Episode #12

Laura Dawn [0:02]: My name is Laura Dawn. And you’re listening to episode number 12 of the psychedelic leadership podcast featuring my conversation with the author, founder of the Center for Consciousness Medicine, and Psychedelic pioneer, Francoise Bourzat.

And the thing of the appropriation is a topic that we take a bit out of context, it’s important to do cases, it’s important to do offerings, it’s important to do prayers, it’s important to do an altar that belongs to everyone. And the indigenous people web,

What I’m hearing from them is do that you learn from us the value of calling directions or blessing a room, or calling the sun in the morning, or you’re putting flowers on the altar, you learn from us that. And then you do because it serves you It serves your life, it helps you. It reminds you of the divine, we teach you about the sacred, and you have it it’s not sacred doesn’t belong to us. And these rituals are universal, they belong to human sanity.

I hope that we stay curious and we keep learning from one another. And we keep listening to ideas we don’t know anything about, even if we’re saying they’re negative, or oppositional to what we stand for, to stay in the spirit of curiosity and to not create opposition. None of a lot of conflict avoidance, but more stay in the spirit of oneness.

 All I’ll say is that Francois is a total legend in the psychedelic space. I just love how much people love her. In Episode Number 10 featuring Charlotte and Dre from the Sabina project, I mentioned Francoise’s name and Dre was like hold up the positive discussion, I need to profess my love for this woman. And this just seems to be the general reaction I get from people who know her. Francoise Bozarth is the author of consciousness medicine, indigenous wisdom, and theologians and expanded states of consciousness for healing and growth. And she has quite the incredible life story from a traumatic near-death experience she had in Thailand many years ago, that led her on a path of healing.

And she’s now been leading ceremonies with sacred mushrooms for over 30 years. And I highly recommend her book, which I’ve read twice now. And it lays out her framework for navigating expanded states of consciousness and offers a lot of insight around plant medicine integration as well. And so, I’ll post a link to her book in the show notes. And as we’ll talk about in this interview, Francois has played a supportive role in the passing of measure 109 in Oregon State, legalizing the use of psilocybin by professionals for therapeutic purposes. And needless to say, the passing of measure 109 in Oregon, and the Decree movement, in general, is completely changing the name of the game for the future of psychedelics. And so, Francoise is also the founder of the Center for Consciousness Medicine. 

And she is directly involved in creating the facilitator training programs that professionals in Oregon will have to go through to be quote-unquote, certified to administer silicide, and legally. And so, we’ll talk all about this and so much more in this conversation. And at the end of this episode, I’ll be leaving you with a song by a dear medicine brother, Chad Wilkins called Sing for The Earth. And if you haven’t yet received my playlists that feature wonderful musicians such as Chad Wilkins, for psychedelic journeys and beyond, I also use these playlists for my micro-dosing morning rituals. You can swipe that along with my free eight-day micro-dosing course at livefreelaurade.com. And if you are a musician or you know, a talented musician of the inspirational variety, please send some links my way and contact me through my website. Once again, livefreelaurende.com. And I’ll be more than happy to tune in. Okay, without any further ado, here’s my conversation with psychedelic pioneer Francoise Bourzat.

Laura Dawn [4:17]: Aloha Francoise, thank you so much for joining me today. 

Francoise Bourzat [4:21]: You’re welcome. And thanks for having me. 

Laura Dawn [4:24]: So, I’ve read your book, Consciousness Medicine, indigenous wisdom and theologians, and expanded states of consciousness for healing and growth a couple of times at this point, and I just so appreciate your perspective, your knowledge, and your wisdom. And I just want to start this conversation by saying thank you for your life’s work really, and your dedication to this path, and for being a mentor to so many people in the psychedelic space.

