Ep9 Julian Evans - The Missing Piece in Psychedelic Safety: Support After the Experience

Julian Evans  0:00  
Come to some conclusion on a trip it must be true. Or, like mama Aya huasca told me this, it must be true, or this shaman gave me an ecstatic experience, they must be a really noble, virtuous person. It's kind of naivety. So one of the longer term missions, I guess, is like improving ecstatic literacy in Western culture.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  0:23  
Welcome to psychedelic source where wisdom meets practice in the evolving landscape of psychedelic medicine. I'm your host, Dr Sandra Dreisbach, and I'm here to help you navigate the complex intersection of ethics, business and personal growth in a psychedelic space, whether you're a practitioner, therapist, entrepreneur, or simply curious about this transformative field, you found your source for authentic dialog, practical resources and community connection in each episode, we'll dive deep into the stories, strategies and ethical considerations that matter most to our growing ecosystem. Let's tap in to our inner source of wisdom and explore what it means to build a sustainable and ethical psychedelic future together.

VO  1:16  
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Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:47  
In this episode, I had the opportunity to talk with Julian Evans, who does work with the challenging experiences project that he helped to found and is the director of which I encourage you to look at the site as a resource, as well as giving insights on challenging experiences, also his work on ecstatic integration to help understand the sort of larger picture of psychedelic and ecstatic experiences in general, right? If we don't just categorize altered states as just simply being a product of a plant medicine or a psychedelic synthetic, natural or otherwise, we look at it in terms of how it shifts our consciousness, how we have the experience of what He calls the ecstatic or altered states, or a shift in our conscious reality that needs a different support, a different understanding, and we need to have a better understanding in our culture, a better education our culture, about how to support these ecstatic experiences and and both the positive realities as well as the challenging realities that are part of the risk profile, you could say, if we really want to increase the positive results and reduce the potential harms In a grounded way that I hope you see that also the need for greater education and resourcing in order to do that work safely and more supported. And regardless of where you feel or the type of experience or how that experience is supported, that you're at least open to the possibility of the needs that are not currently yet being met, and working together, collaborating helps to provide the sourcing we all need to have, not just a safer experience, but a better experience in Our in our lives and integrate any type of ecstatic experience. Well, welcome Jules, it's so great to see you. I mean, honestly, I'm so tickled pink just to have you here. I mean, I'm happy with everyone I have on the podcast, but I I'm particularly pleased to have you because, I mean, you've done so much amazing work around ethics in this space through your journalism, and though I've given a little bit of introduction in terms of your bio, would you mind saying a little bit about, you know, your work in this space?

Julian Evans  4:35  
Yes, sure. So thank you for having me. Sandra, no, I I started something called the challenging psychedelic experiences project two years ago. Which one of the things it does is researches difficulties people experience after taking psychedelics. What kind of difficulties and what helps them recover? We also run a peer support group for people who. COVID with, you know, these kinds of post psychedelic difficulties, we do talks and presentations and training around this, yeah, you know, all kinds of stuff. So we produced about nine academic papers, maybe eight. I haven't counted them exactly, but goodness, and I started, I start a newsletter the same time, which is called ecstatic integration, and that has, you know, produced a lot of stories over the last two and a half years about, particularly about psychedelics. You know, some stories about psychedelic harm and misconduct or safety. But, you know, it's really, it's called ecstatic integration, because it's about, how do we reintegrate ecstatic experiences into Western culture, like relatively wisely and relatively safely?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  5:53  
And what's your what's your own answer to that question?

Julian Evans  5:57  
Oh, I don't know. I mean, it's a big question. It is a big question. I mean, you know, it'll take decades or century, but,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  6:05  
I mean, it's worth mentioning, right? You know, as a, as a trained philosopher, in my little mindset, about questions, right? Some of these questions are open ended, that that we we explore and we engage in and and it's, it's partly realizing the importance of directly addressing it, and just like us having the conversation about it, it's like, well, what does that really mean? Well,

Julian Evans  6:27  
one thing, I think there's a lot of naivety around ecstatic experiences, like, you know that people are, they're kind of, there's been a revival of ecstatic practices like psychedelics and other kinds of things, and there's a lot of interest in them and kind of hunger for them, and to some extent, kind of a greediness around them and a fetishization around them, and naivety as well. Like you know, you come to some conclusion on a trip it must be true. Or, like mama Ayahuasca told me this, it must be true, or this shaman gave me an ecstatic experience, they must be a really noble, virtuous person. You know, these kinds of, this kind of naivety. So one of the longer term kind of goals, or at least missions, I guess, is like improving ecstatic literacy in Western culture. So good idea

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  7:28  
of ecstatic literacy, you know, because I think about this work, you know, like having that basic understanding of what exactly is a consciousness altering experience, a psychedelic experience, or, as you say, an ecstatic experience. And, and what do we as a sort of global North Western, you know, colonial, primarily, culture. How do we approach these subjects, given that we don't have that, that relationship already established in our culture, if anything, we've actually, you know, killed it and trying to revive it in particular ways. So, so how, how do you feel for yourself? How do you answer and come to relationship with that question, right? I mean, obviously you think it's an important question, but, but given that's going to be a process of figuring out what ecstatic literacy is, right, what, what, what for you, has helped to establish your ecstatic literacy.

