Ep14 Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo - Psychedelics: Are We Missing the Point? One Therapist's Bold Take

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  0:00  
And I was talking with one of my medicine teachers. I chose to work with mushrooms because this and this and that. And then she looks at me with a twinkle in her eyes, and she says, What makes you think that you chose the topic? Until that moment, I was being very western from I am the one choosing. My ego is the one. I'm the one in control, right? I'm the captain of the ship. And now I think that the mushrooms have been calling me for for a long time. Welcome

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  0:23  
to psychedelic source where wisdom meets practice in the evolving landscape of psychedelic medicine. I'm your host, Dr Sandra Dreisbach, and I'm here to help you navigate the complex intersection of ethics, business and personal growth in a psychedelic space, whether you're a practitioner, therapist, entrepreneur, or simply curious about this transformative field, you've found your source for authentic dialog, practical resources and community connection. In each episode, we'll dive deep into the stories, strategies and ethical considerations that matter most to our growing ecosystem. Let's tap in to our inner source of wisdom and explore what it means to build a sustainable and ethical, psychedelic future together.

VO  1:17  
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Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:47  
In this episode, we have an opportunity to take a look at training and education in psychedelics with Sergio Rodriguez Castillo, who's both an MFT and a PhD. He has over 18 years experience in sacred medicines. He holds a Mexican, JD, a UK, LLM, and practiced law for 12 years. He's trained in psycho spirituality and in India at the sadhana Institute, shows ashram and the Rama Krishna mission, and apprentice with Mazatec curandera for over 10 years. He has a master's degree in integral counseling and East West psychology and a PhD focusing on developing psychedelic assisted therapist training blueprint, which is part of what you'll hear us talk about today. He's been a core faculty at cis and you'll get to hear from, from both of us, some of the perspectives on these training and education programs, but particularly about his research and about about his own personal journey in working with medicine, both in terms of traditional settings, like with the mass attack, as well as In modern mindsets, such as what he teaches himself at CIIS. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode. Let's explore a little bit about psychedelic training and education and learn more about Sergio. Well, welcome Sergio. It is so wonderful to have you here on psychedelic source. Even though I've given a bit of a background, it'd be great for you to tell a little bit about, you know, who are you? What do you do? What do you not do in terms of the psychedelic

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  3:25  
space? Sure. Sandra, welcome, welcome. Happy to be here. Really, really happy to be here. It took us a while to figure this out, but we did, and I'm very happy, on our side, persevered. So what else should I say about me? You said already a lot. So I'm a psychotherapist in private practice, but just to add, I my involvement with the medicine goes over 20 years ago, and it's interesting, because even though I was originally, I'm originally from Mexico. I practice in California, but I'm originally from Mexico. But it took me a long way around until I found the medicine finally here in the in the US. So my first connection with the medicine was in the US. I was trained to work in the US. I started with my own work, and then I was trying to do the work here in the US back then it was, it was underground. And then eventually I retraced my my steps back to Mexico, and I got in touch with a Mexican healer, and I was her apprentice for 10 years. So it was really beautiful. It was kind of, I joke with the medicine. Who's writing the script, right? I'm a Mexican. I had to come to the US to find my way back to Mexico, but it had to be that way. I hold the medicine. You hear me say medicine when referred to psychedelics, to make that distinction, right? Like, even though I have nothing against the recreational use. Because there's something about the healing value of the medicine. So when I refer to psychedelics, I often refer to the medicine because that's, that's the word that I that I see, right? Since

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  5:12  
you brought up the the issue of using the term medicine, you know, some people don't feel we should use the word medicine, and so what? What are your What are your thoughts and feelings about, you know, is it, is it psychedelic medicine? Is it, is it, you know, how do you, how do you come to your relationship with with psychedelics and plant medicine? What? Why do you use that term versus some other term, yes, yes, yes,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  5:41  
yes. And it's a little bit like, like we use the term plant medicine because it has this potential for healing, right? And again, I don't want to be kind of at holier than thou in the way that it, say it. I think that psychedelics are so broad that they can be used for recreational, it can be used for creativity. They can be used for visionary. It can and it can be used for healing, right in my particular domain and practice, part of it because I'm a psychotherapist, and part of it because that has been my path. I see psychedelics as as medicine, and in that way, perhaps a little closer than what the traditions would say, right for the traditions, their plant medicines, right their plant allies, and they're used for healing and growth purposes. So that is, to me, the main essence of what psychedelics do to us is healing, helping us heal, helping us grow. And that's why I use the word medicine right to emphasize that aspect, that the way I hold it is for healing and grow purposes. And

