How to use psychedelics as healers and change workers (transcript)

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Episode Transcript:

Lian (00:00)

Using psychedelics in the work of healing, transformation, individuation is something that certainly personally, I took some time to come around to. And even now I have, I see there's some important nuances and maybe even principles that we're being called to observe. So if you are already some kind of change worker and perhaps have been in contemplation

felt resistance to the idea of involving teach plants in the work that you do, or even in your own personal healing journey. This conversation with what I might call psychedelics pioneer, Paul Austin, is going to be one you'll really enjoy. Let's dive in

Lian (00:47)

Hello, Paul. Welcome to the show.

Paul Austin (00:50)

Thank you so much for having me on. I can't wait to get into it today.

Lian (00:55)

Well, I've already got the challenge to ask you a question that you won't want to answer. So don't look forward to it too much. So I would love to begin with a bit of the origin story. What brought you to this work that you're doing now? And particularly, I think there is, I can feel like something of an adventure in you. There's a kind of like natural kind of questing spirit.

And I can also see there is something of, you might not call it this way, something of a healer in you. You know, for you, this is about what you can kind of like bring back to the village. What, what had you combined that kind of like why psychedelics with that work of healing and change? What's brought you here?

Paul Austin (01:41)

Well, I mean, that's a great opener question. So in 2017, my first major media piece was a feature in Rolling Stone, where they portrayed me as the world's first microdosing coach. And the journalist that was interviewing me had asked me about my upbringing.

You know, my dad worked in higher education where he helped individuals to clarify what they wanted to do professionally, what was meaningful for them from a vocational perspective. And my mom was a social worker in a hospital, right? And so kind of what I came to learn and discover through that interview is I seem to have chosen a path that integrated what my parents did where I'm combining what I think you know, how do we combine really meaningful work with social impact in a way to really support people? And oftentimes when people work with psychedelics in an intentional way, not only are they able to heal things like depression and addiction and PTSD, but a lot of folks feel like it provides clarity into their, let's say, higher calling or higher self. And my journey in getting into that was, it was interesting because when I tell a lot of people where I come from a lot of folks are quite surprised As to how I ended up where I am you know, I grew up in the Midwest in the United States and for any of your listeners who are not from the states the Midwest is a fairly conservative traditional religious part of the United States and I grew up in a small town and I

and a very religious home, meaning every Sunday we were going to church as a family. And that was the case pretty much every single Sunday of my life growing up. I missed it on a few occasions, every week or two, every so often we would go on a family holiday and might miss it, but we were at church pretty much every Sunday. And one Sunday after church when I was 16 years old, my parents had recently found out that I had been smoking cannabis. And...

They sat me down one Sunday after church and my dad looked at me and was like, you know, I haven't been this disappointed since my brother passed away in a car accident. That's how impactful illegal drugs were to my parents because they had been raised in the Just Say No era of Nancy Reagan and the war on drugs. They believed that anything that was illegal was really, really bad and awful. And so from the age of 16, I was told that I should be ashamed and feel guilty of doing anything that was an illegal drug. And yet what I felt at the time was, this was interesting. I had a lot of fun. Like this didn't seem all that bad. What could be potentially wrong here? A few years later, the same friend that introduced me to cannabis introduced me to psychedelics. And I started to have at the age of 19, very meaningful experiences.

Lian (04:46)

Hmm.

Paul Austin (04:51)

with psilocybin mushrooms and LSD in particular. And at that point in time, I was attempting to figure out what I wanted to do with my professional career. I'd been studying medicine at the time, but it was clear that I wasn't going to continue to study medicine, that my path was something else. And so with those early LSD experiences, right, yeah, exactly. With...

Lian (05:11)

See? I said you're a healer.

Paul Austin (05:16)

with my early LSD experiences, it became very clear that I was to follow a more unconventional path, that freedom was my North Star, and that I really wanted to pursue a profession that I thought would be very impactful and help a lot of people. And the thing that I cared most about was the environment. And so when I started to professionally work in psychedelics at the age of 24, 25, that's when I started Third Wave as an educational platform in the psychedelic space. The focus was how do I pick a mission that I think could dramatically impact our capacity to relate to the environment and to really feel connected to nature and to feel sort of calling to protect the environment. Because when I had these early experiences with psychedelics, I felt deeply connected to the natural environment. Because when I was doing LSD in these early days, I was often in the woods with a friend or two at the beach in the...

