How to Try Psychedelic Therapy for $20
Simplify and decommodify with the Wise Friend Method®
You read Michael Pollan’s book five years ago1 and thought about trying psychedelic therapy. But then Covid happened, and life, and the idea moved to the background.
Maybe you considered booking an ayahuasca retreat at some point and balked at the price. Did it really make sense to spend thousands of dollars to go vomit with some strangers in the jungle? You looked into ketamine therapy, but it was also expensive and weirdly medical.
Basically, it’s hard to justify spending a bunch of time and money on something that scares the shit out of you2.
What if I told you psychedelic therapy can be done in the comfort of your own home, with minimal hassle, for the cost of a dose — about $20?
It’s called the Wise Friend Method®, and don’t bother Googling it because it’s made up. Basically, it’s a way to try psychedelic therapy that maximizes potential benefits while minimizing roadblocks.
Here’s the basic idea:
Find a trustworthy, wise friend.
Take a high dose of psilocybin mushrooms under their care, listening to a playlist with eyes closed.
Integrate.
It removes the excuses, including financial ones, that stand between you and starting this work. It might not be perfect, but neither is any other option.
Who’s your wisest friend?
I remember asking my dungeon master3 about the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom. These were two separate ability scores in the original Dungeons and Dragons game, which seemed odd to my middle school self because, well, weren’t those essentially the same thing?
I’ll never forget what he said:
“Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. Wisdom is knowing which problems to solve.”
As a culture we’re obsessed with intelligence. It’s what schooling rewards. It’s what we want our kids to be. It’s how we identify expertise — e.g. you want a smart person to tell you what to do with your money or make sense of geopolitics.
We basically never talk about wisdom. When’s the last time you heard someone described as wise? Can you imagine a political candidate running on a platform of wisdom? What about a school that promises to nurture it?
Yet wisdom is the quality we most need both as a society and as individuals looking to grow with psychedelics. I would go so far as to say that wisdom is the only quality you need to consider when looking for a psychedelic guide. Better to trip under the care of someone with a big heart than someone with a big shelf of degrees, that’s for sure.
Here are some qualities to consider when picking a Wise Friend®:
They make you feel safe.
They are patient listeners.
They’re willing to admit when they don’t understand something.
They don’t try to solve your problems.
They have experience with altered states of consciousness.
The moment you first read the words “Wise Friend®,” a certain person might have popped in your head. Don’t overthink it. Start there.
Propose the idea to your friend without pressure or a timeline. Make it clear that only you will be using the substance while they remain sober, that your intentions are therapeutic, and that you chose them specifically because of the qualities listed above.
Keep it simple, keep it safe
Don’t let the perfect stand in the way of the good. Find a day that you can both set completely aside, find a location that is comfortable and distraction-free, invest in whatever preparation you can, and just do the damn thing.
Some recommendations:
Intend to stay quiet with eyes closed throughout the experience. Your friend should gently encourage you to go back “into” the experience if you open your eyes or start talking while the music is still playing The good stuff is in there, not out here, and if your friend does nothing the entire time except help you find the bathroom, that’s A-OK.
Find a 3-4 hour playlist and listen with over-ear headphones. Here’s one from Johns Hopkins. Here’s one from me. Don’t skip songs. Deciding whether you “like” a song will take you out of the space you’re trying to cultivate. Relax and float downstream.
Don’t skimp on the dose. Psilocybin mushrooms are extremely safe when taken under the care of a sober guide. Taking too little (less than 3 grams, typically) means you could find yourself with one foot in each world, which can actually be more challenging than going all-in.
The only problems your friend should solve are practical, e.g. “can I get another blanket?” They can encourage you to take a deep breath, or remind you that everything will return to normal. Everything else can be talked out the following day.
What differentiates psychedelic “work” from “play” is the willingness to go inward. So everything about this do-it-yourself approach should be geared toward that.
Remember: If you’ve never done anything like this, it will probably mark the beginning of a long process. You’re not going to become enlightened or heal your dad issues in one go. But you might get some otherwise unobtainable insights about how to steer your life.
In other words, go in with the expectation that it can change your life. Just don’t expect it will be happen immediately.
Integration is continuation
There’s more to say about integration than can be summarized here, but here’s the simplest version: After the experience, keep engaging with the things that felt important during the experience.
Examples:
Your body felt uncomfortable or “weird” while coming up. What helped? What messages were coming through? If it felt good to stretch, then stretch more. If you felt a pit in your stomach that was associated with your childhood, make that feeling the focus of your next therapy session. Go toward the difficult bodily sensations, not away from them.
You realized the importance of relationships. Then make those a priority. Call friends every day. Start a board game night4. Prioritize relationship.
You had an insight or sensation that felt important. Do whatever you can to keep that feeling alive. Meditate. Walk in the woods. Jump out of a plane. It doesn’t matter what the feeling was or what activities now evoke it — just don’t let it slip away.
You were overwhelmed, confused, or scared. Great! Keep engaging with whatever made you scared. Watch a documentary about death5. Push the edges of your comfort zone. Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.
Integration is the work of psychedelic work. Anyone can take four grams of mushrooms. Not everyone can change their lives in accordance with what they learned.
“It is not enough to touch awakening. We must find ways to live its vision fully.”
Jack Kornfield, After The Ecstasy, The Laundry
Beware the psychedelic industrial complex
As our culture has woken up to the potential of psychedelic medicine, we’ve started contorting it into the current healthcare model. That means creating a class of experts who hold the secrets to administering psychedelics, like metaphysical pharmacists. This is true in the emerging therapeutic model, but it’s also sneakily true in the underground, where ayahuasca practitioners obsess over authenticity and pedigree.
This patriarchal, top-down model makes us feel comfortable. It’s nice to believe that someone knows how to fix us. But it’s disempowering. And wrong.
Western culture was introduced to psilocybin mushrooms through a profile of the healer Maria Sabina in a Life Magazine article in 1957. Sabina was an extraordinary person, but she wasn’t an “expert.” She garnered hard-earned wisdom from an extremely difficult life and eventually found healing through the mushrooms. Then she held ceremonies for those who sought her wisdom. She was, in other words, a Wise Friend.
Psychedelic wisdom isn’t something that comes down to us from a priestly caste of healers, whether they’re wearing lab coats or Shipibo embroidery. It’s right here, available to anyone willing to listen.
That’s not to say that real indigenous wisdom doesn’t exist, or that thoughtful training in the use of these medicines can’t be helpful. But the wonderful thing about these substances is that nobody knows what the fuck they are. The M.D.s injecting ketamine at their for-profit clinics don’t know. The kambo-scarred yoga instructors slinging Ayahuasca in Topanga Canyon don’t know. I sure as shit don’t know.
This wisdom comes from the bottom up. From you.
Actually it was published seven years ago — jeez.
See: Dentistry.
And invite me. See #3 above.