How Psychedelics Are Healing Mental Health In Black Communities

The first time I heard about LSD, I was in ninth grade. One of my best friends had taken a tab and visited an aquarium. As she raved about the visuals and how they changed her life, I immediately thought, “Girl, you’re crazy!” Back then, psychedelics were something I associated with white hippies, Jimi Hendrix and Woodstock—not survival tools for a Black girl trying to find herself. Fast forward, and today, I’m a psychedelic facilitator traveling the world, sharing plant medicine that’s transformed my life in unimaginable ways. My journey into psychedelics wasn’t just personal exploration—it was a path toward healing identity wounds and mental health challenges as a Black woman navigating ancestral trauma, colonized systems of oppression, and spiritual disconnection. Traditional therapy had its limits. It wasn’t until I started taking psychedelics, exploring magic mushrooms, and sitting in ceremonies consuming sacred medicines like ayahuasca that I began to reclaim parts of myself I didn’t know were lost. These experiences helped me move beyond survival, allowing me to heal, access emotional clarity and embrace my Blackness beyond ways that conventional methods couldn’t reach. In this era of racial reckoning, cultural reclamation, and healing ancestral wounds, more BIPOC communities are returning to these medicines to tend to what therapy and pharmaceuticals can’t touch — the grief in our bones, the silence in our bloodlines, discrimination, and trauma from spiritual disconnection. 

Psychedelics and Indigenous Roots 

Psychedelics are mind-altering substances that can distort your sensory perceptions, which can cause hallucinations, conscious expansion, and powerful personal transformations, with origins that trace back to many world religions. The most well-known are LSD discovered by Albert Hofmann in 1943, psilocybin, mescaline, and DMT which can be in the form of ayahuasca or bufo, a toad poison to name a few. Indigenous communities across the globe have used psychedelics and plant medicine for thousands of years as tools for healing, spiritual connection, and community well-being. Ancient civilizations such as the Olmecs, Zapotec, Aztecs, and Mayan used them in sacred rituals still honored by Mazatec grandmothers of Mexico like María Sabina who prayed with mushrooms. Siberian shamans also used them for religious purposes by ingesting Amanita muscaria mushrooms in spiritual ceremonies, the red mushrooms with white polka dots that inspired Christmas folklore.Over 300 psychoactive plants in Africa have been identified, with iboga (used in the Bwiti tradition of Gabon) being the most well-known. This root is being studied for its effects on addiction and neurological healing as psychedelic drugs have profound effects on neuroplasticity. 

In these traditions, sacred plants like Ayahuasca, Peyote, San Pedro known as Wachuma, Iboga and fungi Psilocybin mushrooms, are not seen as drugs—but as sentient medicines with spirit and wisdom. These plants are typically consumed in ceremonial contexts, led by trained shamans or elders who carry ancestral knowledge passed down through generations as children also receive these sacred medicines. The ceremonies are rooted in ritual, prayer, song, and intention, designed to restore balance in the mind, body, and spirit. Whether used to treat illness, connect with ancestors, gain insight, or maintain harmony within the community, plant medicine is inextricably woven into the cultural, spiritual, and ecological fabric of Indigenous life. These practices honor the sacredness of the Earth and remind us that healing is relational—not just individual, but collective and intergenerational. 

As a medicine woman and psychedelic facilitator, I’ve spent over 12 years walking the path of healing, guided by Indigenous wisdom and the power of sacred plants. My work is rooted in integrity, discipline, and reverence—to my teachers, the medicines of the Earth, to spirit, and to the ancestral voices that continue to shape my journey. I’ve had the honor of sitting in ceremonies and studying with Mayan wisdom keepers, Huichol elders, Native American healers, Dogon initiates, Aztec chiefs, and Brazilian pajés (shamans), amongst many others. These lineages have opened my heart to the sacred cosmologies, rituals, and protocols that guide the respectful use of plant medicines. After years of mentorship and continual learning, I am not just a facilitator but a guardian of these traditions. My work includes traveling the world sharing sacred plant medicine at retreats, coaching and writing to reconnect Black and Brown bodies to a lineage of ancestral healing we were never meant to forget. Psychedelics helped me decolonize my identity, reclaim my ancestors, and realign with my purpose. These medicines taught me how to breathe again. How to forgive. How to love myself, my Blackness, my body, my existence and to remember. 

