals are prohibitively expensive, and the community’s subculture is being absorbed into the mainstream. Leaders like Sasha Shulgin and Terence McKenna are gone, and no one has risen to take their place. MAPs failed to legalize psychedelic therapy, because of an inclusion of having the facilitator put their hands on the tripper. Does the average person want a stranger touching them on their first MDMA trip?

I feel like what we were getting out of the festival scene was mainly a facade. I think was good in the beginning. But now things seem to go in one ear and out the other. There's some serious discernment needed when dealing with psychedelics that is lacking. It reminds me of the South Park episode, (Die Hippy Die), when the boys are at a festival with some pompous college kids that finished their first semester and convinced the boys that the needed to put on a music festival to stick it to the man. During this time the boys wonder, when are we going to do anything to make a change, only to realize that such a position was a guise for being selfish enough to get high all day listening to music.

The real world demands tangible contributions, like supporting small businesses, non-profits, and the arts.

Like I tell clients, there is work done in the space, but most of the work is done outside the space.

One love

 

[ControlledChaos]

The psychedelic journey is a personal one. While I may not have discovered psychedelics without the help of those in the psychedelic community, I could go on in my exploration even if there was no community at all. It is nice to have like minded people to talk to and certainly makes the experience less isolating as I take in the lessons of psychedelics, but it has always been a deeply personal adventure for me.

Any community is going to have some sort of thing about it that is disagreeable. Any culture, any nation, any ideology, any clique or group period. This is why I try not to identify with those things and focus on my own personal growth. I have never made friends based alone on the community we were in, it was always an individual-to-individual connection.

Everybody has different priorities and values, so we all are going to have a different view on what work even needs to be done in light of the psychedelic experience. It may lead 2 different people to wildly different conclusions according to their notions. Especially when you consider how eclectic the group of people who get into psychedelics can be.

So I guess my point is that any community can become a very narrow framework to begin with, even those which are all about "expansion". And the minute people begin to disagree about what "expansion" even means, the plot is sort of lost.

So in conclusion, it's best not to attach too rigidly to any community at all.

Of course, I still appreciate that places like the Nexus exist

 

[🌺🔥🫧]

This is such a beautiful and powerful topic, - our psychedelic community, - so thank you very much for bringing it up! I’m excited to reply back fully as soon as I can

Best wishes in the meantime,

 

[CommonConduit]

One big global community.
There’s no outside to this.
You are welcome.

 

[Jungleheart]

@Voidmatrix ,

I wanted to say I really appreciate your post about Obsolete Use of Sex and Gender. When gender is mentioned in the psychedelic community, it is typically in a stereotypical way. Women are supposed to have divine knowledge of caretaking and nurturing, but seemingly assumed to have less domain knowledge on power, influence, war, politics, leadership, etc.

I believe that women's role being to nurture others is diminishing. When women have been controlled historically, and not allowed to take part in politics and business, they might exhibit less of those traits. The gendered brainwashing is significant. Recently women are told to play with pink and dolls instead of dinosaurs or going outside. I can tell numerous stories of gendered brainwashing I had to undo, that I'm sure all women go through.

I enjoy traditionally male things, like politics, business and leadership, does that make me masculine? A lot of people would think so, and that I should be starting a family. Personally, I find the most encouragement and support from professionals and entrepreneurs, and that's who makes up most of my circle.

Hot damn! Short and sweet and things I vibe with. There's so much that I could say here.


As is the case with many of the things you mentioned. This one is tricky. It has only been in the last 100 years that women have started to be able to have a voice, and so it takes time for the tide to change in many ways including having more women that are heard in such spaces. However, this is the present case in any sphere where the overall interest is male dominated. We can still be tribal creatures in a lot of ways and we often want to listen to those like us, and the closer to us they are the more likely we are to listen. As an African-American, this is a concern of mine because I know that the sphere is also dominated by mostly white people. I am less likely to be listened to. Not only because I'm not like them in certain ways, but also because of many other variables that I'm sure you can imagine.

Obsolete Use of Sex and Gender in Esoterism?

This has been something on my mind for a very long time. Within multiple different kinds of esoteric practices, there's the attribution of traits to various kinds of matters that are symbolically embedded. They are often reduced to some binary set. What I feel has become outmoded and outdated...

forum.dmt-nexus.me

When you say, people prefer to listen to people like them, I think that's an excuse. I think the psychedelic community is behind on this. We have to listen to people who are different than us. Women and minorities can't afford to ignore everyone else. I think many powerful and successful women decide to bypass the psychedelic community because of the demographic, and that is probably the case for many influential African-Americans as well.

