The same molecule that in a Johns Hopkins clinical protocol produces trauma resolution and meaningful mystical experiences can, in an unstructured festival, produce a psychological crisis that marks a person for years. The difference is not chemical. The substance didn't change. Everything else did.
Timothy Leary named it in 1964: set and setting. Two words that describe the most important and most ignored principle of any experience with expanded states of consciousness. Transpersonal psychology confirmed it in the laboratory. Indigenous traditions have known it for millennia, though they never needed to name it because they never separated it from the practice itself.
If you're considering a ceremonial experience, a deep retreat, or any work that opens the doors to the unconscious, what you're about to read may be the difference between transformation and harm. That's not an exaggeration. It's clinical reality.
What set and setting really mean
Set is your internal state. Not just "how you feel today," but the complete ecosystem of what you bring to the experience: your expectations, your intention, your psychological history, the life moment you're navigating, your emotional preparation, your current medication, your fears, your fantasies about what will happen. All of that is set.
Setting is the external context. The physical space where the experience takes place. Who accompanies you and what training they have. The structure of the process: whether there are safety protocols, prior evaluation, follow-up afterward. The culture of the space: whether it's an environment of respect or spectacle, whether the facilitator operates from ego or service, whether your individual process is honored or a collective narrative is imposed.
Set and setting are not a checklist you mark off and move on. They are interacting ecosystems. A fragile set (person in acute psychiatric crisis) in a perfect setting (professional space with clinical team) is still a risk requiring careful evaluation. A prepared set (stable person with clear intention) in a chaotic setting (improvised ceremony without protocols) is a ticking time bomb.
The research: Leary, Metzner, and Alpert coined the concept of set and setting in 1964, but it was modern research that validated it with rigor. Johnson, Richards, and Griffiths (2008) from Johns Hopkins published safety guidelines for hallucinogen research demonstrating that structured therapeutic context is the most determining factor in positive outcomes with psilocybin. Carhart-Harris et al. (2018) from Imperial College London confirmed that therapeutic setting and the relationship with the facilitator predict clinical outcomes more significantly than dose.
What tradition already knew
Cultures that have worked with plant medicines for centuries never separated the substance from its context. In Mazatec tradition, there is no concept equivalent to "taking mushrooms." There is the velada: a nocturnal ceremony with chants, prayers, dietary preparation, spiritual guidance, and community presence. The plant is one element within a complete system.
The same holds for the ritual use of ayahuasca in Amazonian traditions: prior diet, fasting, isolation, icaros (medicinal songs), the relationship with the curandero, the ceremonial space, post-ceremony restrictions. None of this is folkloric decoration. It is set and setting codified in ancestral practice across generations of observation and care.
The Western error, the one that keeps costing dearly, was isolating the molecule and believing the molecule is the medicine. It isn't. The medicine is the molecule plus the context plus the relationship plus the intention plus the integration. Removing any of those elements doesn't simplify. It mutilates.
When an indigenous tradition says "the plant teaches you," it isn't describing a pharmacological property. It's describing a relationship. And every relationship needs a safe context to be transformative rather than destructive. Dynamis works inspired by that understanding, in respectful dialogue with traditions, not in appropriation of them.
When context fails
Without adequate set, what happens is predictable: a person with unprocessed trauma history enters an expanded state without preparation and relives the traumatic experience without containment. There is no possible integration because there was no prior evaluation. There is no one to turn to because nobody asked beforehand what lay beneath. The result is not healing. It's retraumatization.
Without adequate setting, the risks multiply: abuse of power by facilitators without training or ethical supervision. Negligence when someone has a difficult experience and there's no protocol to contain it. Emotional abandonment after the experience, when the person is left open and vulnerable with no follow-up.
The "psychedelic tourism" phenomenon in Latin America has made these risks visible. People travel seeking a transformative experience and find spaces with no prior evaluation, no clinical team, no emergency protocols, no integration process. This is not judgment toward those who seek. It's clinical reality about what they find. And it's precisely why a professional space exists: not to monopolize the experience, but to protect the person living it.
The guidelines: Johnson et al. (2008) published in Psychopharmacology the Guidelines for Safety in Hallucinogen Research, detailing participant selection criteria, psychological preparation, space design, facilitator training, and emergency protocols that every professional context should meet. These guidelines, developed at Johns Hopkins, have become the reference standard for both research and clinical practice with expanded states (Johnson, Richards & Griffiths, 2008).
How to build a safe container
The process has three moments, and none is dispensable.