A Growing Cultural Shift: Psychedelics, Politics, and Propaganda

Recently, I saw Oprah share her evolving view on psychedelics in a social media reel. She spoke with Harvard Professor Michael Pollan on her podcast, acknowledging their mental health potential while admitting her previous bias. Artist A$AP Rocky appeared in Netflix’s Have a Good Trip, discussing how psychedelics helped him heal grief and ego wounds. Even in The Best Man: The Final Chapters, Black characters participated in an ayahuasca ceremony on the beach. On his latest album, André 3000 recalls turning into a jaguar in Hawaii on ayahuasca. Mainstream Black figures speaking on psychedelics marks a shift, especially in BIPOC communities where using them is often stigmatized. Still, it’s important to remember: these medicines aren’t new. Indigenous and Afro-diasporic cultures have long used them for healing and spiritual connection. Today, BIPOC communities are turning to psychedelics to reconnect with their roots, dismantle internalized oppression, support healing mental health, and release generational trauma. So why were so many of us, especially in Black and brown communities, taught to fear them? Identifying them as dangerous, criminal, or white. When psychedelics gained popularity in the 1960s, they threatened the status quo. Mind-expanding substances that unified the people were replaced with crack in the ’80s, and a generation was lost to trauma and incarceration. The U.S. government responded with the War on Drugs, a campaign that criminalized entheogens like LSD and mushrooms while targeting Black liberation movements. Meanwhile, psychedelic research was buried beneath propaganda. 

Over the past two decades, psychedelics have been reexamined by psychiatric researchers, with promising results for supporting mental health to find a cure for issues plaguing the West, like depression, PTSD, anxiety, and trauma. Studies from Johns Hopkins Medicine show that psilocybin can significantly reduce depression for up to a year. Ibogaine, a plant-derived psychoactive hallucinogenic alkaloid from a shrub plant Iboga, is a significant support in addressing opioid addiction. Used traditionally in African spiritual practices, Ibogaine is also helping veterans recover from traumatic brain injuries and addiction, especially at clinics like Ambio Life Sciences in Mexico. I’ve supported a private ceremony with their team in Tijuana and witnessed the power of these healing treatments. According to a Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience Report “Ayahuasca has reduced depression symptoms in clinical studies,” and can increase mindfulness. I have seen firsthand the results of this powerful Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) as I have worked with this plant consistently since 2019. Science is slowly catching up to what the ancestors already knew about the healing power of plant medicine. 

What Does A Psychedelic Journey Feels Like?

Psychedelic trips are highly transformational but hard to articulate as they are highly personalized experiences. Common sensations include time distortion, ego dissolution, synesthesia (like tasting colors, hearing textures, or feeling sounds), heightened sensory perception, altered awareness, hallucinations, and overwhelming feelings of oneness. These experiences can be life-changing but intense on a physical, mental, and spiritual level as your fabric of reality is expanded to help you heal or grow to new heights of self-understanding. 

I remember the first time I dropped LSD was in a cramped NYC studio in college. My friend was moving and pulled two frozen tabs from the back of her freezer like sacred relics. Somehow this was the cure for sadness. That night, the walls danced in sync with the music, and a curiosity arose that I couldn’t name. But it wasn’t until a winter trip in Brooklyn that Acid truly cracked me open—four tabs in, sitting under a tree on Eastern Parkway outside a friend’s place with no coat. Tripping, I watched my breath merge with the spirit of the tree. I wasn’t cold. I was connected. That moment planted a question in my soul that would guide the next 13 years of my life: “How do I feel this inner peace and calm sober?”  That question became my spiritual roadmap. It led me to Reiki, yoga, meditation, and mindfulness, and eventually to take my Buddhist vow in 2015. Through my herbal apprenticeship with Karen Rose at Sacred Vibes Apothecary, I discovered indigenous healing practices rooted in African traditions, Native American ceremony, and curanderismo. I began supporting underground ceremonies with local shamans. My life shifted dramatically. I was learning directly from African and Indigenous elders, walking a path of ancient initiation.

