How to Heal with Psilocybin Mushrooms

A 5 step guide

Editor’s Note: The publication assumes that anyone following the author’s advice here will do so in a jurisdiction where psilocybin is not a controlled substance.

I want to start this article with an expression of gratitude for Terrence Mckenna. His many speeches and books on the topic of psilocybin mushrooms have made it possible for myself to understand what this substance is, the history behind it, and how to safely utilize it. I highly recommend his book “Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution,” if you are interested in learning more about psilocybin mushrooms.

The psychiatric definition of depression is “A mental condition characterized by feelings of severe despondency and dejection, typically also with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep.” From my experience, depression is recognizing a problem and fully believing that you are smaller than that problem and at the whim of its will.

The American Psychological Association’s definition of anxiety is “an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.” From my experience, anxiety is a natural response to stress and stems from negative thought patterns about a future event.

I’ve dealt with both of these conditions ever since I was a child. I don’t want to spend a majority of this article justifying to what extent I’ve been depressed or to what extent I’ve been anxious or to what extent I’ve experienced the trauma that I’ve experienced. I believe that bringing up my own lived examples could clearly make the point that I’ve truly experienced these things, and even make myself more relatable to the reader, but will ultimately steer the focus of the article away from that of how to heal with psilocybin mushrooms. We’ve all truly been through so much. I also never want to participate in the chaotic cycles of comparing my trauma to another or vice versa.

If you are here, you are meant to be here. Healing is an individual journey that isn’t always a linear path. Others can be catalysts in your journey and speed up your ability to understand a concept, but ultimately, it is by your doing that you can understand such a thing. No one is ever teaching us anything. They are simply providing us insights from their own experience that we can teach ourselves how to or how not to apply. A good teacher teaches you how to teach yourself. With practice, you taught yourself how to write. Even if a teacher suggested holding your pencil in a very specific manner, you ultimately taught yourself what worked best for you. If our teachers actually taught us how to write we would be a spitting image of every detail of their writing style. We would curve our S’s in the exact same way that they do. We would structure our sentences exactly as they would. We clearly do not do this. We are all on such unique paths and ultimately teach ourselves how to navigate such paths.

What’s meant for you is already here. It is yours and no one else can take that away from you. Society conditions us to externalize our power, compare our life path to other people’s life paths, act in ways that please others before ourselves and so many more actions that, at its root, trap us in cycles of pain. You are the answer to escaping such cycles.

Society is structured in a way that prevents us from being aware of such a thing. Most of our individual lives are based around some hedonistic worship of the ego. The classic American dream of having a family for self-preservation of a legacy. The idea of classism and aspiring to be in the upper class just means that you are ok with others living in lack so that you can fill your life with temporary objects or benefits that you probably won’t even have in a decade's time. It’s so backwards to me that after the coronavirus pandemic, people still want to rush back to this way of living. This hedonistic worship of the ego, when conducted by the rules that society has unspokenly enforced, ultimately destroys the self, each other, and the planet.

We live in one big paradox. How can anyone else treat you better than how you can treat yourself? No one has spent as much time with you as you. So why does another’s definition of healing or success define your own? It shouldn’t. That’s the paradox of this article. I haven't gotten into the techniques that have worked for me yet because I want to make it very clear that, what’s worked for me will only work for you if it is meant to. There are so many flavors of what I will share that, if you listen to your intuition while reading this article, you will be able to extract what will work for you. With that, here are my steps.

“Through psychedelics we are learning that God is not an idea, God is a lost continent in the human mind.” ~ Terence McKenna.

Step 1: Set and Setting

The first step is the most important step. This refers to your mindset before such an experience and the environment in which you will have your experience.

When it comes to your mindset, I recommend that you partake in such an activity when you are in a good mental state and for the right reasons. This substance will return the energy that you bring to it. If you respect it, it will respect you. Check your ego before any experience. Psilocybin ultimately dissolves the stop signs that our brain naturally learns to operate by and in the process, rewires our brains to operate in new ways. This dissolves the many constructs that society has instilled in us, including the ego. An unchecked ego can make for a rather challenging experience.

