Back to: Psychedelics, Entheogens, and Consciousness Expansion
Module 1: Practices, Assessments, and Discussion Posts
Practice Exercise
Practice 1 – Reading a Study Like a Scientist, Not a Believer
Choose one of the primary studies discussed in this module: the 2016 Hopkins cancer distress trial, the 2020 to 2021 Hopkins depression trial, or the 2021 Imperial College psilocybin versus escitalopram trial. Locate the published abstract, all are indexed on PubMed, and read it slowly, twice.
Before you write anything, work through these four questions on scratch paper first. What was the sample size, and does that size change how much weight you should put on the findings. What was the comparison group, placebo, an existing medication, or nothing at all, and what does that comparison actually let the researchers claim. What outcome measure did they use, and is it a measure of symptom severity, quality of life, or something else entirely. And what did the authors list as limitations, because a study’s own stated limitations are often the most honest part of the paper.
Written exercise: Write a three hundred word lay summary covering three things plainly: what was studied, what the researchers actually found, and what remains genuinely uncertain even after this study. Resist the pull toward either overclaiming, this proves psychedelics cure depression, or dismissing, it’s just placebo and hype. The goal is precision, not persuasion. If you find yourself reaching for a strong adjective, stop and ask whether the data in front of you actually supports it, or whether you’re borrowing the adjective from a headline you read somewhere else.
Assessment
Institutional Evidence Essay
What does the MDMA for PTSD regulatory saga demonstrate about how clinical evidence gets evaluated in high stakes, culturally charged contexts? Address specifically: what the completed Phase 3 trials established, what the FDA’s rejection was based on, and what this gap between scientific result and regulatory outcome should teach a careful reader about how to evaluate future claims in this field, in either direction.
Expanded Guidance
Before you draft, build a short outline with three sections mirroring the prompt’s three parts. In the first section, state plainly what the Phase 3 data showed, using actual numbers rather than vague adjectives. In the second, lay out the FDA’s stated objections precisely, blinding integrity, adverse event reporting, the misconduct allegation, without either minimizing or exaggerating them. In the third, connect this specific case to the general skill this whole module is trying to build in you: separating “the treatment works” from “the treatment is ready for approval” as two genuinely different claims, each requiring its own evidence. A strong essay will resist the temptation to land on a single tidy verdict about MDMA therapy itself. The point of this assessment isn’t whether you conclude for or against the treatment. It’s whether you can demonstrate that you know how to weigh evidence and institutional caution as two separate, equally real forces, neither of which cancels the other out.
Discussion Post for The Great Work Platform Community
The Gap Between Evidence and Readiness (And Why It Matters Far Beyond Psychedelics)
I want to bring something into our community discussion that came up while I was researching Module 1 of the new mini course on psychedelics and consciousness, because I think it points at something bigger than the subject matter itself.
Here’s the pattern. In 2023, MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD had completed Phase 3 trials with response rates most of psychiatry would envy, sixty-seven to seventy one percent of participants no longer meeting PTSD criteria after treatment. By any reasonable reading, that’s a remarkable result. And in 2024, the FDA rejected it anyway, citing real, specific problems with how the trials were run. Then, in 2026, a related but differently designed compound landed on an accelerated one to two month FDA review track, following a presidential executive order and two separate positive Phase 3 psilocybin trials from a different company entirely.
Read quickly, that whole sequence looks like chaos. Read carefully, it’s a clean illustration of something I keep coming back to in my own work: evidence and readiness move on separate clocks. A thing can be true and not yet be ready to be built upon. A finding can be real and still need a slower, more careful container around it before it’s safe to release into the world. I think this shows up constantly in inner work too, not just in FDA approval processes. You can have a genuine realization, a real shift in how you see yourself or the world, and still not be ready to build your whole life around it yet. The insight was real. The integration, the readiness, is a separate and slower process, and rushing it doesn’t make you more awake. It just makes the insight fragile.
So, here’s what I’d love to hear from this community. Where have you noticed that gap in your own life, a truth you knew was real long before you were ready to act on it, or build your life around it. What did the waiting actually teach you that rushing wouldn’t have. I’ll be honest that I don’t think patience like that is glamorous. It rarely gets a headline. But I’ve come to trust it more than almost anything else I’ve learned. Drop your own experience in the comments below. I read every one of them, and I’d genuinely like to know where you’ve lived this pattern yourselves.
Welcome home and thank you for doing this work alongside me.