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  6:54  
I love that you mentioned both not just healing, but also for growth, because the sort of Western assumption is that if you're using the word medicine, you are strictly meaning it and a healing sense, and that that having support for growth or personal development or spiritual development or visioning like you were mentioning, isn't a part of what a medicine relationship does or or, let alone the idea of a plant ally.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  7:23  
I hear that, and I understand that most people, if they take paracetamol, they don't thinking about growth, right? They're thinking about healing. And that's why is I don't use the word medication. I use the word medicine, which I believe is has a broader aspect to it. And for me, is something it would be, it would be dangerous for us to limit what the spirits of the medicines can do, right, whether it's the peyote, the Ayahuasca, the holy mushrooms, whatever it is, it's it's broad, and who are we to decide? No, they can only be used for this. That's a very anthropocentric, human centric perspective of the medicine as such. So I think is almost beyond debate that some people come from healing because anything had happened, something happened in their life, something happened along the way, something bad happened to them, whatever it is, and they need healing. We all need healing in some ways. And some people come because they want to grow, because things they were lucky enough that things are more or less working. We can always work a little bit more healing, but we definitely all can use some growth, right? And when it comes to growth, as we know the sky is the limit, and the more that we grow, the better. I mean, I would say that in some ways, we came here to this life, to in Grand part, to learn, in the big part, to learn and expand our experience, right? And even those that believe in reincarnation without going to whether it's one or the other, there's something about we keep expanding, and we keep expanding. And then we have some, some Ascended Masters, like a Buddha or a Jesus, that that had expanded to to the levels that the Medicine showed us. This is possible. This is this is available to all of us as human. And that's both. That's where the healing and the growth can go back hand in hand in many ways.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  9:21  
Yeah, and I think what you're aptly pointing out is a lot of the limitations of our perspective comes from how we're we've been trained to think about medicine, how we've been trained to think about growth or healing in the West, or even who counts in terms of who decides, right? That anthropocentric view, right? The human centered, like we're the ones taking all the action, we're the ones making all the decisions, the relationship with, you know, the plants themselves aren't having any consciousness. It would. The sort of traditional western view, right? And and that all the action of the relationship is from what we decide and what you know. But before, before we go any any further or deeper into there. And I, and I'm always willing to wax philosophical, I want to hear a little bit more about you know, you personally, now, you said that you didn't have relationship until you came to the United States. So, so how, how did you receive, you know, sort of your invitation, or how did you first come into relationship? You

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  10:33  
know, there's, there's a funny story. This is not exactly the origin story, but let me start there. Okay, I, I'm a graduate from CIS, as you said, I I've taught there for 18 years and California Institute of integral studies. And I was doing, I was doing a research project, not my PhD dissertation, but another, another research research project during my my PhD, and I chose the topic. I chose the topic of working with mushrooms, right? And I was talking with one of my teachers, not my school teachers, but my my medicine teachers, said, Well, you know what I chose to work with with mushrooms? It was in that particular case, I chose to work with mushrooms because this and this and that. And then she looks at me with a twinkle in her eyes, and she says, What makes you think that you chose the topic. Blew my mind. I have to say, like to until that moment, I have never thought I again. I was being very western from I am the one choosing. My ego is the one. I'm the one in control, right? I'm the captain of the ship. And that was the, not the first time, but that first like, yeah. And now I think that the mushrooms had been calling me for for a long time. I was always interested in the topic, back back in Mexico, when I first found interesting my way in, theoretically, was through the music of the doors. Remember the

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  12:00  
doors really? Yeah, that was worse than the doors. No, absolutely. Morrison G

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  12:04  
more, I was reading a biography of Jim Morrison, and I say, about psychedelics. And then from there, Aldon Huxley, and from there Maria Sabina, and say, Oh, this is, this is a Mexican thing. And then I was really interested in but I either, I don't think I had the right friends, because psychedelics never crossed my path no matter how hard I try. I clearly was not destined to find it back then. Probably I was too young and too I was, I would, I'd not appreciate their value back then. So it took me a long way. It took me becoming a lawyer, doing master's degree in the United Kingdom, getting disenchanted with practicing the law, going to India, and eventually coming to the United States, when I ended up cis and then I say, finally, I'm going to be the place where, where Ram Dass, Stan, Groff, Ralph Metzner, all these luminaries in the field of psychedelics. I am going to find my way into psychedelics here and and I couldn't for my first semester, I was fine trying to find the way. I even went to the to the Golden Gate Park, where she really, I really homeless. To the homeless for anyone listening

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  13:17  
is like, infamous for, like, just being around and people. It's like practically handing it to you. I

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  13:23  
wanted, I wanted to score some psychedelic and I couldn't, didn't, couldn't. They thought I wasn't on the cover cup. So eventually I figured out this clever way, and this is going to connect with my idea of training. So I talked with one of my teachers at CIS, and this is back in the early 2000 and I came up the CIS used to have, I don't remember if they still have now, they have a scholarship for research in psychedelic, the Kransky scholarship. So I very cleverly designed a research protocol. And I came to this professor to be I said, I want you to be my sponsor. I want to do a research study comparing Holotropic breadth for an LSD, and I want to see how those experiences are different. And he looks at me and he says, Sergio, have you ever tried psychedelics? And I say, No. I say, maybe you should start there. And I say, I would love to, but I don't

