Research
Dr Simon Ruffell – Other Ways of Knowing
May 13, 2025
Featuring: Dr Simon Ruffell
In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Joe Moore speaks with Dr. Simon Ruffell, a psychiatrist from London who is also training in the Shipibo healing tradition of the Peruvian Amazon. After working in psychiatry for years, Dr. Ruffell began to feel frustrated with the limits of modern treatments. As a result, he turned to plant medicine and Indigenous healing.
In this episode of Psychedelics Today, Joe Moore speaks with Dr. Simon Ruffell, a psychiatrist from London who is also training in the Shipibo healing tradition of the Peruvian Amazon. After working in psychiatry for years, Dr. Ruffell began to feel frustrated with the limits of modern treatments. As a result, he turned to plant medicine and Indigenous healing.
Throughout the episode, Dr. Ruffell shares how Western psychiatry and traditional medicine can work together. He explains the Shipibo idea that illness shows up on three levels: spiritual, emotional, and physical. Healing, he says, must reach all three. Moreover, he describes how ignoring these levels—especially in psychedelic work—can lead to harm.
Dr. Ruffell also discusses the importance of training, trust, and cross-cultural respect. He believes that blending Indigenous and Western methods may lead to safer and more effective psychedelic care. To support this, he founded Onaya Science and Onaya.io, which work closely with Amazonian healers. Notably, their early research with military veterans is showing strong results. In fact, 84% of participants no longer met the criteria for PTSD six months after treatment.
This conversation is both thoughtful and practical. If you’re a therapist, researcher, or someone exploring psychedelic healing, you’ll find insights here. Dr. Ruffell reminds us that we don’t need to choose between science and spirit. Instead, we can learn from both.
