Making of a Modern Shaman: Safety, Education & the Future of Psychedelics

Podcast Highlights

• Upbringing, education, and journey to the Amazon
• The rigorous path of an Ayahuasca apprentice
• Involvement in the shamanic revolution
• Pioneering ayahuasca jungle tours with Blue Morpho
• Integrating shamanic plant medicine into Western society
• Shaman vs. guide: Crucial distinctions in psychedelic work
• Inside Blue Morpho Academy's innovative programs
• Elevating safety and standards in the psychedelic renaissance

Show Links

1. Website
2. Blue Morpho Tours
3. Blue Morpho Academy
4. Mystery School
5. Instagram
6. Facebook

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This episode is sponsored by Soltara Healing Center - a renowned retreat center working with the Amazonian plant medicine ayahuasca under the guidance of Indigenous Peruvian Shipibo healers. With locations in Costa Rica and Peru, Soltara specializes in transformative plant medicine healing in intimate group sizes with extensive before- and aftercare support. Working with trauma-informed facilitators, experienced therapists, and distinguished advisors, including Dennis McKenna, Dr. Gabor Maté, and Bia Labate, the center offers a uniquely integrative approach.

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Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Paul F. Austin: Welcome back to the Psychedelic Podcast. This is your host, Paul F. Austin, and today I'm talking to Hamilton Souther, master shaman and innovator in plant medicine and also the founder of Blue Morpho, one of the first healing centers in the

[00:00:14] Hamilton Souther: Amazon. It's important to understand that the shamanic archetype is trained from a deep calling for many, many years to be able to wield and understand the depth of knowledge necessary.

[00:00:28] Hamilton Souther: To be considered a master. And so it's important to just look for that and support that because then you're supporting the people who took the time to gather those skills in that capacity. You're honoring the effort that they put in over, you know, many decades to. Understand the practices at the depth that they do.

[00:00:50] Paul F. Austin: Welcome to the psychedelic podcast by third wave audio, mycelium connecting you to the luminaries and thought leaders of the psychedelic renaissance. We bring you illuminating conversations with scientists, therapists, Entrepreneurs, coaches, doctors, and shamanic practitioners, exploring how we can best use psychedelic medicine to accelerate personal healing, peak performance, and collective transformation.

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[00:03:00] Advertisement: Soltara also collaborates with clinical psychologists and an esteemed board of advisors including Dr. Gabor Mate, Dr. Dennis McKenna, and Dr. Bia Labate. To support a uniquely integrative approach to healing, with decades of combined experience holding ceremonies and extensive before and after care support, their team allows you to experience in depth healing in a safe and loving environment.

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[00:04:32] Paul F. Austin: Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we're diving into the fascinating world of shamanic plant medicine with a guest who's truly bridging ancient wisdom and modern innovation. Uh, the pleasure of speaking with Hamilton's er. A master shaman whose journey took him from the tech driven Silicon Valley area to the heart of the Amazon.

[00:04:50] Paul F. Austin: We explore his incredible transformation and the founding of Blue Morpho, the first healing center in the Peruvian Amazon, focused on Amazonian natural medicine. Our conversation touches on the critical importance of education, lineage, and safety in shamanic practices, as well as the distinctions between psychedelic guides and shamans.

[00:05:09] Paul F. Austin: In 2002, at the age of 23 and fresh out of university with a degree in anthropology, Hamilton Souther opened Blue Morpho, pioneering a new approach to healing in the Peruvian Amazon. He's a unique figure in the psychedelic space, with one foot in ancient traditions and another in cutting edge technology.

[00:05:27] Paul F. Austin: Hamilton is actively involved in Web3 and AI, not just keeping pace with the future but helping to shape it. His mission is to awaken consciousness and harness technology for the betterment of humanity. Thank you. In our conversation together, Hamilton and I discuss his journey from the tech world to becoming a master shaman, the founding and mission of Blue Morpho, the role of education, lineage, and safety in shamanic practices, the differences between psychedelic guides and shamans, and Hamilton's vision for bringing greater education, Standardization and safety to the [00:06:00] psychedelic renaissance.

[00:06:01] Paul F. Austin: I met Hamilton over a year ago. I had heard about his work for many years, so it really was cool to get him on the phone. And there may be some skepticism coming into this episode because he's a white dude who's working with ayahuasca in the Amazon. But this dude really knows, uh, the landscape. He has incredible chops.

[00:06:18] Paul F. Austin: He's been down there and living in the Amazon for over 20 years and consistently His center is talked about as one of the premier ayahuasca centers in South America. So I really think you're going to enjoy this. Keep an open mind coming in and let us know what you think about the episode afterwards.

[00:06:35] Paul F. Austin: And as always, follow The Psychedelic Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Share this with a friend or family member and join us on our free community platform at community. the3rdwave. co Hey folks, welcome back to the Psychedelic Podcast. Today, we are here with Hamilton Souther, a trained master shaman who in 2004 became the first Westerner to be recognized as a Amazonian plant medicine expert.

[00:07:02] Paul F. Austin: Hamilton's experience encompasses 20 years of Using sacred plants, he has worked with over 15, 000 individuals during that time and has guided over 3, 000 plant medicine ceremonies, including 1, 500. Ayahuasca ceremonies. And Hamilton, I wanted to bring you on the show in particular because you're a Westerner who has really followed the shamanic path and you've done it at a high level of integrity for many, many years.

