A Black Psychedelic Archive
In anticipation of medical industrialization, I decided to begin an archival record of Black people’s experiences with and perspectives on psychedelic mushrooms. In documenting these commentaries, I hope to combat some of the whitewashing, educational elitism, and industrial gatekeeping of what is of the earth.
As advocacy for decriminalization, clinical research, and accessibility continue to increase, some have argued that we are currently in the midst of a “psychedelic renaissance.” However, as one of my interviewees, Keba Richardson, points out, “The world of psychedelics is still very whitewashed.” With shrooms being a federally-controlled Schedule 1 substance, already socioculturally inaccessible data is limited. That which is representative of people of color has been nearly nonexistent until recent years.
In a racist, classist, misogynistic, and profit-driven healthcare system like that of the U.S., the medicalization of hallucinogens like psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, risks removing that which cannot be defined or standardized, that which cannot be marketed or moralized. People around the world have been using psychedelic plants and organic substances for sacred and ceremonial purposes for millennia, and “the deep history of psychedelics shows they have far more to offer than simply the next generation of psychiatric treatment” (Jarow). Its presence in the medical world puts psilocybin on trial, defended and opposed, obscuring its truths.
Furthermore, I fear the exclusion of the voices of people of color, who have been most harmed by criminalization, from this “renaissance” will lead to a repeat of cannabis industrialization, that perpetuates the ongoing disparate access to education, cultivation, and entrepreneurship, and exploits the traumas and hardships (that increase risk of abuse and misuse) faced disproportionately by low income and people of color for profit.
I initially planned to compile a series of interviews with Black shroom advocates, researchers, practitioners, dabblers, etc. into a podcast, but remembered I hate podcasts. While I’ve come across a few that are able to keep me engaged (usually true crime and paranormal), my attention-deficient brain usually has a pretty hard time focusing on people talking for that long without other stimulants.
I also didn’t want to have to force connection and fluidity between the interviewees’ commentaries, and wanted to create more of a lasting collection of individual points of view. These three are the first in a series of many pseudo-podcasts? anti-podcasts? Fireside chats? You’ll understand why I’m not exactly sure what to call them upon listening.
I chose to add background music to make the long strings of quotes more audibly interesting, and ended up playing around with that curation more than I originally planned. While the music doesn’t trump the importance of the commentary, it is intentional, and aims to blur anthropological and artistic lines.
Through this archive, I hope to immortalize this current (Black) era of rediscovery through recorded storytelling, so that truth seekers like myself can access the unfiltered, the human, the real and earthly, of Black people and shrooms. I hope it helps to reify authenticity and cultural accessibility in the world of plant medicine advocacy, research, and practice.
taylor-corrine
song(s): summer madness by kool and the gang
Taylor-Corrine, 21, is a current USC senior from Seattle, WA. She is also my friend, and we were together in Leimert Park, LA the first time we ever did shrooms last year. In this episode, Taylor-Corrine discusses this experience and its impact on her mental and emotional wellbeing. She highlights the shifts in perspective she experienced when confronted with certain fears, anxieties, and the realization that she’d been hindered by a “survival mentality.” Taylor-Corrine’s testimony also sheds light on the variety in shroom experiences, as she discusses the profound realizations she experienced on her first “trip,” despite not encountering the visual hallucinations psilocybin is known for inducing. Her commentary concludes with a call to question accessibility and diversity, or the lack thereof, in the “psychedelic world,” including in Black subspaces.
The song I chose, in the name, evokes the moods of that fateful late Summer day she and I consumed magic mushrooms for the first time. A 1974 classic of the jazz-funk genre, birthed from the influence of psychedelics on music and art during Vietnam war-era youth revolutions, “Summer Madness” by Kool and the Gang, decorates time like trippy art nouveau posters of the same period decorate space. I find it fitting for a commentary from Taylor-Corrine, my “old soul” sista.
camilo
song(s): 1. gremlinz by rezzett 2. sexzzy creep by rezzett
Camilo, 21, is a homie of mine from Oakland, CA, who has more firsthand experience and diverse experiential knowledge on psilocybin than many of the most accredited researchers and practitioners I’ve heard of. In this episode, he discusses his first trip, his relationship with shrooms over time, and the key lessons he’s learned from them. He highlights his experiences with psilocybin removing emotional blockages and clarifying what really matters to him (ie. being in right relationship with the earth). Camilo, or Meez, is also a musician under the name killthechosen, and believes the content of and his approach to making music shifted because of his relationship with shrooms.
I chose to overlay Camilo’s commentary with two songs by one of my favorite techno artists, Rezzett. They mirror the surreality of shroom trips, at times juxtaposing heavy topics with upbeat sounds and at others, melodically reifying Camilo’s tone and message. These songs, like most electronic music, are also very repetitive, and emphasize the theme of patterns and circles brought up in discussions of shrooms’ ability to excavate personal and intergenerational traumas and their cyclical harms.
keba
song(s): 1. respiration by black star (instrumental) 2. UMI says by mos def (instrumental) 3. spottieottiedopaliscious by outkast (instrumental)
Keba Richardson is a holistic life coach, author, and advocate from Atlanta, GA. She has a book titled “The Journey of Unbecoming: A Guide to Living Authentically,” and recently began hosting transformative healing retreats for women of color in Yucatan, Mexico, where she now lives. In this episode, Keba discusses how her relationship with shrooms and other psychedelic medicines came to be, how she prepares for trips and what has come up for her at different doses, as well as what she enjoys and dislikes about historical and current psychedelic spaces and the increasing spotlight on psilocybin. She highlights the importance of setting intention when engaging with entheogens and how this will be approached at her upcoming retreat in January, and calls out the erasure of important figures in shroom dialogue like María Sabina and Baba Iyi Kilindi. Keba ends her testimony with an all-encompassing message that “love is the only assignment.”
