The Third Wave Podcast
Psychedelic Feminism and Male Allies
Episode 53
Zoe Helene
Zoe Helene, psychedelic feminist and cultural activist, joins us to talk sacred plant medicines, cultural preservation, and the importance of diversity in psychedelic communities. Zoe shares how her experiences with ayahuasca have influenced her world view, especially around “plant spirit,” and the importance of preserving indigenous cultural traditions. We also discuss the far-reaching damages that have resulted from patriarchal oppression, and how the psychedelic renaissance is not immune.
Podcast Highlights
- How experiences with ayahuasca can enhance a connection to other plant medicines
- How women aren’t the only victims of (patriarchal) dominator cultures
- The importance of encouraging more diversity in psychedelic spaces
Onna Lee says
I personally don’t think this is the place to talk about a very heated subject such as Trump, ( podcast with Ryan) as it takes away from the focus of what this is all about .
Dr. Mark Gould says
I liked the overall discussion and it’s relationship to our need as a society to wake up from the empty proposition that many of organized religions have offered us and awaken to the divine right in front of us that is possible through awareness brought about from plant teachers. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts is certainly no truer in plant medicines vs isolated components when applying them in a spiritual context vs a pharmacological model that is more accepted by the populas as a whole
Hana Yoridango says
you mentioned a study involving truffles in Amsterdam but there is no link to this study
Caitlin Moakley says
Thank you for publishing this important conversation, Third Wave! I really enjoyed listening to Zoe Helene speak about Psychedelic Feminism and male allies. Zoe walks the talk. I recently spent some time in the Peruvian Amazon while on a Cosmic Sister Plant Spirit Grant with Zoe – she holds space for other voices and encourages all to support each other and find space for healing. Zoe is a nurturer who has invested in helping bring me closer to my true nature, my strongest self. She has done the same for dozens of women, and with the support of more allies, Cosmic Sister can continue to support women through healing with plant medicine. Thank you Third Wave, thank you Zoe!
Jacob Munro says
Some people are always looking to hoard things for themselves and their clique, because they are the do-gooder type with “good intentions.” I am very skeptical of anyone who has used psychedelics but still believe in “good intentions.” Intentions, maybe. Good? Well, that is a word, and that means it is simply an arbitrary catch-phrase stimulus-response conditioned into certain primates. There is likely a genetic substrate there, too, but even this simply means that you have the do-gooders who want to control others deciding who should and should not get access to psychedelic materials.
Let’s remember why the name was chosen, “mind-manifesting.” Any attempt to prohibit or to organize access to them is an admission, on the part of the organizing force, that they think they’re fit to decide whose mind should be made manifest, whose mind is important, whose mind is not.
Leary and Co. with good reason had “self-selection” as the basis for use; the Acid Tests were freely advertised, at the Party, there would be a table with dosed sugar cubes and a sign that said “eat one or two many,” at least sometimes.
Any attempt to curate who gets dosed, other than, perhaps, some sort of age requirement, which is objective, is simply a form of elitism, but not of the sort that is appropriate—the sort of elitism we want is self-determined elitism, not group-determined elitism, because, as anyone who is not a moron knows, groups have no minds, only selves have minds; that is, the idea that psychedelics make some “group mind” or “gaian mind” or horse shit like that “manifest” is bollocks, McKenna nonsense from after the Walls had gone up in International Conventions. Leary, who many regarded as a shameless, quasi-psychopathic self-promoter, said that, so I recall, Terrence McKenna is what he would have been if he had no scruples.
So all of these people suggesting that “indigenous traditions” are somehow better, that we need to somehow integrate “intersectionality”, “critical studies”, “social values”, etc. etc. into all of this, no, we don’t. Like alcohol, you sell the product and the only legitimate limitation on its availability is an age.
The people who are worried about this becoming the situation have established elaborate hokey cults, especially around ayahuasca. They carefully curate who they’ll dose, because they don’t want anyone who’s going to realize what they’re doing—whether they know themselves what they’re doing or not is another matter entirely. After all, the best salespeople have already sold themselves.