I grew up close to one of the Great Lakes called Lake Michigan. So we would go swimming all the time. And so I just felt this deep call to help to steward this emerging psychedelic Renaissance, which I refer to as the third wave of psychedelics. And so for the last 10 years, I've really been focused on education, on safe and ethical and effective psychedelic retreats. My most recent project is training psychedelic practitioners, facilitators, guides, clinicians, coaches, and how to work with psychedelics. And for me, the big thing is how do we create cultural accessibility to psychedelic substances so that folks can use this in an intentional and responsible way to heal and transform ourselves and society at large.

Lian (07:03)

thank you so much for sharing that and I could really feel that devotion you have to the natural world and our relationship to that. I can, I can, I have a very strong connection myself and I could feel that in you as you were speaking.

What you said about your parents there leads me to ask if you don't mind sharing, what's their view on what you're doing now given that was their initial reaction?

Paul Austin (07:36)

So in 2015, when I started Third Wave, they were still highly skeptical. And so I kept doing my thing regardless. In 2017, I started to do a lot of public speaking around psychedelics and they started to notice, especially as more media came out, that there might be a there there. And then in 2018, Michael Pollan published his book,

Lian (07:59)

Mmm.

Paul Austin (08:03)

how to change your mind. And my dad and I have a thing where I'll send him a book to read and he'll read it. He'll send me a book to read and I'll read it. And then we talk about it as part of our connection. And so when Michael Pollan's book came out in 2018, he read it. Soon after that, he started to microdose, became open to microdosing. And then in 2019, I actually guided him through a high dose.

Lian (08:26)

Wow.

Paul Austin (08:31)

psilocybin journey, which was impactful and meaningful. It wasn't world shifting and changing for him necessarily, but he found that there was some insight that came up that he didn't necessarily have access to before. And so for the last now five years, they've been, I would say, quiet supporters. They're not necessarily psychedelic enthusiasts. I have two sisters as well, one of whom has experimented and tried microdosing herself. So they're definitely open to it, but they're not necessarily seeking to, you know, drink ayahuasca or do a bunch of mushrooms. But they get what I'm up to now. They understand it and they have a bit more sense of it. And I think that that was probably one of my biggest blessings is the environment that I was raised in, although it was more traditional and religious and quite strict and sheltered.

Lian (09:15)

Hmm.

Paul Austin (09:29)

there was always a deep sense of, I would say, unconditional love and that my parents really believed that I could do whatever I wanted. And they were not attached to me becoming something that they had in mind for me, meaning a doctor or a lawyer or going to grad school in this way. So when I chose to pursue the path that I chose, although they were skeptical of psychedelics in particular, they also had a deep sense of trust. And I think that allowed,

Lian (09:43)

Mmm.

Paul Austin (09:59)

them to see things from my perspective eventually. It took some time, but eventually they were able to change their mind, which I think is really powerful.

Lian (10:08)

Hmm, how beautiful. What's that shown you? If you look at this through, I guess a more archetypal lens and your parents representing sort of views in the collective, the way that these sort of fears and sense of like there's something wrong, even evil in using psychedelics.

If you look at that through a collective lens and then that kind of the arc of that story, whether now, as you say, not perhaps, you know, huge advocates, but certainly can see there's a place. What has that taught you about what's possible in our collective?

Paul Austin (10:48)

Well, it's really interesting that you asked that question because if you look at some of the research now that's coming out about psychedelics in particular, since 2019, the number of people who have tried a psychedelic has quadrupled in the United States. So four times the number of people tried a psychedelic in 2023 compared to 2019. In addition to that, Cal Berkeley,

Lian (11:07)

Gosh.

Paul Austin (11:19)

carried out research last year. And through that research, they showed that 61 % of Americans now support legal psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. And I would include my parents in that. And so there's a way in which psychedelics from the fifties and sixties has largely been a bi -coastal trend in the United States, meaning people in New York city and people in California got it in some of the big urban centers, but.

Lian (11:31)

Hmm.

Paul Austin (11:48)

Everything in between it was sort of like we would never touch this there's no way and so I think what part of what my parents coming around to it has shown to me is that there really is a deep need for change especially within our mental health care system as I mentioned my mom was a social worker who worked in a hospital for 30 or 40 years she recently retired but towards the end of her time in the hospital, they were starting to have workshops on the medical use of psychedelics, ketamine, MDMA, even psilocybin, the alkaloid and psilocybin mushrooms. So archetypically what that says to me is on an individual level, there's something very powerful about.