All best,
JH

 

[Voidmatrix]

With respect to gender roles of the sexes, it's funny how people don't notice that it's pretty arbitrary. But at the end of the day, we're looking at a particular thread that has long needed to be cut: the genesis of these arbitrary attributions is likely derived from an age old point in history, before we were recording history, of men, by virtue of higher levels of testosterone and all that includes (more muscle mass, greater bone density, etc), providing (by finding protein) and protecting (the woman that carries the child). It all seems to come from this primitive point, which makes me want to highlight the fallacy of appeal to antiquity: just because something is old doesn't mean we need to carry it on, like obsolete gender roles.

What people nowadays attribute to sex and gender are really just cultural expectations that are derived from the ancient point mentioned above.

It's goofy.

While a man can't bear a child, they'd be incompetent to be unable to cook and clean... we can view a great deal of this potential incompetence...

Yeah, I like to paint my nails occasionally. Makes me a girl I guess. This simple-simon thinking vexes me to no end, so I'm with you.

For the last part, I agree, it's an excuse. However, it's a baked in excuse by virtue of the fact that what leads to it is cognitive biases and heuristics, which by definition, are largely unconscious. When you say you feel that the psychedelic community is behind this, could you elaborate, because i don't see this as specific to any domain. It's ubiquitous.

I think we can't shortside that many people bypass the psychedelic community for other reasons as well.

One love

 

[Varallo]

I think powerful and successful women decide to bypass the psychedelic community because of the demographic

I would say that this might be wise thing to do, a community that is leaning on “traditional” ideas to give their “medicine” depth and meaning, might not be very open to the more progressive ideas of powerful emancipation.
From my perspective, if you’re a powerful woman with the ability to influence the world on a larger scale, it’s worth considering where your time and energy would have the most impact. In that light, the other issues you’ve raised seem more pressing and significant, especially when compared to engaging with spaces that may resist meaningful change.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I would say that this might be wise thing to do, a community that is leaning on “traditional” ideas to give their “medicine” depth and meaning, might not be very open to the more progressive ideas of powerful emancipation.

We'll see how long i last, but I'm constantly challenging what has become indigenous and traditional dogma propounded by those not intimately part of the indigenous and traditional community the pander and appeal to.

One love

 

[dithyramb]

Are women relegated to the divine feminine and men to the divine masculine? These are concepts that aren't meant to define individuals, but just point to certain archetypal energies. And what defines the "psychedelic community?" The social fields around certain celebrities? The most basic psychedelic message is that there is only one universal community and we are all part of it. Creating boundaries and an us vs them psychedelic community would disqualify you from being psychedelic, let alone being a "community." My own tendency is to ignore cultural phenomena and live my own truth.

 

[Varallo]

We'll see how long i last, but I'm constantly challenging what has become indigenous and traditional dogma propounded by those not intimately part of the indigenous and traditional community the pander and appeal to.

One love

Thankfully you are, I sometimes wonder if we all just started to use different language to describe what is now being used to describe, talk and think about what is experiencing an psychedelic, if that would lead to a different understanding of the experience. The lexicon on the nexus in my opinion is an great example of creating language to give words and thereby making thoughts and thinking about the experience somewhat easier. But also leads to an certain train of thought, on a much larger scale this is also forming the culture of the psychedelic community. Instead of calling a shaman an shaman it might benefit from using alternative terminology (psychedelic guide) that doesn’t carry the baggage of stereotypes like the “noble savage” or the predominantly male portrayal. These labels, steeped in colonialist and patriarchal histories, shape how we think about psychedelics. This whole new age lingo is filled by words that perpetuate these stereotypes.
So to think about potential solutions for bringing about change in the psychedelic culture I think that we need an shift in language in my opinion it has the potential to dismantle outdated archetypes and open doors to a richer, more equitable psychedelic culture.

Just some thoughts

 

[Varallo]

Are women relegated to the divine feminine and men to the divine masculine? These are concepts that aren't meant to define individuals, but just point to certain archetypal energies. And what defines the "psychedelic community?" The social fields around certain celebrities? The most basic psychedelic message is that there is only one universal community and we are all part of it. Creating boundaries and an us vs them psychedelic community would disqualify you from being psychedelic, let alone being a "community." My own tendency is to ignore cultural phenomena and live my own truth.

I agree before continuing the discussion it might be wise to define what is actually “the psychedelic community” and when an new concept is mentioned that we take a bit of time to determine what is actually meant by the poster.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Thankfully you are, I sometimes wonder if we all just started to use different language to describe what is now being used to describe, talk and think about what is experiencing an psychedelic, if that would lead to a different understanding of the experience.

