Who Do You Serve? Facilitating 5-MeO-DMT

5-MeO-DMT is the current psychedelic de jour, celebrated by medical science hungry for a short-lasting chemical to help relieve the mental turmoil of the ego, and by spiritual enthusiasts eager to reveal the Divine within in ceremonial and psychonautical contexts. The sheer power of reconnection, of dropping the mind to reveal a sacred geography within our very being, is overwhelming. A sense of belonging, gratitude, oneness and meaning beyond the duality of other psychedelic experiences has propelled a large majority of those who have experienced this grand initiation to want to share it with others. Despite the absence of a pronounced lineage for the serving of 5-MeO, a new generation of facilitators has emerged, growing almost exponentially, with the natural growing pains, pangs and joys of service. And yet, this role in facilitating the sacred is itself a sacred act. Like midwives of the Divine, 5-MeO facilitators are helping rebirth God consciousness back into the collective. And in doing so we must ask: Who do you serve?

I was introduced to the medicine of 5-MeO-DMT in 2006, in the jungles of Peru, in a very unorthodox set and setting, whilst wearing an EEG helmet and having my brainwaves read by Dr. Juan Acosta and tended to by the “Gringo Shaman”, Ron Wheelock (see www.aya-awakenings.com/film ). They were my first facilitators. Ron had sourced a synthetic version of 5-MeO and the experience completely changed my life. It set me on the course of documenting and communicating what both ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT were about, to create media containers for the sacred initiations and to share the essence of the wisdom that channelled through me. It became a seven-year plus journey to make my book and film, Aya: Awakenings, during which I didn’t go near 5-MeO again, as I was still integrating.

And as that cycle completed: boom, 5-MeO entered my life again in 2015 via Dr. Octavio Rettig, the now infamous Mexican practitioner who had himself been healed from his addictions by the medicine of the Bufo Alvarius toad, native to the Sonoran Desert in the north of Mexico. Toad medicine has its subtle differences from the synthetic version, with over 17 different alkaloids including 5-MeO-DMT contributing to an entourage effect, but the destination was the same: home.

That ceremony was a grand initiation into the medicine of 5-MeO, the Mexican lineage Octavio had kickstarted with the Seri tribe and style of ceremony he brought out into the world (Note: I do not condone Octavio’s now controversial practices, some of which have resulted in death and injury, do your own research). Where nine years before I had received 5-MeO with just my two friends holding space, the mélange of a community ceremony, drawing upon ancient traditions, songs, and ways to hold space, captivated my heart. Coming back from the ‘full release’ of 5-MeO in 2006 I felt alone. By 2015 a global tribe was birthing and everyone had a role to play as seeder, sporer, server. An archaic revival was burgeoning and a new generation of medicine holders was manifesting to be in service–and I was right there at the coal face of the Divine.

God’s Back Door Access Code

I could see that in many ways, 5-MeO-DMT was becoming a modern global sacrament. It’s found in plants, seeds, grasses, animals, mammals–and us, humans. 5-MeO is endogenous to consciousness, like “God’s back door access,” a cheat code to remember Who and What we really are. Mario Garnier, the director of the World Bufo Alvarius Congress likes to say that “the molecule has its own agenda,” whether it's synthetic or toad. And it's not the molecule, obviously – it's the spirit in or behind the molecule, or the force that is revealed in the fullness of the 5-MeO-DMT experience, which I believe is the active intelligence of Source consciousness itself, shaping its creation.

Having felt an ultimate intelligence and getting a glimpse of understanding of the way that it is working through us and through this culture, it has directly affected my perception of 5-MeO facilitators and the role they play in the dissemination of this molecule into the world.

With 5-MeO-DMT it seems like one in five people want to serve the medicine. And the growing proliferation of servers emerging into our community with little to no experience reflects that. But this desire to be in service doesn't mean you have to be a facilitator.

