Psychedelics: Humanity’s Forgotten Ally
For as long as we have stories, we have had plants. Long before the rise of modern medicine or governments, our ancestors sat around fires, brewed sacred teas, ate mushrooms sprouting from the earth, and journeyed inward and outward. Psychedelics have never been fringe or marginal, they are stitched into the fabric of human culture. They have been used as tools for healing, for initiation, for visioning, and for communion with the mysteries of existence.
From the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece, to the peyote rituals of Native American tribes, to Amazonian ayahuasca ceremonies that have been carried out for centuries, psychedelics have acted as portals to wisdom and connection. They helped societies orient themselves to the sacred, the natural world, and the unseen.
And then, in the span of a few decades, governments decided to sever that thread.
The Great Disconnect
When psychedelics were outlawed in the mid 20th century, it wasn’t just a political act, it was a cultural amputation. Instead of being respected as ancient tools of insight, they were demonised and buried under fear campaigns. The so called ‘War on Drugs’ was never really a war on substances - it was a war on consciousness.
By criminalising these natural medicines, we lost access to something profoundly human, our ability to expand perception, to heal trauma at its roots, and to see ourselves as part of a larger whole. Prohibition didn’t protect us, it disconnected us. It cut us off from practices that once reminded us of our belonging to the earth and to each other.
Control Over Connection
When you look closely, it’s clear that outlawing psychedelics wasn’t only about ‘safety’ It was about control. Psychedelics dissolve rigid hierarchies, dissolve the illusion of separation, and often lead people to question societal structures that thrive on disempowerment. Governments prefer order and obedience over awakening and liberation. What better way to maintain control than to suppress the very substances that expand awareness and spark independent thought?
This is another fork in the long story of disconnection, a move away from inner authority and community wisdom, and toward external authority and imposed rules. By making psychedelics illegal, governments didn’t just restrict substances, they restricted access to ourselves.
A Return to Wholeness
But here we are, in a moment of remembering. The psychedelic renaissance is showing what Indigenous cultures have always known. These medicines, when approached with respect and intention, can help us heal, reconnect and grow. They can restore a sense of belonging in a world that has grown dangerously disconnected.
Perhaps the mistake wasn’t just outlawing psychedelics, it was believing that governments ever had the right to outlaw consciousness itself.
The deeper truth is that no law, no ban and no system of control can erase the human longing for connection, meaning, and wholeness. Psychedelics are rising again, not as a trend but as a reminder that we were never meant to be cut off from the wisdom of the earth or from our own inner landscapes.
To work with psychedelics consciously and intentionally in today’s world is a radical act. It refuses the narrative that healing, growth, and awakening must be outsourced to external authorities. It reclaims sovereignty over our own consciousness, our most intimate and sacred territory. Every time someone sets an intention, sits with a medicine in reverence and integrates the insights into their daily life, they are not only healing themselves, they are quietly undoing generations of imposed disconnection.
In a culture that thrives on keeping us numbed, divided, and dependent, choosing to journey with psychedelics in a sacred and embodied way is a revolutionary form of remembering. It is a return to what we have always known, that within us and within the earth, lies everything we need to heal and to belong.