[00:07:23] Paul F. Austin: So I think to get your perspective and a sense of your journey would be very insightful for our listeners today. So I'm really grateful you've joined us for the show and welcome.

[00:07:33] Hamilton Souther: Awesome, Paul. Thank you so much. It's great to be here and happy to share my story in whatever wisdom I can. Where are you from originally?

[00:07:40] Hamilton Souther: I'm curious. Originally from the San Jose Bay Area. I was born in San Jose and grew up in that area. Was

[00:07:48] Paul F. Austin: that, um, was that a community or an environment that you really loved and appreciated? Were there, like, in terms of growing up there and being in the Bay, how, how did that maybe [00:08:00] influence or did it even at all influence your early kind of plant medicine path?

[00:08:05] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, I think it's all an influence. It's a hyper competitive society and the people there are very driven for success. And, you know, that obviously created the tech industry the way we know it in the world today, including all the tools we're using to even have this conversation. So, um, it was a big deal at that time.

[00:08:25] Hamilton Souther: I think it instilled in me values that became very important in how I approached plant medicine, including the idea of education and training and the importance for it, uh, the need for great teachers and mentors, and ultimately the kind of dedication that it takes to become good at something. And that applies just as much to plant medicines as it does any other field in the world.

[00:08:47] Hamilton Souther: And so I think that having that experience about, uh, the idea of thriving and striving for excellence was important in my youth. Did

[00:08:55] Paul F. Austin: you work in the tech space, like the dot com boom, that area before becoming, before stepping into plant medicine? Or did you pretty much go from university into a pretty deep,

[00:09:04] Hamilton Souther: uh,

[00:09:06] Paul F. Austin: Shamanic path.

[00:09:07] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, no, in my case, the dot com boom happened during my education. So I was in high school when all of that started. And so I had very little frame of reference for it. Um, I was an athlete, so we didn't really, you know, weren't in the labs so much. And so Uh, I was sort of a more social scientist scholar.

[00:09:27] Hamilton Souther: And so, uh, that part of the tech boom kind of passed me by and I left to go to Colorado and Boulder for university and part of that was the nature and the outdoors and I focused on anthropology and really studying people. So I was interested in ancient cultures, I was interested in, uh, modern cultures.

[00:09:45] Hamilton Souther: And ultimately really interested in studying the people that were alive today through an anthropological lens. So I missed that tech bubble, and funny enough, the whole career has circled around that now I'm involved in a number of tech projects. So, both [00:10:00] in AI and Web3, so it's kind of the second big boom of all of that I'm actually involved in now, but Having come to it from a plant medicine background.

[00:10:09] Paul F. Austin: When And so you were at cu, like Boulder, Colorado, or? Yeah. You went to, you went to cu because Naropa is also up here. I didn't know if Yeah, if you had, uh, so you went to cu, you studied anthropology. Did you ever learn about, uh, Richard Evans Schultes and sort of plant medicine and ethnobotany in university?

[00:10:27] Paul F. Austin: Like what kind of, tell us a little bit about if your path over, crossed over with Add it all.

[00:10:32] Hamilton Souther: Yeah. Very little. Um. I knew of it, I mean, we had heard of it, but it wasn't something that was so important. I was more interested in the intersection of, uh, indigenous cultures and this kind of idea of other. It wasn't so much about plant medicines, although in the studies we came across, uh, the belief systems of tribal peoples and their use of visionary substances.

[00:10:58] Hamilton Souther: So I'd been introduced to the idea of it and found it fascinating. Although I didn't conceive at that time that it could be real or true or shared with Westerners. I thought it might have been a point of view or a lens on reality, but not. A fundamental fabric of reality itself until much later in my life.

[00:11:18] Paul F. Austin: And so what, what then, what brought you into medicine work? Where, why is it that you found yourself in the Amazon? Sort of, where does your story begin when it comes to ayahuasca and this path?

[00:11:30] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, I had graduated from the university and kind of had lost my mentor in the year that I was graduating. And that with that, the direction that I had in my life and Um, I then didn't have a direction anymore and I'd gotten to this place where I felt very lost and my mom said to me that if I didn't want my life, then I should just give it to spirit.

[00:11:50] Hamilton Souther: Like, I wasn't in any kind of like notion of self harm, I just didn't know what to do. I'm like, I don't know what to do with this. I don't want this. She goes, well, give it to spirit. So I gave my life to spirit and [00:12:00] spirit answered in a really big way. And once I had that sort of like climactic moment, you know, where I give my life to spirit, I started to have an awakening.

[00:12:09] Hamilton Souther: And I understand now that that, that'd be very common for anybody. It's not specifically like powerful to solely my story. It's what happens when you move beyond that fixation of your own ego. And you realize that beyond your ego, there already is something much greater than you that's out there. Really influencing everybody.

[00:12:26] Hamilton Souther: So that happened for me in my early twenties. And it also happens to be a very guiding aspect of our lives, whether we're aware of it or not, I just became aware of it at that time. And so, uh, you also have, when that happens, a kind of extraordinary vision or premonition that, or a connection you feel to a greater guidance here in life.

[00:12:49] Hamilton Souther: And so I followed that down to the Amazon. And was really following spirit for a number of years, looking for this answer to, you know, that deeper question, who are we and what's happening and what's going on here. Um, that led me to ayahuasca. And then in my first ayahuasca visions, it was very clear that I was supposed to stay there and train.

[00:13:09] Hamilton Souther: And, um, ultimately fulfilled that through a subsequent series of years.

