99: Beth Kromer: Ayahuasca & Plant Medicine's Role In Addiction, Spirituality, & Treating Trauma

Welcome to Going In Blind. I'm your host, Zach Tidwell. And we have a little different episode this week. We're going to cover some stuff I guess I've covered in parallel a little bit with some clinicians. We talked about some psychedelic experiences, but this instead of being in a traditional clinical setting, Field Guide 9 is a nonprofit that leads guided ayahuasca experiences with a spiritual component to them.

one of their co -founders, Beth Cromer. Very interesting path. You know, they're also rooted in the US where a lot of this stuff is, there's some hoops that have to be jumped through to make all this stuff happen. And I think we're starting to see a shift in the country towards opening doors for some of this stuff.

So I'm very excited to get into all of this because these things are having very defined outcomes and meaningful outcomes in the research that is starting to be done on them. Before we get into all of that, just a couple of quick announcements as usual. For those of you who are new to the show, there's a very powerful story behind this podcast and trying to get some of this information and other people's stories out into the world.

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But speaking of incredible guests, Miss Beth Cromer, thanks for coming on. You are so welcome. It's my pleasure. Yeah, I this is Alma. It's such a loaded topic that I almost don't even like. I don't know where to jump in, so we'll start with a simple one here.

What's the namesake behind Field Guide 9? Okay. We do get asked that quite a bit. The Field Guide 9 is the genesis of it. It's that what we do is... bringing the knowledge and wisdom of ayahuasca to the United States from the Shipibo tribe. The medicine comes from that.

So our co -founder and everybody that works with us is considered guides. We're not shop mittens. They're not shop mittens. They go to the field. They go to the source. And so Field Guide. And then 9 is the last number before Ascension. It's super spiritual. It has a lot of meaning and lots of different faiths.

And Field Guide 9 is easy to remember. And FieldGuide9 .com was available. That's always key in the process. And from a business perspective, it's super important. And we can also shorten it to FG9. So part of it is it means something to us and part of it is exactly what you said.

People can remember it. Well, it's because when I first saw it, like when I found you and started digging in, I was like, all right, psychedelics, they're doing not like cloud nine. They're trying to give a message, but I just, yeah. And it's, it's funny hearing your kind of thought process on it too, because your background is.

more conventional and corporate, correct? Sure, absolutely. Yeah, I have worked for corporate startups. I've worked in the health fountain, not -for -profits. And yeah, people sometimes pick. Hang on, Beth. hang on sorry i lost you for like 10 seconds there um okay okay let's well i guess if you can go back about 10 seconds i guess sorry if uh if we keep having issues though we'll have to sure schedule yeah Because I do, I just hooked up my Wi -Fi.

It's four bars, but gosh, you never know. Okay, so I have worked for not -for -profits, business, startups, and what I talk to people about with business. which is part of what we're doing. It's really important to meet people so that they can understand what you're doing without it being complicated to find you or a complicated name.

Well, and I guess that's actually a great place to interject. I think people that are, I guess, averse to or against psychedelic experiences whether that be in a clinical setting or in a spiritual setting like this or just you know people seeing where their consciousness goes i think it's important to to outline ayahuasca is not a recreational drug so if you are still here i'm guessing like you might have been on the cusp of tuning out knowing that we're gonna be talking about psychedelics but this is i think that's an important thing to to convey here and so how do you do that in your own i guess in your own world trying to convey and promote your guys' work?

Sure. So first and foremost, we don't even call what we do psychedelics. We call it plant medicine. And it's the opposite of addiction. Many people that come to us have had addictions in their past. We have a lot of medical providers, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners come to us because the ayahuasca in particular is the opposite of anything anybody would be addicted to.

It is deeply healing. It's profound. It's challenging. There can be moments, there can be time in which it's blissful. It feels wonderful, but I would say the majority of the time it's difficult, challenging healing. It is bringing up things that we have stored inside ourselves, whether it be trauma, injury, whatnot.

And that in particular is something that, of course, people are drawn to because it's highly effective, but it's not because it's something. out -of -this -world, psychedelic, exciting, happy experience. It's profound. It's meaningful. It will leave us in places that are growthful with a lot of neuroplasticity, but I think that what we're seeing is it's healing.

That is always what it has been, and healing is not necessarily easy. Yeah. Do you? Yeah. So I've, I've struggled with addiction myself. I, I for years really had a hard time kicking alcoholism and I just ended up finally, you know, things clicked. I, I, I filled the voids that I had been running away from with my addiction and just, you know, I found my way out.

Everyone has their own path out, but I am, I'm curious. Cause I don't feel like these medicines were being discussed so much a couple of years ago when I was really in the, in the heart of my addiction. And so, but, but I, I being at that desperate mind state that I was in of just, I, I cannot get my shit together in terms of, I, I can't string together more than two or three days of sobriety.

Uh, I could see had this, this. been talked about more at the time have been something that i latched on to as obviously an incredible source of hope but also maybe a shortcut to doing the work do you guys encounter that at all is that is that to the extent that is it a trend where you get people because of the the deep places that it does take you and i've never done it before i've just the people that i've spoken with like even with you have always highlighted, like it will take you places and it can be overwhelming and very challenging, as you said, but go ahead.

Yeah, so there's a lot there. So if I could try to unpack it, first and foremost, people, the research shows, I deeply believe that people are not addicted. But that, there is a void that you were talking about. There's trauma, there's pain, there's injury. And what we're trying to do with substances is numb it so that we can somehow survive.

So a person who's looking to or uses alcohol and has alcohol use disorder. I think it's better for us to look at this as something they're trying to do to help themselves. It's not something awful or terrible, but it's the same with other things. It could be any type of addiction, soft and hard, that we might have.

And the question might be, are we moving away from what is in our core? by numbing ourselves, or do we go in to try to heal? So anybody that comes to ayahuasca that has had an addiction, it's basically going to go into what it was that is the genesis, the beginning of that pain.

