Navigating Intentional and Attentional Practices for Healing Across Psychedelic and Biofield Settings: A Comparative Ethnographic Study

Abstract

Objectives:

This study was conducted to bring psychedelic and biofield science into interdisciplinary dialogue and encourage scientific investigations of psychedelic therapy as a form of energy medicine. In thinking these two sites together, important resonances between both forms of therapy were highlighted which can help elucidate clearer therapeutic mechanisms across both therapies.

Methods/Design:

Comparative ethnographic methods and a repeated measures design were used to conduct this research over a period of 2 years. A total of 150 qualitative interviews with 135 participants present at psychedelic-assisted therapy retreats and 15 at biofield settings were conducted. All the participants belonged to different ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds; age groups; and reported differing levels of illness and health. The data (ethnographer’s field notes, audio and video archives, as well as background research conducted on each of the field sites) was then transcribed and collated, and resonant themes were highlighted.

Interventions:

The research was conducted at wellness retreat spaces in the Netherlands and in Mexico; across entheogenic substances such as ayahuasca/yage, psilocybin-containing mushrooms, as well as psilocybin-containing truffles; and in biofield settings in the United States and Europe that included practices such as Reiki.

Results/Findings:

Based on 2 years of ethnographic research at psychedelic-assisted therapy retreats and in biofield settings, this article proffers that interdisciplinary dialogue between both forms of therapy is vital in understanding intention and attention as temporally and conceptually distinct categories with divergent healing effects. The research also demonstrates intention and attention as embodied phenomenon as opposed to mental acts.

Conclusions:

Intention and attention are conceptually and temporally distinct embodied phenomenon, and these differences can be best understood through an interdisciplinary study across psychedelic and biofield therapies. Scientists studying these topics should take these distinctions into account to be able to more accurately understand healing mechanisms across both forms of therapy.