In this episode of The Psychedelic Podcast, Paul F. Austin speaks with Mariah Gannessa, founder of Four Visions, a plant medicine platform rooted in sacred reciprocity and indigenous partnership.

Find full show notes and links here:
https://thethirdwave.co/podcast/episode-317/?ref=278

Mariah shares her decade-long apprenticeship with the Inga people of Colombia and her journey creating Four Visions as a reverent bridge between Amazonian healing traditions and modern seekers.

The conversation explores the Four Visions of the Yahé tradition, the nuances of cultural appropriation vs. cultural exchange, and the responsibilities of Western entrepreneurs engaging with indigenous medicines. Mariah also discusses how Four Visions reinvests in indigenous communities and why the concept of sacred reciprocity is central to her mission.

Join Paul F. Austin and Mariah Gannessa on August 21st at 10am PT / 1pm ET for Hapé 101 for Practitioners, Coaches & Guides, a free live webinar hosted through the Psychedelic Coaching Institute. Whether you're new to hapé or looking to deepen your practice, you'll gain practical, respectful guidance on working with this sacred Amazonian snuff—personally and professionally.

Mariah Gannessa has spent the last decade immersed in the healing cultures of the Amazon and has dedicated her life’s work to the plants and indigenous peoples of the rainforest. Her healing journey during her decade-long apprenticeship in study and service with the Inga tribe of Putumayo was a catalyst for her evolution as an entrepreneur, philanthropist and musician.
Mariah acts as a bridge in the sharing of plant medicines with the world in order to support humanity’s healing. She is the founder of Four Visions, a global leader in supporting indigenous communities through direct commerce partnerships, donations, and sponsoring charitable initiatives. In partnership with her teacher, world-renowned healer and Ingano Botanist, Taita Juanito, she founded MAGIC Fund, spearheading projects to preserve the Amazonian peoples, their cultures, and lands. Her work in service is fully inspired by a vision to leave a legacy of a better Earth for future generations.

Highlights:

• How the Four Visions of Yagé shape healing
• Redefining sacred reciprocity in a globalized world
• A Western entrepreneur’s path through plant medicine apprenticeship
• Why cultural exchange is not always appropriation
• The role of reverence in spiritual entrepreneurship
• Bridging Amazonian wisdom with Western healing needs
• Building a mission-driven e-commerce platform
• Plant allies for the heart, grief, and dreaming
• Remembering ancestral wisdom in a disoriented world
• The medicine path as both business and spiritual devotion

Episode Links:

• Four Visions
• MAGIC Fund
• Hapé 101 for Practitioners, Coaches & Guides

Episode Sponsors:

• Psychedelic Coacing Institute's Intensive for Psychedelic Professionals in Costa Rica - a transformative retreat for personal and professional growth.

• Golden Rule Mushrooms - Get a lifetime discount of 10% with code THIRDWAVE at checkout

In this episode of The Psychedelic Podcast, host Paul F. Austin welcomes cultural historian and acclaimed author Mike Jay.

Find full show notes and links here: https://thethirdwave.co/podcast/episode-316/?ref=278

Together they explore the untold history of nitrous oxide, psychedelic experimentation in the Romantic era, and the deeper cultural and philosophical roots of psychedelic science.

Mike shares insights from his latest book, Free Radicals, highlighting how figures like Humphry Davy and William James helped shape psychedelic thought long before the 1960s. The conversation weaves through ancient San Pedro rituals, colonial attempts to suppress peyote use, and the divergent paths of modern psychedelic medicine.

From poetic self-experimentation to medicalized models, Mike unpacks the historical tensions between grassroots healing and institutional control—and what this means for the future of psychedelic culture.

Mike Jay is a British author and cultural historian who has written widely on the history of drugs, consciousness, and medical science. His books include Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic, Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind, and Free Radicals: How a Group of Romantic Experimenters Gave Birth to Psychedelic Science. Mike contributes regularly to The London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, and The Wall Street Journal.

Highlights:

• How early scientists used nitrous oxide for inner exploration
• Romantic poets as the original psychedelic self-experimenters
• Parallels between Humphry Davy and Alexander Shulgin
• What William James learned from nitrous, not mescaline
• Colonial suppression of peyote and indigenous resilience
• The enduring symbolism of San Pedro in Andean ritual
• How the counterculture reinterpreted Native practices
• Why modern psychedelic medicine may be repeating history
• The role of finance in shaping current therapy models
• Looking ahead: divergent futures of psychedelic healing

Episode links:

• Mike’s website
• Mike’s new book, Free Radicals
• Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic
• Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind
• Manvir Singh’s article in The Guardian
• “The Peyote Dance” by Antonin Artaud

Episode sponsors:

• Psychedelic Coacing Institute's Intensive for Psychedelic Professionals in Costa Rica - a transformative retreat for personal and professional growth.
• Golden Rule Mushrooms - Get a lifetime discount of 10% with code THIRDWAVE at checkout

In this episode of The Psychedelic Podcast, host Paul F. Austin welcomes Brian Robertson—creator of Holacracy and founder of Ledgeway Sangha—for a thought-provoking conversation at the intersection of organizational design, spiritual community, and psychedelic practice.

Find full show notes and links here: https://thethirdwave.co/podcast/episode-315/?ref=278

Best known for reimagining how companies structure authority through Holacracy, Brian now brings his systems-level insight into the realm of psychedelic spirituality. He shares the origin and mission of Ledgeway Sangha, a legal psychedelic church rooted in peer-to-peer healing, communal practice, and non-dogmatic love. Together, Paul and Brian explore how this innovative model bypasses conventional hierarchy, integrates softer entheogens like 2C-B and 6-APB, and builds a path toward legal protection for churches operating outside mainstream psychedelic frameworks.

Brian Robertson is best known for creating Holacracy, the most comprehensive framework in the world today for running self-managed companies using a decentralized power structure in lieu of a traditional management hierarchy. He’s founded and built many organizations over the past 30 years as an entrepreneur, including HolacracyOne, which helps companies use self-management to unleash creativity and empowered leadership, and the software company GlassFrog, which helps both traditional and self-managed companies drive organizational transparency, agility, and alignment to purpose.

To date, tens of thousands of companies in over 50 countries have embraced his pioneering methods and ideas, and his frequent public speaking seamlessly weaves between business, management, consciousness, and love. Brian is currently focused on building Ledgeway Sangha, an entheogenic church and community-building organization that’s harnessing psychedelics to help people release judgments and resistances into loving acceptance of all that is.

Highlights:

• From Holacracy to entheogenic spirituality
• Why Ledgeway Sangha has no doctrine or belief system
• Love as the norming force in community
• 2C-B and 6-APB as self-integrating medicines
• The case for subtle, sovereign psychedelic journeys
• A new model of psychedelic integration through consistency
• Why hierarchy undermines safe psychedelic containers
• Legal strategies under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
• Creating a church for mystics, not priests
• Poetry, presence, and redefining spiritual transmission

Episode links:

• Ledgeway Sangha
• Holacracy
• Brian’s social media

Episode Sponsor:

• Golden Rule Mushrooms - Get a lifetime discount of 10% with code THIRDWAVE at checkout
• The Practitioner Certification Program by Third Wave’s Psychedelic Coaching Institute.