So the concept is that things happen to us, and we can either process it in the moment. and feel it deeply and are supported with that, or we restore it, we push it down, and it's trauma. And until we can start going to those, that injury, that pain, that early wounding, it stays with us.

And we try to treat the symptoms of depression, anxiety, OCD, suicidal ideation. Those are all parts of us that are trying to help us, but ineffectual. So the concept that's coming out now is... All the research, the body keeps the score. And Zach, I did read about your story and precisely the things that you were facing, the feeling of isolation, rejection, some turning to substances.

Those are all the things that people come to us with, whether they're super high functioning or just scraping by. It's a universal condition. that we all struggle with. And ayahuasca and other plant medicines are particularly helpful in helping us turn to that and heal. And that's where what I'm trying to get at, I guess, is because that work needs to be done.

Right. Like the, the, that has gotten the person to that point, there's something that needs to be worked on. And if it is not worked on, it will resurface at some point. So is that the, you know, when are you working with people on a repetitive basis? Because, you know, or is it the idea that on this journey that they are addressing those things internally as they experience where the plant takes them on?

Sure. So what happens with something, if you sit with ayahuasca, and people come to us with traumatic brain injury, concussions, drug usage, which have done something to the chemicals in their brains, even if they have stopped using, ayahuasca is known as healing. So as we drink the medicine, as the space is held, as the ecros, which are songs that are sung to participants, help move the energy, this stickiness of things like cannabis, alcohol, the stickiness starts to get lifted.

It's the whole concept, the body keeps the score, and we need to release things, not suppress things. After that happens, we always said three nights for the... ceremonial weekends. Then people start getting into some more core wounds. Like, why did this happen? Why did people turn to alcohol?

What happened? And what's the limiting belief that has come up? I don't belong. I'm not good enough. I'm not safe. So something happened before that. We aren't born. this way. So we help people start unpacking and getting to a much deeper place of what happened to each of us and how can we go back to that five -year -old, that six -year -old, that seven -year -old and start parenting that part of us.

that didn't get what was needed at that time. And so therefore, we start to see, for example, we've always been good enough. We've always been loved. We've always been safe. It's when we can feel that deeply. And that's why it's such a spiritual practice, because you don't talk yourself into it.

You don't read yourself into it. It comes to a place where it's felt. And ayahuasca, for example, has DMT, which is the spirit molecule, which really helps us understand in a deep, semantic level how connected we are. Yeah. And I know, so I've done psilocybin before. And so I know, you know, when...

You're going to take mushrooms. The idea is you're in a good head space. You're in a good physical space. You're with people that you enjoy being around and that you trust when you're with people. And you're setting the scene for everything. That's a much less potent plan, Madison.

So with you guys having multiple days, what is the – in terms of – your staff that you have there supporting that and the environment that you guys are setting up. over the course of these three days in terms of to be able to facilitate all this? What does that look like?

Sure. So first and foremost, as you had mentioned, we're not for profit. We have a religious designation. But the whole point of Field Guide 9 is that we wanted to provide a sentence setting that closely aligns to if you go to the jungle of Amazon in Peru. The medicine is exactly the same.

Ayahuasca is brewed in the jungle. The practitioners that we use come from a lineage center. They've trained for years at a place that's called Niue Rao. They will be from the United States or from Canada, and they actually have sat hundreds of ceremonies. and our practitioners sing and conduct the entire ceremony.

in Shipibo. So they're singing the ancient songs to each person energetically customized to that person. And it's an energetic exchange. It's co -created between the practitioner, the plant medicine, the participant. We only have six participants. We have two practitioners at every ceremony weekend. So our ratio is super small, and we want it halfway so that people are deeply supported.

And then I'm also at the weekends. I am not trained to be a practitioner. I don't do that. I have supported people before, after, and six weeks of integration after the ceremony. Plus, We always have a PASS participant who helps at the weekends. So we have four support personnel to six participants, which is part of it.

It's our model. We want people to feel safe, not just feel safe. They're safe. They're held. They're protected. They're seen. It's done in a very deep way. And those six people become incredibly tight. because they've gone through the whole thing together they're yeah it's a sense of being seen in how all the permutations of the weekend it's honestly it's funny because i had so i i saw my dad this morning and told him you were coming on and i told him you know a little bit about what you guys do and he was like have you ever thought about trying that and i told him you know not Like it's something that I've thought of for if I, by some unlucky circumstance, end up back in my addiction.

And I had never thought about it for any of these other circumstances that you're talking about. And I, which is, this is. It's hitting a little different here. And you talk about it. I'm like, man, okay, maybe I do. So Zach, we don't work with people who have active addictions.

People have to have. Be off of it. And I can talk a lot about if a person has an active addiction, there are other plant medicines that are super helpful for that. I can talk about that. We have veterans. We have many veterans who come to us because it's the trauma that they carry, the pain.

It's what they are carrying. We can stop drinking. We can stop using recreational substances. And we can do it beautifully, strongly. That's, as far as I'm concerned, where the work begins. It gives us the space to say, with kindness and compassion, what was behind that? How did I get to this point?

So if a person, for example, has suicidal ideation or even attempts to commit suicide, it's a part that strangely is trying to protect you, to protect you in some way, to say, I can get through another day because I can stop things. We absolutely do not want people to commit suicide, but we also don't want people to hate that part of them.

It's to how do we look at that with compassion, love, and understanding. So, Zach, in your instance, there's... I don't know what came before, but many things for all of us have come before. At some point in our lives, we were told things that weren't true, like we're not good enough, or we're not lovable, or we don't belong.