Julian Evans  8:29  
Uh, pain, suffering, touch,

Speaker 1  8:35  
very pretty. I mean, maybe we should get background. Maybe we should

Julian Evans  8:39  
get some, you know, the slow grind of existence. Now

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  8:44  
we're talking existential dread here, where, where am I?

Julian Evans  8:47  
Like, just life, right? I mean, like, you know, having highs and lows and realize, you know, having, you know, ecstatic experiences and realizing they're not the everything, and that, you know, you come down after them, and right, you know, and and feel, you know, being let down by Guru figures, or messing up yourself, you know, all these kinds of things. So, yeah, and so, you know, there's, there can be, I think there can be, like, ecstatic moments in Western culture. Let's talk about psychedelics as well, like this kind of ecstatic highs in the psychedelic movement. And then there are times of disenchantment and criticism and and even paranoia and and so there's a balance, like between, oh my god, you know, the universe is on our side, and we're gonna, we're gonna save humanity to this is all just, this is all crap, you know. So that, you know. And I think the psychedelic culture is trying to find that balance between a kind of excessive hype and. Excessive disenchantment. So that's, I suppose, kind of ecstatic literacy, like, you know, also, I think being a bit wary of utopianism, ecstatic utopianism, there's waves of ecstatic utopianism over, over the centuries, yeah. And

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  10:17  
how would you just find psyched, you know, utopianism, you know, psychological utopianism. Like, like, now we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna make the world a better place just by having these experiences, right? Or that we're gonna wake the global consciousness.

Julian Evans  10:29  
I mean, there's different levels of utopianism. Like, humanity is gonna transcend to a new level, you know, a new, new evolutionary level through psychedelics. I mean, that's utopianism, like we're going to become a different species, or, you know, we're going to ascend to some kind of cosmic consciousness. That's utopianism, right? Or Apocalypticism, like we're, you know, a new age of love will dawn. All divisions will be dissolved. Will all become you know, oneness, an Age of Aquarius, a massive paradigm shift. I mean, these are all kinds of beliefs. One finds in New Age culture and psychedelic culture, including among psychedelic leaders, like psychedelic drugs are going to be what's going to solve the environmental crisis, all these kinds of things. I don't think, I don't think that's true, but they might help some people, like I have very

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  11:33  
that's the interesting contrast, right? There's this. There's part of the experience on a personal level that really is that that really creates this sort of shift in perspective that may not have been able to be accomplished in other ways or or possibly it would have been, but that's how they got it right. That's how they got the shift in perspective, that mindset shift and, or at least opened up from like, you know, let's say pure nihilism. I'm just going to die and everything's worthless to like, maybe, like, there's actually real hope in the world, or, or, or the opposite, oh, there's totally hope and utopian idealism. And then, and then having that grounded like, Oh, I'm now looking at my darkest parts of my, my life experience that I never wanted to look at, yeah, yeah, exactly. And, so it makes me want to maybe we should bridge to the the idea of a challenging experience, because I feel like you've been the biggest proponent of that part of the education, of understanding that, because there's a lot of conversation about ego deaths as part of The experience, or or that, that there's no, there's no it's just a difficult experience versus a challenging experience. And I also want to, like, actually a harmful experience. I think it's a lot of nuance that's missing in the language of this. And challenging can be a good challenge versus, you know, more of a challenge of the self. But, but how do you generally, kind of define for yourself, at least what what a challenging experience is

