As more and more people board the USS Psilocybin and head into the depths of their consciousness, more and more of them will at some point find themselves in a precarious psychic situation. But riding out the eternal darkness of one’s soul doesn’t need to be a solo voyage—nor, as Chris Colin examines, does it need to be avoided. A new generation of organizations is helping people steer into the chaos, and come out the other side reborn.
A volunteer named Jasmine picked up the phone. Immediately she emitted a gentle, knowledgeable, and grounded vibe. She didn’t try to distract him from his anguish or minimize it. On the contrary, she validated what he was feeling and gave him permission to explore his pain further. “Very quickly she turned it into something I felt that I could go through,” he said.
Greenberg spoke with Jasmine for nearly an hour and a half, then called again later, as the crisis softened into something more like curiosity. With her help, his angst metabolized into a searing peek under the hood. Where before he’d felt abject terror, he now saw an invitation to make real changes in his life.
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