Francoise Bourzat [4:53]: Thank you. Yes, it’s been wonderful to gather all this thoughts and wisdom and experience and offer them to the field to the movement at large and it’s been, not surprisingly but to me, it was a little bit surprising to see how people I respect like Rick Doblin or Fadiman or Ralph Metzner. But Ralph has a friend. So, that’s different. But we’re supportive and endorsing my words. And so, it’s been wonderful to contribute and feel part of a group of elders in this field. So, yes. 

Laura Dawn [5:30]: And we are living during what feels like an incredibly pivotal moment in the psychedelic movement. And I would love to start by inviting you to share an overview of what’s happening in Oregon right now, especially, with measure 109. And why this is so significant, especially right now, and what this means for the future of psychedelic therapy. 

Francoise Bourzat [5:54]: This is a wonderful initiative I was invited on onboard by Tom and Sheri Eckert. They decided five years ago to spearhead this initiative of trying to get legal access to mushroom therapy or mushroom experiences for people in their state of Oregon. And I was invited to be on the campaign board was Paul Stamets and Robin Carhart-Harris from London and Mark Aiden, from maps Canada, and of course, Tom and Sheri and myself. There was a lot of support from David Bronner, there was a lot of support from various funders to get the campaign going, especially, gathering the votes in COVID, that was quite a feat to be able to achieve that. 

And the fact that it was on the ballot was already an amazing signal of people wanting that. I mean, of course, a lot of work went into the campaign, but still, and when it passed, I was in Oregon for that I flew to Oregon to Portland to celebrate the passing of the initiative. Of course, we weren’t sure it would pass. But that was wonderful being there with the team, and we had a lot of campaign meetings and dialogues and with a legal adviser, Graham Boyd, and wonderful people. David Bronner was there every time to brainstorm and the fact that this initiative passed is communicating that there is a place for mushroom experiences in between the scientific research that goes on in John Hopkins and Imperial College and NYU and various universities and medical centers.

And a sort of decree nature free access, get your mushroom, drop your mushrooms and hope for the best, I think there is a middle ground that this initiative offers for people to have access to well prepared, well supported and well-integrated experiences with sacred mushrooms. And that is a strong signal and not just around, quote-unquote, treatments, but approaches that can alleviate suffering, that can help people expand their consciousness and create more peace in their inner life and the life of their family and community. 

So, what’s happening right now after the vote was a success is that there are two years of implementation, which means that there is a group of us working together with different organizations to create or suggest to the Oregon Health Administration’s the criteria for the training of the facilitators that will dispense this offering of mushroom experiences. So, we are designing curriculum, together with like I said, a few other entities, my organization, my group, Center for Consciousness, Medicine, but also some other wonderful people. So, it’s a collaborative effort and an alliance of sort that we want to present to the Oregon Health Administration as a way of presenting a seriously high standard of care and education, to the advisory board of the administration to secure that this initiative would be rolled out safely, diligently, carefully. And with a well-educated body of facilitators.

Laura Dawn [9:59]: Wonderful. And will anyone be able to partake in that facilitation training? Or do you need to have a background as a nurse or a psychologist or therapist?

Francoise Bourzat [10:10]: I think anybody will be able to access the training, there will be a foundational knowledge or education regarding trauma regarding psychological processes regarding grief regarding, the baseline of what someone should know to be able to address some situations that may come in during the experience. And then what we have suggested or what we will suggest, is a system of quote-unquote triage, meaning someone who wants to apply to have an experience would be depending on their intake and their intention, and why they come to this facilitation will be then oriented towards someone more inclined to be a chaplain or someone more inclined to be a therapist or trauma therapist or a psychiatrist or an addiction specialist or so, there will be a variety of angles and roads for anybody to be directed into. 

So, someone who is very highly traumatized, and would need some psychological skill support would not be oriented towards that might be more equipped to deal with the issue of grief, or other spiritual dimension brought into this experience. So, I think that this triage system, so to speak, is a way to optimize the care also.

