Ep 150: Alasdair Kirk ~ Healing and Awakening with Psychedelic Integration

Embark on a profound exploration with Alasdair Kirk, a seasoned explorer of the human mind, as he shares his deep-seated knowledge about the transformative power of psychedelics in therapy and personal growth. His personal saga intertwined with professional expertise paints an enlightening picture of how these substances, often misunderstood, have the potential to unlock our innermost potential and catalyse a substantial paradigm shift in both self-awareness and therapeutic practices.

As we uncover the layers of Alasdair's experiences, we touch upon the significance that psychedelics have had in sculpting his life's path. From guiding his studies in neuroscience to enriching his work in psychotherapy and men's groups, his narrative offers a testament to the lasting influence these substances can have beyond the immediate experience. This episode isn't just another recount of psychedelic wonders; it's a heartfelt discussion on how they can be intelligently and safely harnessed to heal the deepest parts of ourselves and foster a connection to the world beyond our default reality.

Concluding with a heartfelt dive into the realms of integration and community, we address the essentials of creating safe spaces where individuals can process their profound experiences and contribute to collective growth. These are more than just stories; they are gateways to understanding how the integration of such transformative experiences is key to the advancement of individual healing and societal evolution. Join us as Alasdair unravels the intricate tapestry of consciousness, transformation, and the untapped potential within us all through the compassionate use of psychedelics.

Where to find Alasdair:
https://www.inner-truth.co.uk/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn. Truth and Transcendence, episode 150, with special guest Alistair Kirk. 150 with special guest Alistair Kirk. Now, if you haven't come across Alistair, he is a man of many parts. He's a psychotherapist and counsellor. He's a one-to-one shadow work facilitator and therapist with Healing the Shadow in the UK. He's a professional member of the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy in the UK. Who knew there was such a thing as that? He's a psychedelic integration practitioner registered with the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy. Again, he's a restoring connection facilitator working with conflict resolution and transformation. He's also a local group coordinator for ROPA, a leader in training and a crisis mentor, journeyman UK, a rites of passage and mentoring charity for teenage boys, which I think there are more and more of these movements happening around the world where we're giving young people really transformative rites of passage experiences, which personally I think is absolutely wonderful. He is a men's work facilitator and group leader and brand new this year he's just started in person in Hereford in the UK Psychedelic Integration Circles, and it was actually an announcement that Alistair made in a conscious circle I was in at the end of an ecstatic dance event the other night where he mentioned the psychedelic integration circles and I immediately thought I've got to have this man on the show.

Speaker 1: 2:10

I mean, I'm a fan of psychedelics used intelligently in brackets. No medical advice will be given in this podcast. You have to cover yourself these days but my personal life and my professional practice owe a great deal to psychedelic experiences earlier on in my life. Many of my clients don't know that they will do after this episode, but some of the expansive and mind-expanding and experientially expanding experiences I had through using psychedelics completely transformed all sorts of aspects of me and made an extraordinary difference to my ability to facilitate growth in other people. So I'm a great fan of psychedelics, but things have moved on significantly since the days of Tim Leary, magic buses and so forth. As I understand it, you no longer have to be dressed in rainbow-colored outfits in order to experience these things. It's moved into a completely different place now. So I'm fascinated to hear more about what is going on today in the psychadelia space. So our theme today really is psychedelic integration and, alistair, I'm just delighted you were able to come on. Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 2: 3:34

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for that introduction and yeah, it's really nice to be here. I'm excited and I'm curious about what might come following whatever threads that we follow. And yeah, I'm with that, I'm really here. I'm really here and present to the conversation.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Beautiful. Thank you very much. And I think I'll just say, you know, because some people might listen to this and thinking well, okay, I'm going to switch off now because this episode is just for people who want to. You want to get out of their head and trip off on some sort of hallucinatory experience. But I actually think that our topic is relevant much more broadly than that, because I think, certainly in the West and the piece of the West I'm in, I think we are overly wedded to notions like we know what reality is, we know what's going on, we can predict what's going to happen, we can analyze things, follow the head, etc. And I think that that's to our detriment. I think anything that helps us to step outside of that is helpful, even if it's only having a conversation about some of these agents, as I think people usefully call them now. So let's just dive into the conversation and just see where we go.

Speaker 1: 4:58

And I love what you just said, ali, about. You're curious about where it's going to go and I must say, whenever I used to take, in those days, lsd, that was the feeling I had before I started to, as they call it, come up, that feeling of I wonder where this is going to go, and I think, when we're present in life, that's a wonderful place to be. I wonder where it's going to go, and how much of the time are we sitting there thinking I know exactly where things are going to go, and then, of course, we limit the possibilities before us. So enough of me wittering on about this, one of my favorite topics. So, alistair, would you like to share with us, to begin with with um, how you first started to find out about psychedelics and become interested in them and see that they had a place in your life and a significance for you?

Speaker 2: 5:59

um. So that takes me back to um being college and hearing about mushrooms and LSD and just being really curious about this. There was no internet at that time and there was very little that I could find out apart from going to the public library and finding little bits about psychedelics in books. So I read quite a lot. I was introduced to Aldous Huxley and um the letters that he wrote back and forward between him and um Humphrey Osmond in the 50s, and I was fascinated by um, the, the, this man whose writing I'd really enjoyed, this English man whose writing I'd really enjoyed, and how he had had these experiences with mescaline written about in the Door's Perception. And there was just an invitation, an open invitation, into something very different. And so I did a lot of reading and a lot of research and um and and then had several experiences with LSD in my late teens and into my 20s. So that was my introduction um.

Speaker 2: 7:18

I can't quite remember the your entire question, um, but what it introduced me into was um. Well, I guess it kind of blew me away um. They were very um powerful and beautiful experiences where I connected with myself, even though I was with friends and we were in amongst woods or we were in parkland or whatever in a suburban setting. Um, I connected with myself in a way that I'd certainly never done before and was able to um. I quite liked what I found um. So it was. There were deep experiences that were both social and interpersonal and full of fun and craziness and things moving really quickly, but then really internal moments of being introduced to parts of me that were really important.

