Most psychedelic practitioners and researchers agree that integration, the period of processing after a psychedelic experience, is the most important part of the healing process.
Many define integration as the period in which one makes sense of what was learned during a psychedelic experience, and then applies that learning to their daily life.
Yet for individuals returning from a significant spiritual journey, the realities of “daily life” can seem odd, unsettling, or even wrong. Those individuals then must cope with trying to make daily life make sense when they know it does not.
As an example, if a person has an experience where they feel a deep sense of connectedness to the universe and all other living beings, that person can have trouble returning to their job as an insurance claims adjuster. That narrow-minded world of conflict and mistrust just doesn’t make sense to them.
What they are seeing is the sickness in our culture: the uncaring cruelty that creates a world with poverty, exploitation, violence and so many other symptoms of cultural disease. That culture is made up of unwell individuals suffering under the burdens of past traumas and twisted models of ethics. And that culture has a deeply abusive relationship with the natural world, where it is causing mass extinctions, huge climactic catastrophes, and alteration of every ecosystem.
How is it that someone can heal themselves within this environment? How can they stay focused on the north star of their spiritual experience when they have to deal with sick people in a sick culture within a sick natural world?
The first thing they must do is compromise the deep learnings they uncovered in their spiritual journey in order to survive in a world that requires them to compete for subsistence, or else to abandon their current life and try to start over.
In other words, the setting in which they are integrating is directly conflicting with their integration.
We know that the nature of a psychedelic experience is directly affected by the setting in which it is conducted. Likewise, the setting in which one integrates can drastically affect the character of one’s integration.
The Integration Center model is designed to provide an optimal integration setting. Instead of jumping right back into their old life, individuals can take a retreat from all the unwellness around them and integrate within the context of a healthy culture made up of healthy individuals who are acting naturally (working together as a group to acquire food) in a way that is nurturing to their local environment.
This retreat provides participants with a genuinely healthy context within which they can explore their integration. The programs of the Center help them further connect with their body, with community, and with nature.
Participants can attend a retreat for one to three weeks (programs are held the first three weeks of each month). After that, they become Associate Members of the Center, and may continue to engage with a community that supports their integration.
Associate Members are welcome to return to the Center on the fourth week of each month for open community activities. The Center may also run social activities in their neighboring city for the Associate Members to stay connected.
If an Associate Member finds that they cannot continue to hold their job or residence, they may come live at the Center as a Colleague Member, where they will be asked to provide labor in exchange for long-term residence in the Center’s surrounding village. And when a Colleague member has healed their old wounds and is ready to teach classes at the Center, they can become a Partner Member and permanent resident.
(The above description of the membership process has been simplified for the sake of brevity.)
This retreat format and membership process enables individuals to heal within a nurturing setting, to continue their healing journey beyond the retreat, and to make major changes to their life even if they do not have the financial resources to break free from the cycle of employment and debt.
While Integration Centers provide a bridge for people to walk away from the current sick economy, they do not isolate those people into a bubble. Individuals who live within the village are engaging with retreat participants, earning money that they can spend as they wish, and readily able to commute to the nearby city.
The Integration Center model provides an optimal environment for healing, and all are welcome to start or join an Integration Center project.
Further reading: Effective Action for the Environment
Further reading: What is Health?