Speaker 1  14:21  
know how,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  14:24  
and eventually she Connect. He connected me with an underground therapist that was doing the work. So I I learned to become a psychotherapist, very almost at the same time that I was doing my own psychedelic healing. So it was kind of a very together. Those two paths happen together in my case. So for me, from the very beginning, from my formation, actually mental healing and emotional development was closely connected with with how psychedelics could help. Into that realm,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  15:02  
right? And I love that, that story, and, and, and so I'm curious, and feel free, you know, to decline to this state at any point in time. But, um, so So Did Did you have a guide for your first time? Where did you get that you did? Okay,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  15:20  
yeah, I did most of my work had been, had been guided. I mean, eventually I started doing personal work, especially going to Mexico, going to Jamaica, and things like that. But yeah, for for my, my personal growth, work and personal growth, it was guided work.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  15:40  
Wow, yeah. I mean, for me, that's that that alone is a trip, because having grown up in the Silicon Valley, like it was, it was a joke that it was in the water here, but, but, like, it was very recreational orientation. But I don't often get as many stories where people are coming from like they had that more supported experience from a therapeutic lens, from the get go, and you literally were coming up with a research project, right? You know, like, I'm like, Okay, I want a research project. I want to compare Holotropic breathwork to LSD, and you hadn't even had an experience, right? Which, you know, arguably, you don't necessarily need to have the experience to do the research, right? But, I mean, like, Yeah, but that's not what you did. You know, then you wouldn't have the experience at the same time as you started under doing your own research. And maybe, maybe, maybe we could take a quick turn here to talk about about your own work. So, so what? What is your current passion in psychedelic research and in teaching and practice. So

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  16:46  
as you mentioned, I recently, about six months ago, I defended my dissertation, and my dissertation was on the development of blueprint for training psychedelic guides. So training psychedelic guides, to me, is fundamental. And tell and let me tell you a little bit about how I came to that. Please. I was teaching at CIS, as I said, in the interval Counseling Psychology program. And as you also know, CIS has also a certificate in psychedelic research and training. I don't remember exactly what the name right now, but it's in research and practition and therapy or something. And I think

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  17:24  
I've heard recently that they expanded it out so that more people could actually be a part of it. Because I know when I looked into it, I couldn't, I couldn't even be considered, because I was neither a therapist nor nor a minister accepting ethicists at the time.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  17:40  
Now, probably you could do it. Maybe now I probably could. But the thing is, I was, at the time, I was a teacher, a professor, in the integral Counseling Psychology program that is a problem for for licensing therapist to become a psychotherapist. And first I got a lot of people coming through the program that had had psychedelic experience, and I got a lot because people knew of my passion and my involvement in the field of psychedelics. I got a lot of these horror stories people that say, You know what, I did an Ayahuasca circle, and there was no integration, and I don't know what's right, real or was wrong, or I did. I went, I did mushrooms, and the guy did some things that I'm not sure. Going back to the ethics series, I'm not sure it feel it felt weird then, and it feels weird now, and I'm feel uncomfortable. So a lot of horror stories coming from the students of the program. So that was the first one. Then I start hearing that more and more people were getting into the the integral concept of psychologist ICP. That's, that's the acronym ICP program, in order to then jump into the psychedelic certificate program. So a lot of people say the only reason why I've been doing this is because I want to do the psychedelic and then by banana, I started realizing that people were having experiences with so called guides or sitters, or whatever word you want to use, that there were not themselves well trained, and they were actually harming people. And I, myself, was involved in one community for for a long time. And eventually, the founders of that community were found to be harming also their their followers. I don't know what's the word, where the people in their community and and again, I began to do some research and say, this is this is everywhere. And you know this better than most. There's so much abuse, so much horrible things going on, that I said, How can I help this? And I thought one way of of helping is by developing a blueprint. And the reason for that was very simple in. There's no real agreement on of what should a training program should be. There are some programs that are really comprehensive. There are problems that are three three years long or more, and there are training programs that are three month and a half, if you do it intensive Well, in

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  20:19  
traditional settings, some go 30 years, right? You know. So it's not right, like, you know, from the western perspective of what counts as training versus other other traditions or other practices and and it may not be a set date, right? It may be when, well, okay, I believe you're ready now, like you've received it, right? You know, it's not because, you know, like you've done XYZ program, right?

