In the news this week, from Australia.
The aforementioned healer had apparently decided to provide participants at one of her retreats with a special tea brewed from psilocybin mushrooms. She claimed to have had a positive result from her own experience with shrooms, and felt bound to share the hallucinogen’s beneficial properties with others who, like her, had been trauma sufferers.
One participant died. According to the article, there was “no obvious link” identified between use of the hallucinogenic beverage and the death itself. Still, as the judge pointed out in court, in Australia the only approved uses of psilocybin are in the context of a controlled medical setting, for treatment– presumably by trained professionals– of patients “who have serious mental health conditions.”
Spiritual growth is not among those conditions.
I imagine she was enthused with the outcome of her own psychedelic ‘trip’ and naturally wanted to share the joy with others who suffered from problems like her own. She wasn’t being entirely altruistic– she did charge participants a cool five hundred dollars apiece– but it’s reasonable to assume that she meant well, with no intent to cause harm.
Things clearly didn’t turn out the way she hoped. Now, I suppose, she has a brand new trauma to work through.
As the article pointed out, there’s no direct causal link yet found between the drug and the death, but try explaining that to the deceased’s bereaved relatives. On some level, they’ll be thinking: “if only she hadn’t been under the influence of psilocybin, she might still be alive.”
It’d be hard to persuade them otherwise. That may not be entirely fair to the healer, but it’s most definitely consistent with human nature.
