Hi there,

The outcome of a psychedelic experience depends at least as much on set and setting as on the drug itself. Set is what you bring in: your intentions, your mood, the state of your nervous system. Setting is everything around you: the room, the music, the felt sense of safety, and above all the people present.

It's the reason modern psychedelic trials spend hours on preparation and keep trained guides in the room for the whole session. The same dose can produce a breakthrough or a crisis depending on who is holding it. Get them wrong and a person can come out more shaken and more alone than when they went in.

Which is what makes holding space a real skill, and a recent study named it as a distinct, trainable competency for psychedelic practitioners rather than something you either have or you don't. It means knowing yourself well and being able to listen deeply to others. Holding Space is an eight-week online course to help you explore this role.

If you want to take this all the way to professional practice, PsyEdu's Professional Certificate in Psychedelic Practice is the serious route. It's a one-year, Level 6 postgraduate programme, 250 hours of study across three terms that run from the science and history of these medicines, through screening, preparation, consent and therapeutic touch, into integration and the ethics of the work. The faculty includes experienced multidisciplinary faculty working at the forefront of psychedelic research including Professor David Nutt and David Luke. It's built for health and helping professionals, graduates go into clinical trials and retreat facilitation, and the year includes an optional legal psychedelic retreat in the Netherlands.

Our community gets 10% off with the code PSYSOC10.

use code PSYSOC10 for 10% off

MORE UPCOMING EVENTS

As always, you can find all our upcoming events and retreats on our events page.

creativity & empowerment

community gatherings

talks

integration & innerwork

community partner

Longing for more meaningful connection?

Dr Rosalind Watts spent years exploring why connection to ourselves, each other, and the natural world feels so nourishing, why it is so essential to our wellbeing, and why it can be so difficult to maintain in modern life.

ACER is our way of bringing connection back. It's a year-long online container built on real community; a space to speak honestly, be witnessed, and not carry things alone. Whether you're processing a psychedelic experience or simply want more community in your life, ACER offers structure, belonging, live expert talks, Q&As, creative practices, and a rich resource library available anytime.

If you're craving that kind of connection, apply to join ACER today. We start October 1st.

APPLY NOW

20% off discount code: PSYSOC20

IN OTHER NEWS

In memory of Nikki Wyrd

For a lot of us, going deeper passed through Breaking Convention. Europe's largest psychedelic conference, held every couple of years, and serious in scale: 1,400 people gathered at Exeter in 2023 for two days of science and argument.

Nikki Wyrd was one of the directors who held the whole thing together.

Her reach went well beyond the conference. With Robert Dickins she edited the Psychedelic Press for its full run, forty issues between 2012 and 2023, the journal that did more than almost anything to keep serious writing about psychedelics alive through the lean years. She ran her own imprint, The Universe Machine, and edited book after book on psychedelics and the occult. She trained as an ecologist, played bass for nine years in the all-female punk band PMT (which is where the Wyrd came from), raised two daughters in Norwich, and never lost her taste for dancing to psytrance.

Breaking Convention is part of how a generation went deeper. Nikki was a big part of why it held. We'll miss her.

Join the team!

This is an exciting opportunity to help shape one of the UK’s leading platforms exploring psychedelics, consciousness, and human transformation. As an Events Producer, you’ll play a key role in bringing world-class ideas, teachers, researchers, and practitioners to our community, helping thousands of people engage with some of the most important conversations of our time.

The role combines creative event organisation with strategic event coordination, offering the opportunity to both create flagship experiences and grow a thriving ecosystem of facilitators and collaborators across the UK.

Manchester - apply here
Bristol - apply here
Brighton - apply here
Community Leads Worldwide - apply here

Join our community of members!

We fund our work in community-building and psychedelic education primarily through our membership program.

By becoming a member of The Psychedelic Society community, you get access to exclusive members-only events, a discount on events, and support the development of this alternative cultural space. Membership starts from just £5/month!

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