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  20:41  
It's about experience and it's about relationship with the medicine, right? Anyway, whether in both cases, it became clear to me that there were certain things that needed to be included in such a program. So what I did is that I spent, as everyone does for a PhD, I spent about four years researching, I've reviewed 80 programs throughout the world that were teaching psychedelic guiding or psychedelic psychotherapy. Then I chose 16 that I thought were the very best according to certain criteria. You know how in the dissertation, need to write a lot about how you chose your sample and so on and so forth. From all of those, plus the literature, I kind of distill what I believe are the core, not competencies, but the core areas of knowledge that that guides need to be trained on. And they're both and what I found out is that most training programs are really good, or acceptably good, in the technical part. What are the psychedelics? How do they work in the brain? How do you prepare for someone? Integration is a little less emphasized, but most programs are good in the technical part. But I also realized that that's not that's not the half of it. That's only a part of it. You also need to be doing your personal work, because psychedelics are are intense, and if the person does, that's why they do 30 years in the traditions, because if you haven't worked, your own stuff is gonna show up in the in the journey, it's going to show up in the experience. So most program, what I call the missing links, is the personal work on the one hand, and the transpersonal understanding, the thing that psychedelics are the lens in which the psychedelics came back to the West in this last iteration is well with maps wonderfully is doing or trying to accomplish what is get it approved by FDA, right as a medication, right? So is the Western medical paradigm, which is wonderful as far as it is, but psychedelics provide so much more. So at the very least, you need to have an understanding of the spiritual aspects of psychedelics. Otherwise you're gonna you're gonna fall short, you're not gonna understand what the medicine is trying to teach you. If you're only thinking, Oh, this is just for trauma, this is just for anxiety. No, is. This is for life. So I think I give you a big, big answer, I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  23:24  
love this. No, I love this. And I love you know, and I and we definitely bonded over your research and your dissertation, because I think this, there's so many training programs out there now, there's not a lot of help or support for people to help, you know, basically use their discernment for selecting them, or even knowing, you know, even if they have gone through a training program, maybe even being under the delusion sometimes that they're actually ready, I would say, on the whole, the people who have I've met or worked with in programs that I've been a part of know that it's not adequate, right? And want better training or better practicum pieces than are what currently are provided, but then also obviously being limited by, you know, current, current legal options in the United States, even when they're part of a legal training program, right? But I'm curious, so could you tell me a little bit more about, like, you know, the elements, I love that you brought up the spiritual element, because I feel like that's kind of like, like one of the taboos that they don't want to touch in a training program. You know, I mean, and I think I also would agree that integration is, is kind of integration light on the whole that they're not, they're not training them to help people integrate their experiences. They're mainly focused on, like, let's make sure you have the knowledge pieces that you have. Let's make sure you have the practical pieces or the legal structures that you need to abide by for this particular area, whether it be Oregon or Colorado. And I'm being very us centered. What other. Of pieces that you feel from your research, from your work, that are really essential, that from your from your understanding, from your training and from your experience, sure. So

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  25:11  
again, the first part, as I said, is that is the self exploration, the intra per i like to divide it, as one of my teachers used to say, is the intrapersonal, the interpersonal and the transpersonal.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  25:24  
Okay, let's do that slower. So interpersonal, intrapersonal between and other people. In intra is you within yourself, then the other person, yes,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  25:37  
and and transpersonal is between you and spirit, okay? Spirit, God, the universe, mystery, whatever you want to call it, right? So again, in the intra personal is where you work about your own stuff, your own childhood, wounding, your own shadow, all the stuff that you need to explore. Them. Psychotherapists know this very well, and ethicists know this very well, because this is the stuff that get you in trouble, right? That you need to be admired. You need to be like your knee, your your sexual desires or repressions, right? Your fears, your anger, all of that stuff. You need to work it in your own self first. We never end. As I said, healing and growth is forever, right? But you need to be reasonably well put together, and you need to be first deconstructed and then reconstructed, doing a whole bunch of things, from psychotherapy, journaling, psychedelic work, for sure, Holotropic breath work, meditation, whole, a big area of things that you need to do in order to really understand who are. You understand your strengths and understand your weaknesses. So you don't, you don't know. You don't transfer them to the client and harm the client, or worse, you use the client as you the vehicle,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  27:04  
right, exactly. And as you know, that happens a lot, a lot. So that's the intrapersonal. The interpersonal is the broadest. And like I said, this is where the interpersonal is broader, but it's so it includes all the technicalities, and it also includes all the legal, it also includes the ethical. But as I assume you agree with me, but you you let me know the ethical doesn't make sense, really, if you haven't done the intrapersonal, because then it's

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  27:39  
intertwined, at least for me, personally like that, that you know you cannot hold full ethical space if you have not done that personal ethical work yourself. Yes, same sort of concept, right? Like, if you don't know what you what you personally value, and you don't know what you're holding, an integrity for yourself, you're certainly not going to help someone else in a in an aligned way, to help them align and get clarity on their own values or their own meaning or their own purpose, or be able to independent of whether or not you're sort of doing the sort of Hippocratic do no harm sort of thing. You know, in principle, in principle, in principle,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  28:15  
that's the problem, and that's the whole idea of inner ethics that I love is so important, because if you don't do the inner work, I love the idea of intertwined. If you don't know the inner work, then the ethical, the moral stuff, is just a bunch of rules. And every single I'm gonna move from guides to psychotherapy. Every single psychotherapist that had sex with their clients knew that it was wrong. Every single one there was, there's no way that you can become a psychotherapy without knowing that you shouldn't have sex with your client. There's even the blue pamphlet that tells you therapy does never involve having sex with your client, at least here in California or anywhere. But the blue

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  28:52  
conflict, yeah, at least in terms of, like, what, what you're agreeing to, right?

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  28:56  
But the problem is that if you're, if your personal stuff is not more or less in order, then you can trick yourself to believe, well maybe

Speaker 1  29:06  
in this case, it would be okay.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  29:09  
And when you use psychedelics that kind of, by their very nature, bend the rules, it becomes even so more tempting to say, well, the rules that, the rules don't apply in the psychedelics, we teach

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  29:25  
totally boundaries. That literally is a boundary dissolver, right?

