Where There Is Smoke
Encounters in the Psychedelic Ecosystem
By Carl Teichrib
“Psychedelics open up a space for new kinds of religious experience, for new kinds of mysticism, and for new ways of thinking about God.” – Erik Davis.1
“The future is psychedelic.” – Rick Doblin, opening ceremony, PS2023.2
The following is a report from my time at Psychedelic Science 2025 (PS2025). Although I have been studying the movement for years – engaging with the literature, attending workshops at Burning Man and other venues, and logging into virtual conferences – this was my first time at a Psychedelic Science event, hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
Guide:
Before diving into the report, here are some points of information that you may find helpful in navigating the subject.
Definition: Psychedelics are substances that temporarily transform perception and consciousness, often leading to profound emotional, cognitive, or spiritual experiences. They are also labelled as hallucinogens and entheogens.
Five effects are associated with psychedelics:
· Visual and sensory changes: vivid colors, novel patterns, and distortions in how time and space are perceived.
· Altered thinking: introspection, new forms of creativity, unusual thought patterns.
· Emotional shifts: feelings of euphoria, empathy or interconnection, and sometimes anxiety, paranoia and deep distress.
· Mystical or spiritual experiences: a sense of unity, transcendence, or the realization of the divine Self.
· Entities: encounters with spiritual beings/gods/goddesses, elves, cosmic entities, angel/demon entities, etc.
Psychedelic drugs and compounds: A range of substances were discussed at PS2025, and some will be mentioned in this report. Here is a list of classic and a few less known but important psychedelics, along with active compounds/molecular formulas.
- 2C-B: a phenethylamine (4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine).
- 5-MeO-DMT (synthetic version) as a compound on its own: 5-Methoxy-N,N-Dimethyltryptamine.
- Ayahuasca: DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine).
- Bufo (toad secretion): 5-MeO-DMT.
- DMT as a compound on its own: N,N-Dimethyltryptamine.
- Iboga/Ibogaine: Ibogaine.
- Ketamine (not considered a classic psychedelic, but it is adjacent): C₁₃H₁₆ClNO.
- LSD: Lysergic acid diethylamide.
- LSZ: Lysergic acid 2,4-dimethylazetidide (similar to LSD but less common).
- MDMA, aka Ecstasy or Molly (not considered a classic psychedelic, but it is adjacent): 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
- Morning Glory: Lysergic acid amide.
- Peyote: Mescaline.
- Psilocybin mushrooms: Psilocin.
- San Pedro: Mescaline.
Event Lineage: A timeline of MAPS/Psychedelic Science conferences.
1990: First MAPS conference. Speakers included Ram Dass, Ralph Metzner, Timothy Leary, and Terence McKenna. This event has been likened to the passing of a baton from the Counterculture of the 1960s and early ‘70s to our contemporary period.
2017: Psychedelic Science, Oakland, California – approx. 3000 attendees.
2019: Psychedelic Science, Austin, Texas – a 600-person single-track conference.
2021: Virtually as the Psychedelic Science Webinar Series.
2023: Psychedelic Science, Denver, Colorado – approx. 12,000 attendees.
2025: Psychedelic Science, Denver, Colorado – approx. 8,000 attendees.
Occasionally the waft of a joint would float down the street in front of the Colorado Convention Center. No doubt this is a relatively common smell for people living in the Mile High City, after all, cannabis decriminalization has been in effect for years. But what made this odor – at this place and time – more fitting, was that the world’s largest psychedelic conference was happening inside the convention center.
Many of the people I’ve interacted with, both before and after attending Psychedelic Science 2025, assumed the event to be a gathering of potheads and druggies, or something akin to the 1960s hippie culture. It wasn’t. Think state governors and law makers, attorneys, chemists, neuroscientists, business leaders and entrepreneurs, philanthropists, doctors and clinicians, psychologists, therapists, university professors and researchers… mixed with religious scholars and spiritual visionaries, artists and cultural designers, filmmakers, podcasters, and activists.
With the above in mind, we need to acknowledge a vital take-away, a lesson powerfully reinforced during PS2025: that the contemporary psychedelic movement is not a cultural side-show or fringe development. Rather, it is a robust, multidisciplinary ecosystem that weaves together a tapestry of diverse actors – all energetically working for the common cause of advancing psychedelics.