Tribalism and identity-politics are big business. Exopolitics and liberation from the stasis imposed by the polis and its beneficiaries, well, it doesn’t take a weather man to know which way the wind blows….lots of very feral and venal animals have a lot to lose if people wake up to what has been done to them over the last 30+ years.
Judith Haran says
Re episode 49: I started off listening to this in the background of doing a task, but it was so important I had to stop the task and just listen to it. Everything James says is so true. It made me realize, yet again, how extremely rare this sort of thinking has become, and how very few people in our culture even know what adulthood really means. When you look at it in this light, it rather puts everything into a different perspective. Once you realize that almost all observable behavior (ours and others’) is an epiphenomenon, driven by barely-discernible memories, usually the limbic sort, it makes you rethink “What is the appropriate response to X?” – because so often our reactions are neither appropriate or helpful. Shades of Thich Nhat Hanh.
Anyway, not the sort of thing one can discuss at a dinner party. Not the ones I go to, at any rate. (Not yet!)
Stuart Doss says
Very disappointed to see this forum used as one to promulgate the weak notion that our society is grounded in patriarchical oppression. For me the psychedelic/mystical experience is one that has always provided a calling to be more loving and compassionate, but also to consistently seek the truth. This would include the universal truth that nature has constrained the structure and embedded roles of members of this society, and that not everything is about power. Its saddening to see this postmodernist/radical feminist activism framed in victimology and social constructionist philosophy dragged into the psychedelic community.
Instead of promoting hatred, I think people would greater benefit from an honest conversation about the objective, biological differences between men and women and how that’s historically shaped our societal landscape. This hyperbole and anecdote just support a narrative guided by tribalism and identity politics.
Michael says
Living in a universe where most of us are unable to „see“ the interconnecting lines between all these energy fields we call (human) beings, all the influence we really have on the The whole that we share on conscious and unconscious (which as we know is deeper and more comprehensive) level and whether we want it or not, seems to me to be a serious factor that we should take into account.
This includes political discussion, since with the hierarchical thinking that is firmly anchored in us, we grant individuals an influence in shaping the future reality that surrounds us that should not be underestimated.
This is even of double effect, so on the one hand the ultimately virtual energetic basic patterns without substance (Maya the Hinduists call it) are brought into a form that firmly anchors the suffering of the ignorant individuals, but at the same time that is slowed down for every further development of the human species and dissolution of these structures.
It is not without reason that one of the forerunners of the “psychedelic revolution” was classified as an enemy of the state.
In this respect, yes, set and setting are important, but they only lead to success and an inner individual evolution of the mind if these steps are also applied in everyday life and the feeling for this deeper connection in which humanity as a whole develops into an undetermined infinity that is simultaneously interdependent in an infinitely diverse network and whose greatest freedom consists in developing more and more into a shining knot of conscious awareness.
Whether this is done through m-dosing or another suitable method plays a lesser role than the willingness to embark on this journey into unknown territory with all one’s heart and mind.
Ursula says
Sophia Rokhlin made a very interesting point, namely how we could participate in protecting the indigenous lands in e.g. the Amazon region by way of buying property and protect it from being bought by big corporations to be destroyed for their own commercial purposes. It sounds like it could be a collective cause – adding money to buy up land and protect it – it is a model that has been used already in the US (Western PA Conservancy e.g.) I would love to know more about that – if this is something already in process. I also think that it would be a great cause to advertise to those who are interested in protecting our planet from the horrifying, mindless, brutal exploitation without any care for Mother Nature or the inhabitants who are affected.
