“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley

Hi there,

Sometimes music feels like a psychedelic itself. It has an uncanny ability to transport us, shift our moods with its tones, and bring emotions straight to the surface. So it's no wonder that it plays such a crucial role in psychedelic trips (part of the critical ‘setting’ in ‘set and setting’). Research even proposed music may have a more significant impact than dosage on a person's experience.

Mendel Kaelen's study published in 2021 found that music significantly enhanced the emotional response and personal meaning attributed to the psychedelic experience on LSD and increased the connectivity between brain regions associated with emotion, memory, and self-awareness, suggesting its role in facilitating therapeutic outcomes. He's now developed Wavepaths, a tool that customizes music for therapy.

Likewise, psychedelics have made their own mark on music in the West. The psychedelia genre (the Grateful Dead, the Doors, Pink Floyd) sprang from the LSD-spiked waters of 1960s counterculture. In the 1990s, a group of ravers in the UK started a petition to recognize psytrance music as a religion. They argued that the combination of psychedelics and electronic beats could induce spiritual experiences.

But indigenous healers have always known this. I'm thinking of the South American ayahuasca shaman with their enchanted icaros, Marina Sabina with her poetic chants, and the high-tempo beats of the West-African Bwiti in their ibogaine rituals. All of these are developed in tandem with plant medicines and act as a sacred vehicle to unconscious realms to guide us through our internal journeys. With deep recognition that the two are inextricable.

This week we're highlighting our events in embodiment and creativity and especially those fueled for and by music…

Intimacy & Identity

Adventures in Awareness

Ceremony & Ritual

Psychedelic Science & Culture

Nature Connection

Community Building

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