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  29:31  
But the what I tell students is, it's a boundary dissolver, yes, but the boundaries of the of the frame that you're

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  29:40  
that, that you're holding, if you're holding the space, holding the container,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  29:44  
yes, that those boundaries stay. That's right, because Absolutely, even if they are dissolved in the in the psychedelic space, once you come back to this reality, that's when people say, oh my god, what happened here? So anyway, the Inter. Personal is all that aspect that has to do with all these different aspects of what medicine to use, how often to use it? Should you use music or not? All those things that you discuss the relationship with the medicines, the chemical compounds versus the plant medicine. This is a place, by the way, where we we can take learn, not take learn from what the traditions know about, how to hold these relationally.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  30:31  
And let's, let's go to that. You know because you, you said you went from literally a non traditional Western introduction to psychedelics, and working with psychedelics, even though, like, obviously, in a therapeutic sense, to then returning to Mexico, of your homeland and and getting connected to traditional medicine keepers. Could you talk a little bit about that and, and your experience that and, and how that may, may have shifted for you? Oh, it shifts

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  31:00  
significantly, because something that I learned is that for the traditions, I'm not just in my case, I wasn't, and I'm still my original teacher passed away. She transitioned, whatever you want to call it. She was my teacher for 10 years, but now I'm a student of another master tech teacher. So my relationship has been with the mass attack the tradition, yes, Sabina tradition and something that they teach you, but it's the same thing with the Ayahuasca tradition. It's the same thing with the peyote and all the tradition. It's about the relationships, right? As I think the Lakota said, all my relationships, relationship. So I tell people, it's not about taking mushrooms, right? It's about relating to the mushrooms. Some, some, another teacher told me once you should never ask yourself, what are the mushrooms? But who are the mushrooms? Because you need to establish a relationship with them, and you need to respect them. And see, in some ways, it is like you go to meet a guru. You want to be in relationship with your guru. You just go and take something from the guru. You actually stay in relationship. And the more that you deepen their relationship, the more that you get from that relation. So that was the main thing. Well, not the only thing, but the main thing that I got from from the tradition is precisely that it's all relationship. It's all balance. Psychopathology is an unbalance. Something's out of whack, and you need to find the balance. You need to, if you're going to take something from Mother Nature, give something back, Be of service, right respect the spirit world. I ask when I when I train guides, I tell them that one of the first questions that the mushrooms, the holy children, as they as they sometimes call the little ones that sprout from the ground, are called in the mass attack tradition that the first question that the mushrooms are going to ask you is, what type of healer Do you want to be? And I asked that question to therapists, don't listen that as an anthropologist. Oh, that's so interesting. No, is it as existentially the emotions are asking me, what type of healer do I want to be? And if you think about it, that implies the ethical aspects that imply that implies, am I going to be the best version of myself, or am I just going to be a okay version of myself? And hopefully you want to be the best that you can be, right, and you understand the respect for nature, and you understand that there are, there is more that more than one reality, and we need to honor those. How do you understand those reality as energies within your psyche or energy surroundings or different levels up around middle realm, lower realm, it doesn't matter that much, as long as you remain humble and aware to the fact that there are more than one realms that this realm, the physical realm is not the only one, and we need to learn to be in relationship with these other routes. So that's that's what the traditions have taught me. I mean a whole bunch of little things that ceremonial things. How

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  34:12  
much I mean, I wouldn't reasonably expect you to convey all of the tradition, let alone, um, I wouldn't expect you to represent a tradition either. Yes, with all due respect, yeah, but it is worth mentioning because, you know, there's a lot more conversation about the Mazatec tradition than there are other traditions, at least in terms of when it comes to the mushroom and Maria Sabina and what happened to her, and in relationship to us, meaning in the Western Way, and how we've come stumbling, I would say, at the very least, into relationship with the mushroom. What since you did bring up ethics, you know, where do you make your your piece? Reciprocity, or in relationship as someone who is Mexican from Mexico, but having that Western training and then returning to the origins of your own culture in relationship to at least one culture, cultural tradition, right? How has that journey been for you? For your personal relationship?

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  35:26  
Ah, you asked very good questions. Sandra, that is an ongoing conversation, right? Because you are right. I talk about the masotic tradition because I've studied for many years, and I'm not a massetic and I would never, ever presume that I understand the mass attack, or I understand the relationships that they have with the mushrooms. I can be aspirational, but it'll never be my tradition. So for me, has been a long process of understanding what it means to honor a tradition, and what it what it means to take from that tradition. Right? To give you one example, I take groups to Mexico every every year, so they have experience with with tech elders, on working with the medicine the way they work. And I make the point. They say, this is not a retreat with a master tech healer. We actually gonna go there, and we're gonna spend time learning their culture. We actually take them to museums. I understand the culture first, then we go there and we spend with their few days, and after that, we are in service. We say, Okay, what does the community needs? And we've painted walls, and we have clean roads and we have planted trees. We ask them, What do you need in this term of mean? And it's completely unbalanced, right? There's no way if I if, how many trees do I need to plant in order to be a pair with what the margins are giving me. I mean, 100 100 forests, right? So it's never enough