[00:13:16] Paul F. Austin: Tell us a little bit about the intensity and frequency of that when you, when you start to enter that training path to work with ayahuasca. Uh, what does that involve? What, what are the protocols? What are the, you know, what does apprenticeship look like within that context?

[00:13:32] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, ayahuasca apprenticeship is unique to each culture and each lineage, but there's a thread that ties them all together. And some are, uh, much stricter and harder and some are a little bit more lenient and all of them test you to your merit and your mettle and, and how you can really survive it. For me, it was a series of what they called dieta, uh, which is this traditional time of fasting and drinking of medicinal plants, and also the [00:14:00] inclusion of ayahuasca ceremonies, uh, as part of that.

[00:14:03] Hamilton Souther: So, I was trained in ayahuasca, the trees that they call palos, the trees of the forest. I was trained in the, uh, Sanangos as well, which is another kind of visionary plant. Toe, it's another visionary plant. and mapacho tobacco, solely in the Amazon. I was trained to work with Madre Coca. In the Andes and San Pedro in the Andes as well.

[00:14:23] Hamilton Souther: So I had this sort of broad spectrum of disciplines that I was being taught. And so that just looks like a lot of plant medicine experience. And my life at that time, I wanted to dedicate myself fully to that and I was fascinated by the transformative and healing arts that the, uh, or the shaman knew.

[00:14:44] Hamilton Souther: And so it looked really like DTAs and ceremonies and DTAs and ceremonies to a frequency of about eight to nine months of year in Deta and anywhere from 120 to 150 ceremonies, ayahuasca ceremonies a year.

[00:14:59] Paul F. Austin: Wow.

[00:15:00] Hamilton Souther: So quite intense. And you were

[00:15:01] Paul F. Austin: doing it the, you were doing this at a time when not. There weren't a lot of Westerners necessarily who had started this path or who had started to go down to the Amazon.

[00:15:11] Paul F. Austin: There were a few here and there, sure, but Uh, it was quite early. What was it like to be, you know, in 2004, to be in, in, in the Amazon drinking medicine, working with ayahuasca? What did friends, families, culture, like, did you have any sort of awareness or perspective of what people outside the Amazon thought or were you just so committed and dedicated to that practice that the entire world sort of shut off, outside world shut off at that point?

[00:15:42] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, it's a great question. There were both. Um. The outside world shut off for me except when I would go visit, and at first there was very little interest in what we were doing, but I knew that I had discovered something very important, and I knew that it was going to become more and more important.

[00:15:59] Hamilton Souther: There's [00:16:00] obviously tremendous legal prohibition at the time that still exists in many places around this, so it was difficult to foresee how this would expand and grow, but The impact that it had as a true medicine and the way that the culture treated it as a medicine represented something very important to medicine in the greater understanding of that context.

[00:16:21] Hamilton Souther: So just medicine global needed this medicine to be part of it. And there was a gap where there was a need for these kinds of visionary substances. So I knew that that was going to expand in popularity. I didn't know exactly how it would be. When we were working, we were really Just in our own bubble, you know, connected.

[00:16:39] Hamilton Souther: But then I also saw this neo shamanic revolution start forming. And while I wasn't as, uh, forward in the organization of conferences and, uh, those kinds of events, I started to hear about them happening in different places. There are other organizers and I focused early on our work and large scale publication and publicity at that time.

[00:17:01] Hamilton Souther: So I was putting the word out to the world, Hey, you know, wake up everybody. There is this incredible medicine that's necessary and we're in a mental health crisis on a global level and there's this medicine that can tremendously help it. And there were others that were now organizing around that, that had those skills and this, this whole resurgence in.

[00:17:23] Hamilton Souther: Indigenous medicine happened over the course of 10 years, and it even got, you know, named the Neo Shamanic Revolution, and I'm just grateful to have been And one of the pioneers in that and supportive of its expansion.

[00:17:36] Paul F. Austin: And so was this around the time that you started Blue Morpho? At what point does the Academy and your retreat center come into the picture of your overall trajectory?

[00:17:47] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, Blue Morpho started, but actually during my apprenticeship. So Blue Morpho first was a jungle adventure business. which was taking people out to the area of the forest where I was apprenticing and [00:18:00] living. And within six months, people weren't interested in the jungle adventure. They wanted to drink plant medicines.

[00:18:06] Hamilton Souther: And so, so I was translating for my teachers. I wasn't practicing myself. I was, you know, a new apprentice. I didn't have the skills to be practicing myself. So I was just translating for them and letting the local mystics and healers work with them that were interested in helping try to facilitate that, that relationship and continue learning myself.

[00:18:28] Hamilton Souther: And just from the results that we had, things naturally grew. We didn't seek any kind of other greater marketing or promotion, et cetera. It just happened that people came down, turned out to be writers and they wrote about their experience and it was published or other people started to share as social media started about their experiences.

[00:18:45] Hamilton Souther: And this natural kind of, uh, publicity and growth took place. And it was an interesting, exciting time. Blue Morpho grew as a center between, you know, by 2002 to 2006, we were figuring it out. We were pioneers in what this. Kind of, uh, really kind of very specialized plant medicine experience needed to be like and how people could get the most out of it.

[00:19:10] Hamilton Souther: And then it grew exponentially. So pretty soon by 2006 to 2007, we were hosting 30 to 40 people a week. That were coming to have these experiences, um, and continued on that pace all the way until COVID. And we're back to that pace now. And so, uh, Blue Morpho was a, you know, this epicenter at that time for change and epicenter for sharing of the medicine.

