Culture

Kyle and Joe – Solidarity Fridays – Week Three

April 17, 2020

In today’s Solidarity Fridays Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk about the Shadow Panel, embracing the weird in psychedelia, what is real, re-examining ‘normal’, and more.

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In today’s Solidarity Fridays Episode with Kyle and Joe, they talk about the Shadow Panel, embracing the weird in psychedelia, what is real, re-examining ‘normal’, and more.


Show Notes

Shadow Panel

  • Topics in the Panel include
    • Ayahuasca retreat centers
    • Maximization culture to use psychedelics for optimization
    • Ketamine therapy and shadow as aspects of character
    • The collective shadow and astrology
    • and much more!

Erik Davis

  • Joe and Erik just had a call and they talked about his book High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (The MIT Press)
    • It is a study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson
    • It’s a really nice survey of the weird
    • “Are you acknowledging what you’re getting by believing something is true? It’s a part of your analysis”
  • Joe says if you’re into the weird stuff in psychedelics, this book is for you. If you are only into the clinical stuff, then this is good for you.
    • Kyle says sometimes we don’t give enough credit to the weirdness in the psychedelic space
  • Corporadelic is a means of spiritual bypassing
  • The weirdness is core to what the psychedelic experience is

What is Real?

  • Psyche means more than just mind
    • When its mind, body, spirit, breath, it seems more accurate
  • It is worth reading Alfred Whitehead and James Fadiman, Philosophy is important
  • We are trying to understand and have helpful language around the psychedelic experience
    • “There are no whole truths, there are only half truths”
  • Kyle said that at the core of our being, how do we know what is true and real?
    • At the fundamental truth of what real is, Kyle says that sitting in the CAT scan machine and being on the brink of death, that’s the only place where truth sits for him

Psychedelic Liberty Summit

  • Saturday and Sunday April 25th and 26th
  • Receive a discount here
  • This is a psychedelic conference that turned virtual due to COVID-19

Group Work

  • Breathwork, retreat centers, etc are at an undetermined standstill because we don’t know how this is going to plan out
  • The Navigating Psychedelics Today Online class has students learn the information first and then come together to talk about it
  • There are so many means of transmission
    • Kyle mentions he read something about COVID being transmitted on the soles of shoes
  • We will probably need additional shelter in place measures all the way until 2022
  • We are almost hitting 9/11 death toll numbers on a daily basis

Re-examining Normal

  • Do we want to go back to the way things were? Or do we want to take this weird/uncertain time and do something with it?
  • The worst of climate change is only a mere 20 years out
  • It’s easy to have emotional heartbreak when ecological destruction happens
    • Eco-psychology is a huge field

Mind Medicine Australia

Final Thoughts

  • Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists, May co-hort is SOLD OUT
    The wait list for the next co-hort can be found here 

Psychedelics and the Shadow: A Series Exploring the Shadow Side of Psychedelia

Enroll Today!


About Kyle

Kyle’s interest in exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness began when he was 16-years-old when he suffered a traumatic snowboarding accident. Waking up after having a near-death experience changed Kyle’s life. Since then, Kyle has earned his B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology, where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and the roots/benefits of psychedelic psychotherapy. Kyle has co-taught two college-level courses. One of the courses Kyle created as a capstone project, “Stanislav Grof’s Psychology of Extraordinary Experiences,” and the other one which he co-created, “The History of Psychedelics.”

Kyle completed his M.S. in clinical mental health counseling with an emphasis in somatic psychology. Kyle’s clinical background in mental health consists of working with at-risk teenagers in crisis and with individuals experiencing an early-episode of psychosis. Kyle also facilitates Transpersonal Breathwork workshops.

About Joe

Joe studied philosophy in New Hampshire, where he earned his B.A.. After stumbling upon the work of Stanislav Grof during his undergraduate years, Joe began participating in Holotropic Breathwork workshops in Vermont in 2003. Joe helped facilitate Holotropic and Transpersonal Breathwork workshops while he spent his time in New England. He is now working in the software industry as well as hosting a few podcasts. Joe now coordinates Dreamshadow Transpersonal Breathwork workshops, in Breckenridge, Colorado.

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