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  37:10  
an affair, right? As we've already talked about, right? It's about, at least for me, about, you know, building that relationship and continuing with that relationship, you know, just like, just like you and I, you know, you know, we meet, we get to know each other. We try and keep it in balance. And there'll be times where it'll be out of balance, and then you recognize it, and you feed the relationship and support it and nurture it as its own, being in, yeah, that's what a relationship is, you know. Or are you with your spouse? Are you with, you know, the plants, you know, and, and, and it changes, and new relationships come in, and it's already part of, you know, your your heart community, or spirit community, right? And least for me, I don't know about you, and we haven't delved too much in the spiritual thing, but sometimes, like, I get surprised by one that's coming in. I'm like, oh, okay, um, apparently now I'm having a relationship with the cougar. Okay, great,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  38:09  
yes. And thank for bringing that up, because we can get lost in the realms, right? So the interpersonal, the interpersonal, and let me just talk briefly about it, the transpersonal because, again, I believe one of the concerns that I I've seen is that the the medicines are being brought back as medications, right? And they're thinking, how can we get FDA approval to use this for trauma, right? And that makes sense, as long as we understand that that's just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, right? The mushrooms, the Ayahuasca, even the MDMA and the and the synthetics LSD, they bring so much more, and it's important that each one of us, as we are stepping into this realm first, just as we did with the intrapersonal, first, develop our own relational to spirit. And what does that mean? That's really for you to define, right? Is some like to think of a personal divine. Some like to think of our impersonal divine. Some like to think of as nature. Some some people think about spirit animals. Some people talk about angels. Some people talk about whatever, whatever experience

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  39:32  
all the above. And

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  39:35  
I believe that, again, a teacher of mine used to say that, you know, some people believe mistakenly. He would say that spirit or God, to use one word, simple God. God is like the ocean, and we're at the beach connected with the ocean. And what he used to say is, no, the ocean has many beaches. And. No one is better than another one. So some people may be in Acapulco, right, and some people may be in Miami Beach. They're there, and it's the same ocean. It's the same ocean we are. We are connecting with one expression of the divine, and the expressions of the Divine are infinite, and the medicine teaches you, as you say, sometimes I had experience with with medicine that are very that are easy to understand from a Buddhist lens. And I see the body sadness, and I see, I see that like, like in Buddhist tankers, right? I see the Buddha, and then in the eyes of the Buddha, there's another Buddha. And they the eyes of the Buddha, there's another Buddha. Sometimes he's been very Hindu. I understand the vibration of OM. Sometimes a buffalo appears in my dreams. Oh, like you said with the with the Jaguar of the cougar, right? Yes. Oh, that's, this is a spirit animal. I need to honor the spirit animal. Sometimes he has been Jesus Christ for that matter. So there's something about understanding that they are all valid expressions of connection with the divine, and we need to understand, not necessarily fully, all of them, but at least be familiar with the world of spirit, to understand whatever the client presents to us, not to dismiss it. Oh, that's just an hallucination, right? Of that, just childhood stuff? No, there are spiritual components. And leaving that outside of the understanding of the medicine or being afraid, I tell students, we have to take spirit seriously. Well, that's invited or not invited, spirit is always present so and the medicine shows you that, right? Even if you come in, how many people said, I'm going to deal I want to work on my anxiety or my depression, and boom, they have a mystical experience, right? Because this is unpredictable, because he was always there, and we need to be able, willing to be conversational about it, and have respect for these different aspects, and willingness to engage with the client in those different aspects. And that's hard, because if you, if you think about it, these two, well, all of them, but both the interpersonal and the transpersonal are very what is the word that you cannot control them. You don't know what you're going to find. And training programs don't like that. They like to keep

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  42:27  
it neat. And maybe we should, we should switch back into the training programs again, because you did do the research on that. What would you what do you? What do you feel is like the number one thing, if there could be like, you know, the top, top things that training programs could do now to improve their programs, what would you tell them based on your work? Well,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  42:48  
it's kind of a tricky question to answer, because training programs are different, right? If you I think that would be totally No.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  42:58  
Like, you know, you picked this election, you found particular gaps. Like, what were the major gaps? Sure, sure.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  43:03  
So first, the idea of the of the Blueprint was to create a basic template to say these 15 areas are the ones that need to be covered. Now, who am I? I'm just the guy who did his dissertation, right? So nobody's gonna say, Oh, we're gonna use the the Sergio Rodriguez template to our program that that doesn't sell. Maybe they will. I don't know. Who knows, but very aware I was, I was not being messianic in my say, I'm just, this is my contribution. But what I what I hope that is going to happen is that a program is going to look at it and is going to say, Okay, from this I need, I need another hand to make the 15 from these 15 categories, our program is geared towards doctor. Let's say, okay, then we these are the ones that we know we need to cover, and maybe this other five we're not going to cover, or we're just going to add them as optional topics or whatever. But then people are going to know, okay, if you're a physician and you're interested in the brain and in research and it's stuff, then you know that that's your program, right? That we can have a university, by the way, universities are really good in dealing with the Not surprisingly, although that may be changing now with the diversity and inclusion aspect of the program, with the recognition and the acknowledgement of the traditions. So if you know in your soul that you're not so much interested in how the brain works, yeah, it's good for you to know that there's such thing called neurotransmitters and that stuff. But you're really interested in the traditions. You're really interested in the ceremony and the drum and the candles and the spirit world and all of that. Then another program may say, You know what? From these 15 categories, we're going to choose that, and our program is going to have emphasis on this. So just like any other profession. Uh, you users, potential clients, students, are going to be able to decide where is how do I feel? Called by the medicine in which in which direction do I want to go? And then there may be a few programs out there that say we want to be integral. We want to cover all the aspects of it. We want to be the best program out there. And then, because there is this blueprint, they'll know, at least they know what they need to be to cover. And if they choose to leave something out, at least they know. And hopefully they make an informed decision why they're leaving that out, right? As opposed to, oops, we didn't think that that was important, as much