In fact, in some ways you could say we're all facilitating the integration of this medicine back into the culture and into the species. And so essentially, if you take a top-down or a holistic approach and you're not looking at it from the human ego–here I am as a ‘facilitator doing a nine-to-five job’–but if you realize the molecule and the intelligence behind the molecule is actually permeating through the collective, it adds weight to the urgency with which people who have experienced 5-MeO want to share it…

What we have learned is that 5-MeO-DMT is a replicable technology of the sacred. It is endogenous to all mammals, including human beings–we already have the on-switch. We have the ability to have this connection without synthetic medicine or the toad, but we've needed these training wheels to remember that we are the medicine.

Sharing This with Everyone!

“Oh my God, my mom has to do this! My dad has to do this! My friends and family have to do it!” But this is the ego-filter talking, the ego that has come back from full God frequency and is making sense of its experience. And the quality of wanting to share it–to be in unity–is strong. But then we come back to duality. And so, we instinctively sort of migrate towards this idea of switching on the others. Tim Leary had this great quote in the 1960s–as well as the “Turn On Tune In, Drop Out”–there was “Find the others.” And you know, as a counterpoint, Ramana Maharshi says: “There are no others,” right? And in the unity field this is exactly it. 

5-MeO-DMT is similar but different from all the other psychedelics in that it is endogenous to the human organism. So too is N,N-DMT, but the tryptamines in general seem to overwrite the other psychedelics. That is, once you've had this activation of that seed of God within you, then anytime you perturb or alter your Default Mode Network it can just sort of bleed through and come into the other experiences. 5-MeO seems to be the higher vibration and it wants to come into our vessels. We are in relationship with it, as the potential for “reactivations” shows.

So, this is all to say that the people who want to be facilitators–it's the ego filter thinking small. It's like, all right, there's a religious impulse to share this experience but the thing you've got to remember is this experience is dormant and it's in everyone right now. Everyone is God on earth, but they haven't opened to the awareness yet. Some people that have had the external 5-MeO experience may interpret it as simply a drug experience or they might not have the vocabulary, or the let's say energetic complexity to understand and hold the immensity of IT. But they're still getting switched on.

And again – these catalysts through toad and synthetic 5-MeO are external catalysts to remember our internal capacity. But essentially, when people want to share this medicine, they often don’t fully think it through. They may be like, okay, well, you just light a pipe, right? What is there to it? They're not thinking about the mechanics and the role of the facilitator in the world and the interface with the client /facilitator relationship. They're just awash with this awe, with this desire to connect and this desire to share and behind that, what I really believe is happening is a species activation which is coming through in everyone and spreading this activation of 5-MeO-DMT.  

And so essentially, that impulse and that connection behind that impulse is what drives people to serve. Now this doesn't mean you have to be the person lighting the pipe and taking the great and grave responsibility of looking after people's health and well-being and being the rock that holds that space. You might not have the skills for that–but there are many ways to serve. A facilitator needs the support of a team before, during and after a session to be in greater service to their community. Integration is vital. For me, I took my enthusiasm from my first experiences and poured it into service to support others who were facilitating and forming community. Eventually it came to this fruition point where I deeply felt it was time to serve myself–in countries (like Mexico) where this is legal.

The medicine and the intelligence in the medicine, i.e., Source consciousness, is continually grooming facilitators to be of best service, because we are essentially vessels and bridges to then switch on other people as this species activation and remembrance of the Divine within us is occurring. And so, we have a sacred responsibility and perspective to be the best us, the best vessels to serve Source consciousness.

And after a lifetime of service maybe one day you will look back at and remember the faces of all those souls you have helped rebirth. So many souls, all part of the One soul awakening. I like to think that as more and more people remember their sacred essence, that essence gets stronger, like a million lights viewed from space, illuminating continents. A “Samadhi-mesh network” that feeds into itself, eight-billion vessels and growing, but all the one Source working through its awakened vessels. The molecule is terraforming the species, making room for the Creator in the Creation.

And this is Who we serve.

And this is why we give thanks.

All is One!

This is an abridged version of the full essay, published in: Facilitating 5-MeO-DMT: An Anthology of Approaches to Serving The God Molecule (2022) edited by Martin Ball and available at: https://www.amazon.com/Facilitating-5-MeO-DMT-Anthology-Approaches-Entheogenic/dp/B09XZDTNRL