Julian Evans  13:07  
just, I mean, we're not. My project is called the challenging psychedelic experiences project. What it really looks at is post psychedelic difficulties. I'm not. You know, people have trips that are often extremely gnarly, terrifying, but none the worse for it afterwards, right? Because, because these are experiences of like ego death, like you said, or people might feel they're in hell, or confronting entities perhaps that seem malevolent to them, all kinds of things. So people can have cyclic experiences that they classify as the most difficult experience of their life, or one of the top five. That's quite common, but a lot of people, then they come down and they're like, Wow, that was a that was one hell of an experience, and they don't feel any worse for it, but what? And so that's not an issue, that's not a problem. But my concern is when people feel worse afterwards, for an extended period of time, that that's, that's, that's the problem, or, like, you know, something bad happens to them during the trip. But I mean, I guess I'm particularly focused on the research that we do is particularly focused on what we call extended difficulties. So we did a survey in 2023 of we asked it was basically 608 people who all said they'd experienced difficulties after psychedelics lasting longer than a day. So that was our data set. Everyone. These were people, and we asked them how long did these difficulties last? Some it was just days, some it was weeks, but a third of this data set said their difficulties lasted longer than a year, and a fifth said their difficulties lasted longer than three years. And then we asked what kind of difficulties did they experience? Um. It's to get just a kind of sense of the, you know, the landscape, what kind of, yeah, and so, you know, the most common there, we got 60 different types. So there's all kinds of, that's one point, I guess, like, there's all kinds of stuff that can happen, you know, from visions of childhood abuse that you never really remembered, and you're not sure if they're true. So that sometimes happens to people, or, you know, you had a hell experience, and then you're afraid of going back to that hell experience, right on psychedelics, or when you sleep, or when you die, or, I mean, just, there's all, you know, there's a whole variety of strange things that can happen and that can carry on afterwards. But the most common word just first of all, feeling more anxiety and fear and just shaken up, and sometimes severe, severe anxiety. And then visual distortions. A lot of people feel continued visual distortions afterwards. Many people aren't disturbed by that, but some people find it really disturbing, and sometimes it lasts years and years, then derealization and depersonalization was, you know, reported by about 12% of our respondents. That's not 12% of everyone who takes psychedelics. That's just

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  16:24  
the ones the neuroscope of the experience, yeah, of the data set. And

Julian Evans  16:29  
then you know, other difficulties, like existential confusion, like, what the hell was that I can't make sense of it. I can't stop thinking about it. I just can't integrate that experience into my world view. And then, you know, other ones were, like sleep disturbances, and also like feeling of a diminished self, like just feeling you're less, less of a person, or broken or damaged, and you can't, you know, and that's very tough to accept. So those were some, you know, those were some of the most common kinds of difficulties, yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  16:59  
and I think that's really helpful to kind of see and lay out, because I think there hasn't been much research on this aspect of the psychedelic experience, and with a lot of the sort of psychedelic exceptionalism that's out there, having that sort of grounded approach, while still, you know, and maybe I should, I should get you on the record For saying, like, you know, well, given all this, what would you say you know, would have prevented a lot of these? Or do you think, in general, that some of them cannot be prevented?

Julian Evans  17:30  
There's another paper by someone called Rebecca bremler which looked at extended difficulties, and she hypothesized that they're more likely to happen with certain kind of characteristics, like young person, other person, a person in the situation. So a young, younger person, is more likely to be overwhelmed by the experience and kind of traumatized by it. That's also true if it's a higher dose, or, I suppose, if there's multiple drugs involved, if it's a bad setting brain, or just in conducive setting, if they have a previous site, you know, psychological problems or psychiatric diagnosis. Yeah. And then I suppose also the situation they go back to after the experience, is it extremely stressful, and you know, there's or maybe they're going back and the people around them have no familiarity with psychedelics, or they just don't feel they have anyone they can talk to about it. So their kind of support system can make a difference, and I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  18:44  
definitely feel like a support system makes a difference. It's something I would agree that I've seen that a lot of people don't have those communities already, or the communities that they have may or may not be supportive of their experiences, let alone the ideas and concepts like that literacy aspect of like integration. I know that there's that study. I wish I could cite it. Maybe, maybe, know the one where they're looking at people who've had adverse events and they went to the emergency room and and some theoretical ideas about maybe integration might have been supportive and preventative if they had had that. And maybe this is an argument for the literacy piece. What is your hope in the end that people will will learn? You know, what kind of what kind of skills or understandings Do you think people need before they engage? I'm guessing you're not against psychedelic experiences, but more about having a real knowing or understanding or being prepared.

Julian Evans  19:49  
Yeah. Well, I think there's quite a lot out there about how to, how to, you know, trip well, and you know the kind of guides to tripping. So there's, you know, there's. There's all kinds of guides to that around, isn't there? I think genetic culture is always telling people how to trip Well, what it wasn't doing was telling them what the fuck to do if it goes badly. Yeah, they're like, well, it doesn't go badly like, you know? Or if it does, it's kind of your fault and it goes badly, you should just listen to the medicine or go

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  20:20  
back and do more shadow work, right? Don't resist or do shadow

Julian Evans  20:23  
work. Yeah. And so we focused on just providing information for people. What if they were, if they found themselves in that situation, that they could find their way to our website and find information on post psychology difficulties and realize they're not alone? So that's our focus more on how to trip well, like, Yeah, but, I guess. But, I mean, that's important too. Like, you know, try to know your dose. Go slow. Trip with Friends, you know, maybe with someone who's not, you know, who's not on psychedelics, all those things which you know about, yeah, no, right?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:03  
I mean, but I appreciate the fact that, let's give people a realistic picture.