Lian (12:23)

Mmmmm

Paul Austin (12:38)

staying connected with family that so oftentimes visionaries or change makers love to focus on the big picture. And we sort of lose track of the importance of the relationships that are closest to us. And sometimes the most important thing that we can do is to change the hearts and the minds of those who are who are closest to us. So I think that's that's one thing it speaks to. I think collectively, the second thing it speaks to is.

Lian (13:00)

Mmm.

Paul Austin (13:09)

you know, and this is going to get a little esoteric here, but the lessons that mushrooms in particular, I really consider mushrooms to be a medicine of the people. We're seeing this more and more with functional mushrooms like lion's mane and reishi and cordyceps and turkey tail. But we're also seeing this with psilocybin mushrooms. Fantastic Fungi is a phenomenal documentary about this. It's on Netflix. I would recommend for folks to check out.

And I think the lessons that mushrooms have to teach us in this era is that we seem to be in an era of death. There's a lot of death happening. There's death of a lot of the systems, the industrial systems that we've been relying on for the last several hundred years because they're no longer working for us. And mushrooms teach us how to transmute death and turn death into a superpower and even leverage this concept of the death and the dying to compost and plant the new paradigm or the new system. And so I think collectively what's happening is we're leaning more and more into the medicine of the mushrooms because we are collectively in a time of liminality. We're in a period of uncertainty. We're in a period of unknown and learning how to accept that is 90 % of our current battle as a collective society. And from my personal experience with psychedelics and specifically with mushrooms, they are great teachers in how to accept that process and not be afraid of it, but instead to have the courage to lean into it and actually transmute that into...

Lian (14:42)

Hmmmm

Paul Austin (15:02)

the necessary power that we need to create what's to come.

Lian (15:07)

my goodness, yes, I couldn't agree with you more. And for me personally, my, I guess main teacher at this stage is the mushroom. And so much you've shared there is so similar to what I've been shown. So this feels like a nice segue into some of the places that I wanted us to journey together, which is, for people listening that perhaps already, you know, very committed to doing the inner work, both personally, but they're also perhaps serving others as therapists, spiritual teachers, guides, coaches, and haven't yet, for whatever reason, felt either the need or the desire to include psychedelics in their work. And...

There's a number of things you've said there that I think, you know, giving your mum as an example, that this feels as though is something that more and more of us are asked to be in conscious relationship to, even if it is a like conscious choosing not to include psychedelics in our work, more and more it feels as though this isn't something we can kind of just la la la doesn't even exist. It's something that we're being brought present to is in our culture. And it's certainly in the change work field.

And so I'd love to explore kind of like what's going on here. Why is that happening? And I think some of what you've just said speaks to that. But also, speaking personally, I was in this in this work for many years before feeling any call to include psychedelics and for me, again, the mushroom in particular in the work that I do. And it came quite late in that it was kind of off the back of working shamanically, the call to work, if in a shamanic sense, came first, and then kind of through that lens, of course, working with teacher plants is a kind of, you know, not necessarily essential to working shamanically, but of course, it's very aligned. And so I kind of like naturally felt more and more drawn in that direction. It wasn't really for me, this kind of like logical conscious decision because it felt to me that the work we were already doing was potent and was working, was effective, and yet there was this kind of like much more sort of deep intuitive core to include working with the mushroom. So I'd love to hear your sense of that kind of like, why would we, you know, we've had centuries, you know, if not longer of change work without using psychedelics, why would we want to include it?

and perhaps your own sense of why that seemed the way, I know for you it was kind of a little bit the other way around, wasn't it? As psychedelics almost took you in this direction. But I'd still love to hear what you've seen as to why we might want to include it, even need to include it, into today's work of change.