And this brings us to downtown Denver and Psychedelic Science 2025. Attended by approximately 8,000 people, the conference featured more than 700 speakers across 14 program tracks, an expo hall with more than 180 exhibitors, a film festival, meet-ups and networking side events, a sacred-space tea-room, displays of visionary artwork, a Ram Das shrine, a poster exhibit highlighting academic projects and research studies, book signings, a sonic-healing room, a somatic station for yoga and other modalities, a non-white space for black/indigenous peoples, and after-hour concerts and secret-location parties. On July 17, the Jewish Psychedelic Summit was held as a parallel event within PS2025.
The overall attendance, however, was less than two years previous. PS2023, brimming with 12,000 people, was renowned for its heady vibe – the psychedelic community was on the cusp of a breakthrough. That year, MAPS was looking forward to the US Food and Drug Administration favorably ruling on MDMA therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. Expectations were high, and in January 2024, MAPS rebranded its Public Benefit Corporation to Lykos Therapeutics in anticipation of FDA approval. But the opposite happened; FDA rejection was a significant blow to MAPS, and a setback to the overall movement.
Nevertheless, while MAPS founder and president, Rick Doblin, acknowledged during the PS2025 opening ceremony that the FDA’s ruling was a hard blow – and there have been other challenges, too – the overall trajectory was optimistic. For those advocating a psychedelic future, how could it not be? Impediments aside, during the past five years there has been a slew of decriminalization changes made at the city level, and New Mexico passed its Medical Psilocybin Act in early April. Then, in late May, Nevada lawmakers resolved to reschedule certain psychedelics. In June, Texas assigned $50 million for clinical trials of ibogaine, making this one the largest public expenditures on psychedelic research in the US. Federally, the Trump administration has shown interest regarding treatment options for people suffering with trauma. Canada, too, has witnessed developments in favor of such substances, and in 2024 the UK’s first trade association for psychedelics was launched. That same year the EU awarded €6.5 million to the PsyPal consortium for research.
There is a trend unfolding, and the line of acceptance is growing.
Returning to the Denver conference, this year’s theme was The Integration, the fusion of science and politics and business and spirituality. It was all of that.
Reflecting on my time at PS2025, the roadmap appears to be as follows:
1) The gateway: treating mental health issues, trauma disorders, and end-of-life distress.
2) The narrative: psychedelics are essential tools for inner healing – to the individual, to the culture, and by extension to the planet.
3) The outcome: a new consciousness in league with an ancient yet revitalized spiritual worldview, offering a syncretistic experience with claims of unity, harmony, and self-divinity.
This outline is in keeping with the prevailing mythos of the psychedelic movement, postulated by ethnobotanist and psychonaut, Terance McKenna: That humanity’s evolutionary leap occurred when primates ingested psilocybin mushrooms millions of years ago, thus awakening and becoming self-aware, and journeying into the development of today’s human being. And now, for humanity to realize our next evolutionary transformation, we too must become “stoned apes.”
Psychedelics, therefore, become planetary and cosmic in the final analysis.
In total I attended 18 sessions over three days – June 18 to 20 – including an evening presentation by transformational artists Alex and Alison Grey. Here are some highlights and takeaways from my time at PS2025.
Opening Session:
Opening the event was Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, telling the audience he was excited by the upcoming conversations around natural medicines, the re-discovery of indigenous ways, and helping people live “their best authentic selves.” Clearly he supported the movement, outlining the importance of designing a regulatory structure for the safe use of “natural medicines,” and that America needs to consider moving the conversation forward.
“There is a critical rationale that the voters of Colorado consider,” Weiser explained, referencing the state’s acceptance of natural psychedelics in 2022, while considering today’s resurgence. “And it has a lot to do with Trump, and post-traumatic stress… and how the use of these medicines can help people, including veterans, including those struggling with addiction… we can be a natural medicine leader in Colorado…”
Tribal elder Rick Williams offered a prayer and said that the spirits are watching, and that each plant has a spirit, and that we must respect Mother Earth… or bad things will happen. Brazilian indigenous leader Biraci Yawanawa suggested organizing a World Ayahuasca Form after reiterating the plant-spirit claim, adding that the plants are used to communicate with spirits. We were told that we need to acknowledge the indigenous people as planetary stewards, a theme I would hear again.
Other speakers talked about the planetary crisis, the mental health crisis, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was said we are in an existential crisis, but we can create a better world by strengthening the psychedelic ecosystem.