Before: preparation. Complete psychological evaluation. Review of current medication and contraindications. Clarification of intention: not "what do you want to see" but "where are you coming from and what do you need." Explicit agreements about the process. Clear information about what to expect and what not to expect. Enough time for the person to arrive at the space having already begun the internal work, not rushing from the airport.
During: the experience. A ceremonial space designed with intention (not an improvised room). A professional team with clinical training and experience, not just "spiritual sensitivity." Clear safety protocols for difficult situations. Absolute respect for the individual process: no forcing narratives, no imposing interpretations, no celebrating the spectacular or minimizing the subtle.
After: integration. This is what's most missing in non-professional spaces. The experience opens doors. Integration is the work of walking through them with awareness. Post-experience sessions to process what emerged. Support for translating insight into real change. Time for the nervous system to assimilate what was lived.
At Dynamis, this structure isn't an extra. It's the foundation of everything. Prior evaluation always happens. La Maloca was designed as a ceremonial space with the geometry, acoustics, and intention to hold deep processes. The team includes clinical psychologists with transpersonal training. And post-experience integration is worked at the Healing Studio, because what emerges in ceremony doesn't stay in ceremony: it's carried into life or it's lost.
Beyond plants: the universal principle
Set and setting are not psychedelic vocabulary. They are the fundamental principle of all deep work with consciousness.
Intense breathwork can open unconscious material with the same force as a plant medicine. Extended meditation in a silence retreat can produce ego dissolution states that need professional containment. A process of shadow work touches wounds that require a safe space to be held.
Any practice that opens the doors to the unconscious needs a container. The difference between a yoga class and a transformative retreat isn't the technique. It's the context: who accompanies you, what structure holds the process, and what happens when what emerges is bigger than expected.
This applies even to conventional psychotherapy. The therapeutic relationship (the interpersonal setting) is the most consistent predictor of clinical outcome, above and beyond the technique used. Wampold's (2015) research confirms this again and again: relational context is more powerful than method.
Context as medicine
Traditions codified it in ritual. Science confirmed it in the laboratory. And yet, we keep seeing spaces that offer the experience without the context, the molecule without the relationship, the opening without the integration.
Set and setting is the answer to the most important question you can ask before any deep experience: who will hold me if what emerges is more than I can hold alone?
If the answer is "nobody" or "I don't know," that's your indicator. Not that the experience is bad. That the context isn't ready. And in this work, context is the medicine.
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Frequently asked questions
What evaluation is done before a ceremony at Dynamis?
Every person participating in a ceremonial experience undergoes prior psychological evaluation. We review clinical history, current medication (especially SSRI antidepressants and antipsychotics, which have specific contraindications), trauma history, current life moment, and intention. It's not a bureaucratic form: it's a clinical conversation that determines whether the experience is appropriate for that person at that time.
Is it safe to participate if I'm in psychiatric treatment?
It depends on the treatment. Some conditions and medications are absolute contraindications for certain types of ceremonial experience. Others require adjustments supervised by your psychiatrist. At Dynamis we never ask you to stop a medication on your own. If there's a contraindication, we tell you honestly and offer alternative pathways for deep work that don't carry that risk.
What happens if I have a difficult experience during ceremony?
Difficult experiences are not "bad experiences." They are often the most transformative. The difference lies in containment. At Dynamis, the clinical team is prepared to accompany intense processes: traumatic material that surfaces, anxiety states, ego dissolution, overwhelming emotions. There are specific protocols for each scenario and individualized follow-up afterward.
How long does the integration process last afterward?
Integration has no fixed timeline because it depends on what emerged. At minimum, we recommend at least one integration session in the days following the experience. Some people continue integration work for weeks or months at the Healing Studio. What we never recommend is returning to everyday life without processing what was lived.
Can I do deep work without plant medicines?
Absolutely. Plants are one path, not the only path. Dynamis offers breathwork, somatic work, silence retreats, transpersonal therapy, and Enneagram work, all practices that open the unconscious through different doors. The principle of set and setting applies to all of them. The question isn't "with plants or without?" but "what's the right path for me right now?"
References:
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Haijen, E., Erritzoe, D., Watts, R., Branchi, I., & Kaelen, M. (2018). Psychedelics and the essential importance of context. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 32(7), 725-731.
Johnson, M. W., Richards, W. A., & Griffiths, R. R. (2008). Human hallucinogen research: Guidelines for safety. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 22(6), 603-620.
Leary, T., Metzner, R., & Alpert, R. (1964). The psychedelic experience: A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. University Books.
Wampold, B. E. (2015). How important are the common factors in psychotherapy? An update. World Psychiatry, 14(3), 270-277.
