Swimming in the sacred: Wisdom from the psychedelic underground

Based on her book by the same title, Dr. Harris will report on interviews with fifteen women elders who have been guiding underground journeys for at least twenty years and some for thirty or more. The interviews were personal and extensive, exploring themes rather than how-to instructions—presence, commitment to self-healing, apprenticeship, medicines as on-going process, relationship with medicines, clearing energy, self-responsibility. These women are not psychedelic therapists and although some are indigenously trained, they are best described as priestesses in the model of the Eleusinian Mysteries. These elder guides represent an alternative way of being with entheogens, distinct from the medical research model. Their roots predate the current psychedelic renaissance and reach back into the original protocols still used today. These women are a rare source of insight and experience that the new trove of psychedelic therapists and researchers would be wise to consider.