And we internalize them. And until we work through that, we look for things that are exogenous to us to try to fill those holes. And it's a poor facsimile to true healing. Well, and that's what I was saying with this, like hearing you talk about why you guys do what you do and a lot of the cause behind people seeking you out being more so on that internal level of...

where you're at as a person is why why it started to hit more you know i i'm i've been in a good place in a fine place with my suicide attempt for a long time obviously it's i still have stuff that i struggle with and that's that's where like some of the things that you're saying you know like the i would say the belonging uh the isolation and probably some i've realized the the feeling of not being good enough i think are things that i still toil with even though those aren't i guess we're probably peripheral contributors to shooting myself you know there were bigger things on the table but i'm sure you know some of that was still there but and i'm realizing it is still there today so it's just yeah i didn't i didn't expect that to be a part a big part of your guys's work and it's yeah So, Zach, if I could go just a tiny bit deeper, I'll just use myself as an example.

So I had a highly dysfunctional childhood with my dad was an alcoholic and there was mental illness in my family. They were very, very poor. I felt there was a deep control with religion that was punishing. All of my life, I tried to get the right education. I tried to look the right way.

I tried to get the right job. I was highly successful in a corporate life. And I went through therapy. I read all the books. I got postgraduate work in coaching, actually coaching people. I thought I won the game. Like I could cope and work with my trauma and be incredibly high functioning.

And I thought that that was the highest level that I could achieve, that I can manage my pain. And I could have ways to meditate, to eat right, to exercise, to not drink that would help me. And it all did, except until I was 57 years old and sat with ayahuasca and had the very first experience of what would it be like if I simply wasn't carrying the trauma.

Completely different equation. I was not broken. I had... like all intents and purposes people are like what are you doing like yeah i guess it's retire like you i ski i hike i bike i i have a good life but it was on top of Lots of baggage.

And I can say now I can think about my childhood. I can think about my father. But I don't carry his pain. He was a vet of Korea, eight years of combat. His pain was my pain until I can put it down. And it just wasn't possible for me to do that alone.

I can cope highly. But the difference between carrying something effectively and putting it down, it's 90. That's why. This is what I focus on now. Because I said when I was 57, our youngest person is 22. Our oldest person has been 85. Every single person tells us, I wish I did it sooner.

When there's something to it too, I think I've heard these medicines talked about a lot. And I think the knowing that you're going in there, like you're going into this specifically with the intent of addressing whatever, you know, whatever for you, it was, it sounds like you had quite a bit that you decided you wanted to address.

I think there's something. Even just recognizing that and that you're going to open yourself up to and willingly subject yourself to it. I think there's something powerful is like too basic of a word about. It's like very – yeah, you go ahead. So Zach, the thing is you're a highly dramatic example of what we all face.

We face – Pain, deep existential pain. We try to numb it. We try to work around it. Things trigger us. It can be the loss of a job. It can be the loss of friendships. It can be the loss of a spouse. It can be betrayal. It can be anything.

And this deep core of pain and hurt bubbles up. And the question that I have, because I talked to... I've spoken to hundreds of people who've sat with us. It's truly a blessing in my life because it's so satisfying. And it's also hard work. It's terrifying to face those deepest wounds we've ever had.

It doesn't mean our parents were terrible. It doesn't mean that something... horrific happened to us, although we work with lots of people who that is part of their childhood. It's that it's time for us to put down that which is not serving us. We become, we don't even realize how much we're caring.

until it's gone. Psilocybin is utterly beautiful. It was my first foray when I was 55, the first time I ever did anything psychedelic. I didn't even use cannabis. I was not your profile. But psilocybin showed me how much more that was possible. And ayahuasca showed me how much I was caring, how much I could put down.

And then by putting it down, how much more space I had to live this life fully without the pain, the trauma, my parents' societies. What, I mean, what was it at 55? Did you go into IHOP for your first early bird special? And you're like, man, this is...

I got some work to do. Well, I gave up therapy because every single time I talked to a therapist, it could feel good. But I felt like I was entertaining. I have a super entertaining story. My childhood is one of those things people are like, really? That happened?

But it... I can tell this story really well. It felt to me by the time I was 55, I had everything that I thought was supposed to make me just have the most beautiful life ever. I have a son. I have a long -term marriage. I've had lots of education.

I was no longer in poverty. When I grew up, I was homeless sometimes with my family. And all of that was taking care of Zach. And then what? I still had dread and fear. I didn't have, I completely lost any faith. I was an atheist. And I'm like, is this it?

It's classic. Zach, it's utterly classic of hitting off Michaels. And I read Michael Pollan's book, How to Lose Your Mind. I think that's the name of it. And I thought, this is not drugs. These are plants. They've been around for thousands of years. They could even be what informed early faith, like Christianity.

There's so much research in it. At that point, study after study after study was coming out about how things like SSRIs numb us, but plant medicine helps cure us. And I thought, What the hell? I'll try it. And I happened to have stumbled upon someone who had done it for many years in a small group, psilocybin.

I had an utterly transformative experience, and nobody was around afterwards. It was, there was 10 people that went. It was during the pandemic. I was one of the people that was like, I don't like. doing work over Zoom. I draw to people. But anyhow, it became super clear to me that, yes, plant medicines are incredibly powerful, transformative.

We have neuroplasticity. It can help so many deep -seated problems, but not in isolation. We need to do pre -work. We need to have deep integration. At that point, I came right back to my faith, which startled me. And I felt, well, I've done all of the things except dedicate myself to a not -for -profit that truly helps people transform.

That's what I've been doing since then. Was your faith different than it was before? Completely. Okay. Go ahead. Completely different. I was raised in a very strict, harsh religion that didn't believe in medical care, didn't believe in celebrations. I was told from a very early age that I was born in sin and that if I did something wrong, I would go to hell.

Beer is always a good way to lead people. Yeah. So as a little girl at five, if I did something wrong, I was like, oh, no, God's going to kill me. And but then I was like, but I don't believe in God. I refuse to believe in God.

And then I thought, but God's going to come. and punish me because I don't believe in him. Illogical, but okay. So then as I got older, I rejected all of that and said, this universe has nothing to do with God. It's random, and at best, it's neutral. It's not out to get me, but it's also not out to help me.

