If you were dropped into the middle of a jungle and could bring only one object with you, what would you choose?
I have no doubt: I would bring a map.
The same is true when you enter a psychedelic experience: you are being dropped into yourself. The journey will unfold as it will, and you cannot know in advance what you will encounter. In the beginning, everyone feels at least a little fear, because we always fear what we do not know. The map is not the territory, but it helps you orient yourself and avoid the major problems you might run into if you ventured forward without knowing anything about what awaits you.
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Magic Mushrooms Are Useless
Anyone who knows me has probably heard me say this many times: “If a goat eats magic mushrooms, it’ll still be a goat during the experience—and it’ll still be a goat afterward.”
There’s an enormous difference between Aldous Huxley taking a psychedelic and someone using drugs purely for entertainment. If one person comes back from the experience and writes The Doors of Perception, while the other simply goes back to life as if nothing happened—or ends up worse off because they had a bad trip—the difference clearly isn’t the substance itself.
Another sentence I often repeat is: “Magic mushrooms are useless.”
It’s simply another way of expressing the same idea as the goat analogy. If your mind is empty, mushrooms won’t do much for you. The same applies to any psychedelic. What you should bring into a psychedelic journey is everything you’ve already cultivated: your meditation practice, yoga, presence exercises, and above all, the questions you’re genuinely trying to answer.
The psychedelic state exists outside our ordinary emotional and mental patterns. It temporarily loosens the grip of the dualistic framework through which we constantly interpret reality. That’s why it becomes much easier to connect ideas and insights intuitively, drawing upon everything you’ve accumulated through study and personal practice—the cognitive material you’ve filled your mind with instead of leaving it empty.
We spend our lives immersed in a dualistic paradigm. It allows us to understand things intellectually, but often prevents us from truly realizing them.
Those aren’t the same thing. One belongs to the analytical mind. The other arises through direct intuition. The problem is that most of us are deeply identified with our minds. Yet the mind has its own characteristics—and its own limitations. Unless we become familiar with them, we can’t recognize when the mind is running the show.
How often do your thoughts simply happen to you? Where do they come from? If only you had the right map!
Why Maps Matter
This post is precisely about that: how maps are the best tools we have for exploring territories that cannot be described rationally. They are an interface that makes certain paths walkable, even when those paths cannot be understood from within an ordinary state of consciousness.
Metaphor is a kind of map, just as the parables remembered in the Gospels were maps. When language is not sufficient to describe something that lies beyond what we call “reality,” maps give us reference points for navigating and safely exploring unknown and fascinating lands, which for many people can also be deeply unsettling.
Maps are cognitive tools, and they must be learned. They are the “operating instructions” that tell us what to do and how to proceed in order to travel safely and with trust, and to return home with realizations that can be useful in daily life.
Psychedelics Are Not Drugs
Recently, I was rereading, for the second time, Stanislav Grof’s wonderful book LSD Psychotherapy. To my great surprise, I noticed a fundamental piece of information that had completely escaped me during my first reading. It is already clearly visible in the introduction, on page 11, where Grof states that psychedelic substances—psilocybin, mescaline, and LSD—do not have any specific pharmacological effect of their own.
This is a revolutionary statement. If aspirin thins the blood, and every drug produces precise pharmacological effects, the same cannot be said of psychedelics in this particular sense.
“But what about dilated pupils?” Yes, that can happen. And yet, sometimes it does not.
Just as it can happen that a perfectly adequate dose produces no psychedelic effect at all. I have experienced this myself. Grof describes psychiatric patients to whom he administered more than 1,000 micrograms of LSD without producing any psychoactive effect, as if they had simply drunk a glass of fresh water.
Grof goes on to say that classic psychedelics are substances that catalyze and amplify the psychological processes of the person taking them, but they have no effects of their own except those connected to the person and to the circumstances in which they are taken.
Set, Setting, and Music: The Three Energies That Shape the Journey
The effect experienced by the person who takes the substance is therefore not determined by the substance alone, but by three elements: Set, Setting, and the music chosen to accompany the journey.
Bingo.
I had found the most authoritative confirmation of what I had already written in my second book, The Psychedelic Experience – Preparation and Integration, which is precisely about this: it presents a clear model for organizing Set and Setting in order to facilitate specific states of consciousness aimed at knowing oneself. Music, too, is defined by certain characteristics that make it suitable—or unsuitable—for accompanying the psychedelic journey.
Temet Nosce: The Only Destination Worth Pursuing
After the publication of my second book, I continued my theoretical and practical research, and I arrived at more advanced conclusions that make it easier to walk the path leading to the only destination truly worth pursuing in life: to know oneself.
The words Temet Nosce written on the covers of my books are not a simple slogan, but the Latin expression of the same concept: Know Yourself.
The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates completed the statement “Know Yourself”—in Greek, gnōthi seautón—with these words: “To know the Universe and the Gods.”
