The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys

by James Fadiman

To establish the best possible environment for spiritual psychedelic sessions, it is critical to keep in mind six primary factors that most affect the nature and value of these experiences: Set Setting Substance and quantity (dose) Sitter and guide Session Situation

Entheogen: Any psychedelic used specifically to enhance the probability of spiritual experience.

For most people, the predominant feeling during a session is not of discovering something new, alien, or foreign, but of recalling and reuniting with an unassailable clarity that had been latent in one’s own mind.

To maximize the usefulness of realizations that may occur during your psychedelic voyage, it is invaluable to write out beforehand what you hope to learn, experience, understand, or resolve.

Your goals may be psychological: to find insight into neurotic patterns, phobias, or unresolved anger or grief. If you know you want to work in these areas, these guidelines may be insufficient. For these goals, additional preparation is recommended, and it would be best to work with a guide who has psychological training.

Ideally, if possible, there should be two guides, a man and a woman.

Your suggestions at the right moments may help the voyager make a pivotal discovery or retain an important insight.

it is not unusual for a voyager to encounter beings or experience states of consciousness described in traditions other than his or her own.

A useful response to any experience that stretches a voyager’s sense of reality during the session is to gently invite that person to go deeper by saying, “Yes! That’s good. Would you like to know more?” When a voyager feels secure, the capacity to reach greater heights, and also to remember and integrate the experience, is most likely.

As a general practice, encourage the voyager to collect experiences, save discussion about them for later review and reflection, and not even try to figure them out as they occur.

All that is necessary for a safe journey with infinite possibilities is an uncluttered, comfortable room with a couch or bed on which the voyager can rest, a comfortable chair for the guide, and easy access to a bathroom.

That being said, an outdoor setting has its advantages. Wind, stirring leaves, birds, streams, rivers, ocean waves—the connectedness of nature can become an essential part of the session.

Classical music tends to feel appropriate to most people, even if they have not chosen it. Hovhaness’s Mysterious Mountain, Fauré’s Requiem, Gregorian chants, solo piano, piano with one or two other instruments, unaccompanied flute, ragas, and indigenous drum recordings can all be used effectively.

many guides recommend that a voyager spend most of the time, especially during the period of intensely heightened awareness, with closed eyes. As one guide said, “It’s amazing how much one can ‘see’ with eyes closed.”)

LSD itself is almost completely metabolized well before its peak effects are felt.7 It seems to act as a catalyst, creating an environment in which other reactions can then occur. LSD serves as a lubricant, allowing certain capacities to interact with one another more easily, thus enabling latent brain functions fuller expression.

From 150 to 400 micrograms of LSD is a normal range. While this book focuses on LSD, a full range of similar experiences can occur with mescaline or psilocybin. If the voyager is taking mescaline, 1 microgram of LSD is equal to 1 or 2 milligrams of mescaline. If psilocybin is used, 30 milligrams

has been called “a safe high-dose.”

Let go of each experience, feeling, or visual event as it occurs

a great deal of additional material can be found and added to at www.entheoguides .net, a Wiki site established and maintained by guild members for the general public.

This was perhaps the most significant revelation of this experience: that I was basically in charge of what I could perceive and think about, but I was not bound by external forces but rather made choices that determine the extent and quality of my awareness.

The wonderful thing about psychedelics was the “mind move” that occurred—the recognition of the fluidity of consciousness. My reality maps were no longer absolute. With psychedelics, I could see how all cosmologies are heuristic and it depends on what you want to do. I could get into various viewpoints; if I wanted to see the universe from a Christian perspective, I got it. That was a very important discovery for me.

Another thing I learned was how important it is to do one’s contemplative homework afterward.

The perennial philosophy and the esoteric teachings of all time suddenly made sense. I understood why spiritual seekers were instructed to look within, and the unconscious was revealed to be not just a useful concept but an infinite reservoir of creative potential.

The approach to the numinous is the real therapy. And in as much as you attain the numinous experience, you are released from the curse of pathology.

The increased awareness offered by psychedelics comes in different forms. In higher doses taken in safe and sacred settings, they facilitate recognition of one’s intimate relationship with all living things. In moderate doses, they facilitate awareness of the intricate psychodynamic structures of one’s individual consciousness. In low doses, they facilitate awareness of solutions to technical and artistic problems.

Books Describing Shamanistic Healings and Practices

An extraordinary intellectual achievement in popular scholarly inquiry may be found in: Andy Letcher, Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (New York: HarperCollins, 2006.) It is incisive, skeptical, brilliantly analyzed, and beautifully written by an insider.

“Sessions in which the drug activates areas of difficult emotional material and the individual tries to avoid facing them can lead to prolonged reactions, unsatisfactory integration, subsequent residual emotional or psychosomatic problems, or a precarious mental balance that becomes the basis for later ‘flashbacks.’”38

A major factor in determining the intensity—either ecstatic or problematic—of an LSD experience is the quantity of drug ingested.

Because of the highly suggestible nature of the LSD experience, belief in the myths can contribute to self-fulfilling prophecy and increase the likelihood of having an adverse reaction.

Entheogen use does not necessarily make spiritual development any easier. Skillful and respectful use, with careful attention to intention, set, and setting, may help to foster the spiritual path.

LSD has the potential to produce extraordinary effects on consciousness, stripping away psychological defenses and bringing users into contact with the gods and the demons of their own psyches.

