Welcome back to The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter serving up news, culture, and independent journalism about psychedelics straight to your inbox.

Today’s lead story is about the healing powers of raves and ceremonies, and one thing they have in common: Community. But what is it exactly about shared ekstasis that makes music festivals and ceremonies so nourishing and who are the types of people who tend to seek out these experiences for healing? You can find that story immediately below!

If you keep scrolling you’ll find stories about how the DEA classifies psilocybin mushroom spores, misinformation about kava and kanna, and an interview with Roger Steffens from the Family Acid.

Summer Blessings to You and Yours 🌞,
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Editor-in-Chief

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Anyone who’s ever felt the emotional floodgates open at a rave understands the energetic medicine of a dance floor. And now there’s research backing up this experience. A study published in the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry found that adults with histories of childhood abuse or neglect who took psychedelics with therapeutic intention at organized ceremonies, raves, or music festivals reported lasting relief from trauma symptoms, a reduction of internalized shame, and a deepened sense of connection to themselves and the world around them. While a strobe flashing warehouse and a candle lit ceremony look drastically different on the surface, the researchers suspect both environments might be doing something similar for people who arrive carrying wounds.

The study, reported on by PsyPost, was led by CJ Healy, a clinical psychologist in New York whose work focuses on childhood trauma. The nexus of ceremonies and raves caught his attention because he realized how similar they both are: raves and ceremonies usually take place overnight; both lean on rhythmic, trance-inducing music; and both create a space for vulnerability and the dissolution of boundaries between people. Healy and his colleagues wondered if these containers forged outside of a shrink’s office functioned especially well for people whose original wounding was relational to begin with.

To find out, the team followed 85 adults around who shared an average age of 36 and planned to take a psychedelic at an upcoming rave or ceremony, and who said outright that they were doing so to heal. Around a third attended ceremonies, while the rest went to raves and music festivals. Participants completed surveys the month before, two days after, and two months later. Psilocybin, ayahuasca, MDMA, and LSD were the substances of choice used by participants.

Two months out, participants showed significant reductions in symptoms of both PTSD and complex PTSD, less shame, and a flourishing sense of connectedness. The physical venue had less of an impact on healing, as ceremony-goers and festival attendees ifelt improvements in roughly equal measure. The nuances and textures of the experiences, however, did seem to have an impact on healing. Those who reported the most profound moments of ego dissolution, oceanic boundlessness, emotional breakthrough, sudden insight, and communitas, or feelings of collection and belonging, walked away with the greatest gains. Dosage shaped the intensity of the trip, of course, but it didn’t predict greater healing or guarantee improvement at all.

These findings come with limitations, of course. There was no control group, for one, so a placebo response or experiencing the warmth of community can’t be ruled out. Everything was self reported, too, ultimately leaving ample room for wishful thinking and memory distortions, and a lack of uniformity around dosing. More research is needed, along with a longer follow up window, and verified drug testing to help sharpen the picture considerably.

Let’s go back to the element of community, for a second. A large reason why people seek out rave environments in the first place is for community — or at least a sense of community — and collective experiences of ekstasis. Community is also inherent in the format of ceremonies. Despite the inherent limitations in the survey research, the collected data — at the very least — points to the role of community in healing, especially healing relational trauma.

In a 2024 paper published in Nature Mental Health, researchers argued that the medicalized, one-on-one model dominating psychedelic therapy (and traditional Western therapy at large) may actually cap its potential, overlooking the social dimension that gave these medicines their power in the first place. Drawing on what’s known as the “social cure model,” the researchers make the case that healing deepens not simply from being near other people but from belonging and from the identity and meaning a group confers. So it checks out that people — especially from countries and cultures where people are more individualistic — seek out ceremonies and raves and music festivals for healing.

Even Madonna, the Queen of Pop, acknowledges the healing powers of community on the dance floor. “Being on the dance floor makes you feel like you're part of a community, without saying anything,” Madonna recently told Interview Magazine. “It saves you every time, whenever you're feeling down, whenever you feel like you can't get it right, whenever you feel like a failure, whatever. Go out dancing because it will save you.”

So, the next time your friends make fun of you for weeping under lasers or a disco ball, just tell them there’s science to support your raving tears.

The psychonaut corner of the internet often expresses a common wish: To give the dose the president with psychedelics, watch his ego die, and wait for an alleged saint to emerge.

After Trump signed an executive order fast-tracking psychedelic medicine in April and joked about taking ibogaine in the Oval Office ("I'll take whatever it takes! I don't have time to be depressed," he said), the wish for Trump to embark on a psychonautic voyage got even louder. But is achieving a peaceful future for the US really as simple as giving Trump psychedelics?

This Friday, journalist Peter Holslin chases the question down to its uncomfortable roots, from the brain scans that show how psychedelics loosen our grip on belief, to the white nationalist who renounced hate after MDMA, to the cult expert who fears that if Trump ever did trip, he might reach for the nuclear button instead of enlightenment.

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