FieldTrip in Pre-Bankruptcy, Jake Paul and Spiritual Bypassing

Soul Surgeon here to discuss the recent news of psychedelic powerhouse telehealth companies like Field Trip and Mindbloom, making structural changes in response to rumors of bankruptcy and failing business models. Other ketamine telehealth companies, Neu Life Health and Venice-based Wondermed, have also been alleged to be operating in the red after private equity and venture-backing helped raise millions of dollars in the hopes of cashing in on the psychedelic gold rush and promising essentially a pharmaceutical fix to burgeoning mental health crisis. The psychedelic industry is projected to be a $500-billion dollar industry, and it is apparent that opportunists are looking for ways to profit on the backs of those in dire need of new solutions. Unfortunately, talk therapy and medication is not going to cut it alone when you look at the conditions that are creating the catastrophe.

This past March, Field Trip announced company-wide layoffs, the closing of five clinics, their chief executive Ronan Levy stepping down and a Canadian court granting them protection from creditors - a “pre-bankruptcy.” Currently, they are operating at almost a $30 million dollar loss. Field Trip burst onto the scene and immediately started staking out territory in an effort to put brick and mortar locations down quickly, claiming market share, as they worked behind the scenes to tinker with and patent known psychedelics. Their attempt at innovation as a drug development company was taking a compound “like” psilocybin and reduce the duration of effect from approximately 4 hours to around 2-3 hours – hardly innovation. This would have given the company the opportunity to patent and claim IP rights on a “new” drug akin to the price-gouging practices observed from many pharmaceutical companies in the name of R&D.

As for Mindbloom, the psychedelic community has been known to criticize their use of saturating advertisements and promotion of “75% off” at-home ketamine therapy services. They were the subject of a scathing Vice article in which the perils of misguided prescribing practices and loosely “supervised” session led to customer harm. Peddling statements like “five years of therapy in just a few sessions,” they have taken testimonials and enthusiastic statements made from clients working different contexts to play hope like a guitar string for those desperate for relief from their debilitating mental illness.

These companies faced additional scrutiny and uncertainty after President Biden ended the federal Emergency Declaration enacted January 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic earlier this year. The Emergency Declaration superseded the Ryan Haight Act of 2008, which required an in-person consultation for any and all controlled substances prior to prescribing to avoid replicating the Opioid Crisis for other controlled substances. Set to expire on May 11, 2023, telehealth companies would no longer be able to prescribe controlled substances, i.e. ketamine, without an in-person consultation. New DEA proposed regulations could make the looser prescribing practices permanent in the ongoing struggle between medicine access vs prescribing regulation, by allowing consumers 30-days to complete their in-person consultation and a strict set of prescribing guidelines.

As a psychedelic healer and owner of my own healing sanctuary, I can personally say that these business models and marketing tactics are misaligned with much of the psychedelic work I have come to experience myself and offer. It’s important to know that the medicine is a catalyst to the work, but it isn't the work. It’s not impossible for a person to do this work on their own and there are positive psychedelic telehealth testimonials out there, but there is a reason why psychedelic guides and healers have been instrumental to the work for thousands of years.

In the absence of a skilled facilitator, someone familiar with the terrain and possessing a set of skills and techniques to guide clients through difficult psychological and emotional material, we are merely replicating the pharmaceutical model, and we have seen this fail time and time again. To be human means that you have experienced trauma. As Gabor Mate, MD, reminds us, “trauma is not the event, it is wound.” When trauma happens, it requires our internal resources to contain it, creating internal fragmentation and compartmentalization in an effort to not overwhelm our resources. We grow up with this dis-integration, fragmentation, compartmentalization and they become learned behaviors, coping strategies to deal with the conditions of our lives. The move from conscious reactions to unconscious patterns. It is the work of the skilled facilitator and guide to use their techniques assisted by psychedelic medicine – a consciousness-accessing tool and catalyst to the work – to find the keys (answers) to open the doors (blocks, tensions, patterns) and create a sense of wholeness (integrity) so you can integrate all aspects of your life. The act of integration isn’t about rewriting history, but becoming aware of all our parts, all our pains, all our strengths and struggles, and accepting them. This contextualization and meaning making is the remedy that tackles the root cause of disease expression. Rather than treating the symptoms of the wound, e.g. depression, anxiety, addiction, etc., we are treating the wound.

These telehealth companies are the middlemen, enablers to access to a controlled substance without a commitment to creating the most optimal container to do the work. This is not the rule, as there are always exceptions, but the work of psychedelic healing cannot be amplified by a cold, hard infusion of money and lack of understanding. We need to stop replicating the pharmaceutical model and start promoting the human model. One where people are prioritized over profit.

I watch on, still curious how the psychedelic teleheath model might continue to develop.

Psychedelics in Pop Culture: Jake Paul, AYAHUASCA, Spiritual Bypassing & Alignment

You may have seen headlines last month across psychedelic and pop culture media hubs when YouTuber, Boxer and Notorious Internet Bully - Jake Paul - joined the “roster of celebrities who have taken ayahuasca.”

So, let’s talk the potential negative impact when a celebrity uses psychedelic medicine as a way to make headlines and why in the long run… it doesn’t work for any party involved or grow the credibility of this sacred work.

Jake Paul is a great example of “spiritual bypassing” which refers to when people rely on psychedelics or psychedelic healing practices, but aren't willing to do "the work.” In other words, trusting the medicine or the mystical experience to “heal” them, but not integrating the experience to create a sense of wholeness with your spiritual self or addressing the internal conflicts and tensions at the root of challenging symptoms.

Spiritual alignment is the conscious act of living your life in alignment with your deepest truths. It is alignment between your mind, your heart, and your gut (instincts), creating harmony between your mind, body, and soul. While psychedelics can help us grow closer to our truths, spiritual alignment reconciles the totality of our beliefs, relationships and actions. Using psychedelics without making efforts towards spiritual alignment is at the least recreational, confusing and sometimes may have undesired negative effects.

Paul’s current massive platform’s messaging [which caters to young kids and teens] utilizes violence, mocking, humiliating, and taunting people into “clicks.” Medicine does not make exceptions for the entertainment world. If you are using your voice and power in this world to negatively impact others or perpetuate deconstructive beliefs - you are out of spiritual alignment.

Taking Ayahuasca may give Paul visions and insights, it may have also shown him something sacred and mystical, but it's can’t do the real work for him.