Since 2020 especially, regulatory, scientific, and social changes have increased the use of psychedelics for therapy. As a result, more and more of my clients have compared and contrasted their experiences with hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics. All three can reveal layers of the self and the programs that influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

• Hypnosis is precise and controlled. You remain anchored in consensus reality, but you alter internal programs as you direct.
  

• Meditation is a gradual, disciplined route. You separate identification with internal programs through attention and silence.
  

• Psychedelics are massive chemical reboots that dissolve boundaries instantly. They can fling the mind beyond all programs, but bypass natural safety mechanisms.

All three are doorways to higher states of consciousness. What you choose just depends on your objective, your risk tolerance with regard to chemicals, and the level of control and precision you desire.

John Lily (Center of the Cyclone, 1972) was one of the few scientists who deeply explored hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics side by side through direct experience. He wrote:

“This is one of the major messages I wish to give you about inner trips, whether by LSD, by meditation, by hypnosis, by Gestalt therapy, by group work, by studies of dreaming, by isolation-solitude-confinement, by whatever means one uses… In the province of the mind, what is believed to be true is true, or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind, there are no limits.”