Eventually, I found myself in the Peruvian jungle, drinking ayahuasca with Shipibo elders, just three weeks after my grandmother passed. It was 2019, as I lay in a pitch-black tambo grieving the loss of six loved ones that year, with the sarcophagus of forest sounds blaring around me echoing the pain I was transmuting. The medicine was combing through my consciousness, unraveling colonial trauma removing centuries of white supremacy as lifetimes of discrimination were unbraided from my spirit, strand by strand. Ayahuasca whispered, “You don’t need this anymore.” I purged intergenerational pain into the jungle floor and I saw my grandmother in spirit. The saying “ayahuasca was like 20 years of therapy in one night” was valid. I spent the next two weeks off the grid, surrendering to discomfort, honoring grief, and liberating my lineage. For those unfamiliar, Ayahuasca is a sacred Amazonian brew made of Banisteriopsis caapi vine and chacruna leaves. It contains DMT and opens portals into the subconscious, the ancestral realms, and the soul itself. That experience fortified my path as a medicine woman. 

Over the years, I’ve co-facilitated retreats and held space for ceremonies with powerful master plants like ayahuasca, San Pedro, peyote, and iboga. While also holding space for more new-age approaches like MDMA and ketamine treatments with a clinic in NYC. Leading me to share psilocybin mushrooms and cacao heart-centered ceremonies that address grief, trauma, and lineage wounds to bring clients back to joy as medicine. I gently guide clients through a shamanic sound bath incorporating various tones, scales, and instruments from different cultures to create a cohesive soundscape for the psychedelic journey. My studies and work have allowed me to travel across the Americas, from the beaches of Jamaica and Costa Rica to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, the jungles of Peru, and my home in the Mountains of Mexico. Each land, elder, and medicine has shaped me into who I am today. Psychedelics helped me decolonize my identity, reconnect with my ancestors, release scarcity mindsets and realign with my life’s purpose. As a medicine woman and founder of Akashic Remedies, I offer plant ceremonies, integration coaching, and global retreats to help people facing PTSD, OCD, addiction, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and the spiritual disconnection caused by systemic oppression. My clients have included doctors, politicians, therapists, philanthropists, social workers, artists, and celebrities, each seeking to reconnect with themselves. Through this sacred work, I help others restore their nervous systems, reconnect to ancestral memory, and reclaim the parts of themselves they were never meant to forget. This work is not about getting high. It’s about truth and returning to wholeness. Today I blend ancient traditions with modern wellness practices as a mindfulness teacher and wellness expert focused on decolonizing our nervous system. I support others in reconnecting to purpose, passion, and play—using joy as medicine. I’ve witnessed a rising wave of Black therapists, practitioners, and everyday people turning to psychedelics not for escape but for liberation in their healing.

How are BIPOC working with psychedelics to heal?

Where in a psychedelic renaissance and sacred plant medicines are gaining mainstream popularity often at the cost of erasing the Indigenous and ancestral lineages that have long safeguarded these traditions. For BIPOC communities, the journey with psychedelics isn’t about following a fad—it’s about remembrance and generational healing. Facilitators like Brenden Durell, Ausar Hylton, myself, and others are ushering that return, creating spaces where Black and Brown people can access profound transformation, cultural reconnection, and ancestral wisdom. “I always say traditional therapy supported my mind to release and consciously forgive past trauma, but psychedelics supported it to leave my body. To leave my cells” shares Brenden Durell, a former professional athlete turned spiritual guide and intimacy coach known for his work on Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle. “The mind can choose to forgive, but the body decides when to let it go.” 

