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In This Issue
- Issue 05: Women in Psychedelics - Special Issue
- Women in Psychedelics pulls back the curtain on a story long told out of balance. Across history, science, ceremony, therapy, and art, this issue reveals how women have shaped—and are reshaping—the psychedelic landscape as healers, researchers, lineage holders, and cultural translators. Core threads emerge: embodiment over abstraction, relationship over extraction, community over quick fixes. From reclaiming suppressed histories to advancing women-centered science and restoring reverence for plant medicines, these pages offer depth, challenge, and hope. If you care about where psychedelics are headed, this issue matters.
- Psychedelic Heroines: Rewriting the Dream ~ By Lindsay Kent (Guest Editor)
- Challenging the male-centered origin story of modern psychedelia and restoring women to their rightful place as visionaries, healers, and cultural translators. Drawing from Indigenous traditions, feminist scholarship, and overlooked histories, Lindsay Kent traces how patriarchy and colonialism erased women’s roles while the medicines themselves preserved a deeper, relational wisdom. From ancient ritual leaders to modern figures like María Sabina and Ann Shulgin, this piece reframes the psychedelic renaissance as an act of remembering: one that demands broader voices, shared stewardship, and a more balanced way of knowing.
- The Hidden History of LSD & The First Woman to Try It ~ By Susanne Seiler
- Recounting the historical roots of LSD in the ergot fungus and highlights the largely unknown contribution of Susi Ramstein, the first woman to take LSD in a scientific setting. Tracing ergot’s use in ancient medicine to its industrial cultivation for Sandoz, the article shows how Albert Hofmann’s discovery emerged from centuries of human interaction with this potent fungus. Ramstein, Hofmann’s lab assistant, guided his first trip and later completed her own, helping establish safe research protocols. Though her role was long unrecognized, she remains a foundational figure in psychedelic history.
- Women as Warriors and the Power of the Womb ~ An Interview with Mama Ayana Iyi
- Detroit’s High Crown Warrior Priestess shares how her calling to protect and empower women emerged through personal lineage, martial arts, and healing her womb. Through psilocybin rituals and retreats, she guides women to release trauma, embrace darkness as a source of strength, and reclaim sacred feminine power. Her journeys through the “Multiverse” taught resilience, self-belief, and forgiveness. As a modern witch and healer, she urges women to support one another, shed limiting expectations, and stand authentically in their power, hoping to leave a legacy of truth, balance, and divine feminine strength.
- Walking Between Worlds: The Women Reimagining the Future of Ibogaine and Iboga ~ By Kimberly Adams
- A panel of women healers, lineage holders, and therapists explore the future of iboga and ibogaine, emphasizing that true healing comes from relationship, responsibility, and cultural respect. They highlighted the Bwiti tradition’s slow, relational approach, contrasting it with Western desires for quick fixes through ibogaine clinics. The conversation addressed tensions between ceremony and clinical use, the risks of extraction, and threats to the plant’s sustainability. They stressed that iboga works with people, not on them, requiring ongoing integration. Above all, the panel urged reciprocity, stewardship, and humility as iboga enters Western contexts.
- The Existential Mother Hypothesis ~ By Susan Guner
- The Existential Mother Hypothesis proposes that humanity’s core suffering stems from the loss of attuned maternal presence, creating a collective “field of absence.” Through trauma-informed psychotherapy and disciplined LSD inquiry, she identifies how a lack of attunement generates the Mother Wound, the Mother Contract, and the Existential Orphan, who inherits both. Guner argues that healing requires rebuilding environments of relational safety, what she calls the Existential Village, where regulation, truth-telling, and co-presence repair the fragmented field. Psychedelics may reveal the wound, but community restores coherence, guiding a collective return to genuine human presence.
- Psychedelic Medicine for Women ~ A Conversation with Dr. Grace Blest-Hopley
- Neuroscientist Grace Blest-Hopley traces her path from farm kid to university researcher by witnessing mental-health crises, strange party drug insights, and confronting the limits of women’s healthcare during her service in the British Army Reserve. Her own struggle to manage hormonal cycles and unexplained symptoms — and a surprising resolution after a psilocybin journey — pushed her to investigate how women’s biology shapes psychedelic experiences. She now focuses on PMDD, menstrual-cycle effects, pelvic pain, menopause, microdosing safety, and the need for rigorous, women-centered science. Her mission is clear: understand the female body, and build evidence worthy of it.
