Love and Grief in the Shadow of Psychedelic Narcissism
Capitalist culture is based on, breeds, and rewards an individualistic, entitled and extractive orientation to life. This can be described as ‘Wetiko’, which is an Algonquin word for a ‘mind virus’ that leads to separation, selfishness, and insatiable greed (Levy, 2021). We see extreme examples in the political leaders around the world, and at the top of most fields. But none of us are immune to Wetiko, for we have grown up in a Wetiko culture.
Any time we lose our humility, think that we are absolutely right, that we are better than others, that we have all the answers, we are showing a little bit of Wetiko. In writing this, I reflected on all the times in my life I have thought I was right, felt self-righteous, made judgements about others, and communicated my indignation inelegantly. That is how Wetiko shows up in me. How to approach this topic in a non-Wetiko way? A group of us are calling a circle of listening and learning, to come together in the spirit of ‘MeToo: I have been harmed by Wetiko’ (as all of us have been — to vastly differing degrees) and also ‘MeToo: I have felt it brewing there in my shadow and I want to understand it, shake it off, and come home from Me to We’.
We need to talk about Wetiko (or Narcissism as we can call it) in the field of psychedelics. Many of us have hoped that psychedelic therapy could help ‘treat’ the western world’s Wetiko epidemics: and indeed psychedelics can help people feel deeply connected, which is the opposite of Wetiko and perhaps its cure. But when we insert psychedelics into capitalist, materialistic western culture, with no intact lineage to a tradition of grounded psychedelic use and no social structures to support healthy integration, psychedelics may actually amplify the problems we hoped they would solve.
Dr Joris Goedhart pointed out to me that it is quite common (almost ubiquitous) that when we start using psychedelics there can be an initial ego inflation for a few months/years. This is another MeToo moment for me. I remember saying ‘this is amazing, it’s going to save the world’. There’s a feeling of being ‘special’, being part of a cool and magical club. This can be termed the ‘honeymoon period’ (honeymoon for the new devotee, tiresome for some of the people around us). And then we come back down to earth, sometimes brutally, we start to see the pitfalls, we see that the psychedelic world, like the rest of the world, is full of problems and so come to the conclusion that these medicines, in the western context, don’t always lead to peace and harmony. We come to see that when psychedelics are used in a setting of utmost care and ethics, they can be so positive, but often they aren’t, and then they can do harm (Aixala, 2022).
The psychedelic field has problems, as all fields, of capitalist market forces driving a winner-takes-all attitude, which stifles collaboration, entrenches power structures which reward and promote extractive tendencies, damages the environment, drives short-termism, and distorts human values. There is also maverick energy, the ‘breaking into new frontier’ confidence which can do harm when it is not kept in check, and balanced with the needs of the collective. For example, in psychedelic research, the prioritizing of ‘data’ over care. The prioritizing of speed (and goldrush territory-claiming) over safety.
The current psychedelic ‘movement’ in the West is still very young, many of us do not have an established lineage or regular ‘access to’ experienced wise elders we can deeply trust. Where our elders have goals for personal ambition, the tinge of Wetiko may prevent safe and supportive apprenticeship and growth. Wetiko brings separation, competing agendas, conflicts of interests, avoidance of difficult conversations, dishonesty. Dominator hierarchies, where many people seek to establish credibility and ‘security’ by climbing up a narrow and hotly-competed ladder, are not a healthy environment for inexperienced apprentices to grow deep roots and learn that it’s safe to admit to mistakes. In ‘high Wetiko’ places where power is up for grabs, we learn to be savvy and strategic, to show our best side. We are schooled in the ‘narcissistic arts’ of getting ahead, rather than being part of a web. And as a new field, regulatory infrastructure has not yet been widely established, for example personal therapy and professional supervision (or the equivalents of self-practice and apprenticeship) are not mandatory. Checking of credentials is often absent too, with false claims about professional titles coming to light only after the red flag has started to fly.