Speaker 2: 8:22

And uh, and so that was the beginning of my relationship with, with, um, with, with all things that can produce, um, an openness to what is and can humble me in what I know and what I don't know, and could challenge the edges of what I think is true and what I think is real, and that could be psychedelics, or holotropic breath work or, uh, meditation, um, yeah, and the work that I do it's sort of challenging those edges and and pushing into the parts of us that, that, um, that are maybe not of this everyday existence, egoic existence, that we find ourselves kind of locked into a lot of the time.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Yeah, beautiful. Well, that's very interesting, that initial connection with it, because I think what you experience is not necessarily the same as what everyone experiences when their first introduction to something like that. You know, I think some people get introduced to something like that as something to do on a Friday night, you know, or a source of entertainment or something that everyone else is doing, kind of thing. But it sounds like your initial connection with it came from a very inquiring place yeah, and there's something, uh, you know what's talked about.

Speaker 2: 9:51

A lot in psychedelic journeys is set in setting and in you know, contemporary psychedelic therapy. There's a lot about preparation and and and, even though I knew nothing about this at the time, there was an element of preparation. These weren't spontaneous, like, let's just, nexum acid. Um, we were at the pub. It was like somebody had a free house. The parents were going to be away, so we found where we could get hold of some. It was planned, and so there was almost like a preparation that we were naturally going through, even though we didn't know that was an important part of of our overall experience and how, what we were going to get from the experiences.

Speaker 2: 10:27

But there was now that I'm talking about it, there was an element of preparation going on yeah which probably led to the safety and um and the and the kind of experiences that I had then yeah, I'm I'm sure it will have done.

Speaker 1: 10:41

And it's interesting to me as well that you did all that reading before you first started to experiment with it, Because I think a lot of people either don't do that reading at all or they do it after they've done quite a lot of tripping and then they go oh look, Aldous Huxley did this too. Whereas you read Huxley first, I wasn't aware of these letters that went back and forth. And the other person you mentioned, could you say his name again?

Speaker 2: 11:09

Dr Humphrey Osmond. He was a psychiatrist, I think, in the States. I don't know if Aldous Huxley was in England at the time or whether he'd already moved over to California. This was in the mid-1950s, 50s um and after aldous's experience he saw the you know, the enormous potential of these agents for um, for for good living as well as within mental health um, and there's a book of his called moksha, which is just a. It's a. It's a thick paperback book. That's just the collection of letters that go back and forward between him and it's a fascinating account of what I got from reading. That was just the excitement that this man was um experiencing through his own willingness and courage to step out of everyday society and try something that's kind of on the fringes masculine in this case and to want to bring it and promote it almost really Promote is perhaps not the right word, but bring it into other people's awareness. And in one of his later books, island, there is a substance I think it's called Soma which is part into everyday living on the island.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Yes, I've read Island, because I originally read Brave New World and then later on I heard about Island, which was supposed to be sort of the antidote to the dystopian message in Brave New World, and then later on I heard about Island, which was supposed to be sort of the antidote to the dystopian message in Brave New World, so I thought I'd read that and then discovered that various people I know had read it when they were teenagers and it had been informative for them reading that book. And I actually made a solo episode about the book Island on this podcast because it is a very and in that story, the relationship they have, they have a sacred relationship with it, don't they? It's a part of their meditation and something that you have to kind of build up to being ready for. You know, and people are supervised when they start to take it. This was something I remember, I think I I took lsd first, probably when I was about 17, so that's back in the 70s, and there was a strong emphasis on having a guide, somebody with you who's experienced.

Speaker 2: 13:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Partly to make sure you didn't kill yourself by doing something incredibly stupid, you know, rather than just get you know fixated on a tuft of carpet, you know, for the entire trip, you know but actually just to allow yourself to let the experience blossom fully.

Speaker 2: 14:18

I think for me, having a sitter, there's something about this. There's in this space which is completely expansive and you're unboundaried and, depending on the dosage you've taken, having somebody that you know, that you trust, that can be that interface between you and and reality is really helpful. Somebody might knock the door or something, but somebody might phone, there might be an emergency, and having some layer of, um, uh, safety in between, that information getting to you in a vulnerable place, um, and that gets it. That information getting to you at an appropriate time is really is really is really important.

Speaker 1: 14:52

So yeah, and you refer to them as a sitter, which I like that. So, but I think terminology is important. You know, a sitter to me says someone who's sitting with you. They're not actually supervising you, and I use the word guide, so guide suggests they might be actually directing you, whereas sitter does not suggest that they might be directing you at all.

Speaker 2: 15:14

I mean, I think, I think things must have evolved enormously yeah, yes, exactly, I mean the sitter and and sitter, maybe passivity, but it's not a passive place either, it is a. It is a non leading space holding energy where if a hand is wanting to be held, the sitter can just take that hand. So there's relational emotional support, or maybe they can provide some kind of assistance if there's something somatic that's going on for somebody, but otherwise they're just. They're holding space, space allowing whatever is unfolding for the person to unfold yeah, yeah, and you, you, you.

Speaker 1: 15:51

You were at university when you had this first experience no, this was in college in college, right, um, and and what were you? So? Was this before you went and um studied um pharmacology and whatever. Whatever else it was that you studied at university?

Speaker 2: 16:11

uh, yes, I was doing a levels and then I went on to study, uh, neuroscience and pharmacology.

Speaker 1: 16:16

Yeah, right was. That was that choice, influenced by I think it was.

Speaker 2: 16:21

Yeah, I was doing psychology and biology a levels, uh, because I that was what I was interested in Neuroscience kind of combined both of those and included, you know, the study of pathology and where things go wrong in the nervous system. Yeah, I think that kind of. I think maybe those early early experiences really just did open the door into me as a biological being with a mind and these capacities, and so I'm sure that has woven really deep threads through through my life to here. Actually I haven't always been a therapist, um, I've. I went into a biological, then I had a career in IT, then I had a career as a landscape gardener and I've come back round to this.