[00:19:37] Paul F. Austin: That's, that's phenomenal. So very early on, obviously the interest in ayahuasca has 10x or, I mean, I don't really know the statistics specific to ayahuasca, but it's grown exponentially just in the last probably 6, 7, 8 years. Blue morpho was probably 10 years even prior to that, right? 15 years prior to that you were starting to do medicine [00:20:00] work.

[00:20:00] Paul F. Austin: What were, what were maybe some of the hardest, harder lessons you had to learn as you were, you know, stepping into this space, coming from, uh, the Bay Area and then in Boulder and into the jungle. So you as a kind of a Western white man, person, perspective, what were, yeah, what were some kind of points of challenge?

[00:20:21] Paul F. Austin: or edges that you came up against?

[00:20:24] Hamilton Souther: I think everything was a challenge in an ed. It was all, it was all difficult. Uh, the first was to get the lineage to open up and accept me. They allowed participants to experience their medicine, but not teach it. It was a taboo to teach outside of the bloodlines. Um, so just to get accepted was a huge Honor and a tremendous edge case.

[00:20:49] Hamilton Souther: I think then it was to get accepted by the community and have the community actually embrace the fact that now this taboo had been broken. So one was to get the lineage to accept and then the community to be okay about it. Uh, ultimately we did that by providing medicine and healing the, the participants, uh, from those communities, members of those communities.

[00:21:14] Hamilton Souther: And um, then it was to figure out how to organize. We had to interface with the government and explain to the local government what we were trying to do and wanting to achieve. And we had to get plant medicine, uh, from just an indigenous practice to a part of tourism, something that they could understand that foreigners would come here and experience this and that it would be okay and it would be safe and that they would be able to continue their journey.

[00:21:40] Hamilton Souther: So there was that interfacing with the government, which was a also a tremendous honor to get that opportunity to. Think about a brand new aspect of tourism and what that could look like for people. Um, and then it was really learning how to work with people from all over the world of all different ages, going through such an epic [00:22:00] and intense experience as ayahuasca can be.

[00:22:03] Hamilton Souther: So, you know, that was also a tremendous edge case in learning. And along that way, it was pushing on me personally, um, you know, giving me the opportunity to work through my own fears and doubts. And embrace a greater form of faith and understanding of spirit that, you know, it really does work itself out.

[00:22:21] Hamilton Souther: And as long as you stay aligned with really clear values, you can navigate the crunchier and more difficult times.

[00:22:30] Paul F. Austin: Yeah, that sense of staying centered, presence. You know, the work even we do with medicine helps us to, you know, sort of access this elasticity for our consciousness where we're able to handle and navigate more complexity.

[00:22:47] Paul F. Austin: And I also find that it provides an impetus for deep purpose and meaning. So these challenges that arise or come up Are able to be seen through because there's a deeper, as you said, a deeper connection or a deeper sense of spirit or divinity that's, that's, that's connected to it. And so these, these pioneers like yourself and other folks who have been doing this work for 15, 20 years in the Amazon, it's, it's, it's rare.

[00:23:16] Paul F. Austin: There's, there's just a handful. And so to be at that, to be at that inflection point. Must've come with a lot of, uh, excitement, but also challenge and difficulty and unknown. I, I experienced that too. With Third Wave and microdosing and having been around for 10 years or so now, the broader bridge we're trying to create right now is between kind of Western modernity and psychedelics and it feels like what you did in the Amazon was a really great microcosm and laboratory and I think that, that's what's leading to my next questions.

[00:23:54] Paul F. Austin: Like what are some of the lessons or insights that you've learned over the years? that you [00:24:00] think are applicable or would be applicable to how the West, as an example, can learn from plant medicine, can work with plant medicine, can be sort of successful in its integration of plant medicine. What would be some of your observations?

[00:24:14] Hamilton Souther: Um, those are great questions. First, the plant medicine is not a one size fits all shoe for medical problems. It's miraculous, but it's not the miracle, and it needs to find its place within the other kinds of medicine. I think the second thing is that there are many people who are not candidates for it.

[00:24:34] Hamilton Souther: And we need to really watch for that as this spreads to understand, um, just like when you go to a doctor, there's a diagnosis and a very clear training in what's appropriate and not appropriate to prescribe, the same applies with these kinds of plant medicines. Um, the third is that the shamans slash medical vegetalistas slash mystics that practice with this medicine go through the same duration of training as Western doctors.

[00:25:04] Hamilton Souther: So somehow the indigenous people figured out it takes 10 to 20 years to produce a really good medicine person. And it's somehow the Western medical system figured out it takes 10 to 20 years to produce a really good doctor. And they both use the term medico for each other. Like, so the training is something that is incredibly important and we have to respect that.

[00:25:31] Hamilton Souther: Even though it seems like right now in the psychedelic renaissance that a lot of people want to be guides. And they want to be facilitators sooner than they've had the, the experience to amass. So we need to just be careful about that. And I think the responsibility right now is on the participants to demand quality service from their facilitators.

[00:25:51] Hamilton Souther: So it's, it's the responsibility of the individual to say, How long have you been practicing and who did you train with and do the background [00:26:00] check to understand that there is a lineage there backing this person of the, you know, transference of knowledge along the way. Um, the, the final piece is an emphasis on safety.

