Title & Introduction

  • Paper Title: Psilocybin Mushroom Stewardship: A Qualitative Inquiry into Practices and Priorities of “Underground” Psilocybin Mushroom Practitioners
  • Published In: Journal of Psychedelic Studies
  • Publish Date: January 13, 2025
  • Authors: Shannon Hughes, Lucia Terpak, Reilly Capps, Pam Peters, Nicole Lilly, Dylan Rivard
  • Objective: To explore the experiences, practices, and priorities of underground psilocybin practitioners to inform scientific and policy dialogues on safe and effective practices.
  • Importance: With growing legal access to psilocybin, understanding the approaches of underground practitioners can offer insights into safe facilitation and highlight key considerations for future regulations.

Summary & Takeaways

Key Takeaway: Underground psilocybin practitioners prioritize extensive personal experience, deep relationships with the medicine, structured preparation and integration, and an ethos of reciprocity and accessibility over standardization and clinical models.

Practical Application: The findings provide a foundation for developing ethical and safe best practices as legal access to psilocybin expands.

Key Background Information

  • Context: While psilocybin is gaining acceptance in medical and therapeutic settings, underground practitioners have long facilitated its use outside regulated environments. Their insights provide an alternative perspective on best practices.
  • Hypothesis: Experienced underground facilitators follow ethical and safety protocols that differ from clinical models but can inform emerging professional standards for psilocybin therapy.

Methodology

  • Study Design: Qualitative research with semi-structured interviews
  • Participants: 17 underground psilocybin practitioners from a Western U.S. state
  • Intervention/Exposure: Participants provided insights into their training, protocols, practices, and regulatory priorities.
  • Controls: None; qualitative descriptive study
  • Duration: Recruitment and interviews took place between April 2021 and May 2022.

Key Findings

Primary Outcomes:

  • Practitioners emphasized extensive personal use of psilocybin before guiding others.
  • Screening protocols often excluded individuals with severe trauma, personality disorders, or inadequate social support.
  • The facilitator’s personal relationship with psilocybin was considered critical for ethical and effective practice.
  • High-dose sessions were generally discouraged without proper preparation.
  • Practitioners highlighted the importance of integration support to ensure lasting benefits.
  • Concerns were raised about commercialization and over-standardization in emerging legal markets.

Secondary Outcomes:

  • Most practitioners had backgrounds in non-traditional healing modalities rather than formal therapy.
  • Spiritual and somatic practices, including breathwork, meditation, and ritual, were commonly incorporated into sessions.
  • Ethical concerns included loose boundaries, risks of power abuse, and lack of professional accountability in underground settings.
  • Practitioners advocated for community-based learning and mentorship rather than rigid certification models.

Interpretation & Implications

  • Conclusion: Underground practitioners’ approaches emphasize relationality, personal preparation, and non-clinical frameworks, which contrast with Western biomedical models.
  • Implications: Future psilocybin regulations should consider integrating underground practitioners' experiential knowledge into best practice frameworks, rather than imposing rigid clinical standards.
  • Limitations: The study was limited to a small sample of practitioners from a single region, and findings are based on self-reported data without client verification.

Researchers & Publication

  • Researchers: Shannon Hughes, Lucia Terpak, Reilly Capps, Pam Peters, Nicole Lilly, Dylan Rivard
  • Publication Name: Journal of Psychedelic Studies
  • Study URL: https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2025.00375
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