Julian Evans  21:09  
We're trying to help people once they're in that place, like, Yeah, like that. Just that they people who are, like, messed up after psychedelics. They're they feel terrible, they're terrified, and like they want information about what's going on with them. So like, there needs to be places, and there aren't places that's right, where they can find information like that. I think you know, the hardly any. I think our website is one of the few places where they can find information. They won't find that anywhere else you know, all these psychedelic websites will invention these, these symptoms. So so they're on their own, and that's very frightening. Yeah.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:52  
So what would you recommend someone, if they do have a challenging experience, you would say like, go to go to our site, and you can see that you're not not alone in this experience.

Julian Evans  22:00  
I don't know. It depends if they, a lot of people have a challenging experience, they won't feel worse afterwards. So, you know, woohoo, go on with your life. I'm saying if they expect, if they have extended difficulties, then, yeah, come, you know, come to our website, and there's information about what kind of difficulties people experience. What helps people recover from these difficulties? Stories of people who've been through difficulties and come out the other side, peer support, you know, references for, like, expert clinics where they can go to and get free consultations from, like, you know, experts on, on post psychedelic difficulties, this kind of stuff. Yeah, and basically, their life isn't over. You know, people come through these things that they're no fun, they're extremely unpleasant to go through, or can be but, but people do come through them,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  22:52  
and I think that's a an optimistic message for people, and to know that, I mean, even though they may feel temporarily crazy. I mean, literally, literally. Psychosis is one of the the adverse you know, there can be ways of working through those experiences, even in the most extreme cases, and there's others who have those experiences. Well, let's pivot now to talk about more around ethics, because I know I have to say that I'm I'll confess I'm a fan,

Julian Evans  23:24  
and I think I know maybe I'm

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  23:26  
biased, because I care about ethics, but but you're reporting in the space and and sharing so many of the stories that I think people really want and need to hear and have shared more publicly. I think it's one of the things I really admire about about you and your work, even beyond like just the challenging experiences alone is admirable, to be honest, right? And the ecstatic integration. But I think a lot of times you give voice to a lot of these ethical issues that aren't getting voiced other ways. Well,

Julian Evans  23:57  
Likewise, likewise. So I imagine, yeah, both you and I get approached by people who feel like harmed in some way and don't feel they have places, many, many options about where to go and feel that they're in a psychedelic culture, which doesn't really, really encourage people to talk about, you know, problems, either adverse experiences or harm. There's a culture of silence, isn't there?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  24:33  
Well, I mean, or worse, like, there really isn't a good, I mean, similar to, like, the idea of having a conversation, or literacy around ecstatic integration. There isn't literacy around what, what is accountability supposed to look like, right? When? Because, you know, ethical, ethical challenges are human experience in my book, right? Like, that's not and, and, and just the risks i. Um, and the benefits are more significant with with psychedelic experiences and and the cancel culture sort of approach, or whistle blowing to the extreme. I think in some sense can, I mean, I'm not an advocate of those approaches on the whole, but I do believe that there are times when you need to right, because if there's no means to share it, or there's no practice, or people are on the ground, which is, which is why I appreciate you sharing some of these stories. I know, I'm sure you get a lot of criticism, though, too, for for sharing these like, you know that

Julian Evans  25:37  
I do? Yeah. Yeah. I have, it's been very stressful. And I think, you know, when I started the newsletter, I was learning about psychedelic culture, and I found it fascinating. I was like, whoa. This was freaky stuff. And there was a kind of, what a, what a, what a mess. And and there it was. It was, but there was a bit of a fascination to it as well. I was like, Wow, this stuff's going on. And now, when people get in touch and say, I want to talk about situation, I'm like, Are you sure really, you want to talk to me like, I, you know, like, I, there's no longer. I'm now familiar with psychedelic culture, and I know about all this kind of how messy it is, and I no longer this is no longer picking my curiosity now, just like, oh, well, yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  26:30  
no healthy boundaries, yeah. Well, I, you

Julian Evans  26:34  
know, I listen, I may, you know, I can refer you to another journalist, maybe because I you know, we'll do that sometimes, but I think you're right that you know, going public is when other things have failed. When, you know, I spoke to someone this today who worked to the retreat center, and there were various issues there. They tried to get the retreat center owner to improve these issues repeatedly, and it didn't happen. And now they're like, well, What? What? You know, they left, and they're like, but they still feel this, this shouldn't be going on. So what? What are their options? And so, you know, they're looking at, at, going, going public about it. And so there's been a, you know, there's been a failure of other options. And, and I'm interested in other options, because I know that going public is stressful, kind of for everyone. It's very stressful. Who's reported on it's the stressful for the whistleblower, it's stressful for the journalist. And so it would be better if, if mediation was possible. And I said to this person, do you think this, this retreat owner, would be open to mediation? And this person said, No, I tried that repeatedly, as you know, there aren't really official ombudsmans or complaints procedures in the psychedelic underground or even in the overground that's right in terms of retreat centers. But, I mean, I did an article last week about the breath work industry, where there are associations, and they have integrity committees, and they have, you know, restored restorative justice procedures, which they've tried for some like high profile,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  28:34  
well, and it's happened in Psych. We've had some restorative justice attempts in the psychedelic space, well,