Abuses of power are not exclusive to psychedelics. Abusive gurus are common in many spiritual fields. But within the context of psychedelic therapy, participants are literally ‘under the influence’- in this state of increased vulnerability, even small lapses in ethics are amplified and can have very serious consequences. We are increasingly hearing about massive lapses of judgment, sickening boundary violations, and the tragedies that ensue when therapists and facilitators become infected with Wetiko and see people as objects, there to make them feel good.
It seems to happen above ground just as much as below ground, and is so often enabled by a perpetrator’s inner circle. Psychedelic working alliances can take on the qualities of the medicines they hold: rapid bonding, the melting of boundaries, and slightly manic commitment to a shared visionary path. Complex tangles of conflicting interests (i.e: for safe clinical practice, making money, gaining power, protecting friends, keeping secrets) can develop. Trying to sound the alarm is met with, at best, a closed door; at worst, threatening letters from lawyers or terminated contracts.
In underground settings, these working alliances are complicated by being criminalized: facilitators (most of whom are ethically motivated, caring people) may be reluctant to speak out about dodgy colleagues for fear they may reveal sensitive information about them in retaliation. In some settings, a single person has exploited and extracted from many others to an almost vampiric degree. This has wrecked livelihoods and polluted once-thriving communities of care. Survivors may feel shame about why they didn’t see what was happening. Often, before the attacks, they were flourishing with talents, vibrant social networks and warm hearts: targeted because they had a lot that was worth taking. In other cases, very vulnerable people have become targets for narcissistic therapists, and in these cases there is often no network of support or other resources to enable recovery. Sometimes the recovery never happens.
How might working in the psychedelic field trigger a therapist or facilitator’s latent traits of narcissism, or intensify existing traits? Firstly: by over-use of psychedelics. There are reports of clinicians who have abused psychedelic ‘medicines’, and become so ego inflated/ detached from reality that they start to work outside of ethical boundaries and abuse their positions of trust. Secondly: by having deep personal insecurity rendering them desperate for admiration. We are living in times of huge cultural projection about the coolness of psychedelics. Practitioners who drink the Kool-Aid may start to believe their own hype.
And a lot of it is hype. The psychedelic healing potential is powerful and beautiful, but far more complex than you might think from looking at headlines or television shows, or even academic research paper abstracts. That may be because we are in the backswing of the ideologically-motivated tarnishing and banning of psychedelics that happened in the 60s. Now the pendulum has swung. We are, apparently, in a shroom boom. This idealisation of psychedelics (and their spokespeople), and the repression of the shadow aspects of psychedelic practice and usage, not only prevents resources from being diverted to creating the community-based safeguarding and care infrastructure that we actually desperately need, it also creates an environment where it’s difficult for people to speak up when they have been harmed, as they feel (and may also be told) that they are ‘letting the movement down’.
But if the psychedelic movement is so ‘special’ and holds such potential for saving the world, shouldn’t we expect to see the psychedelic field as a shining example of positive values, ethical actions, and respect for all life? As Nese Devenot observes, the ‘leaders’ of the field, those powerful funders who control the strings, those psychedelic billionaires who see themselves as the ‘vanguard of the evolution of consciousness’ are not our saviours but often the proponents of terrifying visions where only ‘superior’ people survive. The ‘intellectual property’ of the medicines these people are abusing was stewarded for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples whose lands have been despoiled, whose communities have been oppressed, whose gifts have been stolen, and with whom no benefits have been shared. Doesn’t that fact alone suggest that the modern psychedelic movement risks amplifying Wetiko, rather than healing it?
But there is still hope. The vast majority of psychedelic use and users are hoping for change, for healing. When used in grounded community, with all the checks and balances this can bring, there is no doubt that psychedelics can play an important role in helping us to adopt more balanced ways of living, as our current systems collapse. Psychedelics can bring us back to the body, to feeling, to compassion, to forgiveness, to connectedness: qualities that Wetiko culture has slowly eroded. This is why so many of us see and feel the problems in the field and yet try to remain.