Laura Dawn [11:40]: And so, there’s a two-year rollout period where you are working with a group of people to formulate that and how long do you think the training is going to be for people to immerse themselves in before they’re, quote-unquote, qualified or certified to hold space as a facilitator?

Francoise Bourzat [11:58]: So, we are discussing this, the training is possibly going to start this summer, to have time to train people over a year, we want people to have access to some experiences themselves before they are going to be equipped to sit for people or facilitate these processes. So, because the actual permission to ingest medicine will be only authorized on January 2023, we are debating if the students would be waiting for that green light to have their own practical experiences in their sort of practicum phase, or if they would maybe travel to a place where the practice of mushroom is not illegal, like the Netherlands or Jamaica, or possibly Canada when it’s not sure yet. 

And then have their practicum phase of training and be ready before January 2023. So, we’re not exactly sure how that’s going to pan out. But we’re working diligently on making sure that people can apply to train, but we need to get all our ducks in a row and make sure that training is well designed and well complete, and holes, and then we have to submit this training curriculum to the Oregon Health Administration to see if they would accept it and find it adequate, which I want to believe they would find it well done because we are putting a lot of attention and skill into it. And they don’t know what to suggest. So, they’re leaning into this sort of advisory group to get suggestions of good practice.

Laura Dawn [13:54]: So, measure 109 states that these certified practitioners, will be legal for only people who go through this particular training program to legally administer psilocybin. 

Francoise Bourzat [14:09]: Correct. 

Laura Dawn [14:10]: Okay, just to clarify that.

Francoise Bourzat [14:12]: There will be licensure. So, people will go through the training program for facilitators in one organization or the other, we are few of us. And then they will be sort of licensure, as a test so to speak, right? They would have a report from their trainer, and they will all have a mentor to supervise their work or consult. And then they will have a licensure exam, and they will have a license to be able to practice this work. 

Laura Dawn [14:47]: Wow. It’s just so amazing that you’re working on the state level. It’s amazing. It’s remarkable and why do you think it’s happening now?

Francoise Bourzat [14:58]: I think there is a hunger for more freedom and more access. The decree movement, as you will know, is very, very active and very successful in changing the landscape of access, right, or at least decriminalization, which is a big piece of this. And this gentleman who was our legal advisor in Oregon, and he’s also my legal adviser in my work on Graham Boyd has been the legal adviser for all these motions in different states. He’s been working diligently on making sure things pass, mostly because it reduces incarcerations. And, of course, there is a way to have people have more like civil liberty and freedom to consume what they want to consume, just like they drink alcohol, well, they can take something else is not more dangerous, possibly less dangerous. 

But mostly it reduces incarceration, especially if people of color. So, there’s a great social scene here that is being changed through the decree movement and this legalization with 109 in Oregon, and that creates a model for other states to follow suit as well. So, we can imagine that I don’t know maybe California or maybe Hawaii, or maybe Vermont or other states that are fairly progressive might see the moment where the ballots can move that forward. There are also ways to work with the Supreme Court of the state or not necessarily through an electoral vote, but also through City Councils and such and State Council. So, there are different ways but I think the idea is that people they hearing enough about the research that is taking place successfully, and by Michael Pollan’s book and all these different ways of communicating the success of this approach is that they want to have access to it and they want to have liberty safely, and safe care to have these experiences. 

I don’t want it to be reserved for the people who are so ill with depression and suicidal ideation, or people who are so sick with PTSD are so sick with anxiety that they can function. A lot of people have some depression, some anxiety, or some trauma, and they function. So, they don’t qualify for the studies necessarily. And the studies are very limited. I’m doing a study and I’m consulting for a study in Los Angeles. That is FDA approved study, it was so exciting. And it’s going to be a very limited number of subjects and, and subjects that qualify with a very limited amount of access.

Laura Dawn [18:03]: And so, what do you foresee some of the greatest challenges or what are you paying attention to, in terms of the drawbacks of legalization?