Paul Austin (18:17)

Yeah, that's a great question. So I mentioned before this educational platform that I started, but really a philosophy or a movement around the third wave of psychedelics. So if we're currently in the third wave, that suggests there must be a first wave and a second wave. And so what's really interesting is back when I started to get really deep into studying this work in 2015, I came to realise that we actually have been, and we as, by we, I mean, we as a human species had been working with psychedelics for thousands of years ourselves, both shamanically and also in more Western ancient traditions. So the most common examples of that are the use of psychedelics by the ancient Greeks.

through something called the Ellucian mysteries. There's a fantastic book about this called the immortality key and individuals like Plato and Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Pythagoras, Cicero, many of the greatest ancient thinkers of both Greek and early Roman times participated in these Ellucian mysteries where they drank a beverage called kukia, which is made from ergo.

Lian (19:17)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Austin (19:41)

Arigat is a fungus that grows on rye. It's the same thing that LSD is made from. So essentially these in ancient Greece, they were drinking a beverage that was very similar to LSD. But you also have the use of ayahuasca in the ancient Amazon. There's archaeological use that dates back to probably 1200 years ago. There is ancient archaeological use of a cacti called peyote in Mexico that dates back to 15 ,000.

years ago. And there's also archaeological evidence of the use of psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico from about 1000 to 1200 years ago. So all that is to say there is both an ancient and indigenous use of psychedelics. And one of my heuristics for ideas or technologies that I think are valuable is how long have we been utilising them?

Lian (20:28)

Mmm.

Paul Austin (20:41)

So when I look at the use of psychedelics the very fact that we've been using these psychoactive plant medicines for thousands of years speaks to some sort of utility for us as a human species now, unfortunately The Christian Church when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century demonized almost all of these substances That continued with colonisation in the new world where a lot of these substances continued to be demonized and prohibited and made illegal and then that reached its zenith in the 1950s and 60s when the counterculture happened and then the United States made all psychedelics illegal and then the United Nations made globally all psychedelics illegal. And so unfortunately, a lot of the modern take on psychedelics is tainted by this stigma that is not rooted in science, but is rooted in archaic religion and outdated.

Lian (21:32)

Mmm.

Paul Austin (21:38)

sort of policy and a political desire because the core reason it became illegal in the 60s was because of its relationship to the anti -war movement in the United States. And so the reason I mentioned all of that history is because it's important to understand that a lot of the current, I'm not so interested in psychedelics, is more reactivity that is rooted in an unnecessary stigma. And so once we get past that, right, and a lot of folks now are starting to get past that. Then we have a moment where we go, especially as energetic healers or people who are working with energy or potentially working in this sort of non -dual or shamanic space, then there's a question of, do I choose to work and engage with these substances or not? Do I choose not to? And Terrence McKenna, who is a sort of well -known, philosopher within the psychedelic space. He passed away many years ago now, but he wrote a book called Food to the Gods, True Hallucinations, The Archaic Revival, and he had a belief and an opinion that many of the shamanic ways that do not include psychedelic medicines simply don't have the same vitality as the shamanic ways that actually weave in psychedelic medicines. And the reason for that that he stated is because of the power and the potency of the intelligences that are in these plants and that part of learning to work with this intelligence is catalyzing massive healing that otherwise may not be available or may not be accessible. And so the more modern take on that is, you know, you can sit on a cushion for 30 or 60 or 90 days and meditate and something might happen, but something might not happen. You could practice yoga for you know, months or even years and something might happen or something might not happen in terms of this awakening experience, this enlightenment experience. But chances are, if you take five grams of psilocybin mushrooms, something's going to happen, right? There's almost a forcing mechanism, which is both beautiful, but also comes with a certain level of risk. And so typically what I advise folks is just recognise that this isn't necessarily for everyone.

Lian (23:35)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Austin (23:58)

This isn't a panacea. This isn't a cure -all. And this is a technology that has incredible potency and power. And if it's used with skill, with intention, with a certain level of reverence and responsibility, it can act as a massive catalyst when other modalities or other ways may not be as useful or as effective. Because my experience in 2024 now is A lot of folks who are coming into energetic work are coming from a deep conditioning of what I would call the Western industrial system. And so they have an incredible layer of armouring. And so these, these, these, these more subtle energetic ways like Reiki, for example, typically don't work for folks who are in that deeper level of armouring. And what I found time and time again is, psychedelics will break that armouring. Now that means there needs to be sensitivity, there needs to be skillfulness, there needs to be a deep sense of safety, but it's something that can break through that deep Western industrial sort of over linear, over masculine, over mental armouring. And that then can allow the spaciousness for some of these more subtle energetic techniques to, to come in.