Speaker 2: 17:17

So it's interesting having this conversation because the threads or the seeds were sown such a long time ago and I think I spent a lot of years thinking I had to produce something or be someone and I think maybe, as James Hollis would say, um sort of living somebody else's life. And then in midlife I realized actually I've been living somebody else's life for a long time and actually maybe there's a voice inside me that wants something very different for me and so when I started listening to that, that took me into rights, uh, into um, a contemporary rites of passage and men's work, and then the training that I've done and um and then that. So, yeah, that that voice is much, much, much louder in me now. But I guess what I'm saying is that I think, um, the seeds were sown possibly in some of those earlier psychedelic experiences I've had in my teams yeah, it makes sense and, and in terms of what you were studying and what you went on to study, there seems a little congruence there, you know.

Speaker 1: 18:19

But I also think sometimes we sort of incubate things, don't we? You know it it looks like we're a landscape gardener, but really we're incubating something that's going to come through later I like that idea.

Speaker 2: 18:30

That's really nice. I mean, I've always been reading, uh, you know, yeah, that's a really nice, um, kind of the idea of incubating something and it coming and it being born or birthing when, when, the time is right, is a nice because it all feels right to me, the way things have played out, all feels right to me.

Speaker 1: 18:45

So yeah I like that idea of incubating yeah well, I'm very connected at the moment with um, the, the cycles of the seasons. You know and we talked earlier about the fact that you know I've got daffodils in my in my workspace at the moment that I picked in my own garden because we've just reached the season where you can actually bring in flowers from the garden rather than having to buy them. I'm very aware that those daffodils were incubating over the winter. I think that's true for us as well, isn't it? We're not always in flower, because that would just be exhausting, wouldn't it, if we were always in flower, or certainly here in the UK? We're very, very seasonal. It might be very different for people who live in the tropics. I wonder what it's like for them. I wonder if their rhythms of incubating in their lives are different or similar. Maybe I'll have a conversation about that with someone on another episode.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Obviously, that was a decade or two or three ago that you were doing that and you mentioned that when you started having those experiences, you met some aspects of yourself that you quite liked. You found things about yourself that you quite liked. Can you remember one or two examples of that, because I think that would be fascinating to hear.

Speaker 2: 20:16

I think, when you reflect that it wasn't finding parts of me that I quite liked, it was finding a truth of me that I quite liked it was finding a truth. It was finding a spaciousness, um, where maybe I'd have to really search to go back to what that, what that was, um, but it was finding a space inside myself that felt really authentic and really me, um, and I think that's what it was right, okay, so you right, so you found it was an inner connection.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Yeah, an inner connection with yourself it was a deep inner connection um, yeah, that's that's all I could. That's that's all I can. That's I can't really find these experiences are ineffable. They're. They're sometimes, and that's part of the integration. Sometimes words don't cut it and we have to move into expressing through movement or or drawing or or prose or or some other way, sculpture some way of of making sense out of the experience so that we can preserve it and amplify it in some way if it's been a positive experience yeah um, because the words don't always quite catch it, and that's what I'm experiencing now.

Speaker 2: 21:28

It was just, it was a connection I was introduced to myself in a just in a very, very real way yeah which is what happens.

Speaker 2: 21:35

It's, you know, these protective, egoic parts of us that that manage situations for us and manage us. They're a kind of barrier between the real us and the outside world. These relational protectors, you know, they disappear with a good dose of a psychedelic substance or a plant, and so in that space there is only the truth of what is, and I guess I was connected in with that and it was powerful and this. I guess the, this, the experiences were safe enough that that wasn't something that was frightening, although I can remember parts of it being, you know, there being little bits of terror or not quite knowing what was happening, a lot of unknowing, but but there was something really about just being introduced to an authentic component of myself which was kind of like going home really in a way. Or, yeah, just truth, something around truth.

Speaker 1: 22:31

Right, so it's much more contextual than whatever the word for that relating to content, contentual, much more contextual than content, than content related.

Speaker 2: 22:43

So it sounds like it's it's more like a way of experiencing yourself yeah, but I think that comes back, I think I think that's something that is preserved, because I think one of the powerful things of um a really positive psychedelic experiences is it can work on the attachment level and for people who have had, who have ended up with disorganized attachment through not quite good enough upbringing or relational bonds as they're growing up as children, um an experience of being held by something greater, something cosmic, um can, in my experience, works on that kind of attachment level of um, of of having a lived experience of something very different and very positive, which is a um reparative experience, which is something that comes back, which you carry with you after that. That's not something. There's not something that is only, it's only contextual and only experienced while experiencing the effects of the drugs. That emotional experience is retained within the body and comes back with you.

Speaker 1: 23:52

Yeah, right, and do you think that's because it's you? You called it? Uh, truth, you know so you, you, you called it truth. You described it as a more truthful awareness of yourself, and I suppose once we know something, we can't unknow it, can we? If it's a truthful knowingness, as distinct from an overlay, of an impression that's temporary Like if we drink alcohol and we get drunk and then afterwards we get sober we don't retain the let's say, we've come uninhibited as a result of getting drunk. After we become uninhibited as a result of getting drunk After we become sober, we don't retain the positive side of dropping inhibitions. We don't retain that because we haven't had an inner awakening experience through it. It's like a temporarily induced experience. So what you're, what you're describing, doesn't sound like a temporarily induced experience.

Speaker 2: 25:06

It sounds more like a revealed experience yes, or even a transformation yeah you know when we're talking about attachment, attachment leads to shifts in the body. You know not good enough. Attachment can lead to complex trauma which has an effect on the neurology of the body, on the central nervous system, on the autonomic nervous system, and so having reparative experiences, where the nervous system is experiencing something different, has an effect. You know the body remembers that, and so that's something that's carried physiologically after the experience, as well as what we remember of the experience.