It sometimes feels like very precarious terrain though, with deep dark valleys and bright soaring heights. When we look to myths and stories to help guide us, we might find The Lord of the Rings, that archetypal tale about the perils of power. Frodo and the other hobbits discover this powerful ring that they have access to, but when one of them puts the ring on, they become overtaken by the Wetiko power thirst, and have to take it off again quickly. They carry the ring in a group, they rotate who holds it, they keep together. They find the elders they know they can trust. They form a merry band, holding one another accountable, staying close to the ground, resisting flying too close to the sun.
All of us who seek to work in this field, in order to be part of a ‘culture of initiation rather than a culture of trauma’ (Ladha, 2022) are stewards of these powerful and problematic gifts. We are all responsible for taking care of a tiny sapling, planted in toxic soil but bathed in perfect Spring sunlight. We can still shape how this baby tree grows. If we water the tree well, and put up the right tree guards, the tree grows, propagates new healthy trees that might be able to regenerate the soil in which they grow, or at least provide some anchoring points for us when the soil erodes completely.
But to grow trees we must first learn to become gardeners. One thing that can suffocate our sapling is Kudzu, an invasive vine, like Ivy, which can cover a house in a few days. Kudzu is an invasive species, which will climb on everything in its path to achieve domination: it is the Wetiko of the plant world. We must understand its ways first before we learn how to keep it in balance in the psychedelic ecosystem that is emerging.
Support linked to the topics discussed
Psychedelic Harms
Shine Collective — a US-based not-for-profit organization that offers survivor-led peer-led support groups, public education programming, and ethics consultations for communities engaged in altered states of consciousness practices.
ICEERS Support Center has extensive experience supporting people going through difficult processes with psychoactive plants, including abuse in the space.
Sacred Plant Alliance: a nonprofit association of churches defending the right to religious exercise through sincere, safe, and ethical ceremonial use of sacraments in the United States. SPA is a membership organization providing education about best practices and self-governance through collaborative ethics, transparency, and accountability.
PsyPAN Global: support from participants in psychedelic clinical trials — a non-profit organization created to connect and empower all psychedelic participants, whether they are taking part in clinical trials or receiving therapy at the various legal treatment centers being set up globally.
Psychedelic Guide Abuse: High-Control Group Dynamics and Complicity in the Perpetuation of Harm | Michelle Hobart
Chacruna has published sexual abuse guidelines for participants of Ayahuasca ceremonies (translated into 13 languages) and legal resources for survivors. These are community guidelines about sexual abuse. This document focuses on harm reduction in psychedelic churches. A number of the Chacruna team are founders or members of Sacred Plant Alliance.
Narcissistic Abuse
Home / The Echo Society (UK) — (formerly LNASG — The London Narcissistic Abuse Support Group) — is a volunteer-driven not-for-profit organisation providing a counseling service, support, and a new grassroots movement of raising awareness and campaigning for those impacted by narcissistic abuse, coercive control (psychological & emotional abuse).
Toxic Workplace Survival Guy — Resource from Matthew Green, tried and tested tools for navigating harmful company cultures.
Narcissistic Abuse Survivors, Inc. (NAS) is a nonprofit organization designed to help men and women get to the root of why they attract people who hurt them.
The Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Center (N.A.R.C.) was formed to help women overcome domestic violence and narcissistic, emotional, and psychological abuse; they believe that everyone deserves to live a happy, fulfilled life free of all forms of abuse.
References:
Marc Aixala (2022) Psychedelic Integration
Nese Devenot (2024) Healing in an age of Inequality (Harvard Medical School Presentation)
Alnoor Ladha (2022) Post Capitalist Philanthropy
Paul Levy (2021) Wetiko
*This piece was written for an event we held in May of 2023 where we raised over £4,000 for Heal Palestine.