Louis Dorian is the founder and sole investor for the Psychedelist community platform project. Growing up with some of the meaner elements of the infamous San Bernardino valley and coupled with a spiritual void in his home Louis developed an interest in psychedelics at an early age in the mid 1990’s. The time was one of strong stigma and little to no mentorship orsupport in that journey of psychedelic aided self-discovery. For many it was a reckless time of drug exploration and Lou himself experienced many hundreds of extreme macrodose/ heroic dose level trips. This exposed him to both the profound and positive awareness expansion properties of psychedelics and the very real and serious dangers they could present. Hewitnessed friends suffer psychological damage and even death as a domino effect of psychedelic induced psychosis. Lou then suffered his own serious mental health challenges with his father’s difficult and drawn-out painful death from colon cancer. His subsequent predominantly negative experience with western psychiatric care had a deep impact on his understanding of mental health later in life as his journey developed. Discovering breathwork and the Chinese practice of Qi Gong breath and movement Louis survived the lowest point in his life where he had teetered on the edge of suicide. Lou had had a rebellious side in him from an early age seeing hypocrisy andcontradictions throughout society. The experience with western psychiatric care and his increasing disillusionment with career options and personal relationships led to a new chapter in his life as a trafficker and distributor in the illicit but evolving cannabis trade. During this period, he had many near-death experiences, and he received the tour of the criminal justice andincarceration system further enriching his experience of our society and shaping his views around mental health, treatment, substance abuse, trauma related to criminality and political and legislative bias that seemingly took no responsibility for drastically increasing harm to enormous cross sections of the general population. During this same period Louis met someone he fell deeply in love with and spent a 6-year period involved in a complex relationship with a woman that was intensely affected by trauma from the murder of her first boyfriend which she witnessed and attempted to interrupt firsthand. Then on December 10, 2014, her lifeless bodywas discovered in her apartment from a tragic drug overdose. This was the “life splitter” that brought Louis back full circle to psychedelics. Post 2014 Louis began a series of intensive emotional processing “journey work” sessions discovering an astonishingly effective practice around emotional trauma release and he eventually began combining this process with psychedelic usage. As he gained experience, he began to receive recognition from friends and peers around him and slowly people began tocome to Louis to seek healing of their own. This began his official journey into facilitating for others and he began working with people suffering with depression, anxiety and panic attacks, grief, substance abuse issues and veterans suffering with PTSD. By 2021 Louis had the idea emerge to create a way for larger populations to access the type of care he had seen as sotransformative and effective through the lens of skill development. This was the environment and time in which Psychedelist was envisioned and efforts began to forge it into creation. You can visit the site at https://psychedelist.com. Also check socials at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_psychedelist_?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571749371639&mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr X: https://x.com/_psychedelist_?s=21 YouTube: https://youtube.com/@loud-sy9qy?si=1I8dpEAe0QEAkuKB   Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the guest speaker on this episode are solely those of the guest. The con