After over 14 years immersed in sacred plants like Ayahuasca, Wachuma, Cacao, Tobacco, and Psilocybin, Durell now facilitates transformative journeys. “I have witnessed plant medicines heal depression, anxiety, and self-worth issues. They offer a sense of interconnectedness to everything, which immediately calms anxiety and depression because we begin to feel a sense of togetherness. We no longer feel alone.” Durrell was born to a Puerto Rican mother and African American father. He struggled to fit in, explaining that an identity crisis marked his early life. “Plant medicines were and still are a compass for me,” he shares, helping him answer life’s core questions: “Who am I? What am I? Who am I supposed to be?” His global travels to over 55 countries and deep immersion in Indigenous traditions guided his path. “They taught me reverence and reconciliation for all the fam that came before me. They taught me how to love who I am as a culmination of all those ancestors.” His work echoes one truth: true intimacy begins with self and spirit. “Plant medicines help you finally see yourself as love, as perfection, as beauty, because they strip away all the judgments from society and culture and align you with your truest essence.”

That alignment and ancestral remembrance also guide mycologist, herbalist, and certified psilocybin facilitator Ausar Hylton, who has spent the last eight years living in Peru and working with Indigenous communities in the Andes and Amazon. “Psychedelics helped me understand exactly who I am, culturally, as a Black man,” he says. “It helped me understand my ancestors. It’s allowed me to open my heart to a degree I couldn’t imagine—opening me up to more compassion, empathy, understanding, love, support, and so much more for our people and culture.” Ausar, who studies ancient African civilizations focusing on Kemet and Egyptian traditions, sees psychedelics as powerful tools for reconnecting with lineage and cultural memory. “For people whose ancestral ties were disrupted by slavery, colonization, or forced migration, these substances can open doors to a felt sense of belonging, guidance, and identity beyond imposed narratives.”

Both Brenden and Ausar emphasize the need for culturally specific healing spaces that prioritize safety, integrity, and trauma-informed care. “I support the BIPOC community by first creating an unshakable sense of safety in building trust and assurance that, as souls, our capacity to be great is greater than our capacity to suffer,” says Durell. “Safety looks different for everyone, so I encourage my community to discover what it means for them individually.” As a practitioner of the Yoruba Ifá tradition, Durell serves as what he calls a “graceful gatekeeper,” upholding spiritual hygiene and trust within each container. He now facilitates alongside Indigenous elders in Ecuador, leading with “safety, soulfulness, and deep respect for the medicine and those who carry it.”

Meanwhile, Ausar offers BIPOC-centered retreats in Peru and Jamaica, connecting people to their ancestral roots, power, and wisdom. “Psychedelics like psilocybin, wachuma, and ayahuasca can facilitate access to suppressed emotions and memories, helping individuals process grief and trauma in a supported setting,” he explains. “For many Black folks, this can mean confronting the pain of both personal and inherited wounds in a way that feels safe, compassionate, and embodied.” So, what can you expect if you begin exploring psychedelics for healing? “These medicines offer more than emotional healing,” says Hylton. “They offer reconnection to land, lineage, and the truth of who we’ve always been.”