Speaker 1: 25:46

Yeah, I would concur with that. I would actually concur with that. To me, it's equivalent to any kind of deep and profound epiphany experience that stays with us.

Speaker 2: 26:01

Yeah, so I guess what I'm going coming back to is what you you know what I was introduced to and the truth that I was introduced to in myself and what happened by being connected to something that was both inside me and outside of me, and being connected to something boundless is something that has remained with me since that experience and probably has been part of an incubation of whatever has been incubated as I've moved through my life something outside of you being held by something outside of you.

Speaker 1: 26:27

It's something boundless. So it's a, it's a, it's an individual and a oneness. Maybe experience, as you're describing both of those things, yeah, as occurring, yeah, beautiful, lovely, and I must say I've had those experiences. And the thing you said about preparation, I I think is very important, and I mean there's so many. I've got so many questions firing off in my mind. I feel like we could talk about this for forever. Of course, we're not going to, not today anyway. So let me just ask you, then one of the mysteries about psychedelics is how does it do this? How is it that these substances facilitate or catalyze these extraordinary shifts within us? Does anybody know the?

Speaker 1: 27:37

answer to that In a way, it doesn't matter, right, but I thought I'd drop it in, because does anyone?

Speaker 2: 27:42

know? Yeah, I mean, it's the question that you would naturally ask. And um, you know, this research has been going on since the 50s, before the war on drugs and all of these uh um agents becoming prohibited, which has been. We're in a stage now of all of that being relaxed and um and psychedelics being prescribed um in some countries now. Um, and your question around, how does it work? There are theories and there's a lot of research going on. There's a guy in london, robert carhart harris, which is he he's appeared on a number of these documentaries that have been available on netflix over the last couple of years, um, and he's done a lot of work.

Speaker 2: 28:21

Um, I'm not certainly not an expert on this, but I do have a neuroscience background, so it makes sense to me that and and his work is on the default node network, which is a series of structures within the brain which really um modulate our kind of normal everyday going on with self kind of life patterns, and they're also the center of um the. They really light up in mri scans, which is how a lot of the contemporary understanding about neurobiology and about psychedelics is possible, because of these mri scans of the brain and then the default node network, um, lights up when we're ruminating, and especially in kind of negative thought patterns. This network or this area of the brain is really active and psychedelics that are a reasonable dose knock that out possible. What that means when that's knocked out? It means that other ways of approaching problems, other ways of experiencing internal content, other ways of experiencing the relational sphere, other ways of experiencing whatever it is that we could possibly experience, become open to us. And so, you know, different things can happen. We can have really different internal experiences or different relational experiences. But also psychedelics just create activity, like global activity in the brain.

Speaker 2: 29:45

It's almost like, um, the brain lights up under psychedelics, and I remember being taught in my neuroscience degree that the brain, once the brain was formed, the neurons didn't regenerate and, um, it just kind of went downhill from there.

Speaker 2: 29:58

But that is not the case and there is a huge amount of plasticity in the, in the nervous system, and so when the brain lights up under psychedelics, there is the potential for, as we're having these experiences, for a whole load of new pathways to be laid down, um and and so this is a theory and there may be other theories, but this is one of the theories as to how psychedelics have some of their effect Around switches in consciousness, we don't really know. Studies of consciousness aren't even really followed, because we don't quite know how to do it as far as my understanding goes, because we don't quite know how to do it as far as my understanding goes, um, we don't even know how the drugs that we've been using for decades that knock people out for anesthesia. We don't know their actual, proper, actual. We don't know how we know their physiological action and how they act actually on receptors within the body, but we don't know the mechanisms by with which that then knocks somebody out yeah so, um, uh, where was I going with that?

Speaker 2: 31:04

um, I don't know what I said, where I was going with that, but there's something. There's something about the real, um, the, the parts of the brain that are kind of, um, dampened down, and the activity that comes on in other parts of the brain, which means that something else is possible. Something outside of the ordinary, something outside of our habitual way, becomes possible.

Speaker 1: 31:26

Yeah, thank you. Beautifully expressed and I think my personal experience in that is one. That thing of getting over yourself, that feeling of dropping all of the drama in the story and, as you said, the part of the brain that when we're being negative and trying to… that sense of that just disappearing for a period of time very, very liberating. But also that sense of how things are perceived being completely new, that sort of sense of this table. I know it's the table, but it doesn't feel like the table, it feels like something else. There's an experience that's completely new and unexpected and somehow magical. That sense of something I took with me out of these experiences was that sort of knowing that what seems to be ordinary is in fact not ordinary, that everything has the possibility within it of being extraordinary. If I can actually drop my mental framework of believing, I know everything.

Speaker 2: 32:45

Which brings me to you know, there was a word wonder that was just there for me, and awe, which are words that come from these experiences and what you were just saying, the quote from Huxley, if I can get it right when the doors of perception I think it was him that said it when the doors of perception are cleansed, everything will appear as it is infinite, this idea that we see through these lenses of projection and ingrained patterns and we're not seeing the truth of the person in front of. I'm not seeing the truth of the person in front of me. I'm seeing that person in front of me through all of my judgments and all of my stories and all of the things that I'm thinking about. Them not the truth, but there's something about the truth that comes through the psychedelics.

Speaker 1: 33:29

Yeah, yeah, amazing, wow. So let's come forward a bit now to today. So, obviously, since that first experience that you had, you've done all sorts of different things and you've done more training and you're involved with all these different organizations and, again, we could spend a lot of time talking about all of that. But if we come back now to the present day, would you like to share with us a bit more about what you're doing now with psychedelic work? I'd love to hear more about these psychedelic integration circles that you're doing and how it's showing up in your work with your clients.

Speaker 2: 34:15

Okay, so what am I doing in my work in terms of psychedelic integration? I'm a psychedelic integration therapist, so people come to me through IPT and other people find me just through the website actually who are looking to integrate their experience. And what I'm finding, and what's inspired me, with my colleague, tiff Fedor, to start an in-person psychedelic integration circle, is that what I'm experiencing is people don't have safe spaces to talk about their experiences. Often people have come to psychedelics and they're experiencing something really deep inside or they're feeling really depressed, or there is something really strong that's going on for them. They're feeling some overwhelm or there's a pattern that they can't shift and they hear about psychedelics. And because there's, there's a lot of information about psychedelics and it's quite easy to find somebody who will facilitate an experience on the underground.

