Just talking about my new book! I talk listeners chapter by chapter.

Dr. Katrina Michelle is a holistic psychotherapist and founder of The Curious Spirit who specializes in spiritual emergence and psychedelic integration.

Katrina's dissertation on the resistance to spiritual emergence was pivotal in both catalyzing and supporting the integration of her own spiritual emergence. She is the former executive director of ACISTE which stands for the AMERICAN CENTER FOR THE INTEGRATION OF SPIRITUALLY TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES and is also a former director of the MAPS Zendo Project – MAPS - Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies – you’ve probably heard of it.

She is currently collaborating with a team of researchers to explore adverse psychedelic experiences and is working on producing a film, When Lighting Strikes, which is intended to illustrate the often “unsexy” side of awakening. Katrina and I have known each other for quite a while online and I thought she’d be a great person to catch up with.

Here’s what we covered in our podcast:

0:00 Introduction

1:30 Katrina’s Spiritual Emergence

4:50 The difference between a Spiritual Emergence and a Spiritual Emergency

10:00 How Katrina chose to do a Ph.D. on Spiritual emergence(y)

22:50 Her research on how we resist spiritual emergence.

25:00 The need for a cultural shift in our society in regard to these experiences.

28:30 Katrina’s work at ACISTE (AMERICAN CENTER FOR THE INTEGRATION OF SPIRITUALLY TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES)

30:30 Why you must get a diagnosis when you visit a psychiatrist.

35:00 How the psychedelic renaissance leads to greater awareness of spiritual emergence.

35:45 Katrina’s involvement in the MAPS Zendo project

39:50 Supporting a spiritual emergence versus supporting a psychedelic experience.

41:30 Katrina’s film project with Kate West.

43:00 Her research into challenging psychedelic experiences.

44:00 Sean psychoanalyzes Katrina’s coughing!

46:30 The need for normalizing spiritual experiences.

51:00 The difference between a difficult psychedelic experience and “psychosis”.

53:40 How Katrina finds research participants.

54:00 Alex Grey’s Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors.

55:50 Why Sean doesn’t use psychedelics.

56:30 Why psychedelics aren’t right for everyone.

59:40 Michael Pollan’s book and Netflix series, How to Change your Mind.

1:01:20 The safety of psychedelics versus other spiritual practices.

1:04:00 The need for a safe therapeutic container.

1:06:00 Our mutual connection with author, Jules Evans.

1:09:30 The Challenging Psychedelic Experience Survey and training program.

1:12:00 Dealing with licensing and the risk of being sued.

Sean Blackwell goes deep on the Will Smith Slap, bringing up his own experiences with such a conflict along the way. He also talks about how the death of the Oscars may be part of our spiritual awakening.

Kiana Fitzgerald is a freelance journalist with bipolar disorder who got in touch with me after my last podcast with Chris Cole. Similar to Chris, even though Kiana is still struggling with the disorder, she also sees the spiritual dimension and value of her non-ordinary experiences, so much so that she started a thriving Tik Tok channel in order to share her unique perspective. And, seeing what she was doing, I just had to meet her!

Our podcast also covers her interviews with Kanye West and Megan Thee Stallion.

Robin Timmers is an expert by experience from the Netherlands. 10 years ago he founded the first Hearing Voices Support Centre. There he developed a recovery and emancipation oriented approach to learning to live with hearing voices. Robin's work represents an important alternative approach to what is normally diagnosed as schizophrenia. His broad interests include recovery, spirituality and human rights. Here we talk about how got involved in the Hearing Voices Movment, his love of mosh pits, and my cat.

Drunk on Too Much Life is an intimate and powerful documentary following the filmmaker’s 21-year-old daughter’s mind-opening journey from locked-down psych wards and diagnostic labels towards expansive worlds of creativity, connection and greater meaning. On their journey, the family begins to question the widespread idea that mental illness should be understood in purely biological terms and learns the myriad ways that madness has meaning. Recovery is not a straight path to being cured but a crooked and bumpy journey and series of small awakenings. Michelle Melles (she/her) is a seasoned director, writer and producer with a background in independent documentary media, non-fiction television, and magazine journalism. She has worked for some of the top broadcasters and television shows in Canada, produced and directed numerous short, nationally-broadcast and internationally-distributed TV documentaries. Under her banner Parallel Vision Pictures, she seeks to tell multidimensional and engaging stories that challenge preconceived ideas and offer unique ways of perceiving the world. She holds an MFA in Documentary Media from The Creative School at X-Ryerson University in Toronto (Gold Medal, 2021, summa cum laude); received the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant from the Canadian Government for her work in documentary filmmaking and transformative mental health (2020), and holds a BA from the University of Toronto (high distinction; faculty scholar, 1995). Drunk on Too Much Life is Michelle’s first feature length documentary film. Pedro Orrego (he/him) is a seasoned TV writer and producer and has worked on numerous series and documentaries for broadcast and festivals for the last 20 years. He won a Gemini (now called Canadian Screen Award) in 2004 for his work on the groundbreaking docuseries SexTV and was nominated a few more times. His short documentary Getting Wood was selected at the Hot Docs Film Festival in 2005. Along with his collaborator Steve Koven, he plays and records improvised music which is used in films and videos. Drunk on Too Much Life is his first feature length documentary film.

Sean Blackwell explains why he felt inspired to start a podcast now. He goes into some detail about his background in teaching about the spiritual dimension and healing potential of bipolar disorder, which started through his YouTube channel, bipolarORwakingUP in 2007!

Adam Gentry was featured in the documentary CRAZYWISE, by Phil Borges. The film gave a very intimate portrayal of Adam's struggles with non-ordinary experiences, diagnosed as bipolar disorder. A captivating person, I was very excited to hear that he was enthused about being interviewed!