Lian (24:58)

Hmmmm

Hmm, that really makes a lot of sense. There's so many different paths that are opening up. Yes, I'm like, I think we might need to come back and do another episode because there's whole areas that I would love to get into that we're not going to have time to. So picking one of my favourite children, which is... So... The...

Paul Austin (25:29)

Pretty rich, I know.

Lian (25:48)

The part that I really agree what you're saying there about that kind of like, it just, in fact, it's really interesting to me because of the people that typically I work with already somewhere along this path. Again, there are often people who are working themselves as change workers, they've already done a lot of that work to open. And I notice that even for example, when microdosing with, you know, fairly small doses because they're already so open, so receptive, you know, really with that honour and reverence and intention, huge revelations, changes, illuminations can happen because they're already so open. But as you're saying, that isn't the case for most. And so I think you've made a really strong case for why psychedelics have their place even within a landscape where we're already using other technologies. There is definitely that kind of like, it's going to kind of blast the doors off and sometimes that's needed. And I kind of, it's a kind of cliche at this stage, what we, even when we're banging on about the I -word integration, what I see over and over again is perhaps a kind of innocent misunderstanding of what's really meant by that, what's really required because then we're taking these very ancient teachers, ancient technologies, but we're bereft of the context that was there in ancient times. And, you know, we're doing our best within the context, and yet so much of it is still missing. And...

Talking, for example, you were comparing it to say, for example, maybe more contemplative meditative traditions, where it could take years to create similar kinds of impacts. The thing with those, they're kind of like, they're being integrated as they go, you know, whatever is arising is also part of that tradition. That's not the case for most people being blasted open with psychedelics.

Paul Austin (27:57)

Mm -hmm.

Lian (28:07)

And so whilst they may have an experience of say, for example, you know, using what you were talking about, kind of an experience that could be described as like an enlightenment experience, it's not going to necessarily be something that's really going to change how they show up, how they feel in life, the choices they make. And just to say, I'm not at all you know, I feel like I'm sort of slightly playing devil's advocate and I am but I'm also kind of it's not like I'm against you. I'm on your side as more than anything. And yet, I do think these are the important questions for those of us that are working, you know, for good for healing to be asking ourselves and also asking each other. So I'd love to hear your your sense as to, you know, is it actually helpful without that context without true understanding of what's required to integrate?

Is it actually helpful to blast people open with these, you know, very, very potent teacher plants to show them, have experiences, but then not necessarily be able to do very much with them?

Paul Austin (29:16)

Well, I think the response, there's a couple of things that are coming up. One is you're totally correct in that the support systems that were available for the ancient and indigenous use of psychedelics were naturally baked in because community living was much more central in a pre -industrial kind of context, right? What's interesting about the use of psychedelics in the 50s and 60s, I'm reading a book on all the communes that came about in the 60s and 70s. And essentially the book says without LSD, these communes would have never happened. Meaning that the...

Lian (30:00)

Ooh, I like that.

Paul Austin (30:02)

Meaning that the widespread use of psychedelics in the 50s and 60s did facilitate this massive shift towards a more communal way of living. And so I think...

Lian (30:13)

Hmm. I've got, can I just share a personal anecdote that supports this? I've never, I've never heard that before, but it makes so much sense. I had a very, sort of stereotypically hippie background and completely the opposite to yours, basically. Everything you said about your upbringing, mine was the polar opposite. And.

My father was like deep into ceremonial magic. One of my earliest memories is actually was him telling me about him going to the forest with his friend to pick mushrooms. And so I was raised with this all being completely normal. In fact, it was a bit of a culture shock to kind of reach the real world and find out this isn't normal. And so much of my upbringing was, you know, hitchhiking, staying in communes, sharing a house, squatting even, there was just this, you know, that communal living in all its different forms. And of course, steeped in a lot of use of psychedelics. So when you said that, I'm like, huh, I've never actually seen it as a kind of cause and effect, but it does sort of make sense. Yeah.

Paul Austin (31:26)

So, and I'm glad you brought that up.

Alistair Crowley is always the person that comes to mind when I think of the UK and magic and psychedelics and the golden dawn.

Lian (31:37)

Yes, infamously so.