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  45:42  
as we might give smack to traditional university systems. One, one thing that you know is prevalent is that there'll be a core curriculum, you know, core education piece that everyone you know needs to get satisfied, and then you can focus on your specialization. And at least for me, and as I think about, you know, like we're still very much trying to figure out what is that core curriculum piece, let alone but we're not necessarily being great about supporting that special area or calling on which we're being directed towards. Like, if you're called towards working with the mushroom, or you're called to work more with integrating experiences whatever, whatever it is, or with a particular traditions where maybe there's multiple or ones that are not psychedelic per se, but involve like dietas and other other plant allies that are part of the relationship and the development. And this sort of this more than an East Meets West or global North meets global South, sort of aspect. But I think that's definitely happening. I think, I think a bridging of the ways is going to be part of what happens with these training programs. But that's, that's part of my perspective from from my my point of view, I agree

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  46:57  
with you. I agree with you and and, you know, I hope I one of my community, not my dissertation committee members, was Bill Richards. We had long conversations about, if these go the way we hope that is going to go, then we're not going to have, as I was suggesting, not just one training program. There will be training program for theologians that want that are particularly interested in the spiritual aspect of it, just as they will be, perhaps, programs for people that are more interested in the creative aspects of psychedelic right, of artists and things like that. Just as right now we have some programs that are more geared towards researchers, and there are some programs that are more geared towards clinicians, right? That is just the beginning. We have the big limitation that, because it's illegal, the programs out there, except if you are in Oregon or Colorado right at this point, or if you're planning to go to Germany, country,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  47:55  
or the Netherlands or Netherlands,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  47:59  
you are being trained to do something that is not yet allowed, and that's that's problematic, right? I sometimes wonder if the programs are not aware that there is kind of a say, like a nudge, a wink, wink, nudge, that probably you're gonna have to do this illegal before, before it gets legalized. And I'm a little worried about when I see all these programs, of course, everybody hope that maps, MDMA was going to be approved a few months ago, so everybody was going to be a psychotherapy, psychedelics therapy right now, because it is such a big demand. But that that didn't happen, and that's going to be that's two years away, at the very least, right? I don't know, or

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  48:43  
you have the opposite problem, like in Australia, right? They actually allowed MDMA and so and like me, they don't have enough people trained.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  48:52  
That's it, that that is the problem I'm also seeing. So I'm also seeing something new. And this, this is a big topic, Sandra. We may not want to get into the details of that. Okay,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  49:03  
yeah, no, we have to deacademicize ourselves a little bit.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  49:09  
Programs that they what's the word sprouting, I guess programs more focus on the spiritual aspect of it, the what they're called psychedelic churches. And I say that this is a big topic because they are so there are some so called psychedelic churches that are nothing but a dispensary church, right? But I've also seen cases, case in part, the Congregation for Sacred practice here in the Bay Area that is really trying to hold psychedelics as sacraments. And then I say that's a really interesting aspect of it, because that is really focusing on this, on the transpersonal now, the question is, how much are there dealing with the the interpersonal, the psychological aspect of it? That's why, in some ways. As a psychedelic guide, and that's why training and education is so important. For me, is almost called to be kind of a superhero or superhero, because they need to learn some besides doing their own work, they need to be versed in so many different topics.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  50:19  
I mean, as I think about how I've tried to build my own training program for myself. You know, you know, like you're pretty much left on your own to be an integrity, at least in my humble perspective, to make sure you're doing the work that you need to do and receiving the training you needed to have in order to be able to do it responsibly. But most of the programs. I mean, they're doing the best that they can, right? And often they have limited resources. And, you know, there already are a lot of them are very expensive, right? So they're cost prohibitive, and there's no job necessarily at the other end of the rainbow right now, except for maybe underground work or working in other countries. Perhaps you know more so than than here in the States, but, but what? What advice would you give someone who's who's looking to try and have training and and be in a program? What kind of advice would you give them someone who's new, who's curious?