Julian Evans  28:41  
I'm curious about that. And I said, you know, because we have, you know, mutual friend Erica Siegel. And she, yes, she mentioned that there, there have been, I don't really hear about them, because once they, by the time they come to me, they it's

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  28:58  
failing, yeah, and they're talking about lawyers at that point, right? Yeah,

Julian Evans  29:01  
I'm curious, has it worked then sometimes,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  29:07  
you know, I'm not an expert in restorative justice and and I have healthy, pragmatic experience where it's I've seen the limitations of that, because you need, need everyone to be willing to be involved, right? You know, even if the people who have been harmed you know, want the process and are requesting the other person who they see as having harmed them or multiple persons or organization or community, they can still say no, or, or, or they do, or they do the look of it. They hire the company or organization. I could, I could name names, but they where they've hired people, they bring people in that they've chosen, and then people don't trust the process in part, or they don't have the necessary skills to deal with this scope of problem. And I've seen. Yeah, unfortunately, I've seen more instances of failure, of restorative justice than I've seen successes. And in the moments where I could say that there were some, some limited success, it's, it's a long process, and it takes money, time, heart, energy, and and all the work, at least like, I mean, epic doesn't try and be restorative justice. You know, we mainly empower people to make their own decisions, but even us, we came together in part, originally to help with possibly doing reporting, and immediately saw the limitations of the systems in place. That said, I think mediation could be a solution in conflict resolution, and that's kind of the the angle we're pushing people towards now, which could include restorative justice, if people agree, right, but getting people in a process where they're trying to come to an agreement where they have support, because what is the broader thing that includes restorative justice? I missed a bit of the sentence. You said, Oh no, no. I mean mediation, conflict resolution. Mediation, conflict resolution, yeah, which conflict resolution, mediation, like, I mean, and different than having a legal mediator, although he could have a legal mediator. But I think, I think we need, and I think as a culture, you know, we need better ways of resolving conflicts. Then, you know, go talk to my lawyer. And honestly, more times than not, what I see in psychedelic space, that's what it is, you know, an organization I could think of, where they're like, Oh, here's our process. But then when you look closer at the process, it's, it's the lawyer, right? And they have the name of, like, an ethics whatever, but they're not really focused on that. They're actually, they're, they're, they're protecting the legal interest of the company and organization, and they're not, and often the survivors are not in a position to have that legal support, let alone getting therapeutic support, let alone having support for their own well being, if they can no longer function in their job because of what they've experienced. And I don't think that's limited to psychedelic space, but I think there's,

Julian Evans  32:03  
I'm, yeah, I can't, I can't I, I can't see myself continuing to report on, like, psychedelic scandals for like, another year or two. It's just like, it's too taxing. I'll happily let someone else do it. You know, as others do, you know, and you see that, I think it's cyclical, right? Like you see, like, certain journalists write about things a lot, and then they go and do something else, you know, because in write about like, you know, animals,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  32:38  
write about unicorns,

Unknown Speaker  32:40  
something like that,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  32:43  
yeah, but, I mean, but I think, and this is the other thing, I think maybe we, we can uniquely highlight, is like, what it what it takes for us to do the work that we do, right? Because people, what people don't see is the personal demands, right?

Julian Evans  32:57  
Let's not, I'm not going to pretend that I'm impeccable and spotless. No, no, neither will I working with I've messed up like, and then you feel absolutely terrible, like, you know, in terms of, you know, you're working with very sensitive, vulnerable people. Sometimes you might get something wrong, or just be clumsy or careless in some way, and then you've made them feel worse, you know, so, so it is, it is hard, and, you know, also with journalism, yeah, you can be unfair. I mean, you or just like, not, not go the ex, you know, you try to be balanced, or, you know, be fair. I think, I think that's true with a lot of journalism, is you're kind of, you know, one side is talking to you, so you're gonna, you know, you're gonna listen to that side and the other, you know, and the other side might be not talking to you, and you're gonna be like, well, you're, you're in the wrong here. I mean, so be Yeah, so it's very, it's very, you know, it's not, it's no fun.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  34:03  
Challenging. Talk about challenging experiences, right? You know, but I will say I think you've have consistently shown up over a longer period of time, even if you do mix in other stories. Maybe, maybe we could shift gears and talk about like, how did you even get interested in the psychedelic space. Personally, I was,

