Sitter

There are so many practices. What we're talking about is spirituality. Christians have an approach to spirituality, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists—all have approaches with a lot of common ground. It's no secret now. We live in a time where previously secret teachings are available everywhere. After China invaded Tibet, lineage holders of this tremendous ancient...

Stan's work is so formidable and his intellectual synthesis of so many traditions is so important that he became my foundation for doing this work. Remember, I was doing this work in Ohio, a long way from San Francisco. I was not part of a psychedelic community or an Ayahuasca group going to Peru...

So I began the therapeutic, psychedelic-oriented work that I knew would be required for me to have access to the kinds of experiences that would allow me to hopefully make some kind of contribution to my discipline, which is philosophy of religion. I started a psychedelic practice, which, after three medium-dose sessions, led me...

I followed the protocol established by Stan Grof, as reflected in his book Realms of the Human Unconscious and further clarified in LSD Psychotherapy, where he lays out all the nuts and bolts of this modality. I was always in a room, isolated from the world, protected, with just my sitter—my wife at the...

No, you understood. You got it correctly. It's kind of jumping ahead to the story. Let me back up and work to that point. Okay, if you work, and I think in order to extract the maximal psychological, psycho-spiritual and philosophical value of these experiences, it's very important to create a container, what I...

Yep.

Well, first, let me describe the protocol. Everything I did was within a strict therapeutic protocol. I followed Stan's protocols from his book, LSD Psychotherapy, so traditional—lying down, eye shades, earphones, listening to very carefully choreographed music to guide the session. I was always in private, always protected, always with a sitter who was...

Okay, so I just say 73 high-dose sessions. And I did this in a very rigorous fashion, following Stan's protocol. In my case, I used the same protocol, same set and setting, same substance, same dose level, same sitter, same recording process, and same location. I tried to standardize all the variables as much...

Well, first, let me describe the protocol. Everything I did was within a strict therapeutic protocol. I followed Stan's protocols from his book, LSD Psychotherapy: traditional, lying down, eye shades, earphones, listening to very carefully choreographed music to guide the session. I was always in private, always protected, always with a sitter—who was my...

I stopped for six years because my wife, who was my sitter, asked me to—too many things were coming up out of my sessions that were very novel and disruptive, and she just wanted the whole thing to slow down, and she asked me to stop. So I did. And when I resumed, I...

I did this work within the Grofian protocol—totally isolated from the world with a sitter, a trained clinical psychologist. I did it at home, in a controlled environment, totally internally focused, without contact with the outside world. We amplified the states of awareness with carefully selected music designed to empower and expand these states,...

I've done sessions without a sitter, but never with these when doing this high-dose work. I've done lower-dose sessions or with gentler substances after this phase of work ended. But when I was doing the high-dose series, I always had a sitter. I was always protected from the world, working in isolation, buffered, and...

I used LSD because that was the substance Stan had worked with in his early years; that's what his research was based on, primarily, and I trusted what I saw in his work. After my sessions, my work always followed the protocols he laid out in his early book, LSD Psychotherapy. The sessions were...

Well, I was just out of graduate school back in 1978, and I read Stan Grof's first book, Realms of the Human Unconscious, published in '76. Immediately, I recognized the significance of Stan's work for my discipline, which is philosophy of religion. I'm not a psychologist or a therapist. I've never been particularly interested...

Well, I thought if you could use this therapy of working with high doses safely three times, you could use it safely more than three times. So during the years I was doing this work, I simply saw myself as doing an extended course of psychedelic therapy. But when I came to the end...

I followed a very strict protocol, which I think made my work a little unusual. In a therapeutic protocol, you are totally isolated from the world. You don't take psychedelics and go for a walk, or to a concert, or even stay up talking with friends. You're protected by a sitter, handling logistics, with...

I followed the same protocol rigorously: lying down with eye shades, with a sitter, using the same substance, the same dose, the same set and setting, the same sitter, the same recording process, even the same location. All these variables can influence one's experiences in non-ordinary states, so it was a stable position to...

Share in the animistic community is the belief that nature is infused with consciousness, fused with mind and soul. And, of course, now we know how vast the physical universe is, and the question becomes, how large is the mind of the universe? How deep is it? So, I was just out of graduate...

Well, I know it's a radical book, and I think we are at a pivot point in history, and I think that psychedelics represent a major transition point, a true historical before-and-after point with respect to philosophy, not just psychology. It generates not only a new therapeutic protocol for healing the personal psyche, but...

Wouldn't that have been interesting? I did have an opportunity to do some teaching at the California Institute of Integral Studies in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program, but this came rather late in my series. Basically, I did my work between 1979 and 1999, when I was between 30 and 50 years old,...