Language paints the picture of the thing being spoken about. As we interact more with that thing and thereby the language that we've developed to categorize it, the more flair it starts to gain amongst users and interacters in the form of associations and connotations. I think that sooner or later we run into the same issue, especially when there's an intersubjective expectation. Take the "waiting-room" that people will sometimes mention with DMT. I think I know what people or talking about, but I may not, as I've been in rooms that I guess could be described that way even though I've never had an experience where I would describe them that way. I'm never waiting for anything...

Language is mutable.

People are the problem.

As long as people are expecting to be given or told the steps on the path, we will always have some of these issues. As long as people expect to be fed answers instead of trying to figure them out, we will always have some of these issues. As long as people need to be told what is going on in their own minds without doing their own work to assess what they've been told, we will always have some of these issues. As long as people expect someone to heal them instead of them realizing that someone is just helping them heal themselves, we will always have some of these issues.

These labels, steeped in colonialist and patriarchal histories, shape how we think about psychedelics. This whole new age lingo is filled by words that perpetuate these stereotypes.

I'm not disagreeing, just pontificating, as this means a lot to mean. I very much agree. We need to develop new narratives. And developing these new narratives seems to require us to look forward and leave a great many things behind. I get wanting a connection to the past as the past led us up to this point, but that doesn't mean we have to align with things no longer applicable. Unfortunately, some of these items that are no longer applicable happen to also be seen as absolute in some way and as such are that much harder for people to let go of.

I just want to add that I am so so happy that my introduction to psychedelics wasn't colored in anyway by any psychedelic figure. I didn't know who any of them were before eating 7g or mushrooms my first time, or the first three rounds of DMT that I smoalked on the first night. For me it made it more authentic and genuine.

So to think about potential solutions for bringing about change in the psychedelic culture I think that we need an shift in language in my opinion it has the potential to dismantle outdated archetypes and open doors to a richer, more equitable psychedelic culture.

My approach is to look at and highlight the reasoning, framing, incentive, and framework behind and ideal that is adhered to. This approach by it's nature entails addressing the use of language, but it also covers the base of addressing all the things we do with the language. For example, there would nothing wrong with using the term "divine feminine" if it wasn't usually only attributed to women. As @dithyramb pointed out, those or archetypal energies (the framing) not explicit identifiers for individuals. Men have the divine feminine within as well according to archetypal philosophies, but until it's addressed as such in the broader community, it's use is problematic and misguided.

And the pervasiveness of issues addressed in this thread is so broad that I feel it transcends community, but must be changed through community, one at a time. A tangential community to the psychedelic community is the mysticism/esoterism/"new age" community, where there are people who aren't into psychedelics, but are into some of the same concepts and ideas that can be found amongst psychedelic enthusiasts.

One love

 

[ControlledChaos]

Language paints the picture of the thing being spoken about. As we interact more with that thing and thereby the language that we've developed to categorize it, the more flair it starts to gain amongst users and interacters in the form of associations and connotations. I think that sooner or later we run into the same issue, especially when there's an intersubjective expectation. Take the "waiting-room" that people will sometimes mention with DMT. I think I know what people or talking about, but I may not, as I've been in rooms that I guess could be described that way even though I've never had an experience where I would describe them that way. I'm never waiting for anything...

Language is mutable.

People are the problem.

As long as people are expecting to be given or told the steps on the path, we will always have some of these issues. As long as people expect to be fed answers instead of trying to figure them out, we will always have some of these issues. As long as people need to be told what is going on in their own minds without doing their own work to assess what they've been told, we will always have some of these issues. As long as people expect someone to heal them instead of them realizing that someone is just helping them heal themselves, we will always have some of these issues.


I'm not disagreeing, just pontificating, as this means a lot to mean. I very much agree. We need to develop new narratives. And developing these new narratives seems to require us to look forward and leave a great many things behind. I get wanting a connection to the past as the past led us up to this point, but that doesn't mean we have to align with things no longer applicable. Unfortunately, some of these items that are no longer applicable happen to also be seen as absolute in some way and as such are that much harder for people to let go of.

I just want to add that I am so so happy that my introduction to psychedelics wasn't colored in anyway by any psychedelic figure. I didn't know who any of them were before eating 7g or mushrooms my first time, or the first three rounds of DMT that I smoalked on the first night. For me it made it more authentic and genuine.


My approach is to look at and highlight the reasoning, framing, incentive, and framework behind and ideal that is adhered to. This approach by it's nature entails addressing the use of language, but it also covers the base of addressing all the things we do with the language. For example, there would nothing wrong with using the term "divine feminine" if it wasn't usually only attributed to women. As @dithyramb pointed out, those or archetypal energies (the framing) not explicit identifiers for individuals. Men have the divine feminine within as well according to archetypal philosophies, but until it's addressed as such in the broader community, it's use is problematic and misguided.