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  51:21  
Yeah, a few things. First, do your homework, right? There are tons of different programs out there, as you mentioned, like I said, when I did when I did my research, I researched 80 and I'm pretty sure that was about how much there was available back then. But programs pop up and then disappear, and then others come up, and then they change names. So there's a lot happening. So the first thing is, do your homework. Check a few programs, not just because you found one is, oh, this is it. Compare the programs. If you can, my dissertation is available freely online, and I'll send you the link, so perhaps you can make it.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  52:02  
Let's definitely do that. Yeah,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  52:05  
and that was one of the ideas of creating the blueprint. One was to health organization, and the other was for for potential practitioner or applicants to read the template and say, Okay, this program is lacking in this and this and this, therefore this is not good for me. Oh, this one seems to be to cover all of them, so that that was the idea. So do their homework. Compare a few programs. So is, in some ways, is the same as choosing a university for for your master's degree or whatever it is like, do your homework. If you can talk with some practitioners, sorry that are graduate from that program and then see which one resonates with you. If it was, if it was a university, right? People go and visit the University and walk around the campus to see, do I feel like I could study here? That's just not the case here. But there's something about really resonating with what is the ethos of each program, and to feel if this is what you what your own understanding is of what psychedelic is, and ask yourself the question, what type of guide, what type of psychedelic psychotherapist or therapist do I want to be?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  53:17  
I think that's really good advice, and and I can see even in your own development, right? You, you chose a program, but then you also are supplementing it through traditional ways. What, what? What is calling you? You now in terms of, you know, where you know, you finished the dissertation. You're still teaching it, yeah, thank goodness I know if I know that feeling, um, what? Well, what's exciting you now in your work?

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  53:47  
What is exciting? You know, it's one of those things after you finish the dissertation. After I finished my dissertation, I should said a part of that was like, Huh, what's next? I was one of those crazy academicians, or whatever, that I got my law degree and they get a master in law in the United Kingdom. Then I did two more master's degrees in CIS and eventually I did a PhD. Crazy, I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  54:16  
technically have two Master's degree, but I'll tell people that because, like, you know, and then I got the PhD, I'm like, Oh no,

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  54:25  
I'm not saying that to brag. I'm actually saying it the other way around. But it was shorter myself here, I was not clear what to do next. So right now I'm thinking, what do I want to do? And to be honest with you, I do have an answer for that. It's kind of a woo answer, but, but this is, this is the answer. I I've been thinking, Okay, what is the teaching that the medicine? What is the teaching of the medicine? What is what

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  54:52  
kind of healer Are you? What

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  54:54  
kind of healer I'm that's where I'm going with this. You got it. So I think that the medicine. Medicine teaches us, and I can teach you those many, many, many things, but if I have to distill it to one thing is like you are, you are okay, just the way you are. You are loved as you are, and everything is unfolding as it should, the phrase of the desiderata that I like the most. So in some ways, my hope is that whatever I do, whether it's psychotherapy or taking groups to Mexico or facilitating groups in Jamaica, I am saying that to the people you are, you are fine just the way you are, you are loved beyond belief, and things are unfolding exactly as they should. That's so beautiful. My hope is to convey that to However, I still don't know that I'm trusting the process, as we say, to try to find where the where the river, is going to take me. It took me to you, to talk with you today, and I don't know, but there's, there's something about that.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  56:04  
I think that's really a beautiful note to end, though, so I mean, it's truly thank you. And I think everything is working out beautifully for us and for everyone, and to in that element of like, trusting the process or allowing whatever to arise to arise. And reminds me, actually, of Joseph Campbell talking about, you know your path and following your bliss, and that you know when you when you follow that path you're looking for. Sat Chit Ananda, right? You know? And he's like, I don't know if my being is perfect being. I don't know if my consciousness is the right consciousness, but I know what my bliss is, and, and, and that you'll find that you look down and you're on the right path all along.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  56:49  
And that's important, especially without getting into that, because at some level, we're living very difficult times, very, very difficult. Are there harder than others? I don't know. I didn't live through any, any of the wars that those were more scary than this one or the of the Cold War. But we are living different and painful times. But the medicine keeps reminding us everything is unfolding as it should. It may not be seen that way, may not look like way right now, but everything is unfolding as you should, as as the, I think John Lennon or this famous movie, right Marigold Hotel, everything will work out at the end, and if it doesn't, but if it's not working out, it's not the end,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  57:36  
yes, so this isn't the end for SRG right now, and I've always really enjoyed talking with you and our conversations that we've had so far, and and I'm so grateful for your work and research and and what you've done to kind of highlight the issues and training and education and and I just really inspired by your story. So thank you again for for taking the time to to meet with me and and to share some of your your journey, both inside and and with trans personal and with others.

Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo  58:07  
And thank you to you, Sandra, I enjoy our conversations very much, and I value what you doing so much. It is important to keep bringing back ethics into the work. We cannot avoid that, and you're doing a fantastic and very, very important key work into the field. So thank

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  58:28  
you. You're very grateful. Yeah. Thank you much. Love. Thank you for joining me on psychedelic source. If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share with others in our community. And if you're a psychedelic practitioner, therapist or coach, looking to identify blind spots in your practice or determine next steps for moving it forward, take the first step by visiting psychedelic source podcast.com Until next time, remember, start low, go slow and stay connected to your source. You.