Julian Evans  34:25  
I was into psychedelics as a as a teenager, I first trip when I was like 15, and my most intense period of drug taking was as a teenager, and then I had a bad trip when I was 18, and didn't have the capacity to deal with it then or afterwards, like emotionally, in terms of wisdom and so on, in terms of age or anything like that, or in terms of the support around me. And so at. University, I developed mental health problems like the severe anxiety and blah, blah, blah, and ended up being diagnosed with PTSD when I was about 2324 and it took me years to recover all through my 20s, really. And that got me that decided my my life path, really, maybe it would. I'd have always gone down the same path, but I became interested in mental health, philosophy, spirituality, psychology and writing about it. It was always, always wanted to be a writer. And so that's, you know, that's, I was a business journalist first, but then, when I when I was around 30, I started writing about philosophy, mental health, all that kind of stuff. My first book was about the ancient philosophy of stoicism, which is, you know, one of the things that really helped me recover from this kind of post psychedelic crisis. And then, you know, when I was talking about philosophy, like when I was at university, my favorite, one of my favorite books I was obsessed by was Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. He talks about the kind of the Socratic and the Dionysiac and and I wrote this first book, philosophy for life and other dangerous situations, all about the Socratic, about using your reason and Greek philosophy to flourish. But at the end of the chapter, sorry of the book, I said, But of course, there is another way to flourishing, which is not about reason, but about surrendering control and going beyond rationality, the Dionysiac. So I was kind of teeing up, you know, my second your psychedelic

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  36:46  
experience, really, it's, it's very Dionysian in so many ways. Or Dionysian, yeah.

Julian Evans  36:52  
So I wrote my second book was called the art of losing control, and that was about how people find ecstatic experiences in modern life. And there was a chapter in that about the psychedelics. And I went to breaking convention in 2015 I was like, oh, there's this psychedelic Renaissance going on. I was not part of psychedelic culture. I have to be. I trip very, very, very rarely, because I have to, like, I'm like, it doesn't really agree with me, you know. But that got me, you know, that was just one of the way the means to ecstatic experiences that I got interested in. I then edited a book about spiritual emergencies, some of which were psychedelic induced, some of which weren't. And then it was in 2021 really, that, you know, I just the psychedelic Renaissance was taking off. There were suddenly these businesses, I was like, and, you know, just as it, you know, it was just, if you're interested in ecstatic experiences, it was a fascinating moment, because it was going mainstream. I mean, it still is fascinating. You've got Bobby Kennedy, you know, talking about psychedelics as the, probably the next Secretary of of health, and so it's, it's, it's just, it's, you know, I mean, psychedelics is just such a it's an interesting blend of the spiritual and the mystical and magical and The medical and the political and the occult, you know, in the counter cultural and military. So it's all these things. Yeah, so anyway, I suppose I remembered being 18 and not knowing what was going on and not finding any information, so I wanted to provide information for people in that same state and and so, yeah, and then you get, you get sucked in, and you start working on kind of psychedelic safety. He's sucked in right now, you know, so you now, I think where we're at now, you know this, this field is like, post euphoric wave, and then it's just like, Okay, can we build systems? You know what? What would safe systems look like? And it's this kind of systems building grind

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  39:23  
it is, yeah, believe me,

Julian Evans  39:26  
yeah. Which is, which is less euphoric. That's kind of like, ah, you know, here comes the the Golden Age. Or, you know, here comes the age of married. What qualifications do you need for a license, and these kinds of things,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  39:40  
right? I mean, I mean, there is reason for hope. I mean, there is a lot of research out there that gives us good reason, and I can see, I mean, like, I've even myself said, like, I was shocked when I started looking at the research, because I had no idea of the therapeutic benefits when I first came in. You know, I was had that recreation. Emotional mindset, primarily, you know, same sort of story, you know, I mean, and I had some challenging experiences and, and I only started, like, really integrating and thinking about them later, right? But it made so obvious sense, you know, right? But, but maybe you could say a little bit about you as a person, and I mean that in the sense of, like, you know, where, where are, where are your origins, and in the little literal, sort of psychedelic source, sort of context, you know what, what is your identification, in terms of, like, land, people, country, communities, and where do you find yourself? Now,

Julian Evans  40:41  
my positionality? Yes, positionality. I know

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  40:45  
I can use the big words with you, but I try and, you know, make it accessible for everyone, but still, well,

Julian Evans  40:50  
I'm English. I'm a Londoner, so I'm a kind of fifth generation Londoner from from West London

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  41:02  
generation. I don't think I've, you know? I mean, yeah,

Julian Evans  41:05  
I mean, before I had a kind of, I don't know. So my, you know, so all of my family are from Northern Europe, like Norway, Ireland, England, Normandy, Wales and Scotland, yeah, yeah, Northern Ireland. So it's all from around there. Like my wife, you know, she's, she's from all these kinds of different places, like Spain and, you know, an indigenous tribe in Costa Rica and and Jewish as well. And I'm, like, all concentrated around, like the British Isles,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  41:44  
the dart in the center of the

