Student Interview – The Conscious Psychedelic Explorer Program
The second cohort of my 6-week course, The Conscious Psychedelic Explorer finished a couple of weeks ago at the end of November.
As I’ve wrapped up, I’ve been talking with some of the members inside to learn about their experiences. The post today is a transcription of one of those conversations.
I wanted to share this to give people an idea of what it’s like inside and for those of you who might be on the fence about joining and would like to know more.
This conversation is between myself (J), and Mark (M) – an alias- and has been edited with permission for clarity:
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J:
So where I’d like to begin is to ask, where were you before the course versus where you are now?
M:
So I’ve probably taken the psychedelics for, we’re probably coming up on two and a half years. I’ve probably taken 15 to 18 doses of psilocybin and three doses of MDMA. All of which, the protocol and the means by which I took them was formed out of just research that I did on the internet. And while I had what I thought was a fairly good protocol, as you can imagine it was evolving over all that time.
I find now that when I look at the overall protocol after the course, I can see it’s gonna be much more structured. Considering a lot of the things that you brought up throughout the course, I look at them and say, oh, that makes sense.
Like, setting aside a specific day. I mean, those thoughts come up, but when you hear somebody else say things, it makes it a little bit more solid to you. So going into my next experience, it’s gonna be much more structured.
I think because of that, it’s going to be better because I’m a structured kind of person, it gives me a sense of comfort. I don’t know why I didn’t tie to it before, but having you lay things out from one end to the other, has allowed me to see a more complete view of it. So that’s kind of where I stand.
J:
Right. Yeah, it’s great to hear that as a structured person, you’ll bring some of that more to your psychedelic work.
What has been your biggest win or your biggest result or benefit from taking the course?
M:
I’m gonna say twofold. So one of the big wins for me is the structure and the way you laid out the modules and stepped through everything and gave me that view.
Next, I think as I look at the journaling exercises and look at the exercises that we’ve done, I have more confidence in planning my next experience. I think having that confidence, having that control, and going into the next experience is huge.
Finally, I would say the community. The group calls and the breakout rooms, I found much more value in that than I anticipated, especially the breakout rooms. I usually don’t like that. When you first said you’re gonna do the breakout rooms? I was shaking my head saying, “no, why are we going down this path?” <laughs>
But I found them, literally, every one of them was fruitful, in one way, shape or form. So that was huge for me. Being able to talk openly within the community calls was so incredible. I don’t have anybody I can talk to about it, nobody around me, or in my sphere, is active in psychedelics. I mean, we’re talking about something that’s illegal here, so it’s not like you can have this open conversation about it. It was huge for me to be able to just talk about it openly and freely and hear other people’s experiences.
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J:
Amazing to hear so much has sunk in for you. What was your favorite part of the course?
M:
The way you packaged and presented it. I’ve looked at some other courses before and I mean, we’ve obviously all been to courses, we’ve been to classes and learned things. To me, you provide the wisdom of experience in your knowledge that lies beyond just teaching. Beyond that it’s not delivered in an antiseptic way, or the way I would traditionally see a course. It was more like having a discussion with a wise friend that understands what you’re talking about.
You deliver and lead the course more from a caring perspective. I mean, the way you present your materials, lead the calls and facilitate the conversations, it was all delivered and created, not in a “yeah, I’m just going put this class together so you can learn the material and get through it” way.
There was caring and that’s the best way to describe it. There was care in the content that you created and the way you facilitated it. So that was super good for me. I didn’t feel like I was just in a class to just learn the material and go away, you know what I mean? Even the material done at home away from the calls, seemed to be done in a very caring way. That was huge for me too.
J:
Very much appreciate that. What would you say to somebody who’s on the fence about purchasing or joining the course?
M:
J:
Thank you for your kind words M. I’m really glad you joined. I’ve enjoyed your presence and the curiosity and sharing that you brought to the group.
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The Conscious Psychedelic Explorer opens for registration again on the 10th of January 2023. Join the waitlist to get first access.