Speaker 2: 35:14

It's not legal in this country. You can take retreats to go over to the Netherlands or to Spain or Portugal or over to the States, and you can have legal psychedelic retreats to go over to the Netherlands or to Spain or Portugal or over to the States, and you can have legal psychedelic retreats. Numbering amount of days, numbering amount of doses. It could be psilocybin truffles, it could be ayahuasca, it could be ibogaine, it could be, you know, you can almost choose it and fly there if you want to. So I guess sort of psychedelic tourism is kind of happening right now.

Speaker 2: 35:41

But what I'm experiencing is people are coming back, they've gone away for a weekend, they're back into their office, job or whatever, and they've had this experience, that, and they need a space to unpack it and they can't talk about it. Perhaps, you know, maybe they could talk about it with their partner. Maybe they don't have a partner, they can't talk about it. Perhaps, you know, maybe they could talk about it with their partner. Maybe they don't have a partner. They can't talk about it with their group of friends or their community. So so people come to psychedelic integration because they want to preserve or unpack, um, a meaningful experience so that they can transform that into some kind of meaningful life change, so they can use what's happened in their experience, that they can transform that into some kind of meaningful life change. So they can use what's happened in their experience, or they can mine what's happened through through through, uh, an integration session or some integration sessions in order to get to the, the juice and the gold of what they learned about it. To get that, you get that meaningful content and and transform that into into some way that they can incorporate it into their life and live the, the train change or the transformation that they, that they had um, and the other side of that is, people come to psychedelic integration because, um, they've they're with some kind of adverse uh effect of the of the um experience which may have come through the lack of preparation, um not knowing what they're taking or how much they're taking, um not really having done their research, um, or they haven't looked at the actual context of what's going to happen in the particular ceremony or ritual or therapeutic setting that they've decided to, to, to engage with and something they haven't, you know, understood what you know, is there going to be social interaction?

Speaker 2: 37:32

Are they going to be with eye mask and headphones? Is it going to be solo? Is it going to be relational? How relational is it going to be? Am I going to be asked to do anything? Is there going to be solo? Is it going to be relational? How relational is it going to be? Am I going to be asked to do anything? Is there going to be any process work? I've heard of that happening Some psychedelic retreats or some ceremonies which, if you haven't agreed or given your consent, or didn't even know about in advance, for having to make some kind of choice when you're in that altered state is almost impossible really, absolutely. It's hard enough. When you're in that um altered state is almost impossible really absolutely.

Speaker 2: 38:02

It's hard enough when you're not in an altered state exactly, exactly, and so that can be an incredibly traumatic experience. It can be a traumatizing experience, um, uh, and and and some, and so somebody can finish an experience, a retreat, and something like that might have occurred, and um, and so they need some kind of holding because they're feeling overwhelmed or they're feeling anxiety, or they're feeling mood swings, or or there's some memory of the experience which is coming back and sort of coming back, uh, that they're kind of holding on to. Yeah, yeah and and, and those adverse experiences can also come, um, uh, come through something else happening, with the shaman or the practitioner, boundaries being infringed, an unresolved content, something coming up that was coming up in order for it to be resolved. That's what I believe happens in these sessions the kind of unconscious or or or um, the content, the body.

Speaker 2: 39:01

There is a, there's a, there's an inner healing intelligence in the body, and the body, the psyche, will present what needs to, to be shown in order for that to be processed in in some way, and so, if that's not fully resolved, somebody might be left with that um, so there's a number of different ways in which somebody could be left with something that's challenging for them, and so integration sessions support either the containment of difficult situations or difficult content, or the processing of that content um or transformative experience, that that, that um. That generally is the case if, if the set and setting, the preparation and and the groundwork has been done beforehand, these are really really safe compounds that have been used for 6 000 years, maybe even longer, um and um. When they're, when they're used intelligently, I think, with the word you used, with respect, with gratitude, then the experience is really, in my experience, very safe.

Speaker 1: 40:12

Yeah, amazing. Well, I think they're very fortunate to have you to go to, because, of course, in the back in the 70s there probably were people offering something like that. But where the hell were they, you know, and, and how do you find them?

Speaker 2: 40:28

and and that's the other question that kind of comes up actually, as you say, that is, why do we need it, you know? Why do we need psychedelic? Why do we need psychedelic integration? And and and I guess I partly answered that because our culture, people go away and they have these experiences and they don't have any way to unpack them, whether that's positive or there's something that they need to work through afterwards.

Speaker 2: 40:49

Um and in um other cultures where these plants are still a part of the um, part of the um community, um, there's no such thing as psychedelic integration because it's just accepted. You know the way somebody might behave. The rest that they might need, the uh, the, the emotional support that they might need, the silence that they might need, is just a given. And so they're, they're given this space and the community holds them in this way, because these, these, these agents are an integrated part of what it is to be a human being within that community, they're respected and they're valued. And we are not there yet and maybe one day we will be, and there'll be no need for me in this role as a psychedelic integration therapist, because our peers will be doing it for us or our families will be doing it for us or our, you know small communities will be holding the space for us to support the growth and the insight and the um, just that movement towards authenticity and real living and truth in yeah, truth in relationships and in everything else.

Speaker 1: 42:02

Yeah, well, that's a lovely thought.

Speaker 2: 42:05

It is a lovely thought, yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:06

And of course that is what Huxley talks about in Island, isn't it that beautiful, beautiful community? And I think what you're talking about could apply to all sorts of other things that we don't automatically integrate. I could think of sexual love, you know, as another example, where which is the most wonderful, miraculous thing, but we are extraordinarily inept at actually receiving our experience in relation to that integrating it.