Rick Doblin spoke of MAPS’ activities, including the organization’s work within Ukraine, Bosnia, Israel and the West Bank; their involvement with the Arab Psychedelics Society, and a proposed collaboration with Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem. At one point he mentioned NATO.
Indeed, on June 9th, in Prague, Doblin had been part of the PsychedelicsEUROPE conference on mental health, alongside members of the European Parliament, the Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, and NATO’s Director of Defence and Security Cooperation. Again, so much for the stereotype of mindless potheads and druggies.
Keynote: Colorado Governor Jared Polis:
Governor Polis’ support was positive. After all, Colorado leads the nation – and the world – in psychedelic tourism, particularly around psilocybin use.3 Hence, Polis wanted a positive story, demonstrating that Colorado is a national trendsetter – “We want to do this in a way where the story out of Colorado is one that fundamentally encourages other states to move forward.”
To that end, Polis announced from the PS2025 platform that a full, state-wide pardon would be granted to those who have been imprisoned for personal use of psilocybin.
Colorado is now setting its sights on ibogaine as a treatment service.
Note: Governor Polis and Attorney General Weiser were not the only political personalities. Members of congress and the senate were also in attendance, and former Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, gave an address.
Churches and the New Psychedelic Emergence:
This was a panel discussion on the rise of psychedelic churches in the United States, the use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the experience of indigenous leaders around peyote and ayahuasca. Comments from those on the stage demonstrated a strong anti-Christian bias. Here are some points from my notes:
- Today more ayahuasca is consumed outside of the Amazon, its traditional place, than inside the Amazon.
- Christianity took away our identity, and to talk about Christianity is an insult – “a lack of respect.” We do not believe in one God, but in many gods: “because we need all those energies and forces to be good.”
- Plant medicines, natural psychedelics, grant access to the spirit world that gives knowledge and power.
- Plant medicines are part of the revolution against colonialism and greed.
- Indigenous leaders from North and South must unify, especially as plant medicines are being integrated within Western legal systems.
Note: Not all psychedelic churches are indigenous based, and some use virtual platforms instead of physical locations. Indeed, a few psychedelic churches had representation at PS2025; the Lotus Entheogenic Church (which was told to hide its “sacraments” under their booth’s table) and the Church of the Mushroom. Literature from the Church of Entheogenic Plants also circulated within the convention center.
In 2023 a history of psychedelic churches in America was published, Psychedelic Cults and Outlaw Churches. In its forward, J. Christian Greer of Standford University writes,
Over the last seven decades, hundreds of psychedelic sects have collectively reshaped America’s cultural landscape. Though these fellowships have taken on a variety of institutional forms, ranging from back-to-the-land communes to libertarian hacking collectives, they all heralded psychedelic conscious expansion as the key to humanity’s salvation. Today their insistence on the spiritual value of psychedelics is achieving mainstream acceptance within scientific communities and the intellectual movement at large.4
Christianity and Psychedelics:
Several sessions probed the issue of Christianity and psychedelics. As mind altering substances are gaining cultural traction, often linked to mysticism and feelings of spirituality, how is this impacting people of faith? Here are the sessions related to the Christian subject that I personally attended:
- Mosaic: New Research on Muslim, Jewish and Christian Psychedelic America.
- New Initiatives in Muslim, Jewish and Chrisitan Psychedelic Communities.
- One and Many: DMT, the Multiverse, and Mystical Convergences in Christianity, Daoism and Hinduism.
- Effects of Psilocybin on Religious and Spiritual Attitudes and Behaviors in Clergy from Various Major World Religions.
Some points and takeaways from my notes:
- As psychedelic therapies become integrated in the health industry, from mental health services to palliative care, it is expected that chaplaincy programs will adapt to the new psychedelic reality and adopt this into spiritual care. Chaplains will work alongside psychedelic therapists.
- Multiple studies that blend psychedelics with religious people and clergy from different faiths (but with a preponderance of Christians) point to the commonality of mystical experiences.
- One speaker expressed that Christian churches will have to accept the healing properties and institutional adoption of psychedelics. My own assessment: how will Christian churches wrestle through the spiritual/theological implications as psychedelics become socially normative and incorporated into the medical field?
- One speaker talked about the evangelical problem, noting that people who left conservative/fundamental/evangelical churches and who experienced a psychedelic encounter often re-discovered their faith within a progressive context.