These observations led us to postulate the following: Any human function can be performed more effectively. We do not function at our full capacity. Psychedelics appear to temporarily inhibit censors that ordinarily limit what is available to conscious awareness.

Psychedelic material taken (200 milligrams of mescaline), equivalent to 100 micrograms of LSDb

While all of the above factors are important, set is the most critical for problem solving. When psychedelics are taken for other purposes, people gravitate toward internal complexity, visual and sensory enhancements and distortions, and emotional intensity. To help participants achieve significant progress on their own intellectual problems, establishing the set requires a deliberate and ordered ambience. The first and perhaps the determining question is, does the participant care enough about the problem, area of research, or intellectual issue to be engrossed in it, and is he or she emotionally involved? One criterion is to determine if the person has already put out considerable effort toward its solution or resolution. The more the problem matters, the more likely the session will be successful.

Pre-session Meetings

The best physical setting is probably a living room with enough floor or couch space for each member of the group to lie down. The setting should be comfortable, with no medical and laboratory overtones. Desks or lap desks to help the participants make notes or sketches may be useful. No computers, cell phones, or the like. If there is only one participant, an audio recording may be made. However, for many participants, speaking about what they are thinking seems to slow down and constrict creative thought.

While this section is about using LSD, as has been noted, mescaline and morning glory seeds as well as psilocybin and psilocybin-containing mushrooms are in the same family, although each has a different active molecule and should be dosed accordingly. Our original study used mescaline and LSD interchangeably, depending on which government agency was conducting an investigation or audit of which drug at our facility. The fact that our initial investigations used mescaline had no bearing on the results. Other experiments (unpublished because they were done after the research ban) showed that LSD is equally effective. Morning glory seeds are a last choice because they can cause nausea in some individuals.

For participants with no prior experience but who are sufficiently motivated, 100 micrograms of LSD is an optimal dose. For participants with considerable prior experience, 50 micrograms is probably enough. If a participant is not anxious but feels uncomfortable or unable to focus and relax into the music, another 50 micrograms may be given an hour or so after the initial dose.

As the LSD effects begin to be noticed, participants should be encouraged to lie down, put on eyeshades, and listen to music. The kind of music should be agreed on beforehand. Solo instruments are good; Bach or Indian ragas are fine. Highly emotional music and vocal music should be avoided.

For some, the cognitive shifts last far beyond the session. Even after the problems they picked are completed, their capacity for problem solving remains enhanced. It is as if they found an extra gear on their mental bicycles and can go farther with the same amount of pedal power.

“I learned that whatever I was able to do that day was not because of the drug, but because the drug allowed me to function in a way that I was capable all along of functioning, without the usual frictions we encounter.”

I saw that the personality of man is like layer upon layer of glass. The specific vision was of irregular but cleanly geometric pieces, each behind the other into infinity. Each piece of glass was attached on pivots at the top and bottom. At any place, if any piece were turned slightly it would reflect an external picture and, like a mirror, block any further vision inside. I knew, with deep regret, that most of us have many pieces turned askew.

As I observed my own constancies relaxing during that evening, I realized that if such a fundamental filtering and reordering process, which is basic to human survival, could be set aside, then it seems reasonable to assume that the filters we keep around our thoughts (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, inhibitions, compulsions, language, cultural constrictions) could also be set aside and that new and original configurations could not only form, but would be less likely to be rejected. It may be that many of the methods used to stimulate or increase creativity actually are ways to reduce “non-creativity” instead and that normal awareness is far more fluid and flexible and innovative that it is given credit for.

What was it like to do legal drug research? Because of the sixties, on most college campuses today it is no trick to find a psychedelic drug, take it, have a wild ride, and wonder about it all. To give it to people in a setting so supportive that 80 percent of our subjects reported that it was the single most important event of their lives—ah, that was a different time!

I also helped them deal with their families, who were usually baffled by the combination of tales of bizarre inner experiences and the sense of being with someone, a husband or wife, who was so much more totally open and loving and caring than he or she had been the day before that it often brought the spouse to joyful tears.

Why did our drug research frighten the establishment so profoundly? Why does it still frighten them? Perhaps because we were able to step off (or were tossed off) the treadmill of daily stuff and saw the whole system of life-death-life. We had discovered that love is the fundamental energy of the universe, and we wouldn’t shut up about it. What we found out was that the love is there, the forgiveness is there, and the understanding and compassion are there. But like water to a fish or air to a bird, it is there, all around us, and exists without any effort on our part. There is no need for the Father, the Son, the Buddha, the Saints, the Torah, the books, the bells, the candles, the priests, the rituals, or even the wisdom. It is just there—so pervasive and so unending that it is impossible to see as long as you are in the smaller world of people separated from one another. No wonder enlightenment is always a crime.

When people take a sub-perceptual amount—for LSD, about 10 micrograms (also known as a micro-dose, sub-dose, or “tener”)—the common sensory effects associated with higher doses of LSD or psilocybin—a glow or a sparkle around the edges of living things, sensory interweaving such as hearing in color or tasting music, and a loosening of ego boundaries—do not appear.

There are also some cautions, some hard-learned do’s and don’ts, and I just wanted to quickly run through them here before describing what you might expect (or at least what I experienced). Be conservative in following the protocol, including the amount and the days between doses. Stick with your normal patterns, especially eating, working, and sleeping. Be very discreet as to whom you let know.

Effects: Making Infinity More Transparent I’ve regularly felt four kinds of effects from micro-doses: physical, emotional, creative, and spiritual.