The PSA Wednesday NewsWire: January 28th, 2026

By Jim Tate

From our Friends at The Chronicles of Kykeon

Editor’s Note: the following is an excerpt from Chronicles of Kykeon founder Jim Tate’s forthcoming book, Salvia: "Hiding in Plain Sight - The world's most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen. Be sure to support Jim’s work by subscribing on Substack!

The entities are real. Or at least, they feel real. In a double-blind placebo-controlled Salvia study, all volunteers reported interacting with beings. Not some. All. This is not a hallucination in the conventional sense. It is a neurological event. Predictable and consistent. Neuroscience is beginning to understand why Salvia divinorum produces entities with such disturbing reliability.

The Architecture of the Encounter

Salvinorin A does something unusual to the brain. It targets specific regions responsible for how we define “self” versus “other.” When these systems fail, the brain does not simply produce random imagery. It produces beings.

The claustrum, a thin sheet of neural tissue responsible for binding sensory streams into a unified conscious moment, is heavily inhibited by salvinorin A. When the claustrum goes offline, the brain loses its ability to distinguish between internal and external signals. Your own thoughts, your own intentions, are suddenly interpreted as coming from somewhere else. Someone else. This may be why the entities seem to know what you’re thinking. They are you. But the brain no longer recognizes them as such.

The Shadow Self

The temporoparietal junction maintains your body schema, the internal map of where your limbs are in space. Salvia disrupts this map. When you can no longer feel where your body ends, the brain compensates by projecting that missing sense of presence into the room around you.

This is not metaphor. This is the brain creating a “double” of your body and placing it in the space you occupy. You feel watched because your brain has externalized the boundary of your own body. The Mazatec call this figure the “Shepherdess.” Scientists call this a projection of the brain.

The Hyper-Social Brain

Humans are wired to detect agency, intentional beings, in their environment. This system kept our ancestors alive. When a wall appears to fold, when a chair seems to breathe, the over-stimulated agency-detection centers interpret these movements as living beings.

Some say this is why users report “living landscapes” and “breathing machines” with personalities. The brain is doing what it evolved to do, looking for faces in the noise. At least this is what science tells us.

Lady Salvia

The most commonly reported entity is female. Often described as benevolent. Sometimes sinister. Many users report two spirits - one male, one female. The encounters follow patterns. The entities appear friendly but insistent, urging the user to “go deeper.” They show visions. They deliver messages.

One detailed report described entities that seemed to have a plan for the user, a destination in mind. The persistence is notable. The intent is unmistakable. Whether that intent originates from external intelligence or from the deepest layers of the user’s own psyche remains is the open question.

Different from DMT

DMT entities are described as “high-tech,” “interdimensional,” “alien.” Salvia entities are “familiar,” “nostalgic,” “home.” This is because salvinorin A triggers the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center. Users report interacting with people from their childhood or returning to a place they forgot existed. The entities feel like old friends because the brain is pulling from old memories. The kappa-opioid receptor activation creates a fundamentally different consciousness alteration than serotonergic psychedelics. This is not DMT’s neon circus. This is something older. Something buried.

The Mazatec Perspective

The Mazatec have used Salvia divinorum for spirit contact for centuries. It is the primary reason they use the plant. To them, the entities are not byproducts of brain chemistry. They are real spiritual beings. Who is right? The neuroscientists mapping claustrum inhibition patterns or the Indigenous practitioners who have been navigating these encounters for generations?

The Reality Question

The experiences are subjective. But they are remarkably consistent. Entity contact is not an occasional side effect of Salvia. It is a core feature. The entities are a product of the brain’s failure to distinguish self from other, body from environment, memory from present moment. But that doesn’t make them any less real to the person experiencing them.

In that altered state, the entities are as real as anything else. They speak. They guide. They command. They know things you haven’t told them. And when the experience ends, the memory of them remains vivid, persistent, and undeniable.

Whether they are neurological artifacts or genuine contact with another dimension, is a question without an answer as it all depends on your perspective. What we do know is this: Salvia creates them every time, without fail. Ancient knowledge tells us, “That which is above is like that which is below” and “As within, so without”. If guidance is received, does the source truly matter? The entities are waiting. They always have been.

PSA Event Partner Spotlight: The Entheogenic Convention

January 31, 2026 | San Juan, Puerto Rico

This gathering in San Juan will be the first Entheogenic Convention that brings together the Caribbean and its diaspora to explore plant medicine traditions, consciousness studies, and the future of psychedelic care. This multidisciplinary gathering honors ancestral wisdom while embracing emerging science, creating space for healers, clinicians, researchers, activists, artists, and community leaders to connect, learn, and envision new pathways for healing and justice.

Join us as we explore: 🌱 Psychedelic healthcare & therapeutic integration 🌱 Ancestral & Indigenous medicine traditions 🌱 Regulation, justice & public policy 🌱 Community healing practices 🌱 Visionary art & psychedelic creativity

📍 Colegio de Arquitectos, San Juan

📅 January 31, 2026

This is a community coming together to honor and shape the future of entheogenic care in Puerto Rico and the Americas.

🎟️ Learn more about the convention here 🎟️

Psychedelic State(s) of America is proud to be a media partner for the upcoming Psychedelic Culture 2026 Conference, hosted by the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines.

This annual three-day gathering convenes researchers, clinicians, healers, Indigenous leaders, activists, and community advocates from across the globe to engage in critical conversations on the future of medicine and advocacy.

If you’re interested in culturally grounded, ethical, and community-centered approaches to healing, this is a conference you won’t want to miss.

📍 Brava Theater, San Francisco
📅 April 17–19, 2026
🎟️ Learn more and get tickets at www.psychedelic-culture.net

We’re honored to support a gathering dedicated to integrity, inclusion, and responsible cultural stewardship within the psychedelic field.

Until next time,

The Psychedelic State(s) of America Team