[00:26:12] Hamilton Souther: In the Amazon, safety comes first about all of these plants, and there's a very clear tradition and culture about how to use them in a safe nature that is not transgressed or broken. And I've, you know, explained it in our academy that plant spirit medicine is not a drug culture. It's a medicine culture and there's two very different things.

[00:26:34] Hamilton Souther: The Western drug party culture going to now explore into plant medicines is a, is a big, big cultural leap to take. And you can turn plant medicines into a drug culture, but you can't turn a drug culture into plant medicine. You leave a drug culture when you come to the sacredness of the plants in the way that they're used in their traditional form.

[00:26:58] Hamilton Souther: And so that's a huge thing to understand in the expansion of the psychedelic Renaissance. That there will be experimentation, but the true medicine practices have, uh, intention, a diagnosis. It's a process, a treatment plan, an actual treatment associated with it. It is not just a source of experimentation or exploration spiritually.

[00:27:21] Hamilton Souther: And so I think that that's also necessary to understand. And then with that, an appropriate, yeah, just, I guess, method or plan that you would follow. You know, and I see it in the microdosing culture just as well. I see people that are taking doses that aren't microdoses calling it microdoses. And they're, they're actually macro dosing and they're, they're thinking they're micro dosing.

[00:27:44] Hamilton Souther: And they're like, well, today I didn't feel the micro dose. So I took five micro doses and I, that's not a micro dose. So the dosing is also incredibly important. You know, you don't, you can't take 10 micro doses on a day. Like, well, [00:28:00] you know, I drank a six pack of beer. Like I had one or six. That's not a micro dose anymore.

[00:28:04] Hamilton Souther: Like, so just framing this thing correctly. I think is also really important. And then also understanding that there is a way to work with the plant safely so that we can get over at the other side of it, you know, so. To get over the fears and the propaganda that has been put out about this. Um, I don't think it's fair to, to treat the plant medicines under the same scrutiny of other kinds of drugs that really are harmful.

[00:28:29] Hamilton Souther: The plant medicines are actual real medicines. They've been utilized by our ancestors for thousands of years. They have a real purpose within our society. They're not used to harm or destroy society in a traditional sense at all. Um, so I think from that perspective, it's also important to get over our fears.

[00:28:47] Hamilton Souther: There's a lot of fear in the ayahuasca space about the potency of the medicine. So we want to get over that as well so that the appropriate candidates can receive the medicine that they need.

[00:28:56] Paul F. Austin: And I like how distinctly you're drawing these parallels between mainstream medical, we don't have to call it main, but Western medical, doctors.

[00:29:07] Paul F. Austin: Right, prescribers, protocols, treatments, right, and the use of plant medicine in ayahuasca. In indigenous context and cultures and even in some ancient context and cultures. And I think there's a way in which the indigenous system of medicine is already so much more interconnected that there's like a web that's already been established that ayahuasca easily sort of seamlessly.

[00:29:36] Paul F. Austin: Fits within, whereas in, in, in Western medicine and how that overlaps with psychedelics, it feels like a lot of people, even if you look at the lineage of like how the Greeks worked with psychedelics in black medicine, it was for the spiritual or religious practice, there wasn't necessarily. You know, a medical treatment that people were going in for, or [00:30:00] this diagnosis, or this, you know, having this sickness, which I understand does happen a lot with ayahuasca and yopo and huachuma these other plant medicines in South America.

[00:30:09] Paul F. Austin: So I just also want to speak to that, that the, the religious sort of spiritual component is, is important. Sometimes that can be used to heal and that's the intention. And sometimes it may be for kind of communion, connection. I mean, I hesitate to use the word exploration, but almost like psycho in a psychonautic kind of fashion, you know.

[00:30:36] Hamilton Souther: The plant medicines. First, when we look at it from a traditional perspective, it's called plant spirit medicine. So there's a plant component, there's a spirit component, and then there's a medical component. And the medical component, you know, is the part of the transformation and healing that takes place, and the spiritual component It can be seen as a fully spiritual or religious purpose, like religions in the Western sense come from an understanding of the sincerity of belief and practice behind them.

[00:31:08] Hamilton Souther: And the Medico have an incredibly strong notion and sincerity to their belief. And so there's this union where spirit is seen as energy and a kind of animus that it's not just a dead empty universe, it's an animated universe. Where there's a greater consciousness and a greater intelligence that's behind all of this, or part of all of this.

[00:31:35] Hamilton Souther: And that's what they refer to as spirit. And so we can dissect that and create these individualized verticals, which is like, this is the spiritual exploration, and this is the consciousness exploration, and this is the medical healing. But in an ayahuasca ceremony, it's all three at the same time. And the components, they ebb and flow through your experience, [00:32:00] impacting and becoming part of the journey of that experience.

[00:32:03] Hamilton Souther: So, there's this part where you can't move on if you don't release the illness. And the illness has this greater context to it. It's not just random matter that needs to come out. It has this psychological context associated with it, and it seems to be connected to something much greater. And I think that's where then the idea of plant spirit medicine really comes true and you can truly focus on one aspect of that or you can receive that in its holistic expression.

[00:32:38] Hamilton Souther: So

[00:32:39] Paul F. Austin: one question that's coming up that we pre prefaced a little bit in the intro and we talked about before we went on is just what it's like to, um, and we've talked about it a little bit, but I want to ask a more specific question around it. Yeah. What it's like to be someone who's been in the Amazon for almost more than 20 years now, um, who came from a Western context.

