About Us

Our mission is to empower individuals, organizations, and communities within the psychedelics and plant medicine space to navigate ethical practices and challenges.

Our values are:

  • Compassion - support others to develop qualities of kindness, responsibility, and competence in their interactions with each other.

  • Integrity - share and encourage ethical practices grounded in lived experience and able to withstand the sometimes complex moral landscape of psychedelics.

  • Respect - recognize individual, organizational, community autonomy and ability to self-govern.

If you resonate with our mission and wish to explore ways to be involved, let’s connect.

Who is EPIC for?

  • People interested in utilizing psychedelics for healing, personal growth, or any other reason

  • People with any level of psychedelic experience, from curious newbies to veteran psychonauts

  • Psychedelics, plant medicine, and medicinal fungi enthusiasts

  • Practitioners of psychedelic-assisted therapy in clinical and non-clinical settings

  • Guides, facilitators, and life coaches who serve psychedelics or work with people who use psychedelics

  • Trip sitters and other harm-reduction workers and volunteers

  • Psychedelic community leaders

Volunteers

  • Sandra is an Ethicist and Psychedelic Ethics specialist with a MA, Phd in Philosophy.  She is an Ethics Advisor active in Psychedelic Integration, Education and Advocacy.

    She is the community leader of EPIC (Ethical Psychedelic International Community), Director of Ethics for Nectara, a psychedelic support ecosystem, and former leader of the Santa Cruz Psychedelic Society. Sandra taught Bioethics at University of California, Santa Cruz, for ten years, worked for many years in the tech industry primarily at Apple, and is a Reiki Master. 

    Sandra focuses on listening and uplifting the voices and values of the Psychedelic Community especially the disenfranchised with the heart space intention of compassion and love.

  • Samuel Douglas is a PhD-qualified philosopher with 15 years of teaching and research experience in professional ethics, philosophy of language, education, and critical thinking at the University of Newcastle (Australia.)

    Behind the scenes of his studies and academic work, Samuel has been involved with plant medicine and psychedelic communities in Australia for over 20 years. His passion for writing and advocacy in this area led to his involvement in (and eventual leadership of) the Australian Psychedelic Society.

    Samuel also works as a psychedelic-focused content writer and editor via his business, Psychedelic Overground. In his down-time, he is an avid gamer, gardener and beach-goer.

  • Hello my name is Brenna Gebauer. I am a Transformational Coach and Guide based in Southern California. Prior to that, I spent decades building the ideal career based on society’s standards. It left the external boxes checked, but my soul felt empty.

    Psychedelics found me when I needed them most. After a 10-day silent meditation retreat I followed my inner wisdom to support making them available for more to utilize for healing and growth. As I result, I have witnessed countless individuals change the course of their life through facilitating experiences so they can become more authentic and loving versions of themselves.

    My work is centered around creating a sacred container for the soul nourished by compassion and love. I focus on tapping into inner wisdom and cultivating self-love as a means of supporting healing and creating deep connection.

  • My call to Plant Medicine Co-creation began with Mother Cacao, it was then that the Wise Woman within extended outwards Her access to remembrance. Entheogenic & Plant Medicines are becoming more present in our consciousness as they are here to assist us in this time of expansion and evolution.

    Co-creating with Cacao allowed me a first-hand view into how Plants could substantially shift us on a mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual level.

    I was next called to explore Psilocybin, mindfully cultivating my relationship with the spirit of Fungi on an intimate level. When the Spirits of these Medicines are properly honored they can assist us to experience, with greater depth, our full spectrum capacity as Human Beings.

    The indigenous cultures have always held true, that which we are now remembering: we are of the Earth, and as such, Earth Medicines are vital to our survival and evolution as a holistic unified Super-organism.

  • Antanika Hoberg is the Australian Psychedelic Society (APS) Vice President. Her interest in psychedelics began with her lived experience, treating Complex-PTSD successfully with Psychedelics. The resulting Post Traumatic Growth that ensued became the driving force behind her as she worked within the space to ensure others remain safe and stigma free when looking for similar healing.