- Reclaiming Ownership of Your Body With Psychedelics ~ By Jessika Lagarde
- Exploring how psychedelics may help women break free from eating disorders and the crushing weight of negative body image. While large-scale research is still sparse, personal accounts reveal striking shifts: women describe psilocybin, ayahuasca, MDMA, and ketamine as catalysts for insight, emotional release, and a gentler relationship with their bodies. Therapists report that psychedelics can interrupt rigid thought loops, soften depression and anxiety, and create openings for real behavioral change when paired with integration and supportive practices. Though not a magic cure, evidence suggests psychedelic-assisted therapy could become a powerful tool in eating-disorder recovery.
- Artist Showcase ~ Amanda Sage
- The whisper of the divine feminine is growing louder, calling those who feel it to rise and shed inherited doubt and conditioning. We are whole beings living inside a false sense of separation, and the remedy is community. A living web is forming—connecting hearts, awakening awareness, and reminding us, through one another, of our place in the larger cosmos.
- Artist Showcase ~ Olivia Jane
- My art is shaped by early psychedelic exploration, global travel, and lived experience. Through healing, formal training, and sobriety, I’ve come to value these medicines as teachers: powerful only when used with reverence, cultural respect, and committed integration rather than escape.
- Artist Showcase ~ Stella Strzyzowska
- Envisioning women worldwide healing trauma and reclaiming their full, unapologetic selves through embodied, non-dogmatic psychedelic work. By honoring suppressed “wild” energy and tending generational wounds, we can normalize female power and seed matriarchal systems rooted in collective healing globally.
- Artist Showcase ~ Caren Chroma
- A prayer calling upon women to remember their innate, divine nature by unlearning false cultural narratives about worth and beauty. Through self-acceptance, gratitude, and embodied presence, true beauty emerges naturally, rooted in wholeness, not consumption or self-correction.
- Artist Showcase ~ Ashley Spero
- Visualizing a future of freely flowing, interconnected energies where art, movement, and wisdom align with nature and cosmos alike. Humans, animals, plants, and spirits vibrate together in a living system of clarity, vitality, and shared creative harmony.
- A Collective Future: The Rising Tide ~ By Lindsay Kent
- I see the future already unfolding through our choices, our art, and our shared remembering. As I listen to the women shaping this movement, a common current emerges—one rooted in embodiment, relationship, and belonging. I feel the reawakening of the divine feminine, calling us back to body wisdom, community, and care. Healing, I believe, begins when we restore what colonialism and patriarchy fractured and honor those who have always carried the medicines. As psychedelics return, I meet them with reverence—as teachers inviting us to remember together and rise as one.
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About Psychedelic Pathways Magazine
Psychedelic Pathways explores the intersection of two desires that many humans share: to alter perception of the world in which they live, and to stay safe while doing so.
You've heard them: whispers about the healing power of psychedelics, how they've helped others rewrite old narratives, dissolve fear, or reconnect with hidden parts of themselves.
You've also heard words of warning: stories of psychedelic experiments gone awry, causing real harm to real people.
Add to this the very real chance that what you've been told about psychedelics over your lifetime is untrue.
We offer stories, research, and foundational knowledge to help you make informed decisions.
We give you thought-provoking, accurate, and deeply personal perspectives from courageous seekers that meet you wherever you are on your path.
Everything on our pages is crafted with care to engage your mind and spirit.
We’re not here to push one way of thinking.
Your journey is yours, and we respect that.
Because the decision to engage with any mind-altering substance is, ultimately, yours alone.
Our contributors create for people like you, who know there is more to learn in the realm of psychedelics than what they've been taught.
In the pages of Psychedelic Pathways we're reminded that change is close at hand.
If you're brave enough to dive in, we’re thrilled to have you.
Category: Wellness & Meditation
Publisher: Psychedelic Pathways Magazine
Published: Bi-monthly
Language: English
Compatibility: iOS/Android App + Web Reader
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About The Publisher
Psychedelic Pathways Magazine is published by Focused Eye Enterprises, LLC, which was founded by writer, photographer, and psychonaut Strider John Peterson.... read more
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