Speaker 2: 42:46

There's a long way to go in a number of different ways, that we're living as human beings, and, and love is another component of that. And it's about yeah, yeah, um, that's a long way to go in a number of different ways, that we're living as human beings, and, and love is another component of that. And it's about yeah, yeah, um, that's a whole, that's a whole other, that's a whole other thread. But I, yeah, I'm, I'm really, I'm really with you. There's when you, when I hear you say that, there's something in me softens around. My goodness, what would it be like to live in in such a community where love and sex didn't come from a place of taboo or shame you know, it was celebrated for what it is and going into expanded states, whether it's through breath, work or plants or um chanting, you know, whatever it is that that's just a part of connecting with who we really are, authenticity, who we really are, and the power that we have as change makers and individuals and leaders that we all have inside ourselves. We all have the capacity.

Speaker 2: 43:45

We all have the capacity to be amazing yes, we do and we're living in this culture where it's so easy for us to pick up these messages that we're not good enough in some way or that we're not enough, yeah and um, and this kinks us and then, and then this kinks us into adulthood in a certain way, where we're limited and we we have such capacity and um, and that's what I'm passionate about in my work with facilitated shadow work and embodied parts work and um, and the work with psychedelics is about really introducing myself and other people to the capacity of what they're capable of yes, yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 44:30

And I feel like that kind of links back to what you were saying about your early experiences, where you met yourself in a new way. You know, and you're saying we all have the capacity to be amazing. And I would say, because we are inherently amazing and we have the capacity to to realize that, which is, of course, why it's called self-realization, isn't it? That's wonderful, and I really hear, through your voice and the way you're talking about it, how your heart is very much in what you're doing. So wonderful, because I think when we're coming from love, or bringing our hearts into our work, or if our work is actually directed by the heart, that's when we're really doing something which supports and serves our own personal expansion and growth and which also contributes significantly to the collective. So it's both, you know, and my impression, listening to you, is that what you're doing is both for you.

Speaker 2: 45:51

You know you're personally expanding and you're contributing to the collective and there's one component I'd add to that that for me, the mission in life there's something about the find the thing. If you can find it, I'm very fortunate to have found mine, I think, um. And there's something about the inner healing that happens. My mission is very linked to what needed to heal and then we can grow.

Speaker 1: 46:39

Sometimes I think we think that I actually think. No, we're growing, we're healing. We're growing, we're expanding. We're healing, we're learning. I think it all goes together. I think if we're able to be connected with all of that as practitioners, that's when we can really show up, isn't it? Because otherwise we're just a bag of theory.

Speaker 2: 47:03

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:04

Nobody wants that. So tell me a bit more about your psychic, psychedelic integration circles. I'm aware that at the time of recording, you're just about to do the first one and at the time of airing, you'll be just about to do the second one. So, um, I'm going to actually do a little game on this one. I'm going to say, if you imagine that you've already done the first one, yeah would you describe how it went?

Speaker 2: 47:32

okay, would I or could I?

Speaker 2: 47:34

have a go okay, I can do that. So it's a beautiful space in a studio in the center of hereford, wooden floor, um, very low lighting. Um, there was a circle of people sat in a circle, maybe about nine, eight or nine people, uh, two facilitators not really facilitating, just holding the space. Um, uh, maybe we've got bottles of water, um, and the safety is created through agreeing what does happen in the circle and what doesn't. Confidentiality we're not going to um, we're going to use a talking piece. We're going to let each person share for as long as they want to share, for we're not going to interrupt, we're not going to um advise, we're not going to interpret, we're not going to offer any feedback unless it's specifically requested from the person sharing. So that when it's my time to share, share I can hold the piece knowing that nobody's going to talk over me and I can just speak freely, knowing that, um, I'm not going to be judged or I'm not going to be asked a question or I'm not going to need to clarify something, so I can just follow whatever it is that that is what I need to express in order to share what I want to share. So that's safe for me to do that. And so we go around. Maybe there will be a short check-in at the beginning names and why you're here. Perhaps we'll invite people to bring an object to place in the center of the room, to create a little altar. Maybe this object symbolizes your fears about being in the integration circle or what your experience was. Maybe you talk about that in your check-in.

Speaker 2: 49:12

We have a round of sharing. You don't need to participate. Uh, everybody, anybody that comes, doesn't need to have had a psychedelic experience. It's for people that do and want to share it. It's for people who are curious and want to know a bit more. It's for people that just want to find out about other people's experience. And it's a sharing circle um for, for, for. For that to happen with harm reduction and um, with harm reduction in mind, education around um, how, um, if you're going to do this, this can be done safely, and it's not. We don't promote or I'll speak for myself, I don't promote the use of psychedelics outside of legal frameworks. There are places that you can do this legally. So we're just offering a space, an important space for this community, where people can come and share about an experience that perhaps they can't share elsewhere.

Speaker 1: 50:16

Yeah, that sounds amazing, sounds such a beautiful thing, and I'm interested that you're including people who have not had a psychedelic experience. That's quite an interesting choice, I think, because I could imagine that some people who have had a psychedelic experience might possibly have some wariness about having people in the circle who haven't. So I just wonder how you're going to hold any kind of potentiality around any division between people who haven't and people who have.

Speaker 2: 50:48

There's nothing to hold. Um, if we all agree on the agreements whereby we're not offering feedback, then somebody can think whatever they think about somebody else's experience and they can hope that's their content, that's their, whatever happens for them as they listen to somebody else share about whatever happened in their experience. Um, that's, that's theirs. And if they're, if they're, if feedback is requested, then of course they can share what they're thinking about. That, um, but the culture of the circle is about acceptance. So if there's something, I would hope that that will be how the, how the circle grows and, um, that it will be a heart space for people to share.

Speaker 2: 51:31

And, of course, if an element of conflict comes up, for whatever reason, then that will be, managed, that will be facilitated so that both people can be heard and a resolution or not a resolution I don't quite like that word a transformation can happen in the space between those two people if there's some energy between them.

Speaker 1: 51:50

Lovely, I love that.

