PSA's Sunday Sound-Off: April 26th, 2026

From our friends at Lucid News

Twenty years ago, Reverend Bodhi Be stood before late spiritual teacher Ram Dass, describing a vision he had about changing the way people die. Ram Dass, formerly known as the Harvard psychedelic researcher Richard Alpert, listened and offered his blessing. “I’ll help you,” he said.

Nearly twenty years later, that blessing has become Doorway Into Light, a nonprofit funeral home on Maui that also trains death doulas and supports families in conscious dying. It has grown into a six‑day retreat where physicians, therapists, death workers, and psychedelic practitioners gather to consider a question that has become central to the psychedelic renaissance: What does it mean to die well, and who is prepared to guide that process?

In January, seventy people gathered on a cliffside in Maui to discuss psychedelics and dying. The gathering was part of the inaugural retreat of the Ram Dass Institute of Psychedelic Studies with the Dying (RIPS), an initiative of Doorway Into Light. The retreat sold out before many even knew it existed. For those already working in psychedelic-assisted care, or hoping to, it offered a lineage‑rooted, community‑held space where the conversation about psychedelics and death could finally unfold in the open. It also affirmed Be’s long‑held conviction that death must return to the hands of the community.

A cliffside space in Maui, Hawaii for conversations about psychedelics and death.

The Lineage Behind the Retreat
In 2006, Be, his wife Leilah, and Ram Dass set out to build one of the country’s first nonprofit funeral homes. They wanted a place where families could meet death without being rushed, medicalized, or priced out of their own grief. What began as an experiment became a training ground for more than 150 death doulas and a steady cultural presence on Maui. It reminded people that caring for the dying had once been a shared responsibility rather than a specialized service.

Ram Dass stayed close to the work until his passing in 2019. In his final years, he gave Be permission to use his name for a new effort that would bring psychedelic medicine into end‑of‑life care. It was the next step in a lineage that had been unfolding for decades.

“Psychedelics don’t numb people,” Be said. “They help people work through. They help people meet death, awake.”

That belief sits at the center of RIPS. In this lineage, death is not treated as a medical problem or a crisis to be managed. It is understood as a doorway that asks for presence, honesty, and community rather than sedation or control.

Ram Dass and Reverend Bodhi Be

Why Now?
Jennifer Benetato, LCSW, LMT, integrative psychotherapist and one of the retreat’s teachers, says the inspiration for this gathering began with the pandemic. “Mortality was forced into our consciousness,” she said. “We were suddenly confronted with the fact that we are going to die, and how uncomfortable we are with that.”

For many practitioners, that discomfort is familiar. Psychedelics have long been tools for confronting the existential, but the medical system has not kept pace. Even if every American wanted to die in a hospital, there are not enough beds. Families are realizing they must learn to care for their own.

And psychedelics, Benetato added, offer something medicine alone cannot. “They move the needle toward existential freedom quickly and effectively,” she said. “They do not bypass the dying process. They help people meet it.”

Benetato’s AMBIKA Method, shaped by years of somatic therapy, trauma work, caregiving, and a year spent living in Ram Dass’s home, became one of the retreat’s anchors. It offers practitioners a way to prepare not only their clients, but themselves.

“AMBIKA isn’t a technique,” she said. “It’s a way of being with the dying and with yourself.”

Inside the Retreat
The retreat brought together people working with the dying in their own communities, creating space for them to sit together and speak openly about their practices. Mornings began slowly, with meditation or chanting. The rest of the day unfolded through teachings from a faculty that reflected the full landscape of end‑of‑life care. Hawaiian spiritual leaders, emergency physicians, psychedelic practitioners, death doulas, legal advocates, somatic therapists, ceremonial musicians, and longtime caregivers from Ram Dass’ inner circle all stepped forward.