Now, as you know, in Stan Grof's work, he differentiates clearly between low dose psychotherapy and high dose psychedelic therapy. Low dose, maybe up to 100 sessions unfolding the mind gradually, layer by layer; psychedelic therapy limited to three sessions designed to trigger something approximating a near-death episode experience for people who were facing...

Let's start with the safety protocol. I basically used the protocol established by Stanislav Grof and published in his book LSD Psychotherapy. He distinguishes between low-dose psycholytic sessions and high-dose psychedelic sessions. I always worked in isolation, in the privacy of my home or my wife's clinical office. I had a sitter—my first wife,...

Okay? Looks like it's just as a winner. Okay. This is my psychedelic lineage. My psychedelic lineage basically grounds in the work of Stanislav Grof. When I was 29 years old, fresh out of graduate school, just beginning my academic career in Ohio, I met Stan Grof's work, Realms of the Human Unconscious, and...

A session always began in the early morning. I was always isolated, either in my home or in my wife's office. I always had a sitter who carefully took care of me and monitored me. My sitter was my first wife, Carla, who is a clinical psychologist. I'm always lying down on a mattress...

Over the next 20 years, as I progressed through the academic world, I did 73 high-dose LSD sessions—completely internalized, completely protected, with a sitter using traditional formats, privately, safely protected from the world with the assistance of a sitter who kept me safe and secure. I found that it engaged me systematically into an...

What I chose to do in my work was to engage with very high doses. I saw that if this could be done safely a few times, it could be done safely more than a few times. As Janet mentioned, I conducted 73 high-dose LSD sessions over 20 years, between 1979 and 1999. At...

Yes, yes. We all kind of suffer from the carryover of our culture's experience with psychedelics in the 1960s and all the negative press that psychedelics generated, or were generated around psychedelics, when the true story is really very different. Psychedelics in general, and LSD in particular, function as non-specific amplifiers and catalysts of...

Yeah, let me just mention something about the method, to give a context, because that was an important aid in solving a problem, a challenge with work. Doing the work the way that I did, what I did was to work after three medium-dose sessions, always following Stan Grof's protocol. So I was always...

What happened was, fresh out of graduate school, 29 years old, in the middle of my Saturn return. Didn't know that yet at the time, had finished my dissertation. Was looking for where to take my research. I was a brand-new professor of religious studies at Youngstown State University, and I read Stanislav Grof's...

No, I think it's pretty much conventional in that respect. You're always working in complete isolation with a sitter and a very carefully curated playlist of music. The difference is that after three medium-dose LSD sessions, I shifted to very high levels of LSD, working at 500 to 600 micrograms. At first, I did...

No, it was quite conventional. I was always working in complete isolation, with a sitter, and a carefully curated music playlist. The difference was that I shifted to high doses of LSD, between 500 to 600 micrograms. Initially, it was for efficiency, but it became a more profound project. I carefully documented everything, knowing...

Psychedelic exploration involves the method of psychedelic therapy—isolation, headphones, music, total protection with a sitter. The difference is the number of sessions involved, in my case 73 high-dose sessions between 1979 and 1999. I worked for four years, stopped for six years for reasons I describe in the book, and then resumed for a...

Let me back up a bit about method. Stan Grof distinguishes between low dose psycholytic therapy and high dose psychedelic therapy. Low dose psycholytic therapy, usually 50-200 micrograms, peels the unconscious layer by layer, helping heal issues in the unconscious through multiple sessions. High dose psychedelic therapy is different: used primarily with terminally ill...

So a few words on the methodology. When I got to the end of my 73 journeys and began writing it up, I realized this was something different. When you enter into this state so many times in a controlled fashion, it opens opportunities not considered in the early years of psychedelic therapy and...

After a few low dose sessions, I chose a very intense regimen with LSD, undertaking high dose psychedelic therapy over 20 years with 73 sessions at 500 to 600 micrograms. My first wife, Carol, a clinical psychologist, was my sitter for all sessions. I worked for four years, stopped for six, then returned for...

Yes.

When I got to the end of this journey, however, and was looking back, I realized that what unfolded on this journey was more radical and more challenging than what had emerged in the early psychedelic therapy work. And so I had to coin a new term, a new phrase for it. So the...

Looking back, I figured I needed a different name for it, so I call it psychedelic exploration. The method is the method of psychedelic therapy—complete isolation, working with eyeshades, a sitter, and carefully calibrated music to pace the opening and closing of a session. The difference is the number of sessions involved. For me,...

I've never taken LSD and gone to a concert or stayed up talking with friends. It's a specific methodology, completely internalized. It's Stan Grof's psychedelic therapy, as he describes in his book LSD Psychotherapy. You're totally isolated, in a private space, lying down, wearing eye shades, and listening to carefully selected music. My first...

Most of you don't know, but I was Robert’s sitter in a Holotropic Breathwork session. He was mine too. We’ve got a bond through this. The floor is open—let’s talk.