And the pervasiveness of issues addressed in this thread is so broad that I feel it transcends community, but must be changed through community, one at a time. A tangential community to the psychedelic community is the mysticism/esoterism/"new age" community, where there are people who aren't into psychedelics, but are into some of the same concepts and ideas that can be found amongst psychedelic enthusiasts.

One love

I've actually been running right into some of these very same ideas as I unpack the Zhuangzi book in my other thread. It really dives into the limitations of language, as what seems to mean "this" by one person might mean "that" by another person.

I believe the psychedelic experience transcends the aesthetics that have coalesced around it; indigenous patterns, jesters, fractals, ect... yes they commonly pop up in what we call hyperspace, but we also talk about these things a lot.

The psychedelic state seems to be a bit like dreams and like art; it pulls in elements both from our imagination (pure creative force with no apparent "real life" source) and from our memories (experience in our everyday life; persons, animals, places, patterns, things). Sometimes it uses these things to communicate some kind of statement about experience as a whole, sometimes it is just a sort of "light show" with no particular direction. And in that sense, the psychedelic experience can be a bit like life. Sometimes we think there is some broader purpose, sometimes it feels like chaotic wandering.

But regardless of the flavor of the experiences, the words used to understand them, the aesthetics, and the tone, it's all part of this one experience. So these things like the psychedelic experience, dreams, art, and normal ol' waking life are in a sense all one in experience, all freely associated and playing off one another. And through these interactions we have the ineffable, wondrous, and beautiful course of pure absolute experience or consciousness. We can find enjoyment in it any way we want, as long as we give our perspective room to allow it.

 

[modern]

Gender roles are in place for a reason since it is what the 'natural' instinct of each sex generally fall into without much effort. I don't have large involvement in any sense with eh psychedelic community so my perspective may be limited. I believe in personal exploration and haven't felt comfortable in group settings.

As for women's role in the use of psychedelics and sacred plants THERE IS a difference in the usage due to our biochemical differences. Like with psychotria having different health benefits for men and women. With men helping with prostate health and women helping with menstruation and menopause issues. As for the psychological aspect we all experience life differently and considering that women are a minority for one reason or another and with most being men seeking guidance there tends to be a natural draw to other experiences from men and even from similar race or social class. Setting and such will influence us a lot but with most now being 'neo-shamans' taking these experiences in more urban environments it tends to change lots of aspects of the trips.

In aya churches here there are separate sections in many similar to mosque with a section for each. Women and children separate from men. In the preparation men beat the caapi while the women wash the psychotria. During the experiences women tend to be on the inner circle if higher members of the church or outer edge.

When it comes to cultural appropriation/stagnation I think it comes from wanting to experience something 'larger' with a history and more psychological value. I don't fully understand this since many are open to novel derivatives and research chemicals. Tradition is important as part of the 'ritual' and helps with the setting aspect of the experience.

As for touching participants during sessions I believe that women should only experience this with female guide and with majority female participants. Unfortunately there are always bad actors and even 'churches' here in Brasil have had rape and sexual assault involving the 'shamans' with women and sometimes even men. I also don't agree with women solo guiding male participants due to the sometimes unpredictable nature of doses and how people react. A man having a psychotic episode may injure a female guide and without a sober male assistant the other men may be oblivious to what may be happening. (I've personally have had blackout effects at high doses so I know the risk is real)

A big issue I see with most fields is money. Here in Brasil and I am sure in the USA would fall under the same protections you have religious protection. Now the moment you monetize you lose that legal protection. Here you can sell at cost value but many just charge outright for gain. I personally enjoy sharing my experience and seek methods to increase self sustainability of individuals to not rely on others for suppliers or retreats. Root bark and other things in my opinion should be fazed out since most are not sustainable harvested and just done for profit. When it is for local residents to profit I have zero issues even if endangered plants like mimosa, peyote, iboga, what have you however they rarely know the value and others go to harvest and rarely compensate the locals honestly.

With the way the internet is headed with either extremely public or very closed knit communities I think the community ill naturally butt heads on some topics since individuals will test different aspects of the same topic and it takes a while to be accepted as a whole particularly new ideas. I am against legalizing these plants outright but decriminalizing and allowing full religious protections if profit is not the goal with the plants/substances directly but rather from genuine donations/ selling art and products.

I am a man so my perspective on things will be different even from other men in different life circumstances like country and financial situation.

I maybe missing the point of the thread?

 

[🌺🔥🫧]

Witness reality, and truth manifests...

 

[rkba]

Witness reality, and truth manifests...

Witness your truth, and reality manifests

 

[ControlledChaos]

Witness your truth, and reality manifests

I love the interlocking nature of those 2 statements, like yin and yang. Hints at the grand mystery...