Francoise Bourzat [18:13]: Well, the measure in Oregon is drafted in such a way that it doesn’t become a cannabis industry like it was in other states, where the cannabis industry came in because cannabis became legal. It’s not drafted the same way. I don’t know exactly another legal expert to tell you the difference in the actual write-up of the initiative. But it’s not about creating a big industry that would monopolize an industry of growing mushrooms and monopolizing the distribution, the motion, the initiative is written in such a way that it remains inaccessible idea or experience. So, it’s different from the candidates, but that would be a big drawback if it would become such industry like cannabis, but it’s not done that way. So, I think that other states might look at the initiative was very astute eyes to make sure that if they want to do that, it remains not an open door to the big industry I can get.

Laura Dawn [19:24]: And how accessible is this therapy going to be for lower-income families? Especially what we’re seeing with Ketamine, one session, it’s pretty expensive to receive treatment. And so, I’m curious, how accessible are these medicines can be, is the state going to help fund or offer you know, health care support for receiving these treatments?

Francoise Bourzat [19:47]: Yes, so we are looking at that this is not in my skill to navigate the budget and the rollout financially and how the healthcare system on the state level will be able to subside or through donation maybe or the retreat centers would be from an ethical perspective, which is something we write into our training, the ethical aspect of our training to make sure that this rollout is also accessible for free or accessible for very low costs to some people who deserve the treatment like everybody else but can’t pay. And that could be a sliding scale, or there could be some different structure of payments. 

So, people pay according to their means as well. So, we have to see what different structures, different organizations will run that differently. And we can’t impose an ethical practice like that, financially, but it will create a culture where that is addressed, or at least announced. So, I’m intending in my organization to run some training, and also, of course, impart that kind of ethical concern and accessibility concern. And so, the issue of diversity and accessibility is part of what I will be teaching the facilitators. And then if we do open, which we might open some retreat center or treatment center, I don’t know exactly what to call those places. But as we are rolling out our facilitation process, that it’s part of my angle to make sure that people who come to the door are served, regardless of their means.

Laura Dawn [21:46]: What are some of the other ethical pieces that are really at the forefront that you guys are discussing right now, in terms of bringing this training and formulating this training, staying connected to an indigenous lineage? Is that at the forefront of a concern that you guys have? What are some of the ethical pieces that you’re addressing right now?

Francoise Bourzat [22:06]: Well, as you see, in my book, my entire background is about indigenous knowledge and wisdom. And that’s how I got educated, so to speak, and immersed into that culture of this work as it has been conducted in Mexico. And that’s how I came into this work. So, for me, it’s intrinsic to what I know, I cannot separate what I would tell people how to run a session, and where it’s coming from this is total goes together. I cannot, it’s part of my training, right? 

My training talks about lineage, he talks about acknowledgment about respect, but reciprocity about naming the names of the teachers who have held this tradition before us. What do we give back? How do we acknowledge their wisdom? And how do we weave their wisdom or their angle of doing this work into our approach now in the more industrialized world, so this is a lot of what I’m all about, being sort of a bridge or sort of a translator without, claiming that I’m them. I’m not an indigenous person, but my immersion into that culture impacted me to include that voice in my teachings. 

And I’m not sure it’s the same for other organizations who don’t have quite a foot and a root system into the indigenous culture as I do. But it doesn’t mean they don’t, suddenly don’t honor and respect and talk about that. So, in the training we are developing, we are including a portion on reciprocity and respect of the indigenous tradition and naming what they did. And in my certainly, my version of the training is, we’re very much name and we’ve all this different cosmology and practices and intelligence that the indigenous culture and model has taught me.