Speaker 2: 51:53

I don't really see that happening. It's an interesting idea that you're bringing. I don't see that happening. But if it does happen, I have the skills, or Tiff has the skills, to facilitate something useful for the group so that that can be transformed.

Speaker 1: 52:09

Yes, and clearly from your answer you you're not perceiving it as a division.

Speaker 2: 52:15

so um, I want to what I mean, what I'm keen to do and part of being here and part of the integration. Speaking about my I mean, I wasn't sure what we were going to be talking about, but it's just to, um, what is it? It's to normalize. It's to normalize and it's important for the people that don't know about the positive potential of expanded states or non-ordinary states to come somewhere where they can be safe and just join and just be quiet. They don't have to participate quiet. They don't have to participate, they don't have to share. They could be past the talking piece and pass it to the next person. There's no um, there's no expectation of anybody to even open their mouth when they come. They can just come and be quiet and listen. Yeah, so it's important for me to to not have any policy about who can come or who can't come, because that that isn't where I am got it.

Speaker 1: 53:13

So, in other words, it's not just um psychedelic integration for the individual, it's psychedelic integration for the community yes, it's psychedelic integration for the community and it's not a clique or some some cult.

Speaker 2: 53:25

you know, we're here and some of us are involved in, in, in going to these places, these realms sometimes. That's not what it's about, it's just it's a space where these kind of conversations can happen.

Speaker 1: 53:37

Wonderful. Well, I love that because I do think one of our capacities as humans is to try to find division or, you know, categorize, you know. And I certainly remember again back in the 70s, sometimes there was that thing of no, I'm into this, you're not. So therefore I am more advanced than you are or therefore I'm more enlightened than you are. Some of the time for some of us, and of course, some of the time for some of us, it was all one. We are all you know. We're all one under the light of heaven type thing. So, and the way again, the way you answered, that really comes across as that. That is it that integrated within you, like you've integrate. It sounds like you've integrated within you the, the value of the psychedelic work and, of course, all the other work that you do, um, and you don't actually perceive any of it as as divisive. It's all inclusive. You're very, very inclusive in the way that you're talking about it and approaching yes, I mean you're it's.

Speaker 2: 54:46

It's quite nice for me to hear that back actually, and that is I. I accept that fully. That is the truth of who I am and there is just so. There is so much black and white division us and them uh around and it's taking us in the wrong direction and the only way, the only way forward is the is is is taking responsibility.

Speaker 2: 55:12

There's an amazing about six-minute clip on my website, on my psychedelic integration page, with a guy called Chris Baish who's had a lot of experience with LSD and he talks about. It's this piece that I took out of a podcast where he's talking about psychedelics and the shadow and society, and what I really get from that piece is just an amazing invitation to take responsibility and that means taking radical responsibility. And when we take radical responsibility for my thoughts and my feelings and my stories that I have about the world or about you, there is no us and them, because I'm taking responsibility and it's such an important part of being a human being and it's so difficult. Even the way that we use language, we don't use I statements. Often I hear people talking about you when they're talking about themselves. We almost have these invisible constructs to not take responsibility in our lives.

Speaker 2: 56:14

And it's only through taking radical responsibility and owning really who you are the bad and the good and working with the bad. And there we are again bad and good. I'm labeling even at that moment, this duality, this division. I'm labeling, even at that moment, this duality, this division. But it's only through taking full responsibility that those divisions I feel are going to start to separate a little bit. So yes, it's an open space for anybody to come.

Speaker 1: 56:44

Beautiful, love it.

Speaker 1: 56:47

We're going to start running out of time soon, so I'm going to move into some of the questions that I always use to sort of wind up towards the end, and the first one is if we think about the world right, there are some challenges.

Speaker 1: 57:03

I think we can agree in the world, and everyone's got their own ideas about what is happening, what isn't happening, what should be happening, what we should be doing about it, what we shouldn't be doing, who's right, who's wrong, right, so we want different ideas about that, and in amongst all of that, there are a lot of people in leadership positions of one sort or another. You know, business leaders, political leaders, spiritual leaders, community leaders, and I'm including people who are just seeking to be leaders in their own lives, just be responsible in their own lives, and I like to think most of these people want to be part of the solution, helping things be better, and some of these people are listening to this right now. So I would just like to ask you listening to this right now, so I would just like to ask you what would you like to say to those people in relationship to some of what we've been talking about today?

Speaker 2: 58:00

that's your question that's my question, but you're gonna say something more. What would I like to say to those people? That's some well, I feel like a weight of responsibility now. Um, let me think. What's what's there? Can you ask me the question again?

Speaker 1: 58:16

yes. What would you like to say to leaders in the world today, of any kind, including the people who just want to be leaders in their own lives, who who want to be part of the solution you want to be helping in relation to what we've been talking about today? What do you feel you'd like to say to those people?

Speaker 2: 58:36

My brain's firing off in lots of different directions. So I'm coming back to this idea that we have ultimate capacity and what I heard you say. We don't have ultimate capacity, we have massive capacity. Jungian theory suggests to us this archetypal realm, which really is a map for the capacity of who we can be as human beings, all of our potential, which is slowly we lose it as we grow up a little bit, through putting bits of ourselves into shadow because we're told we shouldn't show off, and so we put our confidence into shadow and we shouldn't't do this, and so we don't speak up in public and and and and. So we, we get smaller and smaller.

Speaker 2: 59:17

And there's something that you said about the pathway forward is this kind of integrated pathway and and? Um, so what would I? What I've learned in myself is is what supported me to just take steps forward, despite raging anxiety that I noticed inside me on my first Vipassana sit, is this sense of growing, not just working with the parts of me that are difficult, that are stopping me from going for where I want to go anxiety or fear or risk I want to go anxiety or fear or risk but also growing those capacities in me that can really do what it is I want to do, because they're the parts of me that can hold the fragile aspects, the works in progress that are getting better but are not quite there yet or that still get triggered. So there's something about something about this is there's too much responsibility on this question? Something about this is there's too much responsibility on this question?

