Expanding Public Consciousness Around Psychedelics

As the second wave of psychedelics pushes ashore, something integral is missing. Large sectors of the population are being left behind. While media coverage and information are on the rise, appropriate understanding around psychedelics is not, leaving a gap that continues to fill with stigma and misconception.

From my point of view, “appropriate understanding” means that an average person can understand a generalized psychedelic experience (and the personal impact of it) without having had one. This level of understanding is key to expanding public consciousness around psychedelics.

We, the psychedelic community in all its forms, are good at broadcasting facts, news, and opinions, but do we speak a language that truly elevates understanding? Of the handful of psychedelic conferences I’ve attended, guess how many addressed this type of messaging to the public? If you guessed “zero,” you are correct. 

Don’t get me wrong, my goal isn’t to have everyone take psychedelics. It’s to foster a better understanding, so messaging is more impactful to the uninitiated. For this, we need shifts in how we communicate. When we meet people in the language of their own experience, understanding naturally follows.

At the end of the day, the purpose of the psychedelic community is to find common ground with people of different ideals, and that ground is made of language. I’m all for normalizing the conversation about psychedelics, but first, we must refine it. 

The “What” of psychedelics is just that – what psychedelics are and the facts and findings behind them. A quick search yields treatment applications and news of policy reform - the current conversation around psychedelics. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find information on the various types of psychedelic substances, safety and harm reduction, indigenous and cultural contexts, and new avenues of research.

We got a big dose of the “What” in 2018, when Michael Pollan released the New York Times best-seller “How to Change Your Mind” (for short), an instant hit in the psychedelic space and beyond. Pollan’s work undoubtedly influenced public interest and support for policy reform, such as Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act in 2020, the first of its kind in the United States. 

Nearing the end of 2025, there are three states with operating or developing frameworks for adult-use services, other advocacy and policy reform efforts are making strides, and (as of the publication date of this article) the DEA is looking at rescheduling psilocybin. Each month brings new studies and new findings—162 research papers were published in August 2025 alone, followed by 166 papers in September! 

All this good press should be enough to get everyone onboard, right? Not quite. We assume the public incorporates it into a deeper knowing, which is on deposit, ready for withdrawal at the voting booth or in some other personal or public show of support. We assume that it resonates to the point of understanding - but this is not the case.

However, there are moments when the “What” lands squarely. In 2020, Oregon’s ballot measure was trailing in the polls until the campaign aired TV and social media ads featuring veterans who found relief from PTSD. That emotional connection helped it pass with 55.7% of the vote. Facts alone didn’t win hearts—empathy did.

When information intersects emotion, a door to understanding opens, but information alone doesn’t cut it. Perhaps the “Why” of psychedelics can help.

The “Why” of psychedelics gives larger meaning and context to the “What.” It envelops not only their potential for the individual, but for society as a whole. It represents why there’s even a conversation around psychedelics in the first place.

Here’s an example: a woman microdoses psilocybin for three months and becomes more open-hearted and receptive to others (the “What”). Her openness as an individual has the potential to open the hearts of those around her and ripple out to the larger community. This is the essence of the “Why.” If this seems too pie-in-the-sky, try saying “thank you” more often to those around you – the gratitude will spread faster than you think. 

If someone asks you why advancing psychedelic understanding is so important, you’d reach for some of the big “Why” reasons. Here are some of mine:

We need more empathy at every scale. We need to shift from “you versus me” to a more ecological, “we-based” mindset. We prefer distraction over authenticity and being right over being loved. Our disconnection from nature and each other, prominent themes in our human drama that’s stuck on replay. And last, but not least, because of our global mental health crisis, which we treat as the individual’s problem, but it really belongs to all of us.

Psychedelics are not an on-demand cure for anything, at any scale, and they won’t make things better overnight. Psilocybin didn’t make me a better husband or father, but my relationship with it over time opened my heart and deepened my curiosity about becoming a better person. Now, imagine a society full of people who are interested in being better people for the sake of being better people. Such a society would be far more capable of standing together.