- It was suggested that the best way to bring evangelical Christianity onboard is to allow its organic development: the Christian community is not ready yet, but by encouraging small group retreats and book studies that center on the psychedelic aspect, those individuals will in turn influence their congregations.
- Instead of being boxed into a religious/Christian tradition, it was explained, psychedelics offer a direct relationship with God.
- Studies have shown that people of faith who have undergone a psychedelic experience – with Christians making up the bulk of test subjects – frequently change their perspectives on exclusive claims, adopting, instead, a more inclusive picture of religion. A point expressed: We are studying what religions call revelation; we are all interconnected.
- Comparative mystical experiences, with psychedelics being the gateway, demonstrate a qualitative and unitive spiritual shift: You become One. You become ultimate reality. You become God.
- Questions/conversations that came up:
o Might the day soon come when seminaries offer credit classes on psychedelic spirituality? Might they give retreats or seminars on “religious experience,” offering students what spiritual elites have already known?
o Will psychedelics “force interfaithism and inter-spirituality”?
o Is the psychedelic renaissance moving us toward a “world religion”?
Entities:
The psychedelic community is familiar with entity encounters. That is, within the movement there is an acknowledgement that many trips rip away the boundaries of reality and open vistas to inner landscapes, particularly through DMT – and sometimes this new world contains sentient beings who interact with the user. These entities have been called many things: elves and machine elves, spirit guides, the Grandmother, the plant spirit, discarnate intelligences, “little people” and fairies, the transpersonal Self, the Primordial Mind, aliens, gods/goddesses, angels and archangels… demons.
In my time at PS2025, I heard a fair number of references to entity encounters. One session described the short nature of DMT trips as problematic to fully explore the inner world. However, intravenous administration of DMT promises to extend the experience, allowing more time to establish relationships with machine elves and other beings.
One person described the entity as a transpersonal reality – the larger being of oneness – saying that we are integrating into the whole, and that this means the entity isn’t merging with us, but we with it.
And within the literature one can find hope ascribed to the entities. Anton Bilton, international property entrepreneur, puts it this way in his Introduction to DMT Entity Encounters,
NASA can continue to spend billions searching for extraterrestrial life – yet for those initiated in these substances, the inner-terrestrial or ‘mindspace’ offers far greater opportunity for communion with alternate intelligences. It is that arena that we need to resurrect and bring to prominence, with reverence, if we are to seek help to save our world.5
Going International:
That the psychedelic ecosystem is a global phenomenon was evident. The work of MAPS at the international level demonstrated this, as did the expansion of the Global Psychedelic Society – a growing network of like-minded groups around the world. However, I was interested in how larger governmental institutions were considering the issue. To that end, I attended two sessions of importance: Progress in the European Union and Regulating Psychedelics within the United Nations Drug Policy Framework.
PAREA – the Psychedelic Access and Research European Alliance – outlined how their work within the European community was progressing. Differing from the US approach with the work of non-profit organizations as drivers-of-change and state-city policy making, the European model appears to be more academic driven – more institutionally cautious with less legislation or decriminalization. Nevertheless, there is pressure being applied. This past January, the PsychedeliCare European Citizens’ Initiative was launched, pushing for the one million citizen signatures needed to force the European Commission to standardize psychedelics for medical use. PAREA was instrumental in this project.
At the United Nations there appears to be little-to-no interest in rescheduling classic psychedelic drugs. However, a new development with how the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) votes on issues may open the door for a review process at some point. And the World Health Organization’s Committee on Drug Dependence continues to monitor psychedelic substances for usage trends and therapeutic development. Of course, changing the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances would require an extensive critical review and a vote by the CND, not likely something that will happen anytime soon. Still, as member nations begin to re-think domestic policies, time will tell how the UN flexes with the change.
Much more could be shared about my time at PS2025, nevertheless, what strikes me is how this event demonstrates the paradigm shift under way. Western science and materialism are being integrated within a new metaphysics, a psychedelic re-enchantment with promises to Build Heaven on Earth.
Like the pungent smoke drifting around the convention center, change is in the air.
How will the Christian church respond?
Revelation 18:23 — “for by your pharmakeia all the nations were deceived.”
For paying members: Below this point you’ll find my exhibition hall walk-through video, a video of the sonic healing station and sacred tea-space, along with important documents for you to download.
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