Setting is equally as important. I recommend being in an environment that makes you feel safe, with those whom you feel safe around, or both. You will know what you feel most comfortable with by simply assessing your feelings, not the fears of others or of your own. I would recommend partaking in your first experience alone. I know that a lot of people recommend having a guide or trip sitter in your first experience, and if you feel most comfortable with that, definitely do that. The reason I recommend doing such a thing is because of what I stated earlier. Healing is an individual journey that isn’t always a linear path. Another person’s opinion on your healing, if you do not have the self-confidence or necessary awareness of self, can influence your ability to heal, which is counterintuitive to the experience.

Dosage will also affect how much of an experience you are in store for. The higher the dosage, the more intense things will be. You can control this by starting off with lower amounts and working your way up to higher doses.

Step 2: Set your intentions clearly

Our words are very powerful. Ask and you shall receive. General intentions do work well. I said for some time “Whatever I am meant to be shown, I would like to clearly see it.” I had many beautiful experiences based on that intention.

However, the opportunity for specific precision exists. This is how you can directly heal from whatever afflicts you. Confront it directly, and speak out loud what you intend for your experience. It will come to pass. I really can not recall a single intention that hasn’t done so.

I would also like to say that you have full control over this experience. I used to think that psilocybin had all of the control in these experiences, until one day, while listening to a Terrence Mckenna speech, he stated, if an experience is too much, you can tell the mushrooms to be gentler. I’ve tried it, and it works. I’ve told friends about it, and it worked for them too. It worked on a friend’s first trip which fascinated me.

Step 3: Breath work

When you’re in the presence of something extremely holy, otherworldly, or alien to what you’ve previously known, it’s completely understandable to experience a range of emotions. Center yourself with breath work so that you can calmly navigate your experience and receive the insights that you are meant to receive.

After taking a dosage, I like to meditate. This helps me raise my vibration, which usually leads to high vibrational experiences. It is from this state that one can observe the observer, and so on and so on until there is just one awareness.

Step 4: Immerse in an activity

Go hiking. Go to the beach. Go to a park. Enjoy reality for what it truly is. It’s a phenomenal phenomenon. Doing such a thing is essentially doing the same action as breath work. It raises your vibration which will lead to a higher dimensional experience.

High vibrational experiences are not void of negative thoughts or feelings, however. When they come up, the experience gives you the opportunity to identify with them or not to. I was in an aquarium during a trip and enjoyed the beauty of so many aquatic animals, but was also able to see the similarities of their experience in the aquarium with that of the human experience. It’s not an easy concept to grasp in the dark corridors of a space filled with strangers who are unaware of such a connection. It just reiterates to me the yin and yang of life. The balance of everything and its Ebb and Flow. With pleasure comes pain and vice versa.

Find an activity that is comforting to you and fully engage with it. In that presence, you will effortlessly obtain your intentions for the experience. It can be whatever you enjoy. I’d recommend staying away from technology because it typically appears distorted to me. Not always but often it does. My iPhone will look fake and very Sims-esque. Cars typically look like Hotwheel toys to me. On the other hand, I have learned how to perform wonders in Mario Kart, but my experiences reiterate to me that technology is not made to be pleasing to our eyes. It’s just not natural. What is, is the natural palettes of a sunset, or a flower and we get to enjoy these things every day, for free. That’s a gift.

Step 5: Accept it and Let it go

The final step is to accept that you are in such an experience, that it is only to your benefit, and that you do not need to do anything to obtain the results of your intention. The universe is a cradle and it is on your side. Let go of the need to know and trust that everything is perfectly happening to your benefit. It is only when you accept being in a prison that a prison is no longer a prison to you. That is essentially what the Buddha did.

Everything is truly happening for all of our benefits. What makes us think that we are the center of something that is so vast (the universe)? That we are calling any of the shots here? We are a part of something so profound that we literally can not comprehend it in our normal state. Check any religious or scientific text and it will tell you that the earth has been around much longer than humans have been on it. The universe has a plan for all of us yet, we get to influence that plan and partake in it every day.

Thank you for reading! I am more than happy to engage in the comments.

Feeling generous? Thank you in advance!

Interested in a part 2?