As soon as I came back, or I sat with... psilocybin, and even more so with ayahuasca. In fact, the whole thing changed. I thought, there's no way there isn't an intelligent design. And my deep -seated belief now is that things are working for us, not against us. It took so much for each of us to get here.

It's a miracle. Like, even how my body works. I don't know how my liver works, but it does. I think everything is so different from my perspective now. And so I see the world, the universe, God, other people in a completely different light. So, yes. So do you think, you know, the age -old question, I guess, how...

Do you think things are happening for a reason? Do you think we're just here to experience in whatever capacity that is? Do you have thoughts on that? Cause it sounds like there was, it's hard once you, I feel like once you get to that place of being, having that spirituality rooted around the universe, which is an incomprehensible thing that it gets, it gets real.

It's interesting to, to hear how people interpret that. So it's, sure, it's ineffable. They can't be really explained with words. As soon as we start to try to explain these experiences in our deep knowing, it's like we try to explain tree with the word tree, and it doesn't explain it.

But this is where I came to, Zach, is during an ayahuasca ceremony. Only sad, maybe 12, which is considered small. But to me, it's significant. Each one have been incredibly significant. I came with a deep understanding and knowing that we are team humanity or biology. We have common DNA.

Our DNA is so complex. The Earth, everything that's... alive, has DNA in it, which we don't even understand. It's the most intricate, intelligent design that we all share with plants, with animals, with each other. I feel deeply that we're here for, and it might sound corny, like we're team biology, team human.

We're all... Yes, we're all connected. So I find it super interesting for me that exactly as I have come to this, all I see is the growth of artificial intelligence. And I think this is a counterbalance to that. I can't fully explain it, Zach, except there's a reason I'm here.

There's a reason you're here. That it's our purpose, our meaning to live into it fully. Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. A couple things stick out to me. I think anytime someone mentions they're an atheist, I'm like, how do you know? How cocky is that to say that you know that there's nothing, right?

Agnostic is very different from being atheist. literally saying there is nothing um but i used to have that view too you know i was raised to just general like christian beliefs not not super religious or anything like that but you know praying at night bringing dinner stuff like that and then when i got baptized when i was getting trained to be a machine gunner in the Marines, because I was like, if I die, I don't want to go to hell.

And then, you know, as I formed my own beliefs, I became an atheist in that, you know, those cocky years, and then have since reached the point of being agnostic. And it's always, I just, I like getting an insight into how the gears turn in people's minds. And so that's why I asked with you, I mean, obviously, you had a very several very opening experiences it seemed like but getting to how people are able to articulate especially when that that scope is expanded or their view is more personal on that level that is outside of the the structures that are you know portrayed to you in a conventional religion not that there's anything wrong with those i just think like what You've expressed points more towards independent thinking as opposed to I'm consuming the gospel and just going in line with everyone else.

I'm just, I like seeing how people's brains work. Yeah, just to go a tad deeper with that, thank you. It used to be very early Christianity and perhaps almost all of the major religions were very deep personal relationships with God's source or intelligent design. The formation of religion put an intermediary between us and source.

I'm not critical. It just became organizations. And when we sit with something like Ayahuasca, that deep direct connection becomes front and center. We've had people who are Jewish, who are Hindu, who are Baptist, who sit with us Mormon, and it only deepens their faith. And I think a really fun statistic is...

I was like, this is so great. 67 % of atheists, people who say they're atheists who say what the ayahuasca are no longer atheists after. I just said, I love that. I don't know what they believe, but they believe in something. Just believe that there's not nothing at the very least.

Or they know. It's not even a belief. They know that there's not nothing. Yeah. I had a... I totally forgot about this until you, what you, the last couple sentences you just said, because it's been, I was traveling quite a bit. So I built up like several months of episodes and have been kind of letting that buffer build out.

But so it's been probably three or four months since I talked with, her name is Dr. Betty Kovach. And she has done a lot of work in examining some of these ancient texts. And again, it's been. Had I expected the conversation to go here, I would have refreshed myself on her credentials.

But basically, her research was rooted in kind of studying ancient texts. And then she ended up going down into Central America and having all sorts of experiences with these different plant medicines. And that had been like fundamentally life -changing for her. If I remember. correctly some of it i don't remember if her son had committed suicide but she had lost a son and she was revisited by him she had just that was like her first experience and like it changed the direction of her life and but as we were you know she she talks about all this stuff now and specifically in the context of now relating to now this you know we're starting to see the rise or the more at least increased acceptance of these medicines and being kind of brought into the zeitgeist now in 2026 and over the past two or three years but that this knowledge has been known for a long we've known how powerful these plants were in this all of this was actually removed from the religious canon by um some rabbis you know a couple thousand years ago back in the day so like it's it's weird it's just when you start talking into the The idea of things happening for a reason, whether people buy into that or not, like just entertaining that idea and the possibility that things do and the, the way that things seem to come in cycles or in this, you know, pendulum swinging back and forth of now, this stuff is starting to make our, its entry back into society, or at least in, you know, the more modern societies, obviously these things have been around and more.

smaller communities obviously throughout time but it's which is you know how medicines from the amazon have made it up to where you guys are operating at and continues to but it's just i don't know i said we start talking about these big open subjects like this and my mind just gets going where it's hard not to run in circles with it but it's just Zach, you've brought up several huge topics.

I probably will just tag it to saying all the core religions have a foundation in mysticism and personal relationship with Source. That becomes incredibly clear when we look at things like the Gnostic Gospels, which were suppressed until recently. which very, very much talks about the female aspect of source and our personal relationship.

So I feel I should say a few things. First of all, ayahuasca is considered female grandmother, which I personally love. The second component is that the Shipibo in Peru and the Amazon are considered perhaps those that have the deepest, history and deepest ability for healing. So the Shipibo methodology of ayahuasca is a deep monastic study of the plants, not just ayahuasca, but any number of plants in the Amazon, what they can teach us, what they can heal in us.