Rafael Barajas says
I think this whole conversation lacks of self criticism and objectivity, why does the white blonde, soon to be published, anthropologist only quotes other white authors who dare to profit from this abominable cultural appropiation, as she does? Why isn´t the white privilege and entitlement phenomenon discussed as a critical factor to evaluate and determine the outcome of an ayahuasca experience?and what about an honest analysis of the exploitation of ayahuasca, peyote and other life forms, from the perspective of the historical unethical and criminal resource exploitation of minerals, oil, natural gas, water and produce, inflicted by the US and europe on all this unique native communities from american countries like México, Peru or Brasil? How you even dare to speak about shamanism, while sipping on your toxic starbucks unicorn latte? This is the same BS going on since the 1930´s, you white people define yourselves as the experts on everything, LMFAO. I am a true shaman from México, my bloodline is ancestral and I disaprove the way you express yourselves, because my grandparents heard the same BS, it is only a monstruous ego disguised as political correctness that spills out from your lips. Next thing you´ll be discussing is that ayahuasca was discovered by the “indigenous” (deeply racist term) but perfectioned by some fucking white blonde scientist. This is horrible.
Haya says
Hello Rafael, I understand your frustration with the cultural appropriation that can accompany modern-day conversations regarding psychedelics.
I can assure you that at the Third Wave we do our best to address cultural appropriation in a constructive manner. Many of our podcasts address that issue.
There are two recent podcasts that do just that. Podcast 56, titled “Should We Keep Psychedelics Weird?“, discusses the issue of respecting Ayahuasca and the people who have been using it as part of their traditional medicine for centuries. Sophia Rokhlin discusses the perils of commodifying such a sacred substance.
Another podcast worth mentioning is Podcast 50, titled Navigating Between Worlds: Ayahuasca and Cultural Preservation,in which speaker Chris Kilham also addresses the difference between cultural preservation and cultural appropriation.
Our goal at the Third Wave is to have a constructive conversation surrounding psychedelics. For that reason, we diversify our podcasts as much as possible and we exercise cultural awareness when tackling sensitive issues. Our team is comprised of diverse members and that allows us to have a multitude of representation; culturally, intellectually and experientially.
Thank you for taking the time to write to us and please don’t hesitate to contact us with any further comments or concerns.
Sophia says
Hi Rafael,
Thank you for your message. I hope I made it clear that I am an authority on nothing but my own experiences with ayahuasca and other psychoactive plants, as they are introduced into these neoshamanic, urban contexts. If I did not, I will be sure to do be clearer about that in the future.
I recently wrote about the dangers of ignoring the historical context of unequal economic, racial, and cultural power that underpins the global spread of ayahausca and other sacred plants in the article below. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on it:
https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/ayahuasca-and-the-global-marketplace/
Brett says
Hi Rafael, what does Sophia Rokhlin’s hair colour have to do with this conversation? You twice mentioned that she was ‘blonde’, as if that was a relevant detail. Would you mention the hair colour if it was a guy speaking?
Nadia says
Thank you so much for this podcast! SO important and really great themes and issues were addressed. I have been working in psychedelia for about 8 years and I have also been working in anti-oppression work for the same amount of time and what Zoe brought up and addressed are SUCH important points and part of the psychedelic community. So many instances of harmful behavior have not been addressed in these communities, and I’m so pleased that they have been here. This is an honest conversation about the truth of the matter. Indeed, the whole rhetoric of the psychedelic community is that they are ‘enlightened’ that they are ‘feminists’ and that they do anti-oppression work, but like in many other communities, this hasn’t been the face at all and is only surface level a lot of the time. The critical work hasn’t been taken far enough and I’ve seen first hand the extent of damaging and oppressive power dynamics at work.
I’m talking about instances of psychedelic gurus abusing their power, sexually abusing people, abuse in the communities by community members where nothing has been done, where work has been done to silence any mention of oppression happening. I’m talking about black and brown people being made to feel isolated and oppressed in psychedelic environments, and disabled and mentally unwell people also being discriminated again and harmed. There is little point in a psychedelic renaissance when we are not listening to the main things that it teaches us – that the ego is temporary, that everything and everyone is valuable and should be valued, it essentially implies the importance of equality. There is little point if we are only reproducing the harmful culture that we know is so dangerous (to individuals, to the biosphere, and human evolution). What is the point in that? That is not what we need as we progress. There is so much that can be gained from paying attention to feminism, psychedelic feminism and diversity, and this was by far one of my favourite podcasts and favourite guests on this show.
Really fantastic episode! More of this please!