Julian Evans  41:46  
No, no, nothing exotic, but yeah, and so, you know, I don't know what else Well,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  41:57  
I mean, maybe, I mean, maybe just A nod, like, I mean, what was, what were, you know, in London, since I can't speak for being a fifth generation Londoner, I have similar ancestry, but I've never even been to the UK. Judge me later, I saw an outline, but, but like, what, what is the sort of orientation towards, like plant medicines and psychedelics culturally, even, like, when was, you know, you said you had your first psychedelic at 15. But, you know, I have the least the American perception that there's more homeopath, homeopathy, homeopathy, homeopathy, homeopathy in Europe, a lot more herbal and medicinal friendliness. I mean, at least the EU for a long time, even banned GMOs, right? And had more of a and like, unlike the sort of general American like, let's, let's just do it and see what happens, versus a sort of more, let's, let's wait and let's find research and evidence that's safe, first type of idea. But what

Julian Evans  43:03  
would you say? You asked me about my identity, so, like, I want

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  43:08  
it all. Why should it be like you're a civilian psychedelic, but I wanted your identity, I mean in the sense of, like, how you choose to identify,

Julian Evans  43:20  
what psychedelic really matters to you?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  43:21  
I want, I mean, I think, I think it's, it's complicated, right? This is the thing, right? I mean, like, that's interesting,

Julian Evans  43:27  
because I think for a lot of people in psychedelic culture, psychedelics are a big part of their identity, that's right? And of their spirituality and their religion is like, like, psychedelics are not a big part of my identity, like I at the moment, I work to support people who have post psychedelic difficulties, but they are not part of my spiritual practice. I haven't. I haven't done psychedelics for like, five years, so, yeah, so I wouldn't when I think, if I think, like, who am I psychedelics, wouldn't, I mean, they would at the moment, because, though, because I run this little NGO, which is, but that's mainly to like, support people, you know, with post psychedelic difficulties. But I mean in terms of your question about, like, plant medicine and Europe, I mean, that's a, that's a fascinating question. And here's what I you know what I think is that the UK probably had, you know, an indigenous druidic tradition, sure, and in Wales, particularly, absolutely Celtic, Celtic. And then it kind of disappeared. But there was magic. There was still kind of magic practices, like in the still are in the Elizabethan times and so on. Magic was quite big, but, but all that time, there were magic mushrooms in the UK, but there was nothing written about them. I mean, like this is not, you know. Massively important for me. But this is what I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  45:02  
think, even just saying the fact that it's not massively important for you, is helpful to help delineate for people in orientation and relationship with you, right? That that this isn't, no, I think so. I mean, you know, some people might, might regularly. I mean, I don't either, but I don't know what people are assuming. You know, just because I do psychedelic ethics doesn't mean I'm on psychedelics all the time. I think that's a false assumption. So,

Julian Evans  45:32  
I mean, so you can go and pick magic mushrooms in the fields in the UK, and like I did when I was like, 16, was incredible. You know, you just pick them in the fields and eat them, but, but that was only really discovered in the in the 70s. Yeah, and become became generally known in the 1970s which is to me, incredible, that for 1000s of years these were there, these visionary kinds of mushrooms, and there was no awareness of them, no mention of them. Like Shakespeare would talk about all kinds of things. Yeah, fairies, let's go. There is a main Drake. All the things have any awareness of mushrooms, of magic mushrooms. So it's very, you know, it's very odd, yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  46:18  
it's, it's interesting, especially given, I mean, we don't have to, I know we can easily wax philosophical, so I'll stop us from going there. But very tempting, but, but this is the thing, you know, and something I guess, as I try and figure out and integrate and reflect on, you know, what? How do we create our new relationship? How do we have this sort of ecstatic, you know, informed perspective with the challenging experiences with, you know, cultures that you know removed, and actually, you know banned in various ways. At the very least, it first peoples, first nations, including our own right, and that sort of that different kind of relationship with nature or altered states. What does it mean to kind of come into relationship with that now? And, I mean, you know, and I know that could be a whole nother psychedelics, kind of

Julian Evans  47:20  
mainly white people do it, right? I mean, like, I mean, like,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  47:24  
well, that's, that's a real question. I mean, like,

Julian Evans  47:26  
white and even even, like indigenous people don't particularly do psychedelics.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  47:31  
I mean, you'd have to pick, I mean, first of all, we can't say that in a blanket concept, right? Because there's so many different communities of origin, right? And, I mean, even if we go to the Celtic origins, you know, right, that that would be our own origins, that there's some arguments to be made that there were, you know, people were using plant medicines for altered states, right? Or just simply, you know, or the Oracle Delphi and you know, whether it's volcanic fumes or whether it was plants or a combination thereof, right? Altered States have been a part of, you know, human and Western culture, but we haven't really embraced that past. Yeah, I

Julian Evans  48:14  
mean, so I live in Costa Rica, and, you know, like indigenous people here don't, don't do psychedelics. It's wealthy Westerners come here and do psychedelics and then kind of get the, you know, the shamans to fly in maybe, well. And that's