Safety, Respect & Integration 

As psychedelics re-enter the mainstream, we’re watching a psychedelic gold rush. But who’s talking about sustainability, cultural respect, reciprocity, or the need for trauma-informed, racially competent care? In a rush to capitalize, Silicon Valley tech CEOs are trying ayahuasca and microdosing while white-led companies patent ancient wisdom for profits, pushing plant medicine into endangered rates for capitalistic gains. Again, we are witnessing the colonization of traditional technologies while many Indigenous people still face land theft, deforestation, and exclusion from these booming industries. While ancient medicines like Ayahuasca, psilocybin, and san pedro become popular wellness tools, facilitators like Brenden Durell and Ausar Hylton are urging people, especially BIPOC communities, to move with caution. “Not all ceremonies and plant medicines are the same,” Durell warns. “We want a cultural experience led by leaders from the cultures the medicine hails from. So no, you don’t want to go drink Ayahuasca in a Brooklyn basement with Rob from Bushwick.” His words reflect a larger concern: the commodification of sacred traditions. While some seek to normalize plant medicine, Durell reminds us, “When something becomes mainstream, it often becomes just a product, and the spirit of the plant leaves.” Warning, “It then becomes a commodity, something people take for granted without any respect.” 

The truth is that psychedelics are not a cure-all. They can be destabilizing, retraumatizing, and even dangerous without the proper support. Safety starts with understanding the lineage of the medicine, the integrity of the space-holder, and our intentions. “In my spaces, I open conversations around the purpose of psychedelics and pose a ton of open-ended questions so they can get clear on their intuitive gut feeling because purpose creates powerful intention,” shares Durell. For many BIPOC, this also means reclaiming spaces historically whitewashed. Hylton urges: “Take your time, make sure you are with other POC facilitators, make sure you know the spaces, trust the space and do research on the plants you’re taking. Trust yourself.” Durell adds: “Be cautious not to accept other people’s experiences as their own,” emphasizing that “seeking out a true experience is sometimes more important than simply ingesting the plant medicine.” Respecting psychedelics means more than honoring the entire journey, from the source of the medicine to life after the ceremony. 

Many indigenous elders have fought for centuries to keep these medicines safe. That said, be respectful of the tradition and make sure you adhere to the psychedelic and plant medicine guidelines prior to and after your experiences. “Post-ceremony is positioned as the most challenging part of the experience because integrating and returning to life with a new set of eyes can be daunting and unfamiliar,” Durell notes. “Integration is often underestimated.” He recommends “scheduled solitude, a clean diet, mineral-rich water, restorative sleep, and supporting gut health” after the ceremony, adding that “the gut contains roughly 100 million neurons that communicate directly with the brain—the same brain that just underwent a deep reset through the medicine.” I often remind my clients: “The real ceremony starts when you leave—the ceremony of life.” Integration is where the healing takes root to build lasting sustainable systems of self-care. As psychedelic spaces continue to evolve, the call is clear: move with reverence to honor the cultures these medicines come from and healing as sacred work. That’s why integration, ceremony, proper space-holders, and community matter. That’s why ancestral respect matters. It’s not enough to trip. We need to trip responsibly. That means honoring the land, the lineages, and the lives that made these medicines possible. That means reparations and land back. Protecting sacred plants from over-harvesting or commodification, supporting BIPOC-led retreat centers and facilitators, and understanding the difference between ceremonial use and cultural appropriation. 

Psychedelics, not the synthetic ones like MDMA and ketamine, have been used for millennia by Indigenous cultures for healing, divination, and rites of passage. These Earth-based technologies encoded with spiritual intelligence “ the original AI,” Durell shares “because the technology of plant medicines is, in truth, the original intelligence our ancestors worked with.” Plant medicines, when used with respect to their Indigenous and African roots, offer more than a psychedelic experience — they offer a decolonial portal to wholeness. What was once taboo in our communities, stigmatized with crack, criminality, and cultural fear, is now being reclaimed and reinterpreted as sacred. We are “no longer seeing them as drugs, as “white people sh**,” or as criminal.” Durrell shares. Psychedelics, for many of us, are not a trend. They are a return to ancestral medicine and wisdom. Psychedelics and plant medicine offer liberation from colonial ways of self-understanding while providing you the freedom to live in your true essence. But they’re not a magic bullet, you have to be willing to do your work. I’ve gone from “this ain’t for me” to becoming a psychedelic facilitator who knows the profound benefits they have for mental health issues like depression, anxiety and PTSD. They remind you that your healing ripples outward. It’s ancestral and communal.