What Actually Happened: My Past Six Months at The Synthesis Institute’s Psychedelic Practitioner Training
In February 2022, I landed my dream job. As a professional educator passionate about transformational learning, spirituality studies, ecology, and expansion of consciousness, I had been following The Synthesis Institute, a global leader in the modern psychedelic movement, and their renowned educational program that was preparing the next generation of psychedelic facilitators. Their interdisciplinary approach to learning deeply honors ancient wisdom traditions alongside contemporary clinical research, so I was delighted to be asked to join a team of brilliant and talented colleagues across the US and Europe as Director of their Psychedelic Practitioner Core Training. The company was a startup, and I was ready to dive in and help shape the growing industry of psychedelic professionals.
But just one year later, it almost all came crashing down.
Today, I’m still in the same role, managing the same program, but if you google “Synthesis Institute,” you’ll see grievous headlines from March 2023 covering a “bankruptcy” and “collapse.” On the one hand, the press coverage barely scratches the surface; February and March of 2023 were the most turbulent and emotionally taxing of my career. But on the other hand, the media accounts actually overshoot the mark as a result of confusing company names and complex international bankruptcy laws that limited public information about what exactly was happening.
I’ve been hoping that a more complete story would emerge, one that corrects misunderstandings as a result of the press reports. But since it hasn’t, I’m willing to offer my account, having witnessed the arc of that experience. We are now preparing to onboard our seventh student cohort, and I think it will help us move forward if I can answer some of the questions about the last six months.
I have a personal motive as well. I’m no stranger to liminal spaces — those in-between times when what was no longer is, and what is to come has not yet arrived — but familiarity doesn’t make it much easier. For six challenging months, my colleagues and the students and I have persisted through this liminal state in which Old Synthesis is no longer and New Synthesis hasn’t quite emerged yet. Perhaps it’s not surprising that I would liken all this to a psychedelic journey, and as we teach in our training program, integration afterward is the iterative, delicate, and ongoing process of incorporating the experiences of ceremony into our psyche and our lives. This story is part of my own integration work — the emotional, exhausting, but utterly necessary work of emerging out of the chrysalis of liminal space and into what is to come.
So here goes.
On an overcast Thursday in February 2023, almost exactly a year after starting my dream job, I was informed that the company was on the brink of closure. The news was a complete shock; I knew that startups could be volatile, and so was the nascent modern psychedelics industry, but I didn't see this coming. I assumed that this development would trigger immediate external communications about what this would mean for the almost 300 students who were, at that moment, in various stages of the training programs. That didn’t happen, however, and this is where things got complicated.
I worked for a US-based company that ran psychedelic training programs: an Oregon-specific program that adhered to the requirements of Oregon psychedelic training licensing, as well as a program for students across the globe. However, its sister company based in The Netherlands that ran retreats in The Netherlands was declaring bankruptcy. As we were both owned by the same holding company, the bankruptcy affected the US company that I worked for, too. Furthermore, the company about to go under was governed by Dutch bankruptcy law, which prohibited communications that could trigger a panic. So, no one, as far as I knew, was able to speak about the bankruptcy until it would be official several days hence.
So far it seemed decipherable: our sister company was filing for bankruptcy, and we couldn’t talk about it because we were sensitive to Dutch bankruptcy laws. But there was more.
On that same day, I was also informed that efforts were underway to sell the company that I worked for - the one that managed the Psychedelic Practitioner Training, ensuring a seamless continuation of that program for its current students. The students would be informed about the new owner when the transfer was finalized. The fact that the students would be able to continue their training uninterrupted was a huge relief, but… there was still more: I was told I would not be part of the small staff team that would continue to manage the program. My job had effectively ended.
So the company that I worked for appeared to be closing for reasons I was not permitted to discuss, but the training program that I directed would evidently live on without me, and I couldn’t discuss any of it due to Dutch law.
I was as overwhelmed, as you might imagine.
For the next two weeks, I dwelt in the most bizarre limbo, unable to speak transparently with the students and unclear about what exactly to grieve. Efforts to sell the training program rose and then fell, replaced by new efforts which followed the same course. All the while, the training program continued, with students unable to miss that something was amiss.
Finally, on Thursday, March 2, the state of limbo ended when my colleagues and I received an email stating that our positions were terminated effective immediately. Apparently, the last gasp effort to sell the training program had failed, and closure appeared to be inevitable. But even this only lasted a few days, because I had no idea that the moment we received that termination email, another plan kicked into gear.
