+ Conducting a Session

Set + Setting, Intake, Preparation, Interventions, Integration

+ Entheogenic Wisdom Traditions

• The Huichol Lineage

• The Mazotec Tradition

• The Amazonian Shamanic Traditions

• The post-denominational plant medicine ceremony

• How do some religious traditions use plant sacraments such as peyote, mushrooms and ayahuasca/yage in their prayer services?

• How do practitioners determine what dose of the plant medicine is best for each individual?

• How do practitioners care for individuals who have taken an awareness altering sacrament?

• How do the practitioners support the integration of the kinds of experiences that can arise from the use of psychoactive sacraments?

+ PSYCHOTHERAPY, PSYCHEDELICS AND EXPANDED AWARENESS

• Providing a caring, safe, therapeutic milieu for a psychedelic session

• Understanding the unique role of the therapist during a psychedelic session

• Integrating a psychedelic session: cultivating real change within the Self as well as with external behavior

• How the unique subjective effects occasioned by MDMA and Ketamine can be used therapeutically

+ The Contemplative Wisdom Practices

• Zen Training

• Mindfulness Practices

• How do meditation teachers introduce and guide their students in contemplative practices for personal transformation?

• How do contemplative traditions support a meditator's subjective experience?

• How does the formal structure of a meditation practice or a breathwork session support awakening?

• Do the kinds of experiences generated by entheogens and psychedelics have anything to offer contemplative wisdom practices? What can a contemplative practice offer those who want to explore psychedelic mind/body states?

• What’s the difference between the expanded awareness induced by meditation and the kinds of expanded awareness induced by entheogenic sacraments and psychedelics?

• How might someone who follows a contemplative wisdom practice also use entheogens with integrity? Can a contemplative practice support the exploration of psychedelic mind/body states?

+ Preparation

• What preparation is required to introduce someone to an expanded state of consciousness, contemplative practice or psychedelic experience?

• How does one build the session container (trust, safety, security, confidentiality)

• Assessing participant risks (medical and psychological)

• Who is a not a good candidate for these kinds of experiences?

• The well-informed participant: Preparatory disclosure, informed consent, clear agreements

+ Interventions + Beneficial Skills

• The Non-Intervention Model: Trusting the participant’s natural wisdom and inner guidance

• The Guided Process Model: Providing a structure and guidance for focused inquiry

• Exploring the Guide’s tool box and the use of: invocations, inductions, meditations, and supporting the non-judgmental witnessing presence

• Family constellation and family systems work in enhanced states

• Wrestling with life’s challenges: suffering, grief, anxiety

• Bearing witness to the end-of-life journey

• Bodywork and touch

• Using dance and movement

• The skillful use of music in a session

• The role of Noble Silence

• Using prayer, singing, and mindfulness practices

• The use of ritual enactments that evoke loving kindness, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, pleasure, and playfulness

+ Addressing Challenges That Can Arise In Session

• Fear and anxiety

• Supporting the physical and emotional body during a journey

• Control issues

• Near-death experiences

• Psychotic or dissociative breaks

• Physical aggression and acting out

• Medical emergencies

+ Integration + Meaning Making

• Finding a shared vernacular that can be used to adequately describe the subjective experiences arising in extra-ordinary states of consciousness

• Supporting the participant’s subjective experience

• Integrating and remembering what was revealed

• Integration coaching to assimilate the experience, make meaning, and foster desired change

+ Developing Hands-On Experience as a Guide

• The initiation/apprenticeship model

• The mentor/supervision model

• The partner/dyad model

+ The Ethics of Care

• Exploring the unique ethical sensibility required for guiding others in non-ordinary states of consciousness

• Conducting a comprehensive self inventory of one’s motivations for guiding expanded states of awareness.

• Balancing protection, permission, and connection

• When to intervene, when not to intervene?

• How can a facilitator know what is good for someone else?

• Understanding the interpersonal field and the influence of transference and counter transference in a session

• Ethical challenges for facilitators: sex, money, and power

• Discernment of subjective experiences: visions, revelations, magical thinking, personal inflation and spiritual emergencies

+ Unassisted Journeys — The “DIY” Approach

• Unassisted/ Do It Yourself (DIY) journeys

• Harm reduction strategies

• Know your self, know your medicines, know your source

• Understanding the kinds of subjective effects that can arise in non-ordinary states of consciousness

• Safety and contingency planning

• Support

• Using the crowd sourced resources that are published on the web

+ Looking Forward

• What is unfolding today for those who seek a post-denominational experiential spirituality that includes the use of consciousness expanding plants, molecules and practices?

+ The End of Life Journey

• Future looking: The skilled application of contemplative practices and psychedelic prescription drugs (Ketamine, MDMA, etc.) as possible tools that can be used to alleviate suffering and increase meaning making during the end of life journey.