And their mission in life, these practitioners, is to help. people become healthier they're called cures and so it's again a co -creation of the plant the part the participant and the medicine And it's sung to. So it's an incredibly interesting snack that when we sit, like, for example, when I sit with ayahuasca, the practitioner starts to sing the ikro to me.

I literally can feel that which I've been holding, that injury. We've had people with traumatic brain injury. They can feel it lift from their brains. That was the purpose of this and what's incredible about the Shipibo is because they didn't have a written language. They weren't colonized. They have passed down from generation to generation the Ikros, the tradition, and part of feel -kindness, a huge part of us, aside from combining deep Western wisdom on how to support people.

trauma and talking things through afterwards, is that the Shipia people have a very distinct and powerful methodology to work with the medicine. And so we honor that. We respect it. I talk to a lot of people who are thinking that they're going to sit with ayahuasca with someone who went to the jungle for two weeks and will give it to them.

And I pretty much advise people, don't. Don't do that. It's super powerful. It's super strong. It's incredibly safe. But you're opening up some ancient wisdom, if you will. And if you truly want to honor where that came from and get the benefit of it, why wouldn't we deeply respect the indigenous practices?

We're blessed that they kept them. The problem with psilocybin that I have, it's not necessarily healing to the same extent, and research shows that, but it's not a problem. It's that we've lost the traditions of how to work with psilocybin. Generally, people are putting on a face mask and a head in some soundtrack.

That's okay. But that wasn't the beginning of psilocybin wisdom. Unfortunately, it's been lost. Yeah, and it's like, I'm curious as, this is another use for AI, these large language models being as they grow stronger and stronger, being able to try and go back and translate some of these texts that we have that are lost languages and stuff.

I wonder if some of that stuff will resurface. It's right. I mean, even like you, you talk about Peru and the Shipibo down in Peru. Do you know who Graham Hancock is? Have you heard? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I've been reading fingerprints of the gods. It really seems like from the, the case that he has presented that at least the.

most ancient civilizations that we have proof of go back to peru and there's outside of i think it was teal winako they found a there's this these stone pillars arranged in a certain way that are celestially aligned with the equinoxes but to do You know, as things shift over time, they've since fallen out of alignment.

But if someone did the math to figure out when those would have been aligned with the equinoxes, because they do line up, it's like 15 ,000 years ago. And they had that knowledge of the stars. And so for those, you know, again, this is Peru. The Shipibo are from Peru.

That literally is ancient knowledge that goes past what we have of recorded history. And then when they got colonized, I mean, they did the, that was during the Inquisitions. the Spanish totally eradicated and destroyed all of their physical, their physical manifestations of knowledge and their, their star charts and all of their written things.

I mean, it was, everything was just scorched. So it's, and as they continue to dig out some of these older pyramids that we're continuing to find down there, like, I think we probably will unearth some of that stuff and some of that. Yeah. Yeah. And. That's why I think it's so incredible, or I feel incredibly grateful to these people, precisely because they had an oral tradition and deeply respected the curing nature of all of this.

We have that. Perhaps we're going to get more back, but I would highly recommend reading the book Cosmic Serpent, which... We could probably put in the notes. We recommend that to most people who are coming to us. There's a number of books that we recommend or shows or things, but Cosmic Serpent talks about quite a bit.

A biologist who went to Peru with no belief that any of this worked and left with deep Deep belief. And that's what's fascinating. We think we have answers. We think we understand things. But as I say, with all of our pharmacological solutions, there's only two or three things that actually cure anything.

Penicillin is one of them. Everything else that we're taking just addresses symptoms. And if we pause and think about that, everything. that we take is addressing symptoms, SSRIs, any of these things. What is the answer is we go deeper and really try to address that which causes the symptoms.

Yeah, well, and I think that's that same. Our pharmaceutical industry, I think, is, you know, I'm sure in the a lot of that that stuff begins as obviously you're trying to do the best you can all we can do right now is treat the symptom but i do think over time that that business has warped to where they trend towards a subscription -based model i .e treating the symptoms and not the cause because then you're not making money off of someone so it's i i really i feel like that's why a lot of these medicines are still illegal but it's you know even like the va is starting to back studies behind some of these things which is so so big um uh what is it richard perry the former governor of texas is is like a huge huge proponent of of ibogaine now like it's it is happening and so if we continue having conversations like this i think it'll get it into the public's awareness enough to start making these changes and actually start addressing the cause like you're you're trying to do right if i could just say that i have heard former governor perry speak and i've loved it because we all want the same thing we want people to be healed we want our children our parents our spouses everyone to have a better life ourselves and that crosses over any type of conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican.

And when the suicide rate is so incredibly high among veterans, when our kids that are in high school, the majority of them not only are suicidal, but they have an active plan, when our... Prescriptions of SSRIs are skyrocketing, but so is our depression. We have a collective call.

And when there are substances that there's no known lethal dose of ayahuasca or psilocybin, yet there's actual benefit that it's... been researched over and over and over again now with a BOGA or Ibogaine that you're talking about. For people with active addictions, extreme PTSD, the success rate is unbelievable.

And you do it once, perhaps twice, as opposed to a pharmaceutical model that you're going to take an SSR every day for how long? for the rest of your life yeah yeah some of that's uh honestly i i've i've been off of antidepressants for a while now um took a couple tries getting off and you know there were the lulls after but my psychologist like tried pushing me tried you know urging me not to try getting off of them because i had gone so bad the first time like hey some people have to be on these their entire lives and i was like i i think you're doing a disservice telling people that I really, I do.

It's sad, but even, you know, you did make a good point, though, even talking about with Iowa Hospital, like this is a medicine, but it, you know, any medicine is not, that is not a cure for something. There's other work that needs to be done alongside that. Yes, that is a huge point of field guide nine.