I chose a few of my favorite hip-hop instrumentals for Keba’s commentary, as her perspective was a particular comfort to my inner child that grew up on them. Throughout the interview, I thought a lot about the concept of Black authenticity in spaces of psychedelic experimentation, research, and advocacy. Where does hip-hop fit in? This episode concludes with the instrumental for Spottieottiedopalicious by Outkast, who, like Keba, are trailblazers out of Atlanta, and like Keba, were brought to psychedelics through cannabis. The song collection for her commentary is an ode to intergenerational wisdom and creativity.
Key Terms and Phrases
taylor-corrine: 1. microdose — the practice of consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance; 2. survival mentality — the state of operating from a place of fear and anxiety, fight or flight, scarcity mindset, with limited long term goals and more focus on short term survival; 3. Woodstock — a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969 with over 500,000 attendees, many of whom would be considered “hippies” today; 4. “festival of love” — referring to Summer of Love, the summer of 1967 in San Francisco
camilo: 1. trip — the period of sensory hallucinations after consuming a psychedelic substance; 2. circle of life — the natural cycles of creation and destruction among lifeforms; 3. “added lemon juice” — refers to lemon tekking, a process of presoaking psilocybe mushrooms in citrus juice to partially digest them before consuming, this supposedly leads to a faster and/or stronger onset of effects but a slightly shorter trip; 4. “ego dies” — refers to the experience of ‘ego death’ described by many psychedelic users, where the concept of “self” and feelings of individualism temporarily dissolve or eliminate; 5. panic attack — a brief episode of intense anxiety, which causes the physical sensations of fear; 6. emotional block(age) — a defense mechanism of our brain that prevents us from feeling emotions normally
keba: 1. Baba Iyi Kilindi — mycologist, traveler, and the head instructor and technical advisor of Tamerrian Martial Art Institute (now deceased); 2. tolerance — the capacity to endure continued subjection to something, especially a drug, without adverse reaction; 3. 3D world — the physical world/conditions in which we are able to perceive and experience objects and space in three dimensions; 4. “infinite consciousness experiencing itself” — refers to self-concept during ego death; 5. vibration — behaviors and impacts of energetic frequencies; 6. Akashic Records — a compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future in terms of all entities and life forms; 7. ayahuasca — a plant-based psychedelic with the active chemical DMT (dimethyltryptamine), has been used for centuries by First Nations peoples from contemporary Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador; 8. bufo — substance derived from the venom of the Colorado River Toad (and also found in some psychoactive plants) with active chemical 5-MeO-DMT, an extremely potent psychedelic; 9. María Sabina — a Mazatec sabia, shaman, healer and poet who lived in Huautla de Jiménez of the Mexican state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, credited with introducing psilocybin to the west; 10. shadow work — working with your unconscious mind to uncover the parts of yourself that you repress and hide from yourself 11. melanated women — Black and Brown women
Sources
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Anderson, Thomas, et al. “Psychedelic Microdosing Benefits and Challenges: An Empirical Codebook — Harm Reduction Journal.” BioMed Central, BioMed Central, 10 July 2019, harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954–019–0308–4.
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Erdelyi, Karina. “Bufo Toad Ceremony Therapy: Is 5-MEO-DMT Right for Me? — Psycom.” Psycom, 2 Feb. 2022, www.psycom.net/psychedelic-toad-medicine.
Jarow, Oshan. “The Psychedelic Renaissance Is at Risk of Missing the Bigger Picture.” Vox, 20 May 2023, www.vox.com/future-perfect/23721486/ketamine-dmt-lsd-psychedelics-magic-mushrooms-legalization-recreation-psilocybin.
“Panic Attack.” Better Health Channel, Department of Health & Human Services, 17 June 2002, www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/panic-attack#:~:text=A%20panic%20attack%20is%20a,related%20to%20any%20external%20threat.
Perry, Elizabeth. “8 Benefits of Shadow Work and How to Start Practicing It.” BetterUp, 13 June 2022, www.betterup.com/blog/shadow-work#:~:text=The%20shadow%20work%20meaning%20is,shadow%20work%20on%20their%20own.
“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment with Psychedelic Drugs.” NYU Langone Health, med.nyu.edu/departments-institutes/population-health/divisions-sections-centers/medical-ethics/education/high-school-bioethics-project/learning-scenarios/ptsd-treatment-psychedelics#:~:text=Risks%20of%20Approving%20Psilocybin%20to,or%20uncomfortable%20in%20some%20way. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Richardson, Keba. I’m Keba Richardson, www.kebarichardson.com/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Sashadelabeyond. “Kilindi IYI: ‘Scientists Are Still Stuck in the Old Paradigm.’” Beyond Psychedelics, 17 June 2018, beyondpsychedelics.cz/kilindi-iyi-scientists-are-still-stuck-in-the-old-paradigm/.
“Summer of Love.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Oct. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love.