The next few days were disorienting; I had no way to contact the students who were enrolled in the three active cohorts because my access to any company systems had been terminated, and even if I could, I'm not sure what I would have told them. I was as much in the dark as they were. While I was aware that there were efforts to sell the training program, I wasn't part of the team that was being asked to continue. Understandably, students were very upset, and some had begun to contact the press.
On Sunday, it all changed.
I received an email inviting myself and other recently terminated staff to a meeting with two entrepreneurs who wanted to do what the others had failed to do: buy the training program so that the current students could continue. The years of investment in psychedelic practitioner training, considered by many to be the gold standard in the industry, wouldn't be lost. I attended the meeting, but with more trepidation than enthusiasm. We had been burned many times with assurances of what someone else would do to save the program, and none of them had panned out. I had no reason to believe this would be any different.
But it was. The entrepreneurs were Cameron and Deryk Wenaus – brothers, meditation and plant medicine practitioners, and cofounders of their own startup, raising investment, building teams, and navigating the economic contraction of the pandemic. They told us they had already met with the students and that if we, the staff and learning facilitators, were willing, they believed they could complete the sale and keep the training program running.
I was exhausted, and a part of me wanted just to let it all go so I could begin the grieving process and move forward. But I felt a responsibility to the students: they had invested time, money, and considerable emotional energy into a training that commits to deep self-reflection and self-work. Furthermore, if the training wasn't bought, the years of effort and knowledge invested by our former team of amazing colleagues would be lost. If nothing else, I wanted it to land in safe hands.
So I, along with some of my past colleagues, said yes.
In the weeks that followed, two tracks were pursued simultaneously.
First and foremost, the training programs for the enrolled students continued. Not unexpectedly, the suddenness and lack of warning created a sense of unease that was difficult for the students to move through, and responses included a constellation of emotions: confusion, anger, sadness, and even betrayal. But what was unique was that this was a group of people training in the art of finding groundedness amidst challenge and confronting shadow. I witnessed the fruits of their practice emerge as they held space for one another and themselves. Witnessing the abundance of grace and compassion – reassuring traits for psychedelic practitioners – was humbling.
Simultaneously, there was a rapid administrative effort taking place to create a safe new landing for the training program while still supporting it in its current home. A cash infusion was needed immediately so that the educators (including myself) could get paid, and at the same time a new company was being formed that would purchase the training program. Students were invited to suggest names for this new company and one of them stuck: Resurgence.
We also asked students how they felt about the branding of the training program, which had become very problematic, for reasons that need some explanation. In a stroke of really bad luck, the branding that my company used is almost the same as the legal name of the sister company in The Netherlands that filed for bankruptcy, which was named Synthesis Institute B.V. This company operated retreats in The Netherlands using the branding “Synthesis” and declared bankruptcy in March 2023, but is a separate company to the US-based company which developed and ran the Psychedelic Practitioner Core Training program with the branding “The Synthesis Institute.” To further complicate things, the website address for the training program was, and still is, www.synthesisinstitute.com .
A completely reasonable question is, “Why would the name of one company be used for the branding and website address of a separate company?” It’s a good question, and I wish I had the answer.
So, the students would be graduating with a certificate branded The Synthesis Institute, while the press had widely reported the bankruptcy of Synthesis Institute: a company name that no one knew and was almost identical to a brand name that everyone did know. Ultimately, most students requested to continue using the branding The Synthesis Institute because they still felt it carried weight and meaning in the industry where they hoped to work, and we respected their wishes. Today, we continue to use the branding of The Synthesis Institute.
In the weeks that followed, we recovered. Students processed, and I did, too. Some requested that their schedules be amended to create space for navigating the adjustments both individually and in their small pod groups. Many students engaged in rapid and impressive collective organizing across cohorts, communicating with one another and offering deeper feedback to the program staff.
I still love my job. I manage the same program with the same curriculum, faculty, and pedagogical design as before, but as an employee of The Resurgence Training Institute. But the experience has taken a toll on me, as powerful transformational experiences sometimes do. I miss my former colleagues with whom I worked closely for a year. I’ve learned from well-held psychedelic containers how to sit with unknowing, upset, and grief. I’ve witnessed extraordinary resilience from the colleagues and students who weathered the transition. And I am reminded from this whole experience that the mushroom has been present in it all, an agent of transformation in its own right and perhaps with its own agenda for healing in unexpected ways.