Paul Austin (31:41)

So the challenge in current times is just we're stuck in a bit of a catch -22 or a chicken, what came first, the chicken or the egg, right? And so a lot of individuals who are working with psychedelics, it's absolutely leading to individual healing. We see this in the clinical research and the clinical outcomes for PTSD, depression alcoholism and a life anxiety that people who go through psychedelic assisted psychotherapy have clinically significant outcomes when they work with psychedelics. There's, there's, there's absolutely no doubt about that, that it's significantly improving their life. There's also research and so many anecdotes of people who are using psychedelics in a non -clinical way, and it's helping them to heal the relationships with their spouse. It's helping them to become better communicators. It's helping them to maybe navigate being neurodivergent or being quote unquote on the spectrum. It's helping them to become better leaders and communicators in business, to be more creative. So there are myriad of individual benefits that we are noticing and experiencing. The challenge then comes, as you mentioned, with the integration process.

And not just integration of the individual, integration of the individuals, how am I coming back into wholeness? We're seeing this as dozens and hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of people heal and transform with psychedelics that on an individual basis, it's really helping them. The challenge then is how do we create systems change so that this individual psychedelic experience leads to a collective new paradigm.

And this happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s, right? As I just mentioned, communes would not have happened without the widespread use of LSD. The challenge is that it happened too fast, that it was so rapid that it had no opportunity to really stabilise and create a sense of coherence. And so I think the task now is how are we not necessarily trying to rush this, but we're allowing this to unfold and emerge at its own pace. And I think for this, we look at the wisdom of the indigenous people and how they've lived with the earth, that they don't look at things in a seven year time horizon, like we've been so conditioned to do in the West, they really look at things from a seven generation time horizon. And so I think there is a sense of patience with this, that the true change always starts at the individual level, that it can't happen anywhere else.

And that as more and more people wake up through the power of psychedelics, but also wake up through what's happening on an environmental level, through what's happening on, you know, with AI and our professional vocations, through what's happening in mental health and various other things, there is this collective shift that is coming and that we all feel and that we all sense.

And again, this goes back to what I mentioned before. The reason I think part of the reason mushrooms are now showing up in the way that they are at this point in time is to help us navigate this time of massive uncertainty. So I think the question that you're asking is the is now the big task of our time. And it's what I've even always been focused on in the psychedelic space for the last decade. I've been like, let's first get psychedelics destigmatised.

Let's ensure people are educated about their upsides and their downsides. But once we've gotten to a certain place, which is basically now in 2024, 2025, that's when the real work begins of how are we now creating new systems that are influenced by the wisdom of interconnectedness that we so often learn from these psychedelic medicine.

Lian (35:37)

Hmm, yes. So there is a slight, I guess, bias in, you know, the studies you're talking about where so much research is showing us the, how these working with psychedelics in this way, it is effective.

And yet the slight bias in that is they are often happening in a therapeutic context, as in there is a therapeutic context with which, in which the psychedelics are being used, which, so there is a kind of, it's not like someone is just taking the psychedelics on their own in the wild, as it were. And so by its very nature, there is a kind of...

It may not be the full extent of the context that we might wish, but there is some context, there is some sense of this is what's arising, this is how to include in the therapeutic work that we're already doing or gonna continue to do. And I believe I saw you say something, either you said something about this at the beginning of the show or I saw you had written something about this.

I think there is.

In fact, I just had this kind of like this, this comes from a deeper place. Actually, there is a kind of logical part of this, but I think there's also the deeper our relationship becomes with these teacher plants, the more we have this sense that this isn't just meant to happen in the hands of the professionals. This is something that's just emerging and wants a place in, in the world and isn't necessarily going to come through only working with professionals and having to pay money to do so. There is a kind of like accessibility and equity that's being asked for. And so I think this goes to what you're talking about. It's like, how does that happen that we both allow this to be something that is supported to emerge naturally. And so it goes to the places it needs to. And also includes what we're talking about here doesn't necessarily have to be kind of it's therapy, but does include some of the context that actually allows these things to be healing, to create change, which I think does go to what you're talking about here about that, that requires systems. It requires us to be thinking in that way. And it requires us to be thinking beyond the individual because if we're making all this about, how can I, I'm not saying you're saying this just to be clear, but it's kind of like, okay, as a psychedelic coach,

I can give people that context and that kind of work and I'm also going to charge this money for it. It then of course does limit how many people can access that or who can access it. So I'd love to hear your thoughts in terms of like, what are you seeing can be created? What are we being called to do to create that kind of like emergence or to support that emergence?

