Ralph has been hugely influential in the psychedelic community in regard to the skillful use of psychoactives. He left a prodigious scholarly output in which he discussed the many aspects of the psychedelic experience. He wrote many books about specific psychoactives (MDMA, ayahuasca, mushrooms, 5-meo-DMT, San Pedro, LSD and more). He conducted a thriving underground practice for over 50 years where he did individual sessions. During that time he also lead  several annual week long study groups that  experimented with healing and visionary interventions paired with various combinations of psychedelics.

So that you might gain a deeper appreciation of Ralph's important contributions to holding space for a psychedelic session, we bring you recordings of Ralph explaining his neo-shamanic approach. He called his method Alchemical Divination.

Ralph understood psychoactive molecules as non-specific amplifiers of consciousness. Each plant, fungal or chemical molecule  occasions a particular type of expansion of awareness. In Ralph's experience, if the participant does not have a specific intention for their session or if  there are no purposeful interventions offered by a guide, then a session will simply amplify what is arising in the participant's mind stream at that moment. This is the basis of the "set and setting" hypothesis that Ralph helped formulate which suggests that an individual's subjective experience of a "psychedelic" will arise based on the mind set of the participant and the environment  in which the molecule is experienced.

After many years conducting psychedelic sessions, Ralph further expanded his practical  understanding of set and setting to emphasize that purposeful interventions used in a session (either through the focus of  intentions by the participant (part of set) or the externalities introduced and directed by a guide (part of setting)  would exert a strong influence the subjective experience of the participant. This understanding led Ralph to refine his skillful means of conducting sessions for the best outcome for participants.

Ralph suggested that the most important intervention in a session,  was for a psychedelic voyager to intentionally and continually maintain a sense of curiosity and ongoing inquiry while in an expanded state of consciousness. Directing awareness in this way gives the participant the ability to navigate in an expanded mindstate during a session and to pursue paths of insight that they find meaningful.

Ralph offers a methodological counterpoint to those who follow Stan Grof's orientation that emphasizes that one follow the lead of one's own healing intelligence which will take you where you need to go. Stan was emphatic that a sitter not offer any interventions in a session. He wanted to protect the integrity of the inner healing trajectory, lest the external influences of the sitter hijack the consciousness and direction of the participant's healing journey.

Ralph was very interested in how one could direct ones own healing journey. Rather than trusting that a journeyer's consciousness would offer the best content for exploration and healing, Ralph suggested that that one could purposefully set up the trajectory of a journey in a psychedelic experience. In this way one could expect to intentionally explore in a session: a past trauma, the family system, future visioning, problem solving, mythic archetypes, and much more.

Alchemical Divination suggests a practical methodology for conducting sessions using psychoactive molecules for purposeful inquiry.

By framing ones intentions before a session, a person can effectively "seed" the direction and the kinds of content that one's mindstream will reveal. The setting of intentions is best done during the preparation phase, prior to dosing. In this case, the participant can rehearse a "practice run" of their session, contemplating the questions they are bringing to the journey.  Any processes or interventions that  will be introduced by a guide during the session will also be introduced and rehearsed prior to the session.

Individuals are exceptionally suggestible under the influence of psychedelics, thus a pre-session rehearsal in an ordinary state of consciousness helps to focus intentions and color the coming sense of inquiry in expanded awareness.

Ralph  is the individual most responsible for the wide spread practice of bringing a clear intention to a  psychedelic session. Ralph shared that intentionaiity,  a sense of purposefulness, curiosity and inquiry, are the primary elements that contribute to an impactful and meaningful session.

Ralph  was a master alchemist, pairing the unique subjective effects of particular molecules with complimentary kinds  of inquiry in expanded awareness. For example, he might pair MDMA with a process from Hellinger family system work in order that the empathogenic qualities of the molecule might support the pursuit of family system healing or insight. He might use the visionary properties of  mushrooms and LSD to enhance the visceral felt experience of traveling on a guided journey through the Buddhist wheel of Samsara. He would use the somatic and visionary effects of mescaline to support a meditator's exploration of somatic practices and the human energy field.

