From shamans to social workers, there will soon be a new generation of certified trip sitters.
That’s not the official name, of course, but draft rules under Colorado’s Natural Medicine Health Act — to be finalized no later than the end of this year but likely sooner, with a final public hearing scheduled for May 3 — lay out the path for licensure of general and clinical facilitators who will be able to work with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.
The new rules for facilitators represent a major shift, bringing psychedelic treatment out from the underground. Already, local organizations are prepping their coursework and launching programs.
Naropa University aims to have 60 trainees in the inaugural year for its psilocybin facilitator training program, which opened applications May 1. The Psychedelic Sitters School has already graduated 40 people from its psilocybin guide training using a personal use model and plans to roll out a licensed facilitator track soon.
“It takes the fear of prohibition and incarceration out of the picture,” says Daniel McQueen, executive director and founder of Boulder’s Psychedelic Sitters School . “I had good teachers, but it was underground or learning things on the side when I was at Naropa. There were no classes in psychedelics, but we figured out how to get our education.”
He says the new regulations bring the work “into the light of accountability.”
Still, some say the regulations are incomplete — or don’t fit the medicine at all.
“We’re trying to fit plant medicines in the colonial model. It’s such an inconsistency,” says Ana Medina, a mestiza woman from Mexico City who lives in Boulder. She’s a board member with community organizing and educational network Mycoalition , which promotes responsible psychedelic stewardship, and works closely with the Native Coalition, a grassroots movement of native people advocating for protection of the medicine.
Medina is a natural medicine practitioner, life coach, sound healer and cofounder of the New Paradigm Mystery School, an eight-month “experiential program facilitating brave space for leaders in the psychedelic world.” She recently closed it down temporarily to attend Naropa’s Psychedelic Assisted Therapies program to ensure she has […]
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