What does this mean?
It means that the inside and the outside are the same thing. What I have inside is equal to the Universe in which I live, and this is the reason why your reality is exactly as you are living it. The outside is determined by the inside: the outside is the mirror of what you are within.
Perceived reality is a mirror, and it has no real solidity. Or, to use the language of the Vedic tradition, it is Maya: illusion. Even certain interpretations of quantum physics seem to point in a similar direction.
Psychedelics can help us see true reality, the one hidden by the illusion of Maya, and can facilitate a temporary awakening: becoming the one who wakes up from the illusory reality in which we all live as if in a dream, finally seeing things as they really are. In short, they can allow us to have a direct experience of a moment of awakening of consciousness, and to see ourselves and reality for what they truly are, without the veil of Maya permeating our vision.
Carl Gustav Jung said: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”
Do you see the connection? We are saying the same thing.
Preparing the Ground for an Awakening
Psychedelics are substances that amplify psychological processes. The experience therefore depends on Set—who you are and how you feel—on Setting, meaning the context and situation in which you live the experience, and on music, because the pieces of music are true portals that lead you through the journey by means of a safe structure, helping you manage even the difficult moments if you do not yet have enough psychonautic experience.
Is it possible to use psychedelics, Set and Setting, and music to awaken? Yes, it is possible. But it is not guaranteed.
From within the dualistic dimension, we cannot “do” anything in order to obtain a non-dual result. With the mind, I cannot transcend the mind itself. It is like trying to lift myself off the ground by pulling on myself with my own hands. I have to move to another level.
Yet I can greatly facilitate this process by preparing the inner ground upon which a moment of awakening may find support.
For me, ceremony is a specific Setting designed to obtain this result: to realize what Awakening is through direct experience, moving from understanding—through reading and practice—to realization.
Your Personal Map: The First and Most Important One to Have
Before anything else, it’s essential to understand one simple truth: A psychedelic experience is not an abstract phenomenon governed by universal rules. The psychedelic journey is you.
It is the direct expression of your own psyche. Every vision, every emotion, every fear, every revelation emerges from the landscape of your own consciousness. This is why, if you’re about to dive into yourself, it helps to have at least a basic understanding of who—or perhaps what—you are. That question has accompanied humanity since the beginning of recorded history.
It is the question behind every philosophy, every spiritual tradition, every religion, and every authentic path of self-discovery. Yet in the midst of an intense psychedelic experience, it can be surprisingly difficult to find stable reference points. If the psychedelic journey is a journey into yourself, then the first map you need is a map of yourself. Not an overly complicated psychological theory. Not an elaborate philosophical system. A map that is simple. Reliable. Always available. One that allows you to recognize where you are, regardless of what unfolds during the journey.
I often describe myself as a cartographer. After decades devoted to inner work, I’ve learned how to draw this map. Today, I freely share it with anyone who is genuinely willing to undertake this work with sincerity and commitment.
It’s important to understand that this path is not reserved for people who use psychedelics. Life itself is profoundly psychedelic.
Whether or not you’ve ever taken a psychedelic substance, you’re already living within an extraordinary mystery. Anyone who has ever paused to ask,
“Who am I?”
“Why am I here?”
“What is consciousness?”
has already begun this journey. The map simply helps make that exploration clearer.
Recommended Reading Before Continuing
If you’d like to continue exploring these ideas, I recommend reading—or revisiting—a few articles I’ve already published here on the blog. Together, they provide the conceptual foundation for everything I’ll be discussing in future posts. I suggest reading them in this order:
First, read the article on contraindications. Safety must always come first.
Next, read the article about paradigms, consciousness, and psychedelia, where I introduce the conceptual framework that underlies this work.
Then continue with the article explaining the mushroom ceremony—what it is, why it exists, and the role it plays.
Finally, read the article introducing the concept of the map of the psychedelic dimension, which serves as the foundation for much of what follows.
As optional reading, you may also find the article on bad trips valuable.
One more recommendation. I strongly encourage you to read my second book, The Psychedelic Experience – Preparation and Integration.
If you’ve read the book, you can safely skip most of those articles. The opposite, however, is not true. The book offers a far more complete and integrated perspective. If, after reading all of this, you feel called to explore these themes more deeply, you’re welcome to get in touch.
Whether you’re interested in working together or simply want to understand whether I can genuinely help you, I’d be happy to hear from you.
Before reaching out, I also invite you to read the page where I explain who I am, what I do, and the principles that guide my work.
Thank you.
The Purpose of Life
Ultimately, I believe there is only one thing that truly matters. To awaken. To discover who you really are. And, in doing so, to discover what the Universe—and what we call God—truly are.
Everything else is secondary.
Mush Love.
Important Notice
Classic psychedelics are often illegal in many countries.
Before considering any topic discussed on this website, please read the page dedicated to Warnings and Contraindications.