He would also combine molecules for their synergistic impacts. For example, when using psilocybin mushrooms he typically added a low dose of San Pedro cactus powder  which he felt offered a grounding influence. He would offer Syrian rue if one wanted to intensify the mushroom effects or might offer the option of a low dose of LSD (60 micrograms) at an hour plus into the session to intensify, clarify and lengthen the journey. Ralph paid exquisite attention to the preparation of the intended trajectory of a session and the choice of the right molecule to pair with the particular inquiry or Alchemical Divination that he chose to introduce.

We bring you two  lectures in which Ralph describes his process of  Alchemical Divination and demonstrates its use. Ralph believed that "divinations" (which are inquiries) could be done both in normative consciousness and in enhanced states. In the following  2 lectures he offers divinations without the use of psychoactives. Due to the on going "war on drugs" Ralph never spoke publicly about using psychoactive molecules or that he used this process extensively with psychedelics. In both cases his audience understood that his lecture was coded.

Ralph felt that his psychedelic session work was an esoteric teaching (not for everyone and only with ample preparation). His public teaching was thus carefully coded to protect himself and those he worked with.  These 2 lectures speak directly  to expanded states of consciousness occasioned with psychedelics. He models the practice of guided meditations in these mindstates and offers tools for navigation. There is some overlap in the presentations, but they are worth looking at as they are the only two recorded presentations that exist of Ralph discussing this material.

In addition to these lectures, we bring you a few audio recordings of Ralph conducting sessions and teaching  classes so that you can catch a direct experience of him. They are provided to give you a deeper sense of this wise and influential teacher.

Ralph was an active guide during a session- moving his clients rapidly through many types of inquiries, processes and somatic practices. Ralph's guiding style was extremely interventive, but he was very careful to support his client's cultivation of their own insight and meaning making and not to suggest or direct of their inquiry. His guiding was intended to offer and open for the individual using psychoactives the opportunity to choose different directions of possible exploration. He offered the participant full autonomy in the session, they could choose to follow his guidance if it was fruitful, or not.

In order that you might more fully understand Ralph's skillful approach to guiding psychedelic sessions, we bring you other presenters in The Guiding Presence who will share Ralph's methods.  A long time student of Ralph's, who is called "Anonymous" among the presenters,  will describe in detail the way Ralph guided psychedelic sessions. The Anonymous interview is presented after Ralph in the order of presenters. Jamy Faust describes how Ralph used the family constellation work, developed by Burt Hellinger,  in his psychedelic sessions, as a template for healing the family system. Both Anonymous and Jamy provide insight into how other practitioners have adopted Ralph's methodology and incorporated it into their practice.

We hope that these presentations will provide you with a deeper understanding of Ralph's unique  approach to guiding and introduce you to the important contributions that he made in this space.

Ralph Metzner  was a recognized pioneer in psychological, philosophical and cross-cultural studies of consciousness and its transformations. He attended The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he obtained a BA in philosophy and psychology. Subsequently, he obtained his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Harvard University and held a post-doctoral NIMH fellowship in pharmacology at the Harvard Medical School. While at Harvard he collaborated with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in classic studies of psychedelics in the 1960s, co-authored The Psychedelic Experience and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. He was a psychotherapist in private practice and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he taught for 30 years.  

Author of over 100 scientific papers and scholarly essays, he is the editor of and contributor to two collections of essays on the pharmacology, anthropology and phenomenology of ayahuasca (The Ayahuasca Experience, 2006)  and of psilocybe mushrooms (Sacred Mushroom of Visions, 2004). His conversational memoir of the Harvard projects in the early 1960s, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture with Ram Dass and Gary Bravo, was published in 2010. He compiled and edited a collection of essays and experiences with the empathogen MDMA, entitled Through the Gateway of the Heart (1985, 2012).

The Green Earth Foundation publishes his writings devoted to psychoactive/psychedelic drugs:  The Toad and the Jaguar – A Field Report of Underground Research on a Visionary Medicine (2013), and Allies for Awakening – Guidelines for productive and safe experiences with entheogens (2015). The Ecology of Consciousness – The Alchemy of Personal, Collective and Planetary Transformation was published in 2017.https://www.greenearthfound.org