Paul Austin (38:47)

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think of the phrase mycelial network, right? Mycelial network is the underground network that connects mushrooms, but it also connects an entire ecosystem from the trees to the ferns to the other parts of a forest, right? There's mycelial network underground that helps essentially with resource allocation across an entire ecosystem. And so oftentimes as people work with psychedelics, they feel like they are plugged into this sort of mycelial network where they're much more about collaboration, they're much more about sharing resources, they're much less incentivized by status, ego, achievement, and much more incentivized by impact, by what I call existential wealth, and by feeling nourished in the system and the community that they're in. And so the most common outcome of that that we've seen so far is a lot of individuals are starting what are called psychedelic churches Partly that's because of the religious protection in the United States that there is a lot of religious protection and so there is a several Supreme Court cases that protect the use of ayahuasca, peyote in the United States for religious reasons and there are a lot of I mean hundreds of other churches that have popped up at this point in time

Lian (39:51)

Hmm.

Paul Austin (40:10)

that are using these as sacraments. And so for me, having grown up in the church, knowing the church kind of system really well, I think what's emerging is a way to work with psychedelics that is communal, that is accessible, that is with mostly psilocybin mushrooms. That's why I call mushrooms the medicine of the people.

And as anyone who grew up in a church knows, like no one is denied coming to church. Those who are the members ties, they donate, you know, it's usually 10%. It's asked for 10 % of an individual's income. They will tie their donate to the church. The church provides, let's say the priest or the minister or the steward, a place to live and to take care of themselves, but it is a fully nonprofit.

Lian (40:46)

Mm.

Paul Austin (41:10)

model. And now I think the big distinction obviously between mainstream churches and religions and what's going on with psychedelics is the psychedelic way is much less dogmatic. It's much more about individual kind of exploration. There's more, I would say, traditions and rituals that are starting to emerge, but that's also part of the challenge, I would say, at this point in time is it can get pretty messy

overall, but I think really anchoring into that church model, anchoring into that model of accessibility is naturally the way of the future. And for me, the best modern example of this is the Vipassana model. And so Vipassana is a technique of meditation that was utilised by the Buddha to become enlightened. It's pure form was lost 2 ,000 years ago in every place except Burma. There was a lineage of teachers that kept the Vipassana technique alive. And there was a student called Goenka about 60 years ago who found out about Vipassana and sort of resurrected it. And there are now 160 Vipassana centers across the world. 100 ,000 people go through these centers every single year.

It is completely on a donation basis. You pay what you want and every person who supports is a volunteer and the main kind of way is it's a 10 -day sitting where you meditate for 10 hours a day, you have noble silence for that entire period of time, you cannot talk to anyone, you eat two meals a day and that's it, and you live like a monk for those 10 days. Right? And so I think there's probably some way in which the healthiest form of rolling out psychedelics is somewhere between a retreat center where it's accessible to anyone who wants to go.

Lian (43:03)

Mmm.

Paul Austin (43:13)

and a community model where folks can continue to show up to be in community with other individuals who are also on a path of transformation and awakening. That's about the most concrete I can be with that question at this point in time. I think a lot of it is still emerging and we'll see, but I am generally skeptical of this medicalised FDA.

Lian (43:26)

Hmm.

Paul Austin (43:40)

Approval path with psychedelics. I think there will be a very small minority of people who go that route the vast majority of people who work with psychedelics in the coming years will be looking to do it in community in groups because a lot of the healing is individual sure but most of it is the relational bonding that forms because a lot of our malaise in current modern society is loneliness.

Lian (43:52)

Hmm.

Paul Austin (44:07)

And when we do psychedelics in groups and in community, that is addressed through the relationships that are formed and the way that we are seen and held in community through the psychedelic experience.

Lian (44:13)

Mmm.

Hmm, yes that makes a lot of sense. I love the example she gave. So this maybe feels slightly I'm really aware that we're kind of almost out of time but it feels important to include this so understanding that so much of what we've been able to reclaim, which I think is a human birthright, but we've been able to reclaim so much of our understanding of how to work with these teacher plants, how to be in community, the way you're saying, from Indigenous people. And some of whom are so generously sharing those teachings with us. Part of my own shamanic lineage is has been learning from indigenous Mexican teachers who work with peyote. And what feels important to me is that as we are in that work, as you're saying, of kind of understanding how do we create these more communal ways of working with teacher plants, with psychedelics,

Paul Austin (45:04)

Mm -hmm.