[00:33:00] Paul F. Austin: You talked about this path being 10 to 20 years of training to become a really good, uh, uh, shaman, you know, shaman person, shamanic practitioner in particular. Um, what do you see sort of? What do you see as the difference between, you hinted at it a little bit, but the difference between a guide and a shamanic practitioner?

[00:33:25] Paul F. Austin: What are the elements that a shaman needs to master or know or understand that someone who's just simply guiding, like I, we have a retreat as part of our training, practitioner training, I guide a ceremony for, with mushrooms for about 40 to 45 people, right? I don't pretend to be a shaman, I'm not, I'm not a shaman.

[00:33:45] Paul F. Austin: I'm not invoking or I'm not doing anything shamanically, but I facilitate, I guide the ceremony. So what do you think are some of the distinctions then? That really sets apart a shaman, and someone who's listening to this who might be, I'm interested in exploring this path, or I feel like I'm [00:34:00] aligned for it, what might be the signs

[00:34:03] Hamilton Souther: or the indicators of that?

[00:34:04] Hamilton Souther: First, that somebody's gone through shamanic training. I think it's important to understand that the shamanic arts were created out of these plant medicines. They're not the plant medicines themselves. So, like, you can have somebody who takes mushrooms, like you just mentioned, and somebody who takes mushrooms and practices shamanic arts, and they're now two different experiences because you've added, you know, this under, this other layer of understanding to it.

[00:34:30] Hamilton Souther: And those art forms are passed down generation after generation. So the first thing I look for is just, did somebody learn those arts and do they have a deep understanding of them? Have they mastered the nature of those arts? And you can see that come through in the form of a chanting an icaro, the use of percussion and instrumentation, the use of mythology and culture and ability to explain the nature of the experience and contextualize it.

[00:34:57] Hamilton Souther: I think your more modern shamanic guides use more psychology or pop psychology as a way of describing it, or more westernized coaching methodologies. That have been created to try to, you know, guide and support that experience. Another is, do they understand the nature of spirit and how to work with spirit?

[00:35:18] Hamilton Souther: Uh, spirit itself is a, a very discreet, concrete thing for shamans. So it's not just a belief about something or, or they attachment to a certain kind of animal, but rather a true wielding and using of different energies. That change and shift the visionary or psychedelic experience, then there are medicine arts.

[00:35:40] Hamilton Souther: Do they know how to heal certain kinds of problems and do they have a track record associated with it? There are some shamans that focus entirely on helping connect you with spirit. And there are others that utilize spirit to transform and heal. Aspects of your life, which could be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, uh, et cetera.

[00:35:59] Hamilton Souther: So I think you [00:36:00] looked for that. There's, um, I think a, a need to look for people who've been dedicated to the nature of those arts. You know, recently I was asked about our facilitator training and somebody said, you know, I don't understand why you're saying it takes two years to go through the facilitator training when I've been invited by a shaman to.

[00:36:22] Hamilton Souther: I'm going to do singing bowl work in his ceremonies and it seems so intuitive to me and, um, you know, my answer was, well, you have to learn all the subtleties that are inside the visionary space and how to use your consciousness to affect the other people that are in the room. Not just a singing bowl, but actually your consciousness and you have to train your consciousness and it's an in depth process.

[00:36:48] Hamilton Souther: And so I would look for, has somebody gone through, you That kind of consciousness training, do they have the depth and the maturity necessary to handle every possible situation that can come up inside that ceremony? And I think those are some of the basics. Those are just some of the true basics around it.

[00:37:06] Hamilton Souther: Um, for many, I think being with a facilitator is enough, which is why in our academy we teach sitting and coaching and facilitating. And from that you can graduate to, you know, higher levels of shamanism and higher levels of master facilitating. But I think for the psychedelic renaissance, there's going to be a tremendous need for people who are just sound, grounded, clear, ethical, moral in their treatment of others, while utilizing these kinds of plant medicines.

[00:37:36] Hamilton Souther: And, um, You know, there's a smaller need for really well trained medicine people at that level. Just like you see in Western medicine, there needs to be a lot of people who are doctors of, uh, general practitioner and there are a much smaller number of very specialized surgeons and there's a lot of nurses and a lot of support care for the industry.

[00:37:57] Hamilton Souther: psychedelic [00:38:00] renaissance. There's a need for a lot of people. of sitters and coaches, and there's a need for a lot of people who can give sound advice and just be moral and ethical people, have integrity within the industry itself, and you know, there's a much smaller need for real master shamans, and the people that get called to that will dedicate the 10, 20, 30 years necessary to really be that.

[00:38:26] Hamilton Souther: And I think there needs to be a little more discernment And the understanding of the people who go to them, because a lot of people are using the word shaman now, and they've changed the meaning of it, they've recontextualized it. And so we want to, uh, understand that a lot of the people calling themselves shamans aren't very highly trained people yet.

[00:38:51] Paul F. Austin: Right, and we don't have the same type of taboo against that like we do in the West. Someone just starts calling themselves a medical doctor and they haven't gone to medical school. It's extremely problematic, that same level of, I would say, discernment around who does and doesn't call themselves a shamanic practitioner.

[00:39:11] Paul F. Austin: The fact that it doesn't exist is probably harmful and detrimental overall because pretty much anyone can hang a signpost. And it's hard at this point to tell. In many cases, to tell good from bad, which is why, as you mentioned, taking agency and autonomy in that process and asking the right questions and doing the diligence necessary is essential.

