GLOBAL PSYCHEDELIC WEEK 2025
by Adam Miezio
Please Help Us Answer a Basic, Yet Complex Question
What does a true, global psychedelic movement look like? We’ve embarked on an ambitious mission to answer this question and we need your assistance. We want to enlist the help of as many disparate voices and diverse people around the world as possible to contribute their perspectives.
Our goal at Global Psychedelic Week 2025 is to get a global pulse check and see where psychedelics are heading into the future. Please give us a hand painting a global portrait, and keep in mind that we’re not all painting with the same brush.
Labeling the ineffable
The word “psychedelic” sometimes gets used in excess. Why is this a problem? Because the word “psychedelic” is a creation of the West. Humphrey Osmond coined the term in 1956. So what were psychedelics called pre-1956?
Indigenous communities across the Global South have incorporated these drugs into their lives for centuries, referring to them by many different signifiers besides the westernized ‘psychedelic’. For many indigenous people and cultures the word “psychedelic” means nothing to them. Whereas, substituting “spirit medicine” for “psychedelic,” you’re now speaking their language.
The language we use is key, and shows respect to indigenous people and ancestral wisdom keepers. What are some other words and phrases to use in place of ‘psychedelics’? This is part of our journey of discovery together with the Global Psychedelic Week community.
Will You Share Your Most Mind-Manifesting Contributions with Us?
We are curating a globally diverse collection of voices, experiences, stories, wisdom, knowledge, laughs, smiles and tears that reveal the truth and beauty of the human condition through a psychedelic lens.
At the moment, the Global West generates most of the spirit medicine buzz and excitement. Countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, England and New Zealand crowd the psychedelic spotlight. However, we know there’s so much more happening across the globe.
Spirit medicine interest and enthusiasm is mushrooming in Mexico, Israel, Peru, Gabon, Jamaica and other countries. What countries have increasing psychedelic awareness we don’t know about? Where are the clandestine pockets of psychedelic culture around the world? What’s happening in your country, your region, your hometown that the rest of the world needs to know about?
Whether you’re a therapist, writer, musician, artist, comedian, healer, shaman, cultivator, scientist, visionary, mystic, athlete, ally, leader, integrator, or aficionado, we’d love to hear from you. If psychedelics have transformed your life (or lives in your community), in a numinous and magical way, and improved the quality of life where you live, please share your story with us. We will amplify your voice to share the stories and positive benefits of spirit medicine with the world.
What We Would Like to Know
Here some of the questions we want to ask people around the world:
What does the term “psychedelic” mean in your community? If there’s an equivalent word or phrase your community members use to describe the “psychedelic” experience please share and tell. How do psychedelics impact your community, hometown and country?
What’s happening in your country in regards to psychedelics that the rest of the world doesn’t know?
Where do you see the psychedelic revival going in the future?
How does the work you do contribute to the psychedelic revival and into the future?
Depending on who you are, what you do, and your psychedelic contributions and participation, we might want to ask you more specific questions. For example, if you’re in Papua New Guinea, we’ll need to dive deeper into your journey.
Psychedelic bubbles are surfacing across the world in places like India, Thailand, China, Saudi Arabia, and a lot more that we’re not even aware of. Can you help us empty the pockets of psychedelic culture in the most unknown parts of the globe and show us the contents? If you’ve done LSD and searched for something in your pockets, you know the feeling. You can help us find what we’re looking for.
(Psychedelic) History Doesn’t Repeat But It Rhymes
Psychedelics move through history like waves, entering and exiting global consciousness. Psychedelics gained traction as far back as the Egyptians. The Hindus had soma, and the Greeks had the kykeon. The Maya had mushrooms and so did the Aztecs. In the Mesoamerican language of Nahuatl mushrooms were called teonanácatl, or “the flesh of the gods.” Witches in the Middle Ages used psychedelics across Europe.
Europe has been no stranger to psychedelic waves. Victorian era Europe saw psychedelic waves rush over the continent. An ether epidemic hit Ireland in the latter half of the 19th century, and absinthe was popular in France and Spain, thanks to the likes of Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway. Our psychedelic history gets lost through time, even when considering our most recent wave in the 1960s.
Do you know about the Hippie Trail during the 1960s and 1970s? An overland trail from Europe stretched to west Asia and through south Asia. The countries included: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Did you know Kabul was a big hippie hotspot? How about Kathmandu or Goa?
Even Tangier, Morocco had a moment. Famous beatnik William S. Burroughs spent a few months there in 1961 and called it a “psychedelic summer.” About a decade later, the first hippies arrived on the Balearic island of Ibiza, in Spain. The hippie enclave in Ibiza would manifest the global capital of electronic music and partying we know now. Today, Spanish hippies now live scattered throughout Andalucia, especially near Granada.
Where is psychedelic history rhyming today? Where are the contemporary psychedelic hotspots that will be the Tangiers, Kabuls, Ibizas, Goas, and Kathmandus of tomorrow?
Yesteryear’s legends got us here today: María Sabina, Humphrey Osmond, Albert Hoffman, Terrence McKenna, Bill Hicks, Richard Evans Schultes, Sasha Shulgin, Ram Dass, Quanah Parker, Aldous Huxley, Stan Grof, Rick Strassman, et al. Who are the new psychedelic visionaries continuing this legacy? Who are today’s spirit medicine leaders who become tomorrow’s luminaries? Is it someone you know or maybe you? Please clue us in because inquiring minds want to know.
Let’s Christen the Global Psychedelic Movement
Has anyone christened today’s psychedelic revival? The spirit medicine community needs to break a bottle of champagne on the psychedelic ship’s bow. Let’s use Global Psychedelic Week 2025 to perform the ceremony. With your help and invaluable contributions we can break the biggest champagne bottle imaginable and plot the course of the world’s psychedelic movement.
All Aboard the Calypso
Legendary French oceanographer Jacque Cousteau’s ship was named the Calypso. Of course Cousteau was an explorer and adventurer of the likes we may never see again. I think he would have admired the courage of psychonauts.
Let's build a vessel for the ages together, explore the unexplored and chart a path into the future. We’ll plunge into the unknown seas of consciousness and oceans of the psyche together. Come, let’s break a bottle of champagne together and give a toast to you- Global Psychedelic Week 2025. Welcome aboard!
BLOG AUTHOR
ADAM MIEZIO
An experienced psychedelic writer and copywriter, psychedelic content marketer, and have 10+ years of experience in SEO content writing, content creation, content strategy and analytics.