    Antanika began volunteering her time as a social media volunteer in 2018 and after noticing a gap in her psychedelic community and then established the Adelaide chapter of the APS.

    She has since worked on a variety of projects in the psychedelic and mental health advocacy space and more recently Antanika was featured on SBS’s Insight discussing her experiences with psychedelics and the potentials of decriminalisation on greater society. Antanika’s passion lies in the creation of community and advocacy, something she felt lacked in her initial years of experimenting with psychedelics for her mental health.

    She is actively engaged in the psychedelic community and you can catch her on monthly group calls for women focusing on harm reduction, ethics, community support and self-education in the psychedelic space. In between hosting group events, speaking on panels and working behind the scenes at the APS, she home-schools two of her three children and spends her time exploring the local forests with her family.

  • Douglas Rusk is a CIS gay therapist who uses He/Him and They/Them pronouns, and is based out of the Treaty 6 territories of Canada's first nations peoples; now known as Edmonton, Alberta.

    He holds certifications as a Life Coach, CBT Practitioner, Drug and Alcohol Treatment Specialist, Life Skills Counselor, Wellness Counselor and Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy Practitioner. Upon completion of his current program with Rhodes Wellness College, he will be seeking accreditation through the relevant professional associations.

    He values courage, freedom, and authenticity above all else and is passionate about shifting the perception of ethics from a series of eggshells to be avoided into a tangible framework for personal and professional excellence that any human can use to inform how they experience and interact with the world.

    Douglas founded the mental health collective Dark Water Navigations in 2021 and is on a mission to decolonize mental health services. He believes true healing is affected not through exchange of currency for services but through community, relationship, and tradition. For him, the “will to live” is not a product to be sold.

    When he isn’t volunteering his time to advancing ethics in the psychedelic renaissance you can find him practicing his makeup artistry, reading a fantasy novel, or camping by the lake with his 3 cats, his dog, and his loving partner of 14 years.

  • Miriam van Groen, MSc, studied International Development and taught and coached at Rotterdam University of Applied Science until a burnout forced her to reorient.

    Her interest and training in adult development, embodiment and mindfulness, combined with the globally rekindling interest in psychedelics, led her to found Guided Tripping.

    Miriam and her team now support 1-on-1 journeys geared towards personal growth and empowerment. She is on the board of the Dutch professional organization for facilitators of legal psychedelic experiences Guild of Guides, where she focuses on professional ethics, accountability and accessibility.

  • Liam Farquhar MSc. is a legal psychedelic guide with various training, including Internal Family Systems and Somatic Experiencing, two trauma-informed therapeutic modalities that are becoming increasingly popular alternatives to conventional talking therapies. He has been following intentional psychedelic use as a new healing paradigm since 2006. Before finding the work he loves, he was a Big 4 management consultant, and before that a male nanny (aka ‘manny’). Liam attempts to bring together his life experiences to find a balance of science and spirituality, and masculine and feminine. He believes there is plenty of room, and very much a need, to understand and embody these polarities.

  • As a holistic wellness coach, Lacey is a conscious advocate for embodied wellness as well as a tool for personal and community healing.

    Currently based in Southern California, Lacey lends her support to projects promoting the ethically responsible education of psychedelic medicines, including EntheoNation and The Los Angeles Medicinal Psychedelics Society.

    As the Program Manager at The Plant Spirit School, she oversees the Psychedelic Integration Coach Certification Program and supports students along their transformational journey towards becoming safe and competent integration providers.

    She is an avid writer, a compassionate spaceholder, and an eternal learner.

  • I am a listener, spaceholder and confidante for those who feel called to share their stories, struggles and secrets. For as long as I can remember, people have trusted me with their innermost feelings and thoughts.

    In the past few years, I’ve organized dozens of psilocybin retreats for individuals, couples, and groups. I’ve supported countless people on their mushroom journeys. And I’m happy to be of service to you in whatever ways I can.

    Learn more about me here.

Our collective wish is to grow in the direction of increased diversity and inclusion. Please reach out if you would like to join us.