But these big picture reasons to further psychedelic understanding can also push people away, especially if they think the world is humming along just fine! To expand the public’s consciousness around psychedelics, we need to harness the “How.”

When people read an article about LSD alleviating depression, they consume the “What,” a storied and studied potential of psychedelics. But exactly how does LSD alleviate depression? Is the secret in the substance? Does the person cure themselves? Is it a team effort? Media rarely explains this, nor do most scientific journals for that matter. 

The answer to the mystery has nothing to do with serotonin 2A agonists or electron spin resonance at the synaptic cleft. The “How” is human—it lives in our stories, challenges, and watershed moments in life. It meets people right where they are, or more accurately, where they’ve been. I guess this was my deeper knowing all along, but I never had to put it into words - until early 2020.

That spring, I volunteered to do some phone banking for Oregon’s psilocybin ballot measure. The campaign team gave us a basic script and talking points to use. I called my first voter - a woman answered. She hastily explained that she was running late to her grandson’s basketball game. I fumbled over the reason for my call, and she offered two minutes of her time. Right out of the gate, she says, “Oh, I’ve heard of magic mushrooms, but how do they really work?” 

I was stumped. 

This is THE question I should’ve expected. It’s like sitting down for a job interview and getting stumped by “so why are you the best person for this job?” I’m cold-calling people about mushrooms - of course they want to know how they work, but none of the campaign coaching nor my previous psychedelic experience prepared me for this moment. 

I was prepared to educate voters with the “What,” but this called for something else. Should I give her the “it quiets the negative self-talk” bit? No, that feels too recycled and insufficient, and I only had a minute forty-five left before grandma was hanging up! 

So, this is what I said:  

“Think of an experience that left a lasting impression—one you remember like it was yesterday. Like the birth of a child, losing someone you love, or a powerful heart-to-heart conversation. Those moments move your heart and can change how you see the world. These experiences operate on us personally, and the mushroom experience is no different. It’s one of many out-of-the-ordinary events that open the heart and create room to change it.”

That was all, with a minute to spare. She thanked me warmly before rushing off to her grandson’s game. I don’t know how she voted, but I felt like she understood. We landed on common ground. There was no mention of psychedelics, drugs, ego death, or universal connectivity. I stayed within her envelope of life experience and avoided language that could’ve pushed her away.

The “What” (especially the topic of safety) and the “Why” remain important to psychedelic understanding, but the “How” truly teaches, because it carries emotional meaning for the audience. Media coverage and public messaging should include more of the “How,” because it makes the ineffable approachable.

The “How” is at the center of How to Talk to Your Parents about Psychedelics, a roadmap to connect with folks who are far removed from the psychedelic space. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to communicating about psychedelics, but connecting with folks over their own life experience is a great place to start.

I’ve been an ecologist for 27 years, and a student of psilocybin for just as long. Ecology pushes through hidden boundaries in nature to understand relationships between cause and effect. “Consciousness expansion” involves the removal of barriers to expand understanding. So, the interplay between ecology and psychedelics fuels my passion for advocacy – not of psychedelics themselves, but for the transformation that underlies the experience. And it’s all made of language.

Terence McKenna once said, “We can move no faster than the envelope of language we use to describe our journey.” In other words, culture changes in response to language, not the other way around. If we want to shift cultural views on psychedelics—or anything for that matter—we must first shift the language we use.

But what about other things that shape culture, like wars or rock-n-roll? Yes, but the fiber of these cultural catalysts is also made of language, especially wars and social unrest. This is happening on U.S. soil right now, as political propaganda is tearing families and communities apart. 

Language is changing fast, and it’s leading culture around by the nose. So, let’s do something good-hearted and honest with language. Let’s develop a common language around psychedelics based on just that, what we have in common. 

My upcoming book, Speaking of Psychedelics… dives deeper into the “How,” exploring relationships between the psychedelic experience and ecology, relationships, and other life experiences that unite us all. It’s an opportunity to reframe psychedelics through language and develop new ways to communicate about them. 

More to come on its release!

Want to know how you can support the new standard for independent psychedelic journalism? Read below for how you can support and/or get involved.

Until next time,

The Psychedelic State(s) of America Team