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  48:28  
definitely true. I mean, I know, actually know some people who had had a period experience in Costa Rica just the other day, right, in Costa Rica, right? You know, and like the Coronavirus, you know, they weren't. They weren't from Costa Rica. They weren't, you know? And I think there's, and I think there's a lot of interesting complexities to go there, but maybe as we, as we wrap up our conversation, and I want to, like, I could talk to you for hours, for for real. You know what? One of the things I like to try and ask people in relation to this into psychedelic source. Part of the idea is to help build collaboration, build relationship, and help provide people different kinds of resources or sourcing for how to have either healthier experiences or grounded experiences. And you've already mentioned your challenging experiences and ecstatic integration. But if you could say, you know, one thing, now, if this is the only thing people hear, and they hear it in like a little clip, what would, what would be one piece of advice you would give someone who's curious about psychedelic experiences,

Julian Evans  49:37  
do your research. Read about, you know, do your research about possible outcomes, the full range of them. I would, I would generally say, like, you know, do, do a low dose with friends. I think it might, you know, and maybe one friend is not, is. Is not on anything. It's just a kind of, you know, sober sitter. Think about the days afterwards as well, like having having good support if they're a bit, kind of still in a somewhat altered state. So, yeah, and, you know, there is an element of risk involved. I mean, this is, this is, some people have compared it to, like, you know, extreme sports, or, you know, like surfing, maybe, or diving. And, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't just go diving without doing a bit of research, and maybe even a bit of, you know, some kind of preparations and and without some kind of briefing about, you know, right, preparation,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  50:45  
education or an experienced person and, you

Julian Evans  50:50  
know, and there are, I mean, ecstatic experiences are not the be all and end all of life. They can be an escape from life. Yeah. And an area, there are various ways to to have these kinds of experiences, from, you know, sports to the arts to nature to things like, you know, changing the way you breathe. So psychedelics is just one route to these kinds of things. And, yeah, and they're definitely not the only way to get meaning in life. I mean, it would be sad if the only way to get meaning was to, you know, take chemicals, you know, so it's, it's, it's a route, but there are many routes, and it's a window to transcendence, but there are many, but there are many avenues to transcendence. So yeah, and then I would say, you know, the usual, if you have a family history of bipolar or psychosis, you know there are probably better routes for you to, like, transcended experiences, or

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  52:02  
at least, you know, consider it you know that part of your background is as an additional risk factor that you're introducing and prepare. You know for that those potentialities, you know, well, I want to, I want to, I want to give you a chance to give it on an ethics note. But I think that is an ethics note in and of itself. But any, any sort of final thoughts or reflections, like, what do you what is your hope? What's your Where's where's your?

Julian Evans  52:28  
I'm really hopeful for psychedelics, like you said you, you come across miracle stories. They're not just hype. They're not hype. I've interviewed lots of people who said they, you know, they were stuck in really bad, you know, psychological problems and and psychedelics help them turn the corner. So, you know that that's awesome. I think that they've got a real future in the healthcare system. I know at least one pharmaceutical company who thinks they are the future of mental health treatments. So but they're not without risks, and I think we can learn to learn about those risks, map them and hopefully minimize them and support people who experience the kind of downsides. So I am hopeful for them. Of course, they, they're just one thing that's going on in this, in this crazy world. Yes, yes, I'm not a utopian but I do think they could make some aspects of life somewhat better. And that's, that's, that's good enough for me, yeah, well, thank you

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  53:44  
so much, Joel, I really appreciate you taking the time and, and, and it's good to have another friend who's doing the good education and ethical advocacy and fight. Thank

Julian Evans  53:57  
you, Sandra, thank you for all the work that you do.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  54:02  
I really enjoyed this episode with with Jules and and getting to parry a little bit back and forth about a couple different subjects. And, and it's, it's, it's great for me, not Joan only as like an ethicist, but as as an advocate who appreciates anyone who's doing similar advocacy work, but to see the impact that that this work can really have in helping support people, and his work being able to provide resources and information for people have challenging experiences. If you've had a challenging experience in the space, I really encourage you to check out the resource that he's director of the challenging experiences project, and get connected to community. Educate yourself. Know that you're not alone. I think those are all brilliant takeaways, and whether you have challenging experience or not, being more informed. About this possibility as a part of ecstatic or psychedelic experiences that will will not only help you be more informed, but will help to create a more safer community in which people can have these experiences and have better outcomes. And I just appreciate you for taking the time to listen to this episode of The psychedelic source. Thank you for joining me on psychedelic source. If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share with others in our community. And if you're a psychedelic practitioner, therapist or coach looking to identify blind spots in your practice or determine next steps for moving it forward. Take the first step by visiting psychedelic Source podcast.com Until next time, remember, start low, go slow and stay connected to your source. You.