229. Andrew Feldman's 50 Years of Guiding Psychedelic Journey's, A Warning

Andrew Feldmar has been guiding people through psychedelic journeys for over 50 years. He trained directly with R.D. Laing in London, worked with Stanislav Grof at Esalen, practiced at Hollywood Hospital when LSD was still legal medicine, and took part in the first MAPS Canada MDMA research for PTSD. A Hungarian-born psychotherapist who fled the 1956 revolution alone at 16, he has spent a lifetime refusing to pathologize normal human suffering. With the President signing an executive order to fast track psychedelics through the FDA, this conversation could not be more timely. Andrew explains why medicalizing these medicines is a grotesque category mistake, what gets lost when ceremony and relationship are replaced by sterile hospital protocols, and why the source only opens up between people. His new book, Radical Adventure: An Inquiry into Psychedelic Psychotherapy (Karnac Books, 2025), is a quiet act of resistance against the venture capital takeover of sacred work. If we're going to talk about psychedelics in 2026, we need to talk to someone who knew what they were before the industry came for them.