Laura Dawn [24:07]: It’s so interesting, this topic of cultural appropriation because, on the one hand, it’s like if I’m enacting a ritual or a practice that comes from another culture, and let’s say it was passed down through various people, and then arrived at me by enacting that, you know, is that culturally appropriating? And is it or is it more appropriate for me to cultivate my practice? That’s new. But then the argument against that is that I’m not carrying a lineage or I’m not honoring a lineage. So, it seems like there’s this very strong catch 22 going on with the cultural appropriation remarks and comments that get made and arguments in the space around this. So, I’m curious about your perspective on that.

Francoise Bourzat [24:53]: Well, my perspective is a dialogue with that I have was my indigenous friends in Mexico. who carries this tradition? And I asked them I said, do I have permission to replicate your ritual? Do I have permission? Do I have your blessing? What do you feel about me doing the gesture or the objects of the altar or the way you deal with the cleansing or the offering of the way you smoke the room, the way you put the flowers, the way you serve the medicine, can I do that? Can I do all this? And they look at me, and he said, What? How would you do it otherwise? So, it’s very interesting, the appropriation is a Western is a kind of a is our concern, which is valid to be politically aware, and respectful, and not steal and claim that it’s ours. 

But when my teacher came to California, and we were doing an offering one morning here, and she said, well, what do you do your offerings?  It was really at the beginning of my connection with her. And I said, well, I don’t really, offerings are kind of your ritual. I don’t want to take away your ritual and do it. And she said, but that’s crazy. She said you should do offerings. And I said, well, but that’s your ritual. And she said, well, I tell you to do offerings, and she was like, exasperated with my politeness because she felt it’s not a matter of It’s what you do. If you do an offering, and you mean it. It’s okay, offerings are international, they’re universal, they don’t belong to one tradition. It’s the principle if I offer cocoa beans because I bring them back from Mexico, and they mean something to me, okay, that’s what I offer. 

But if I’m in Tibet, I’m going to do rice, right, I want to offer rice, or if I’m in Bali, I’m going to offer flowers. Or if I’m in the Black Hills of the Lakota reservation, I’m going to do Sage or Juniper or something, I’m not going to be doing the same offering, the point is the offering. So, that is a universal practice. And I think that appropriation is a topic that we take a bit out of context, it’s important to do the cleansing, it’s important to do offer, it’s important to do prayers, it’s important to do an altar, that belongs everywhere, right. 

And the indigenous people, what I’m hearing from them is do that you learn from us the value of calling directions, or blessing a room, or calling the sun in the morning, or putting flowers on your altar, you learn from us that and then you do it because it serves you it serves your life, it helps you it reminds you of the divine, we teach you about the sacred, and you have it it’s not sacred doesn’t belong to us. 

And these rituals are universal, they belong to the human family. So, I think that there is a worry that we have that is well funded. But that’s a little bit limiting and kind of paralyzing really, where we stop doing what we want to do out of fear of insulting people, when in fact, what they want us to do is exactly those rituals. They want us to do the ritual. And my teacher said, well, if you don’t have cocoa beans, what would you put on the ground? And I said, well, I would put rice or cornmeal or I would put my seeds from my garden and she said, yes, seeds from your garden are good because it belongs to your land. Okay. 

So, it has to belong to your land, and you offer it back to the land. So, you see, it’s not like I have to import something necessarily, but I can work with the principle of the ritual with what’s true for me in where I live, right? So, I can import Palo Santo certainly. Does it grow in my house? Or does its part of the land? Not really. Okay, so, this is okay to borrow Palo Santo. But it’s also okay to burn the Juniper that grows in my land or the sage.

Laura Dawn [29:23]: It’s better to be burning something else because Paulo Santos is now becoming an endangered tree. So, that’s where the awareness seems to happen, whole another story. And then what’s your perspective on blending more traditional practices with the practices that make sense for Western culture?

Francoise Bourzat [29:45]: I think it’s fine. I think whatever we do, as long as we do it with a heart was that it means something for us. A gesture, an empty gesture is an appropriation gesture that is filled with spirit with respect with connectedness with connecting with the people we’ve learned that from and how grateful we are. We can bring this together I do all kinds of things that are all mixed. I do I burn Sage, while Sage is not really from the Masoretic tradition of Mexico, I bring Kapow which is the Masoretic tradition. 

