“Trip Sitting: The Art and Science of Holding Psychedelic Space”. Julian Vayne 2025

This is not my own story, but I’m certain it is true. A dear friend of mine once was, the entire statute of limitations ago, invited to a freaky festival-styled wedding where all guests were expected to ingest a ceremonial dose of MDMA. She had never taken illegal drugs before. Very severe PTSD^[1] had been torturing her with depression and panic attacks for many months and she had already decided to end it all and kill herself soon after this one last party, so she figured she might as well try. She was introduced to a fellow wedding guest who was revered as an expert in handling the “sacrament” and was not himself taking it that night but going to “hold space”, i.e. provide safety and expert guidance. So for the first and only time in her life she tripped, and that very night she left her PTSD behind forever.

I've known this friend well before and after; she is by far the most glorious example of recovery from severe mental illness that I've seen with my own two eyes. Ever since she told me this story, I have wondered what it was that this guy did. Some of my other friends continue to suffer terribly from trauma. A few of them have tried psychedelics to fix it and claim that they help, but much like Scott I don't quite believe them, because I haven't seen any of them benefit anything like as dramatically as she did (and several of them might have gotten worse). So I have for years believed my aforementioned friend who says that the helpful awareness this one guy was providing at that freaky wedding was crucial; he must have employed some type of special, evidently valuable “sufficiently advanced technology” of trip sitting. Thereupon I skimmed and discarded many topical writings by drug enthusiasts who relied on bad unscientific assumptions. I was sorely disappointed by the psychiatric literature on MDMA-assisted PTSD therapy, which always insists that expert guidance is crucial for the experience to actually result in lasting recovery, but completely fails to operationalize what exactly makes such guidance sufficiently expert.^[2]

Until, a few months ago, that same guy who I believe saved my friend’s life published this book.

Author Julian Vayne turns out to be a soft-spoken British gentleman scholar who has developed, advocated and taught the safe and responsible use of psychedelics for decades. He speaks of psychonautics and Magick with unusual diligence, deliberately spends many weirdness points but has not gone off the rails like most public psychedelicists.

/embed YouTube: https://youtu.be/WulQyGYcMkM

Most of Julian Vayne’s many books reference occult or neopagan ideas; for all I know “Trip Sitting” could be his only one that does not presuppose ontological validity of what we would call placebomancy or woo. He does utilize terms like “ceremony” for the organized trip-containing situation and “medicine” for the psychedelic substance (generalizing from psilocybin mushrooms), but repeatedly professes satisfaction with purely metaphorical interpretations of e.g. “spirit”.

From remote cultures and dodgy subcultures with rickety epistemics that have developed survivable methods of using psychedelics, this book pragmatically lifts how to build and maintain psychedelic space: an engineered environment around the highly impressionable, supervulnerable person on psychedelics. It makes sure to align with the science of psychedelics and painstakingly struggles to remain content to only mention, not demand suspension of disbelief in, unscientific views.

This book is a unique achievement and seems admirable. Accordingly, I must punish its sales numbers and scorn most of its richly detailed advice by giving you the gist of it for free. I cannot rip off the remarkable, pleasant and meticulous^[3] prose, which could justify the purchase^[4] all on its own.

The gist

• To trip sit someone, you must have completed a trip with the same drug yourself, preferably in the same setting.

• Before you start, prepare at length.

  1. Talk with your adventurer in depth, as equals with mutual respect, about their medical and personal characteristics as well as their prior experiences and expectations. Carefully weigh whether you can assist this particular person with this particular trip.
  2. Design the chosen safe space for hypersensitivity: lighting must be low, everything must be clean, you must mindfully adjust any and all features of the space, from artworks to the path to the bathroom and even the presence of pets.
  3. Prepare a sound system your adventurer can use, and offer a music playlist that accompanies the predictable course of the pharmacological effects over time: encouraging start, interesting peak, relaxing return.

• From before until after the trip, willfully Care in every sensible way. Let them chill in comfort while you embody unimpeachable safety and supportiveness.

• Avoid speaking at all; if words are necessary, have them well-prepared. (Examples of blessings, instructions and jokes are offered.)

• Know what you’re doing and what is going on, and keep signaling that knowledge, to gently reassure your adventurer who doesn’t.

• “After the journey, it is important to have some delicious food available for the tripper.”

• Absolutely never tell anybody anything of what transpired.

This gist appears to accord with mainstream opinion among people who publicly comment on how to do psychedelic-assisted / psycholytic therapy, as far as I can tell despite their frustrating vagueness. The difference is in impressively assiduous specifics like “a variety of blankets, bolsters, and pillows should be available for the traveller” and in very particular hints such as to take care to prevent any sudden noises from the doorbell.

I have not personally verified the value of these particulars, because I don’t do drugs, not even legal pot, anymore. For me this book is not so much a manual as it is a fascinating top view of experiences very different from my own, of psychonauts venturing through outlying reaches of the barely imaginable. But should I ever go there myself, or should another friend tell me they want to seek healing in psychedelics, I am going to confidently bet that this book is Right.