For working with plant medicines solo, I thought of doing what McKenna said "find the others". Also I feel deeply grateful for the healing I experienced and wanted to help other people in their own healing, in some way give back to the community what the plant medicines gave to me. I thought lets see if I can do something useful with a psychedelic society group. But my first meeting with my local psychedelic society had a bitter taste, I hesitate to even go to the next upcoming meeting.

It was the first meeting of a newly founded psychedelic society, I looked forward this meeting for a while, especially that I found two other people locally and thought we would make create a psychedelic society, before learning about this group. The meeting was ok at start, although the founding members had a bit bragging about them. Like some worked with "stars" of the psychedelic science movement (eg R.Doblin, D.Nutt) and I started to have this feeling that the meeting was about showing off. Then one of them interjected how he took 5g of PE by mistake, but it felt also like he's bragging about it. Later on, another also bragged about taking massive dosages. Then the other participants came, and many of them had this vibe about them that they knew better than others what psychedelics were about, one rejected the therapeutic purpose to explain it is all about the spiritual connection, while another went on to say that the clinical trials results are completely fake and kept trolling about this kind of stuff. The founding members also kept saying about how there is no bad trip, only challenging trips you learn from, while I was just reading before on reddit how a trip went so badly for someone that he ended his life after a year of desperate suffering.

At this point, I was sure I was not going to speak in this group, half of normal participants didn't speak too, and that I came with good intent, but the atmosphere was not adequate for such an intent. After that, I felt quite disgusted, depressed and isolated, unsure if being in this group is not toxic in itself. Only listening to Adam Aronovich talk about psychedelic narcissism on a podcast helped a little bit. Now I am wondering if I am not completely mistaken to want to help others (I do come to this sub for this reason, but in real life it should be better), that I should just fend for myself. At some level, I also question why I found it so offputting, is it because my early trauma is from narcissistic parents, or maybe a shadow part of me want to brag like them and be the center of the attention, but I kind of need to accept this part.

Anyway, just wanted to share my "find the others" story that I thought was part of my healing journey. But also ask if all the psychedelic society groups has this atmosphere of showing off and competition, or if there is more gentle kind of group elsewhere. Should I go to the next meeting and give them another chance ? I am afraid I won't stand it this time, and do something regrettable