And I can offer, a Mandela on the earth, that is, my tradition that I do that doesn’t belong necessarily to anyone, and that’s my altar building to the earth. Well, that’s my creation, okay. And I mix that with other things. And I can put for direction create a medicine wheel, which belongs to other tradition, but also sort of a universal compass of orientation. So, it’s more a matter of doing the things you do, because it works for you. And when you invite people into those circles or those rituals, they feel touched, and they feel it affects them in a good way. So, that’s really what the most important thing is.

Laura Dawn [31:11]: If you had to distill some of the most precious nuggets of wisdom that you’ve received from your teachers over the years, what would you say those nuggets of wisdom have been that they’ve been part of you with? And if you feel called to speak to naming your teachers, I’d also love to do invite space for that as well. 

Francoise Bourzat [31:34]: So, Pablo Sanchez taught me about the tribe, of the community, the collective, he was a Native American and Mexican man and had the strength of what a council is by sitting in the circle was part of his background. And I could feel that when we were doing the work together, there was a very strong sense of tribe. And the tribe of people who I worked with back in the mid-80s, is still my best tribe, my community that we’re still together. Every year, Thanksgiving is different things. The collective was really important for Julieta, what I learned a lot is to listen to nature. Listen to the spirits of the place, listen to how they affect you. Make your offerings clean yourself, talk as much as you can ongoingly. And have respect.

Laura Dawn [32:44]: And by that, you mean clean yourself spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally?

Francoise Bourzat [32:50]: Exactly. Stay clean, because she believed that we are constantly accumulating thoughts and negative thoughts from ourselves from interactions or from the social scene that we absorb. And so, we have to constantly be in a process of purification, of staying as clean meaning unencumbered doesn’t mean whey isolate, but sort of circulating our energy constantly. And the big lesson from Julieta was respected, she was about respecting a tradition respecting the medicine, respecting the guide respecting yourself. Respect of the forces of the universe, respect, treat things with observation was discernment was thoughtfulness. Right. So, that respect for her was taking things seriously doesn’t mean she was a very serious woman, she was cracking up all the time. But being in tentful to live one’s life was a lot of intentionalities.

Laura Dawn [34:17]: And in terms of respecting cultures, it seems like reciprocity is a big topic and a way that we can offer respect as one of many, many ways that we can show respect. I’d like to just talk about reciprocity with you for a moment and also on the level of your training program and from like a state of Oregon level, how is that being built into the training into the actual framework of what’s being created right now is there, I don’t want to call it a business model. But if it is a business model, in which there’s money involved, it’s an economic model or their built-in mechanisms that are offering some kind of reciprocity in that?

Francoise Bourzat [34:58]: Yes, you’re bringing the topic that is exactly what we’re working on right now, which is a concrete reciprocity model. Instead of reciprocity, what does that look like? It’s an empty word. It’s a good slogan, and a lot of companies have approached me because they want to know how to be in reciprocity. And I’m like, well, if you’re going to make millions of dollars, it’s going to cost you a lot to be reciprocal. It’s not going to be a tip if you want to be reciprocal, and so the topic is, how do we manifest reciprocity. 

So again, reciprocity is expressed for the respect we have, and the naming of the teachers and the lineage. So, that’s reciprocity right there. It’s like looping back giving back energetically, our acknowledgment and our respect and our appreciation and our admiration maybe also our eagerness to keep learning. That’s reciprocity, right, where we turn back, and we keep receiving, and we keep giving our attention and our willingness to keep learning. So, that’s one aspect of reciprocity, I think that is important for the people in Mexico. Another aspect, which I have been doing on a personal level for many years, decades, is supporting people concretely, I support medical bills, I support the education of children, I support all kinds of things for various teachers, there and their families