A Case for Psychedelic Holisticism
In the psychedelic sphere, tensions between medicalisation, indigenous tradition, business, and advocacy are on the rise. As psychedelic mainstreaming rapidly unfolds, a move toward greater holisticism is key. In this post, we’ll look at the work of Gabriel Amezcua’s incredible work on holisticism and how these elements interact.
A Case for Psychedelic Holisticism
Psychedelic Holisticism is a term coined by Gabriel Amezcua, a research consultant and medical anthropologist based in Berlin, where he founded the Psychedelic Society, Berlin.
Amezcua’s research has involved investigating the politics behind tensions within the psychedelic world, and ways to bring about resolution.
His solution: Psychedelic Holisticism.
“Holisticism as a way of learning from each other about how to make a sustainable industry,” he shared, “It’s how forces compaginate with each other - interact and speak with one another.”
The Four Elements and the Psychedelic Renaissance
In his holisticism model, Amezcua likens the four elements driving the evolution of the global psychedelic movement to those which drive our species' evolution.
These being:
Earth: Psychedelic use being rooted in safety, harm-reduction support, and legal accessibility
Water: The therapeutic and healing uses of psychedelics
Fire: The ceremonial and ritualistic use of psychedelic plants associated with indigenous identity and tradition
Air: The intersection between psychedelics and the free market
Each of these elements has played a significant role in fuelling the psychedelic movement.
For earth, the advocacy element, recent years have seen over ten US cities vote to decriminalise or lower enforcement of psychedelic substances.
Regarding water and healing, with hundreds of patients successfully treated in psychedelic therapy trials, frameworks for legal psilocybin treatment centres are now being developed in Oregon and Colorado.
As for indigenous use, fire, the past decade has seen enormous growth in psychedelic retreat centres offering ceremonies in line with native traditions.
And finally, with an estimated market projection of $10.75 billion by 2027, more and more investors are powering air and the expansive reach of for-profit psychedelic companies.
Negative Competition
It’s the combined action of these forces which has amounted to psychedelic mainstreaming today. However, with extremes of each force tugging in separate directions, differences in agenda could spell a divided psychedelic future.
Amezcua described how this division could be framed in the concept of negative competition.
“All of the forces may feel as if they are enemies,” he explained in a Psychedelic Society interview, “ [negative competition] is the idea that if one prospers the other one falls.”
Some clear examples of this negative competition are in the conflict between medicalisation and traditional psychedelic use.
In typical indigenous plant and fungal medicine ceremonies, healing rituals focus on connecting to nature, community, and, notably, the beyond-physical realm.
Yet, despite disconnection at the heart of many psychological illnesses, there’s a concern that a single-patient medical approach, taking place in clinical settings, suppresses these core connective aspects of the psychedelic experience and disregards the opportunities psychedelics offer for spiritual growth and development.
On the flip side, however, since more traditional ceremonies don’t require the same standards as the medical setting there are question marks around participant safety.
For example, will participants on tradition-style retreats be met with adequate mental health support? Will facilitators be aware of how medications might interact with psychedelic medicines?
The business model of psychedelics also carries a major source of conflict.
With high profits at stake, there’s worry private companies may cut back on safety and care during psychedelic therapies to maximise their financial gain. For instance, reducing therapist-patient time, decreasing aftercare and integration support, or employing poorly trained therapists to reduce outgoing costs.
Additionally, with retreat companies exploiting natural resources and bringing new hierarchies of wealth and accessibility to local areas, business motives are, in cases, jeopardising indiegnous communities.
What Might Holisticism Look Like?
Examples of holisticism could look like training medical psychedelic therapists in shamanism, so they could bring more sacred and ceremonial aspects to these therapies if and when appropriate.
It could include communication between facilitators and medical professionals to ensure a clear understanding of someone’s health condition and medications before they engage in ceremony.
However holisticism may manifest, Amezcua stated how collaboration and learning from one another are vital:
“The process of solving conflict requires education, and for education you need collaboration.”
Holisticism Today
Luckily, as the psychedelic renaissance of today progresses, more organisations are threading these four elementary components of psychedelics together.
For example, the investment company Woven Science, which supports early-stage psychedelic and wellness companies, is currently intertwining business and indigenous reciprocity by providing ten percent of its profits to community land and education projects.
Taiwasi–a therapeutic treatment centre in Peru–similarly demonstrates multidisciplinarity, with a healing combining approach combining Western psychotherapy with indigenous-mestizo traditions, whilst working alongside medical scientific institutions for research purposes.
Moreover, holisticism is something we strive for at the Psychedelic Society.
Through educational resources and events, we bring to light the healing potential of these medicines-including both traditional and spiritual, and medical therapeutic approaches. We also collaborate with advocacy and harm-reduction organisations, such as PsyCare UK and the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group (CDPRG), to help increase awareness of psychedelic safety and drive legal accessibility.
An Undivided Future
Whatever the context of use, whether at a psytrance party, as part of a clinical trial, or deep in the jungle with a shaman, it’s evident more people are turning to psychedelics.
But in a rapidly evolving landscape, the forces that will dominate the field remain unknown.
Will medical safety only exist in the context of clinical therapy? Will opportunities for religious insight remain in ceremonies? And who will get to legally access these drugs?
In the same way, humans require connection to thrive, so does the growing psychedelic field. It’s through holisticism that the future of psychedelics can be safer, more accessible, and just for all.