[00:39:33] Paul F. Austin: And I know that many, my sense and my experience of life has been that many of the best teachers. are more hidden. The great shamanic practitioners aren't necessarily looking how they can scale their Instagram count as high as possible. They have other priorities. And so what I've just found in my experience is a lot of the best shamanic like practitioners that [00:40:00] I've worked with, uh, I tend to just hear about from friends or get introductions from friends.

[00:40:05] Paul F. Austin: It's that there's not usually, I'm usually not working with someone who who's super well known because if they were super well known they wouldn't be able to do the type of deep and even eccentric work that they do. Um, that it's not for everyone necessarily.

[00:40:21] Hamilton Souther: I think the, you know, west people have needed to latch onto an archetype, and when you don't have an archetype, it's really easy to take on the idea of a shamanic archetype.

[00:40:33] Hamilton Souther: But. It's important to understand that the shamanic archetype is trained from a deep calling. The authentic one is trained from a deep calling for many, many years to be able to wield and understand the depth of knowledge necessary to be considered a master. And so, you know, I've come away from it saying, well, anyone who picks up a smudge stick is a shaman.

[00:40:59] Hamilton Souther: Anybody who starts invoking and calling upon spirits is practicing shamanic arts. But it doesn't mean they're very good at it, nor they're very well trained, nor they would understand what to do. In a crisis oriented situation and often things will just be okay and they'll just kind of work themselves out and where you really need the help is when things are more intense than that and you you know really need really need help of somebody with skills and so it's important to just look for that and support that because then you're supporting the people who took the time to gather those skills in that capacity you're honoring the effort that they put in over you know many decades to understand the practices at the depth that they do.

[00:41:45] Hamilton Souther: Beautiful.

[00:41:46] Paul F. Austin: Super well said. So you've, you've mentioned the training program a little bit kind of offhand, and I'd love to go deeper into that with. The Academy, Blue Morpho Academy, tell us a little bit about your inspiration for why you started [00:42:00] the Academy, what you wanted to bring into the space that you thought would be supportive, and then also how you think about these different levels, because in conversations that we've had, you've mentioned Numerous levels.

[00:42:12] Paul F. Austin: So I'd be curious how you think about the sort of trajectory of growth and development through those, those different levels for folks.

[00:42:19] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, uh, Blue Morpho Academy came about out of a need to support the psychedelic renaissance and people who really love and want to dedicate themselves to the plant medicines.

[00:42:30] Hamilton Souther: So there's this gap between people needing safety and understanding how to use these in a, And so, I wanted to address that with, uh, credibility and to build a way to discern this in an appropriate way and the knowledge and the schooling that's out there right now. And so, there's this, you know, it's very hard to get into a true indigenous lineage.

[00:42:45] Hamilton Souther: It's also very difficult to find yourself in the licensed clinical space and there's this huge middle ground of people that are just ad hoc doing this. And so, I wanted to address that with, uh, credibility and to build a way to discern and differentiate for others that somebody has the skills necessary.

[00:43:06] Hamilton Souther: To be calling themselves a certified sitter or a coach or a facilitator or master facilitator and in the academy We created four levels that sitter coach they go together sitting is the art of sitting for somebody while they have psychedelic or plant medicine experience coaching is advice giving.

[00:43:24] Hamilton Souther: It's the before, during, after, it's all the talking part of it. It's understanding the skills about how to guide somebody who has started to have these kinds of experiences. And then facilitating is when you start to get into where the facilitator and the individual are both taking the plant medicine so that the facilitator can go into the visionary experience, into the trance with the patient.

[00:43:48] Hamilton Souther: The participant and guide them through the non-verbal guide them through this consciousness itself, through the visionary arts themselves and sharing that. And so that'd be [00:44:00] the equivalent of like shaman, really well-trained shaman. And then master facilitator is somebody who has truly dedicated their life to this.

[00:44:07] Hamilton Souther: and are mastering every aspect of it. There's the training itself, the safety and, and wellbeing of others. It's the ability to navigate the visionary spaces, utilizing all the different visionary arts. The Consciousness Arts, it's about understanding how to interact with the modern developed world, including legalities and, uh, running business and teaching others and supporting them.

[00:44:38] Hamilton Souther: And then it's the personal, deep, lifelong pursuit of being part of a lineage. And knowing that that is a calling that you have in your life. And so it's very progressive. And so it, you know, it allows people to learn up to the skill levels that they need and want to master. And it allows others who want to take that all the way to the same as being a master shaman, um, that avenue to do so.

[00:45:05] Paul F. Austin: And so my final question as we, as we, Kind of close or get close to the end here is just around your vision for Blue Morpho generally. From what I understand, you've, you've, you're opening or going to open. Another retreat center. Um, I'd be curious kind of where you're at now. Is it just the one retreat center?

[00:45:26] Paul F. Austin: Are there multiple retreat centers? You have the academy. You've already been in this work for so long, you know, 20 years now. What, what, what for you are you inspired? To create and build, let's say, in the next five, ten years, um, on, on, on your path.

[00:45:43] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, there's a beautiful renaissance taking place in all of this.

[00:45:48] Hamilton Souther: And we now work in a variety of locations. So we have two jungle locations here in the Amazon, and we also have two locations in the Sacred Valley, outside of [00:46:00] Cusco, Peru, on the way to Machu Picchu. So in both of the locations, we can work with Ayahuasca and San Pedro, Huachuma. As well as, um, other medicinal plants that are from the Andes and from the Amazon.

