Structure, Function, and Implications of Rapid Ritualization in a Legal, Regulated Psychedelic Group Setting

My paper explores a ritual created for the administration of psychedelic drugs in a legal, regulated environment. Specifically, I analyze the ritual that was developed to precede high-dose group psilocybin sessions in Oregon. My paper describes the creation and evolution of a group psilocybin ritual, examines the central function of the ritual, and ponders larger implications of this case study for Religious Studies.

I am a Religious Studies professor but I also am a psychedelic facilitator with the Oregon Psilocybin Services program, the only legal, regulated, state-level psychedelic access program in the U.S. As a licensed psychedelic facilitator, I hold space for high-dose group psilocybin journeys through Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI) at their group practicum site in Eugene, Oregon. IPI trains mental health providers how to provide psychedelic-assisted therapy. At the end of 9 months of study, IPI students attend a mandatory 4-day practicum retreat during which they ingest a therapeutic dose (between 30 to 35 mg) of psilocybin in a group ceremony.

Taking a therapeutic dose of psilocybin—which is higher than the typical dose people ingest for recreational purposes—can be an intimidating experience, even for experienced psychonauts who are familiar and comfortable with altered states of consciousness. It can be downright terrifying for people who are psychedelic naïve, who have not previously experienced a significant alteration to their baseline consciousness. To fully engage in the psychedelic process, participants have to be willing to be psychologically unspooled and utterly vulnerable, their interior life laid bare to themselves and others. As a result, they have to be able to trust that the people accompanying them during their session can keep them physically and psychologically safe. Research on the efficacy of psilocybin to address mental health challenges and trauma has established that the strongest determinant of whether a psychedelic journey produces positive therapeutic effects is the extent to which the person taking psychedelics feels physically safe and emotionally-connected to other people in the administration space. In individual psilocybin journeys, where a participant and facilitator work as a pair, the preparation process focuses on building rapport and trust. But this calculus of trust becomes significantly more complex in group situations like IPI retreats where psychedelic journeyers are in the company of 20 to 25 other people.

In União do Vegetal, Santo Daime and other religious traditions that include the ingestion of entheogenic plants, this feeling of physical, psychic, and interpersonal safety in a group—the creation of a “strong container,” in psychedelic parlance—is accomplished through established conventions of singing and ritual. In contrast, the regulatory structure of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) imagines psilocybin sessions under its auspices as expressly neutral in their spiritual and religious content. OHA regulations constrain facilitators from introducing religious ideas and actions during psychedelic administrations.

This poses a significant challenge for facilitators in Oregon, namely, how to cultivate bonds of trust and construct an interpersonal "container" that is solid enough for retreat participants to accept the disorientation of altered consciousness—and hopefully relax into and accept possible experiences of struggle and pain that may accompany psychedelic-induced transformation—without transgressing state-mandated regulatory limits on religious content and religion-like activities in psilocybin administration sessions?  

As a member of the inaugural staff of the IPI psilocybin retreat program, I had a front row seat during the creation of the initial group ritual enacted on “dose days” immediately before participants ingest psilocybin. I also was able to observe how the ritual developed into more elaborate and intentional forms through weekly repetition in the summer of 2023. 

After 3 months of evolution via repetition, the IPI dose day ritual settled into a more-or-less stable form. The ritual takes approximately 45 minutes to enact and includes 6 distinct, sequential components: 1) placement of personal item on the altar/”ledge of intention”, 2) gesture mirroring in dyads, 3) individual contributions to a flower mandala with verbal statement of intention, 4) creation of three concentric circles (those taking psilocybin at center, facing each other, dyad partners circled around them, facilitators in an outermost circle around dyad partners), 5) casting of a protective spell, concluding with a 6) short meditation on tradition and “right relationship.” (Each component will be described and explained in detail in the conference presentation, with photographs and drawings to illustrate).   

The “dose day” ritual is not tangential to the overall retreat process. It accomplishes several crucial things for participants. It demarcates the psilocybin administration room as a liminal space, helping participants release their attachment to the status quo so they can cross the threshold into altered consciousness. It signals the suspension of ordinary social agreements about things like technology, personal behavior, and interpersonal interaction, giving people taking psilocybin permission to be open and comfortable with the vocal, gestural, and emotional expressions they might make while “in the medicine.” Immersing people in symbols of group coherence creates expectations of mutual care that helps psychedelic journeyers relax into psychological intimacy and trust. And, it establishes expectations of interiority, profundity, and the possibility of radical personal transformation for everyone in the administration room.  

As legal, regulated psychedelic-assisted therapy expands to other states, this kind of improvisational ritualization around psychedelics increasingly will be commonplace, offering scholars an unprecedented opportunity to observe the rapid development and deployment of ritual in non-religious, pseudo-religious, or religion-adjacent contexts. Scholars of religion are accustomed to studying systems, institutions, and rituals that are generations if not millennia old, but sitting in group psilocybin sessions—even in a space governed by regulations that aim to minimize religious resonance—often feels like watching religious forms emerge in real time. The high stakes and personal precarity inherent in psychedelic environments reveals the precise work that ritual accomplishes, of providing a bridge from “normal” life into liminal or even exceptional/transcendent states. Finally, the importance of pre-dose rituals to group psychedelic processes underscores the role ritual can play in developing social cohesion and social trust.