Speaker 2: 1:00:12

There's something about, I guess, from where I am and I don't this sounds funny, as I'm hearing myself say it there's something about doing your personal work, getting to know yourself, and I guess that for me, that's through, um, shadow work and understanding the parts of myself, healing what needs to be healed, and holding those bits of me that are still those works in progress and also push. You know, for me it was pushing myself out into these other spheres where I can learn something in a different in about myself, in a sort of different realm. So, um, I don't quite know where I'm going with this, but there's there's a quote on my bathroom wall in our downstairs loo marianne williamson our deepest fear is not that we're inadequate, but our deepest fear is that we're powerful beyond measure, and and I, I guess I just wish those. Everybody has an inner leader and we all are powerful beyond measure, but we, somewhere along the way, learned that we're not. So it's just do whatever you can to step into those shoes and step forward beautiful.

Speaker 1: 1:01:18

Well, regardless of the fact that you thought you didn't know what you were saying, that was amazing. Thank you very much. And sometimes I think actually um stepping forward and making the contribution when we think we can't or don't know what we're saying, I think is also really really valuable, and that's another reason I love these conversations on this podcast, because we're not just sort of spewing out our script. We're actually exploring together in the moment, and I really appreciate what you just said. I think that's fantastic. So, alistair, if people would like to find you, maybe they'd be interested in coming to your integration circle, or maybe they'd like to come to you for some personal work. Where would you like people to go if they want to find you some personal work? Where would you like people to go if they?

Speaker 2: 1:02:10

want to find you. They can find me most directly through my website, which is inner-truthcouk, and for the integration circle in Hereford, the website is hereford-integration-grouporg.

Speaker 1: 1:02:34

Right, Fantastic. I shall put both of those links in the show notes. And then the next question is we've talked about an awful lot today and I feel like we could talk forever, because this is such a great topic. Is there something else you'd like to say about psychedelic integration, which, if you don't say it now, in an hour or so or tomorrow you'll think oh God, I wish I'd remembered to say that. Does anything pop?

Speaker 2: 1:03:05

through. It's a really nice invitation just to check, nice invitation, um, just to check. Uh, I appreciate that, and there's nothing that is immediately um, there's a, there's nothing that's immediately immediately coming.

Speaker 1: 1:03:20

So I guess it was there'd be something there, so no, brilliant and has there been for you a favourite part of our conversation today?

Speaker 2: 1:03:33

Yeah, there has. It was really nice to connect back to where this all began for me with Aldous Huxley and the research that I did and reflecting on that. In fact my son, who's just turned 18, carries Huxley's name. He has Huxley as a middle name, um, so maybe there has been something incubating all of these last years in me. Um, he's been kind of holding that name. It's interesting just to kind of reflect on that so that's what.

Speaker 2: 1:04:06

So that's been really, um, I've enjoyed that, going back and thinking about those earlier times and weaving that thread and seeing how that really how significant I think those early experiences with LSD, how impactful and how significant they have been for where I am now as a 48 year old man. Yeah, it's been really nice to just follow that thread in some way this morning. Yeah, I'm really grateful.

Speaker 1: 1:04:41

Well, thank you so much. Uh, it's been really interesting and enjoyable having you on. You know, it's a great conversation and it's so lovely. You know the thing you said about if you've had psychedelic experiences, who can you talk to? For me, it's been fascinating talking to somebody with a completely different background, completely different. There are many differences between us. You're a lot younger than I am, for one thing, and you're working with it professionally, which I never was. It's just been fascinating hearing about your relationship with it, the work that you're doing, which I think is fantastic, and I really want to say blessings upon your group. That you're doing, because we could all do with more personal integration, collective integration, more personal integration, collective integration, openness, exploration and support. So hats off to you for doing that.

Speaker 2: 1:05:37

Yes, I appreciate that and, as I hear you say that, I'm just thinking I'm standing on the shoulders of giants I am just one of. I'm no expert. Nobody really knows what psychedelic integration is. We're making it, we're not making it up. There's think tanks and I'm part of an integration group with ipt. Um, uh, um. What I wanted to say is you know the current.

Speaker 2: 1:06:00

There's so many people like me who are actively involved in clinical trials in the uk, in london, in cardiff, in bristol, in, in brighton, um, where clinical trials are going on with psilocybin. So there's people actively working in the science. And there's people like Rick Doblin and Bill Richards who have pushed psychedelic therapy with psilocybin and MDMA, and Stan Groff, who pioneered LSD psychotherapy in the 50s and is in his late 80s now. You know, there's just been some incredible individuals who have not let go of the power of these agents through all the prohibition and everything else, and they've held on to it long enough for that to shift and for it now to be being legal to, to, to do the research and for these agents to be prescribed. Mdma was prescribed for the first time about two weeks ago in australia.

Speaker 2: 1:06:54

The psilocybin clinics in some states in the us, um, so this is all possible because of these amazing individuals, um, who, who have through the direct experience that they had with these plants themselves, have kept hold of that, their potential and that magic, and have have kept that flame going, and, before that, all the indigenous, you know, people who have been using these plants as part of their cultures for thousands of years. It's just amazing to be, to be here and to be now and to be able to contribute in some small way to this mosaic of potential that is maybe ahead of us.

Speaker 1: 1:07:33

Yeah, beautiful. Well, thank you so much and stay on after. We'll just speak to each other before you go. Thank you so much. I can't wait to air this and receive the feedback. I think it's going to be great. I've actually got a small queue of people who can't wait to hear this conversation, so thank you very much indeed, Alistair, for coming on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:07:55

Yeah, I'm really grateful to be here and yeah, thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 1:07:59

And I'll see you on the dance floor.

Speaker 2: 1:08:01

See you on the dance floor.

Speaker 1: 1:08:07

Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating, reviewing, subscribing, buying me a coffee and telling a friend. If you'd like to know more about my work, you can find out about mentoring, workshops and energy treatments on beingspaceworld. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.