[00:46:15] Hamilton Souther: So that is, we have those retreats already and it's beautiful to be part of them. I love being in both different areas of Peru. Uh, the vision also expands through a greater network of community that we've developed over the years to really impact the psychedelic renaissance that's taking place. And so we're venturing as well into some of the technology that sits behind the podcast.

[00:46:41] Hamilton Souther: Uh, this expanding psychedelic renaissance, artificial intelligence, um, you know, greater standardization to support people having the highest quality experience that they can. And so the next 10 year vision looks like how to impact as many people as we can in a positive way. But also lay the foundation for a unified world around psychedelics and plant medicine.

[00:47:11] Hamilton Souther: And so we think that there'll be, you know, expansive legal, an extensive legalization. And then, uh, while we don't participate in the side of legalization and the politics that's behind it, we're very interested in the infrastructure side of that, about how we could better support people having the tools that they need to receive of this medicine.

[00:47:31] Hamilton Souther: And to be able to explore their spirit and consciousness. And so you

[00:47:35] Paul F. Austin: mentioned standardization for experiences. Talk, give, give us a little bit of insight into. And to how you think about that, what would be a great ethical or safe framework that people should look for in terms of a medicine retreat, a practitioner to go to, whatever that might be?

[00:47:54] Hamilton Souther: Yeah, I think that that greater standardization looks like ways to, uh, [00:48:00] just bring context to this whole space. Right now the space is the Wild West. You, you have to, you know, kind of figure it out as you go along. And I think Just like Western medicine came to a certain level of standardization. The same thing will happen with this.

[00:48:15] Hamilton Souther: So it looks like ways to be able to, uh, find practitioners, know their background, know their education, know what they practice and what they specialize in, be able to see their track record and, you know, the, the people that have worked with them. I think that there's also protocols that need to be developed so that novices on their own can understand, Oh, I want to do this protocol.

[00:48:38] Hamilton Souther: This protocol makes sense to me. They resonate with it and that they could, you know, utilize a protocol that could come through technology like an app or, um, you know, it could just be a series of steps to follow. I think there's also programs like yours, like microdosing programs that come into play and people become more holistic view of these medicines.

[00:48:59] Hamilton Souther: It's not just a retreat. It's not just a once a lifetime kind of thing, but rather there's a reason to understand the use of the medicines on a more consistent basis. I think there's also the need to Be able to, you know, bring a commonality to understanding retreats and what they offer and how to give them a certain kind of credibility, especially when they're doing a really good job.

[00:49:27] Hamilton Souther: So it's very hard to just discern through a web page, um, this one's a good one and that one isn't a good one or might have some, some issues or you might not resonate with it. And I'm not talking just solely about, uh, you know, if they're ethical or not, like Like I'm not just talking about the edge cases, I'm really talking about like, do you resonate with the teachings that they offer?

[00:49:48] Hamilton Souther: Do you resonate with the people that are going to be there, you know, versus another kind of place? And you want to go to a place where you resonate the most. So it's just about how to present, uh, the entire industry, I think in a more [00:50:00] standardized way, will be very beneficial to others.

[00:50:04] Paul F. Austin: Yeah, I would agree with that.

[00:50:04] Paul F. Austin: That, that aspect of, you could look at it as regulation, you could look at it as trust verification, you could look at it as vetting, curation. It's what we're even wanting to do more and more of through Third Wave is how do we help people with that process of discernment. And that, it's tricky, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's tricky to find a great therapist sometimes, it's tricky to find a great, you know, psychiatrist sometimes, it's tricky, there, there are lots of ways in which when we're in these deep relational containers and we have psychedelics and plant medicines as part of them, we have to be very attuned to what is optimal for us, what is ideal for us, and that, that sometimes requires looking inwards first and asking us those asking ourselves these difficult questions because with that clarity then we'll be able to find a center that resonates more.

[00:50:59] Hamilton Souther: I agree. I think it's the next steps and I'm glad that there are groups like yours and ours in the world that are taking those steps to be able to support people and have access ultimately in a way that's safe and has integrity behind it.

[00:51:13] Paul F. Austin: I love that. Well, Hamilton, thank you for joining us for the podcast today.

[00:51:17] Paul F. Austin: A lot, a lot to hear. Very rich, dense. A lot of context provided. Thanks for sharing your story. Blue Morpho, the retreats are, tell us, is there's a retreat page and there's an academy page, or are they, are they the same separate kind of, how do

[00:51:36] Hamilton Souther: we find

[00:51:36] Paul F. Austin: out more about Blue Morpho? Sure. You can

[00:51:37] Hamilton Souther: go to Blue Morpho academy.com and you can also navigate to our retreats from there.

[00:51:42] Hamilton Souther: And you can also go to Blue Morpho tours.com, so Blue Morpho

[00:51:46] Paul F. Austin: academy.com. That has also information on the education. BlueMorphoTours. com, featured in National Geographic, NPR, The New York Times, Oprah. Um, it looks beautiful and [00:52:00] fantastic. We'll, we'll provide a, um, a link in the show notes, and if you have any questions about Hamilton and his training program and his work, you're also on Instagram, I believe.

[00:52:14] Paul F. Austin: Um, folks can find you there. Or there's a contact form on the website, but reach out if this feels aligned, if this resonates, if this feels of interest to you, reach out. And Hamilton, thanks again for joining us for the episode. Hey folks, thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. If you enjoyed it, leave us a review, share it with a friend or family member and continue the conversation on our community platform at community.thethirdwave. co. We'll see you next time.