The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack: How Group Psychedelic Journeys Can Ignite Inner Healing

It was the kind of gray day in the Pacific Northwest when the rain can’t be bothered to fall; everything—the sidewalk, the windows, the pigeons, even the air—was already made of water. On another afternoon, I may have found refuge in a coffee shop or hacked away at my memoir in my basement, but today was different. I had scheduled my first legal, above-ground psilocybin session, several floors up within a sprawling ballroom in the cosmopolitan heart of Portland, OR USA.

By about 3pm, I was two hours into my journey, underneath an eyemask, whimpering with my had thrusted out of the covers and asking for help, while a psychedelic soundtrack reverberated throughout the room, and wisps of Palo Santo drifted over the seven other people who had also taken mushrooms that morning. I’d love to go on, but confidentially insists on prudence, and who am I to disturb and remix the sacred experience that unfolded on that dreary, good-for-nothing, horrible rainy day?

I suppose what I want to say is that my first legal psilocybin experience was a group journey, and I was awestruck and dumbfounded at the power of the group container, especially in context with my own very inward journey. Indeed, we felt like a single organism, all underneath our own eyemasks, all confronting and discovering wayward fragments of our selves, but unequivocally seen, held and supported by the collective energy in the room.

The Power of Group the Psilocybin Experience

Before we dive in, I want to say something out loud; this group phenomenon ain’t no secret. The original keepers of this medicine have commonly leveraged group ceremony for centuries before it was “discovered'“ by Westerners. However, as I sit typing this article to educate folks who approach this medicine from a Western medical lens, I want to speculate, in general terms, why my particular group journey was so dang powerful.

First, let’s surface preparation. Every single human who ate mushrooms that day had undergone a deeply personal preparation process with a facilitator. Knowing that I had built a transparent and trusting container with that person is incredibly valuable as I navigated any potential hazards (more on that later!) of a group journey. Secondly, my cohort wasn’t randomly selected from a list of folks who like mushrooms—we were all studying this work and most of us had met in person prior to the experience. Finally, we shared our intentions openly in a group setting before ingesting the mushrooms together. There’s something palpable about the courage it takes to be so vulnerable among other humans, and this raw act of sharing had definitely nudged us closer together.

The Perks of Group Plant Medicine

It's hard to say if my facilitators just hit it out of the park with their approach to this group session, or the journey just sorta shook out organically and seamlessly as some things tend to do. As psilocybin therapy has earned some mainstream recognition as a viable treatment modality, researchers haven’t really tested the power of the group dynamic. Sure, they’ve chosen cohorts of folks with common afflictions like PTSD or TRD, but those studies generally compare psilocybin to a SSRI or another commonly prescribed remedy, not 1v1 psilocybin treatment vs. group psilocybin experiences. Additionally, given the admittedly stringent regulations from the OHA, a group psilocybin session in Oregon mirrors no other practice in the world. We are on our own to make best practices as we go.

That said, even in its infancy, the bright lights beckon. In addition to the power of the community container for the journey itself, a group forum is generally pretty dang supportive for integration too. As you look to connect the dots on your mushroom journey, you already have a built-in community who has witnessed you at your most vulnerable and understands the trajectory of a psilocybin experience. Moreover, it’s cheaper. Multiple people in the room inevitably decreases standard facilitator rates as well as the cost of the room rental for the day.

Drawbacks of the Group Journey

And now for the hazards I mentioned in parentheses above. It’s not all butterscotch and rainbows. Group sessions are difficult to organize. They are generally most successful when they’re plucked from the same bucket, say an affinity group of veterans or a group of folks with body dysmorphia etc. Even if a group is thoughtfully vetted, the actual session can go south quickly. Maybe one person can’t stop laughing, and that prevents another human from even dropping into their journey. Furthermore, when you choose a group experience, you forfeit that sustained trusted presence of one facilitator.

Just the same, we can make our own best practices. We could set up group experiences where everyone has their own facilitator. We can cobble together affinity groups from existing communities, or we could offer microdosing journey sessions as a way to get off the ground.

The Wolfpack as Metaphor

What’s important here is the education aspect. And maybe that’s why I put on my fancy writer gloves for the first paragraph of this article. I need to somehow articulate that deep inward work is entirely possible within a group environment, and that communal energy can even amplify our discoveries and propel us further down the gorgeous road to wellness. I mean, there’s a reason we’ve got all these clichés about the power of community. It does truly take a village, and no human is an island in a world where strength is found in numbers.

Think I’ll end this one with Kipling, as a community ain’t no community, if no one ever shows up.

Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;

And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back —

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.