I have seen nothing short but miraculous insight. willingness to see, to unearth, to move forward, to have compassion for ourselves and for others. Yet ayahuasca, as profound as it is, is the beginning. It is. This ceremony is not the thing. This ceremony, done right, will give us such hope.

and expansion and neuroplasticity for at least eight weeks, meaning that we can do things differently. We will shift in the ceremony, but every system we've created, every person that's in our life has not. So we go right back to our work, our families, our systems. And that's why we're so incredibly focused with people who sit with us.

to really say, how do we take this gift, this opportunity, this amazing insight, and really start constructing our lives differently? It doesn't mean that we need to quit our jobs, leave our families or anything like that. It's absolutely the opposite. How do we start living our lives fully, honestly, and with gratitude and love?

So when you've had a group come in and they've completed the three days, is that on the back end? Is this something or is part of that work that you do prepping them for all of that or their follow -ups? How does all of that work? Sure. So as I said, we only have up to six people in a ceremony.

We talk. And by the way, Zach, you know this, my adult son, Ben, is a co -founder of Field Guide 9, and his focus is much more the medicine and the practitioners because he has started that journey himself. But we talk to each participant at least three times before they come.

The first is screening just to see where the person's at. And like I said, active addictions we can't work with. People have pretty significant mental and psychosophic schizophrenia. It's not recommended. And we also talk to people that they would have to be off of a psychotropic like an SSRI because that blunts the experience.

Then we talk about twice. what they want to work on, what's happening in their lives. And then the cohort comes in usually Wednesday night. We have a beautiful location. People have rooms, beds, suites. We are 14 acres. The whole thing starts Thursday morning at about 10 a .m.

with grapefruit that we make, and we really start. That's the first time the small group gets to meet each other. Sometimes people come with a spouse, parent, child, adult, siblings, and we do a lot of conversation. We do breath work. We do contrast therapy because we have an ice bath, a sauna, a hot tub.

And the ceremonies start when it gets dark. They're very quiet, except for the singing. And then they last for about four to five hours. We talk a lot the next day. We go through the whole thing. So we have three or four days of this deep. Deep experience and a beautiful location with peace.

It's dark skies, so you can see the Milky Way. You can hear frogs. You can hear coyotes. It's only an hour from San Francisco, but it feels completely different. Then we close up about noon on Sunday. Mostly people don't want to leave because it's such a tight, warm health experience.

But then in the next day, the very next day on Zoom, we start integration and we have one to two hour calls every week for six weeks. And we've had anesthesiologists, we've had people that... our top executives at tech companies, and we've had people who are retired or house or stay -at -home moms, they all make a free integration call.

We work with the schedules, but we've had people change their lives. so that they can come to the calls. And it's so beautiful. That's where this really comes to life because people are actually putting into place and are seen and supported. And then after that, we have free weekly calls forever for anybody who's ever sat with us, which are super popular.

And because we have, as you might imagine, people who have sat with us deeply care about each other, regardless if it was in their ceremony or not. So that's how that works. Well, there's almost this underlying bonding, even though they haven't been through the same cohort of, hey, we've been through this together.

It's the camaraderie of it. Yeah. We never talk politics. And I, for one, know we have extremely liberal and extremely conservative people that sit with each other and they just fall in love. But so when they come to a call, it's where we can be real. We can be authentic.

You can say... This one gentleman in San Francisco told us that he knew that ayahuasca really changed him because he went to a speed dating event. And he was rejected three times and went home. And he said he just... Thank God that he was saved from bad relationships.

And I thought that was so funny because he didn't take it on as there's something wrong with me. He was grateful. Yeah. Perspective goes so, so far in life. And obviously that's, I mean, that's an, I'm guessing before. experiencing ayahuasca he probably wouldn't have had that take because most people wouldn't have that perspective after that that would hurt like no that's when he said before it would it would take him weeks to become off that devastation and he literally told the story and the burst out laughter and how grateful he was and we i love that that's awesome i like i mean seeing those shifts in people because i mean you you mentioned you've seen hundreds of people come through now and how long have you guys those are small cohorts so how long have you guys been in operation now so three years pretty much exclusively with ayahuasca and about two years before that where we had psilocybin and ayahuasca different ceremonies and quite frankly we shifted almost exclusively to ayahuasca because the healing is so profound and people tell us it's who've done both that that's that's what it really makes a difference in their lives so yeah do you think i mean it sounds like you guys have really found your way with this and the way to do it right and have obviously has a profound impact on people's lives.

So is the plan to stick with ayahuasca, like this is our bread and butter? Yes. We feel as if we're an incubator sack of best practices. We have any number of people who come through who are therapists or want to be practitioners themselves. sometimes ayahuasca, but mostly psilocybin, because what we do with our small groups before, during, and after is super unique.

So we use internal family systems. It's a methodology to understand our parts work. I'm very big in a Jungian perspective. And we do things in such a way now with groups that it really does work effectively. And the power of what's happening in word of mouth is incredibly strong.

Yeah. And I know you guys have a blog and I tried getting on there, but I couldn't access it with my screen reading software. Are you publishing? You mentioned being an incubator. Is this stuff getting posted there? Yes, our stack. I just had someone say, can't you put your blog in a place where it can be read audio?

And so we're on Substack now. I've just moved. So our last six blogs you can listen to on Substack. Because I've been writing the blogs for three and a half years, I'm going to move them all over. Yes, I highly recommend that people read the blogs. We have a few thousand people who just get our blog now.

The text format actually works fine. For whatever the cookie banner that pops up, it's a... It's whoever programmed that part of the website. Like the text format is actually accessible, but for whatever reason, I couldn't get past that. But that's good to know. I'll have to, because, you know, I was trying to prep for this and just wasn't able to dig into that stuff.