The sessions moved between the practical and the spiritual. There were conversations about the ethics of psychedelic‑assisted dying and the physiology of the dying process, but also about trauma, accompaniment, and the emotional labor of holding space. Participants practiced grounding and somatic regulation. They learned how to sit with fear, how to support families, how to recognize spiritual emergence, and how to navigate the liminal space between life and death.

RIPS showed what psychedelic‑informed end‑of‑life care can look like when it grows from service rather than industry. It also offered a glimpse of how future trainings might evolve.

Inaugural retreat of the Ram Dass Institute of Psychedelic Studies with the Dying in Maui, Hawaii.

What Participants Carried Home
Weeks after the retreat ended, two participants offered a glimpse of what people carried back into their lives and practices.

For Don Myers, the invitation from Be was enough to bring him to Maui. “He and Ram Dass are my teachers and my brothers,” he said. What surprised him was the sense of community that formed almost immediately, a feeling he described as “a gathering of Godlings.” The deeper shift, says Myers, was internal. He found himself stepping more fully into what he calls the “Divine Masculine,” not as an idea but as a way of being that felt grounded, ethical, and safe.

“At the retreat, by owning my truth and honoring all boundaries, I became a safe place for women who needed to lean into Divine Masculine harmony,” said Myers.

Practitioners say this kind of integration matters. It shapes how they hold space, how they listen, and how they meet the dying.

Maureen Pintner, a retired gardener training as an end‑of‑life doula, left with a clearer sense of how psychedelics can support metaphysical readiness. “The work of the dying is easier if they’re existentially prepared,” she said. “Psychedelics can move someone toward existential freedom quickly.”

Pintner also learned the nuances of at‑home palliative care, including how to bring someone to the edge of dying pain‑free without numbing them into unconsciousness. “If you’re gorked on morphine or ‘medical aid in dying’ drugs, you may miss the big show,” she said. “Some people don’t want to skip the dying part.”

For those considering this work, Pitner’s reflections exemplify the practical insight the retreat cultivates. This wisdom grows from being with the dying, not simply discussing it.

What Comes Next?
The future of RIPS depends on funding, community involvement, and momentum. Be imagines a dying center on Maui where life and death coexist, a natural burial ground and community park, and a hub where psychedelic‑informed end‑of‑life care can be practiced and studied. He imagines a global network of practitioners learning from one another, and a curriculum that could one day become a cornerstone of psychedelic training.

“This is sacred work,” Be told me. “We are caring not only for the physical body, but for the emotional, psychological, and spiritual body.” He paused, then continued. “We are not trying to control death. We are trying to meet it with awareness. For those already walking this path, there is a place for you here.”

Doorway Into Light volunteers and Reverend Bodhi Be.

The Afterlife of RIPS
By mid-April, the retreat is long over, but the work continues. Its afterlife ripples through therapy rooms, hospice beds, and integration circles of those who attended.

As Ram Dass taught, “We will die, and we do not know when. Everyone we love will die, and we do not know when. How we use this information shapes who we become.”

Be echoed this sentiment in his own way. “Death is not the end of the story,” he said. “It is the moment when everything we have practiced becomes real.”

How do we live with the knowledge that we will die, and how do we meet that reality with presence, courage, and love? For those who gathered on Maui, this question marks a beginning rather than an ending. It affirms that how we meet death is how we learn to live.

From Psychedelic State(s) of America’s Friday News Roundup, powered by Psychedelics Today

In the wake of President Trump's newly-signed psychedelic research-focused Executive Order, congressional insiders have made note of specific language included in the Executive Order - including a pointed mention of Trump's previously-signed Right to Try Order back in 2018.

As ‪PSA‬ Founder Jack Gorsline details in his analysis, Trump's "RTT name drop" could play a significant role in the immediate future of congressional psychedelic policy reform efforts - as the bipartisan-backed Freedom to Heal Act would, - according to advocacy groups Reason for Hope and the Veterans Mental Health Leadership Coalition that are backing the FTHA - codify RTT into law.

Until next time,

The Psychedelic State(s) of America Team