Lian (45:27)

How do we kind of, and I think some of that as you're talking about that deepening connection and reverence with the land naturally happens. But I think there is a kind of conscious, how do we also be in a more reciprocal relationship with indigenous people? I think there has been a kind of a lot of us taking and thus far not much giving back.

Not much, paying our respects and in real ways, you know, giving funds, giving resources. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that because it is again, something that is constantly coming up for me and you know, how do how do we do that more in the work that we do? And it's not at all that I think, you know, we've got that done at all is something I'm in this kind of constant inquiry of as I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Paul Austin (46:24)

Yeah, so partly this is medicine specific, meaning if an individual is looking to go and do deep work with peyote, for example, or with Wachuma, San Pedro, or with ayahuasca, that really should be done within an indigenous context with an indigenous healer. Someone who has a lineage is a shamanic practitioner.

Because that context that lineage that rooting is I would say central and essential to the experience of working with peyote or ayahuasca or wachuma You could also say this is the case for iboga And in some cases psilocybin mushrooms, but I would argue not necessarily so I think and and and so the vast majority of people who do psychedelic work my understanding are working with ketamine, they're working with MDMA, they're working with psilocybin mushrooms, there's a very small minority who are working with these deeper plant teachers. And if that's someone's path, there absolutely needs to be a sense of reciprocity that could be financial, that could be time and energetic. Those are the two most common. A lot of individuals may start a nonprofit or even start a retreat center to support people who are working with this indigenously. I think the challenge a little bit, especially with something like mushrooms, is mushrooms, as I mentioned, are the medicine of the people. They've been used across eons in every culture and civilization. They're not necessarily specific to one indigenous group. They're very easy to grow. For example, on Third Wave, we even sell a mushroom grow kit, so folks can just grow their own mushrooms.

Lian (48:09)

Mm.

Paul Austin (48:19)

And so regardless of that, reciprocity is still important. But for a lot of folks that might just be community service. That could just be instead of getting so focused on how do I, you know, go down to the Amazon or how do I go down to Jalisco or how do I go to Gabon with Iboga and, you know, provide reciprocity there, I would strongly encourage the vast majority of people just to how do you help support your local community through community service.

and help that become a better place and start there before worrying about peoples that are thousands of miles away. Now, again, I would say if someone is working with ayahuasca, if someone is working with iboga, if they're working with peyote, the reciprocity aspect is critical, but the vast majority of people who are intending or have worked with psychedelics do not work with those plant medicines. So I think it's a tricky conversation to navigate, and it is essential to support the indigenous lineage of these medicines because that honouring the past of that is going to be the thing that helps us to navigate the future of where we're going. Because a lot of where we're going I think is towards an archaic revival, right? A sort of revivification of these primordial kind of paths of wisdom, psychedelics being one of them. And it's really important that we continue to steward the ancient wisdom of indigenous teachers and indigenous plant allies if we're going to find our way forward as a human civilization.

Lian (49:58)

Hmm. Yes. my goodness. There's again, so many other places I would like to take this conversation, but for the moment at least, I think we need to draw to a close. So where can people find out more about you and your work?

Paul Austin (50:03)

Right?

So the platform is the https://thethirdwave.co I know there are a lot of practitioners healers who listen to this podcast as well. We have a practitioner training program as well. And you can find details about that on the third wave. We start cohorts every few months and have a intensive in Costa Rica as part of that training program. And then I'm on social media.

Instagram and Twitter Paul Austin 3w so if anyone is listening to this has any questions if you just want to reach out if you just want to follow to stay up to date in terms of what's happening and what's going on in this third wave of psychedelics All of that is welcome, and I just appreciate so appreciate you Having me on the show the conversation was excellent and the questions were fantastic, so I really loved how this ended up

going and I'm deeply grateful for the platform and for your presence throughout the entire episode. Thank you.

Lian (51:17)

My pleasure entirely. This has been a surprisingly I don't know why surprisingly there's please don't. That's no disrespect to you, but it's been it's been much richer than I was expecting. So yeah, very pleasantly surprised. Thank you so much Paul.

Paul Austin (51:31)

Okay.

Thank

Lian (51.37)

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See you again next week.

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