Well, that's terrible. I can blame GoDaddy. Oh, that is, yeah. That'll be any of like the commercial web designers, like all their stuff. broken so yeah um but i you know what else looking forward here are you so you guys have the right even i guess before we even dig into that i did i wanted to come back to you because i know we got to talk about it a little bit offline being that you guys are it sounds like intentionally trying to to almost serve as a proof of concept almost for other people to be able to do this.

This is a gray area. Ayahuasca is not a legal substance in the United States. And I know you guys have your PMA status as opposed to a typical 501c3 status. So can you maybe talk through some of the challenges of trying to establish and run? an organization that's running in that gray area, and then how you've been able to achieve that and stay above boards?

Because someone listening is probably going to be taken by what you've done and maybe want to follow. Yes. When we first started doing this, lots of people would ask if I would help them establish the same protocol. And I have done it for some people. I believe in having a...

PMA, a private membership association or ministerial association, is in this might get a little technical, but I'll keep it as short as possible. It's a direct relationship between Field Guide 9 and each participant saying that everybody has informed consent. We very much... talk about everything that's going to happen and what are known ramifications or feelings or things that can happen.

And people sign and say this is what they're doing of their own free will, if you will. And so that's... Field Guide 9 and participants, we also make it incredibly clear that this is not recreational. It's very powerful. It's considered a sacrament. We have a religious designation, and it doesn't mean that we are any particular established religion, except that we believe that this is a very spiritual and important.

event that we hold with reverence. The second component of who we are is we have a religious designation to say that ayahuasca in particular is something that we use within a spiritual community. And as much as possible, and that has gone to the Supreme Court, that can be defended.

But that does not mean it's easy. And it does not mean like we, it's just, I think it's almost, it's not the same, but it's almost very similar. Cannabis, for example, in the United States is not federally legal. I think people are surprised that it's still illegal, but we feel so incredibly strong about what we're doing and the safety protocols that we have in place.

And how we hold it directly from the Shipibo and that it's very defensible. And so that's what we do. Have you faced, I guess, over the three years, is there a constant external pressure kind of probing those defenses? Or once you've gotten set up and learned how to run within the...

Those confines, has that been smooth sailing? Well, it's been smooth sailing, and I have to knock on wood to say that. I think that there's, for drug enforcement agencies, we have enormous issues in this country, as I'm sure you know, with fentanyl and everything else, that opioids and that are actually killing people.

It's an incredibly big issue, and I think our federal, state, local governments realize there's absolutely a fundamental difference between people that are trying to smuggle fentanyl in with the addiction and death that comes with it, as opposed to someone who has the juice of a plant. Helping six people at a time instead of, fentanyl takes two milligrams to kill somebody.

Right. And that we would have people who would test. So this is the thing. You have to have a sincere belief in protocol. We have to be working in a place in which we keep people safe. And that's a pair of bones. condition that the government doesn't interfere.

And we haven't even come close to having any medical condition with anyone. And like I said, we had an 85 year old sit with us. Now he had a wonderful experience. I have to say, I kept wondering, could he just die of natural causes? just like while it's happening like he's like you know i'm good now yeah like i was gonna die anyway and then everybody would say it was ayahuasca which it wasn't but it is a kind of funny story because In his suite, his roommate kept waking him up to make sure he was okay.

And if he took a nap, someone would walk by and say, Bill, how are you doing at the end of it? He said it was the most remarkable experience of his entire life, blah, blah, blah. But everybody kept waking him up. He's just in his hibernation phase of life, I guess.

He's like, I can't, I couldn't sleep. I'm going to go home, take a nap. That's funny. What else? What's it been like running this venture with your son? I would say I would never have imagined this five, six years ago. He was on his way in medical school.

He actually got introduced to ayahuasca through a medical doctor. We both came to it about the same time, him a little bit before me. And I find it heartening that people see that a family, a mother and a son, can run something highly effective with a lot of heart and caring.

And he has his focus. is very, very much in Peru. He goes to Peru all the time. He helps support the center where he's being trained and the practitioners who have graduated from that. And we both are highly dedicated. I would say my wish for people is that our relationships within our families are stronger.

And I, we have any number of people tell us that when they see us working together, it gives them a lot of hope. Yeah. Well, that's special. It's also, I mean, it's, I very, yeah, it's not, you guys aren't running a coffee shop together. you're running something with a very deep intent behind it and with very meaningful resonating experiences that will change people's lives obviously i mean you've said that it has changed people's lives coming through there and so it's it's almost like i'm guessing even for that 85 year old man that was probably a formative experience for him and So I think seeing it in that light on top of everything else, and it can't be stress -free.

No venture like that ever is. So I think all of that coming together is so much more. I feel like it hones the impression that everyone is getting just down to such a fine point. It's so acute. It's obviously unique. I've never heard of anything like this before.

Yeah, Zach, I would say it is the most gratifying thing I've ever done. It is the most difficult. And what is so difficult is for me personally to see how much pain and hurt and trauma people carry. And that's, I'm incredibly grateful that we have this. And we see that it works.

Yet, seeing people face some of their deepest, deepest existential pain is not easy. I think you mentioned someone that happened on the show who lost a child. A year ago, I had a woman whose son, who was just about the same age as my son, who was killed, and she came.

And Zach, none of this is done in isolation. When people feel their trauma, their grief, their pain, we all feel it. And then we also feel love and gratitude. But in joy, yet, it's... It only reinforces that this is needed. Because, Zach, thank God you are with us, but there are so many people who are not.

You know this, that those people who do kill themselves, those people who never come off of substances, those people who feel mistakenly that they're alone and there isn't something for them, that... It's so untrue. And we can see the ripple effect of this because there isn't a person who's ever come with us who hasn't referred us to people in their lives.

Not one. Yeah, it's interesting because I talk about this all the time. I do a lot of speaking and then also on here or other podcasts that I go on as a guest of this. And I'd never thought about it until right now. So, or I guess being that it being applied to addiction or other areas, like I talk about it in the context of suicide specifically, like you, you fall into believing a lie that the place that you're in is inescapable, right?

