The Government’s Finally Funding the Trip We’ve Been Taking Since ’99

[tired_november]

I saw the headline about the VA officially funding psychedelic therapy for veterans and honestly, I just sat there laughing until my morning coffee went cold. Thirty years ago, if I’d mentioned mushrooms or psilocybin in my fundamentalist church circle, they’d have called an exorcism. Now the federal government’s writing grants for it. The cosmos really does love an ironic plot twist.

Look, I’m a voice actor in Austin who spends half my life hitting the brakes on emotional takes and the other half wondering why I still flinch at thunder. Deconstructing my evangelical upbringing left me with a lot of spiritual rubble and very little scaffolding. I’ve been leaning on tarot and Carl Jung’s work to sort through it, mostly because his concept of the shadow actually makes sense of the guilt I carried for two decades. Jung argued that you can’t just medicate away the parts of yourself you’ve exiled; you’ve got to sit in the dark room with them. That’s where the real alchemy happens.

And sure, the clinical trials led by researchers like Roland Griffiths are showing promising results for PTSD. I’m not gonna pretend I’m anti-science just because I burn palo santo. But here’s what keeps me up: when a deeply personal process gets packaged, dosed, and approved by a regulatory body, does it lose its teeth? In tarot, the Death card isn’t about literal dying. It’s about forced surrender. The dissolution of the ego so something else can breathe. You can’t really rush that, and you definitely can’t outsource it to a ninety-minute clinical session with a clipboard.

I think the substance might open the door, but the work? That’s still on us. We’re gonna see a lot of people chasing a quick fix instead of doing the messy, unglamorous integration. I’ve felt it myself—sometimes I pull a card just to avoid sitting with my own thoughts. Easy trap.

Has anyone else noticed that shift lately? Or am I just a grumpy fifty-something clinging to the idea that spiritual growth shouldn’t come with a copay?

[probably_lost_647]

I’m starting to wonder if we’re actually mourning the loss of “teeth” or just romanticizing the idea that real healing has to happen outside a system. Five years sober taught me that waiting for a perfect, unmediated breakdown is just avoidance, and what if that clipboard isn’t sterilizing the work but finally giving structure to the unglamorous integration we’ve been too stubborn to admit we need?

[jen_k_7310]

You're worried the clinical route is going to neuter the experience? Please. The "teeth" aren't in the setting or the funding source; they're in the work. You think sitting in a dim room with a shaman is the only way to face your shadow? That's magical thinking. Real InnerAlchemy happens when you're forced to integrate the mess in the daylight, with or without a government grant.

Roland Griffiths isn't selling quick fixes. He's selling a mirror. If people are using this to bypass the hard work, that's on them, not the protocol. You mention the Death card—forced surrender. That doesn't care if a VA doctor or a mystic is handing you the dose. The ego dissolves either way.

Stop romanticizing the unregulated chaos of the 90s. I was teaching back then, and half the people "doing the work" were just repressing harder because they had no structure. Clinical packaging provides the container so the alchemy actually works instead of just blowing up in your face. If you can't handle the structure, you're not ready for the trip anyway.