The Sacred Speaks
142: Simon Yugler: Psychedelics and the Soul
Simon Yugler has spent time inside traditions ranging from Aboriginal Australia to the Shipibo lineage in Peru. Most of us will only ever read about experiences like that. I admire the ground he's stood on, and what it has done to his worldview. Simon is a depth psychotherapist, psychedelic facilitator, educator, and the author of Psychedelics and the Soul: A Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural Repair — and his central conviction is that psychedelics are not primarily a mental health intervention. They are initiatory and speak to the soul. At twenty, he traveled to an Aboriginal community in Arnhem Land, Australia, and was changed by what he encountered there. He went on to apprentice within the Shipibo ayahuasca tradition in the Peruvian Amazon, spending six weeks inside a lineage that didn't reconstruct its transmission from texts. He completed his master's at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where his thesis explored the loss of male initiation rites in Western culture and what the medicine might restore. Today he trains facilitators, runs men's groups, and continues his healing work with individual. In this conversation, Simon walks inside what he calls mythopoetics — the practice of helping people find the mythic story inside their experience and carry it home. We get into what myth actually means, what archetypes are doing inside psychedelic experience, and why Jungian depth psychology sees what the neuroscience frameworks are blind to. We also talk about what the medicine gets right. Simon offers a moving case study: a man who, during a psilocybin retreat, rediscovered his own goodness and a genuine encounter with soul. And we hold the critique. A six-month facilitator training is not a substitute for years of depth work. The medicalization box is too small — and, as Simon puts it, the alien always gets out. In this conversation: Mythopoetics and what myth actually is What living Indigenous traditions carry that Western therapy lost and can't get back from books The male initiation crisis and the loneliness epidemic What the medicine reveals that slow depth work cannot reach A case study in rediscovering one's own goodness Why the initiatory can't be regulated and why it never will be Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and Show Intro 00:47 Housekeeping and Links 02:57 Meet Simon 05:57 Mythopoetic Approach Explained 07:32 What Myth Really Means 10:20 Archetypes and Psyche 14:16 Simon's Origin Story 16:57 Australia and Indigenous Reality 23:23 Apprenticeship and Lineage 26:16 Western vs. Psychedelic Training 30:32 Why Psychedelics 36:44 Roots and Calling to Heal 38:41 Therapy Spark Moment 39:33 Choosing Pacifica 41:17 Lineage and Early Openings 43:14 Men's Work Thesis Roots 45:07 Why Men Need Gathering 48:40 Loneliness, Grief, and Soul 53:15 Psychedelic Healing Story 58:41 What Psychedelic Work Gets Right 1:04:32 Critique: The Medicalization Box 1:06:41 The Alien Always Gets Out 1:08:22 Closing: Book and Where to Find Simon Find Simon: simonyugler.com simonyugler.substack.com The Sacred Speaks: www.drjohnwprice.com youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg instagram.com/thesacredspeaks facebook.com/thesacredspeaks Theme music: Modern Nations — modernnationsmusic.com