That is, that is fundamentally what that is. And you talked about that, a suicide being someone's final attempt to protect themselves, which is essentially, okay, this is the way that I have to shut off this pain that seems inescapable. That is the one. escape that i see even though that is not it's not an escape and there are other ways out that's what people don't see and i think you know there's probably lies that lead to that belief in the first place that start getting you down that path of depression but you know you just saying that now like i think that's probably very a very core part of a lot of people's addictions is that those you know those things that they are running from might be rooted in other lies that they believe about themselves.

And it's, I think that in an effort, like what you're doing and your team being able to shoulder the burdens of others, because this is the other thing that I talked about is there are so many people out there that want to help you and would drop everything as soon as they knew that you need help in order to help you.

But they can't do anything until they know that you need it. So people seeing that and you guys doing this together and knowing these are total strangers, not just you and your team, but the other people that are here going through this with me. And then probably that recognition being applied to the same strangers that they end up in these Zoom calls with, you know, six months down the road.

Like that is so important for people to see. And just that people as a whole, even if you may not have someone in your personal life that you trust. to speak about with these things that you're struggling about like there are just people are generally good and there are so many people out there with a positive intent in the world but we don't see it because it gets buried under what's the sensational in media and things like that but it's just it's so i'm so glad that that You're out here actually sharing what you guys are doing.

Obviously, the work itself is very important, but just hearing these messages, I think, are just as important for people. Right. I think, thank you. I think what is absolutely incredible is that within the groups of six, people see the commonality. It doesn't make any sense. We'll have a Hollywood attorney come and a college student.

completely different backgrounds. And there's so much commonality. And the other thing that I have seen, Zach, is when, and plant medicine does help with this, but so does our protocol of the small group, is when we start to take our defenses down. It's incredible how we can be matched.

And we care about people not only because of their successes, but because of their humanity, their brokenness, because that is also where we meet. And when we can accept others, which we do, like you say, Zach, we do, they can accept that dark side that we think we have to hide in ourselves.

And that might be the most powerful thing that ever happens is we see our commonality and we live from that. So, yes. Yeah. Well, and that being vulnerable, stripping away the posturing that people do in order to fit in the slot that they think they need to fit into in society.

And whatever that may be, whether it may be, you know, pretending that they're good, pretending that they're OK, pretending that they have different beliefs than they do or not speaking truly about what they believe or pursuing the things they want to. Again, that's when you're meeting others. I feel like all it takes is that daisy chain to have like one person being vulnerable for other people.

It sets the tone for other people to like know that it's OK. And it's just I think the fact that you guys have such small groups like that, I mean, it seems. perfect for that and i'm sure that's why you've you've settled on it it's all that that is part of our secret sauce is that we we only need we only crack one person in the whole everybody and and it's fascinating how fast it goes because we're so hungry for it we're so deprived of it and yeah so Yeah, I think, Zach, you love our process.

And anytime it does call to you, we're here. Honestly, as soon as you started talking about it earlier, when I commented on it, I was like, man, this is hitting me a little bit. I may have to talk to you about it. It's yeah, I don't know. I'm in a good, good spot in life right now.

But I'm just realizing like there's some other stuff that. I still have work to do on that I have been stuck on. Most people who come to us would say they're in a good spot, and I love that. Some people are in a tough spot. The people that are in a quote -unquote good spot, they go further because they're not trying to crawl out of how deep of a hole.

as you know, Zach, some people come into. So, yeah, I think one of the things I would say is, and maybe everybody listening to this does not know, but ayahuasca is used, or many, many people sit, not because they're desperate, not because their life is falling apart, but they have a deep desire to live the full potential of this life.

That's beautiful. Yeah. I've really, I've reached a point in the past year, maybe like, I think my, if I had to boil down at 30 years old, what I think the meaning of life is, I think it's, it's to purely to experience it to the utmost extent that you can for the good and the bad and try and, you know, find your way through it.

Right. It's, but. We have all these senses. It kind of seems like we're supposed to use them to feel something. So the fact that it's scary to me also makes me want to do it. So you and I, we may have to talk about this. Well, your whole philosophy, I don't know if you've followed Alan Watts much.

I feel like I know the name. Yeah, so his concept. brilliant philosopher and alan watts would say you are the universe looking back onto itself and so every experience that's heavy wow well it's beautiful yeah so why would you constrict that aperture why would it not be expansive and like in the color purple the book or the movie she says god gets pissed off when you don't appreciate the color purple and i think it's It's all these faiths say, you're here.

It's a miracle you're here. And how about we start enjoying it? And recognize it. Recognize it, enjoy it. So, yes. I think this is a perfect, powerful place to wrap this thing up. Do you, unless I'm missing something, do you want to tell everyone where they can find you guys and reach out?

Right. It's super easy. FieldGuide9 .com. Nine is the number, not spelled out. That's our website. Not a perfect website, I gather, but you can get a hold of us there. Or you can just email me directly at Beth at FieldGuide9 .com. And Zach, that's the reason why it's great to have a simple name.

It all worked and we've come full circle. Thank you so much. This is so much fun. And I just, I really, I appreciate what you guys are doing. So thank you. Thank you, Zach. I appreciate you. I appreciate you inviting me on and being open to this conversation.

And thanks everyone at home for listening to another episode of Going Blind. I'm guessing if you stuck around past the first five minutes until I was able to remember that we needed to talk about ayahuasca not being a recreational drug and that this is a healing medicine that is starting to make its way back into the world that you probably, like me, had a certain perspective on and then just had your mind open quite a bit with all this.

So please go back and listen to this thing again and share it around. Again, it's always important to be exposed to things that maybe at the start of you didn't agree with. But we're all here to learn. That's the point of the show. So be a little more curious moving forward.

And I will see you next week. Bye.