Psychedelic Science 2025: Set and (Re)Setting

Article by Ryan Palmer

For its fifth installment, Psychedelic Science 2025 returned to Denver, offering three days of big ideas, heartfelt community, and some noticeable shifts in the psychedelic space. After the usual chaos of delayed flights and travel drama on Tuesday, we shared a collective sigh of relief as we finally arrived at the Colorado Convention Center, a mile high and ready to dive in.

This year’s theme, “The Integration,” marked a deliberate step forward from 2023’s “Be Part of the Breakthrough”. If 2023 was about making noise, 2025 was about grounding, assessing, and figuring out how we can collectively myceliate from here.

Let’s not sugarcoat it: 2023 felt like the psychedelic event of the decade. Missing it would have been like skipping Woodstock. 2025? Still worthwhile, but less of a can’t-miss moment. The vibe was noticeably more subdued by comparison. The reported 8,000 to 10,000 attendees felt like a generous headcount, especially when the convention space looked a little sparse and the overall energy seemed to hover somewhere below its former frequency.

Some changes were apparent off the bat, others took a moment to realize. Despite being the only event at the center, it almost felt like we’d been relegated to the B-side of the venue. Returning attendees couldn’t help but notice the escalators immediately inside the entrance that we took to the center’s main exhibition hall two years ago were not in service, though the organizers still made sure not to miss the opportunity to cover them with sponsors’ branding. Attendees shuffled their way back and forth from the speaker rooms on the main floor to a smaller exhibition hall and more speaker rooms located at the top of multiple levels of escalators at the far end of the convention center. Making it around to all the booths to network in between the often-stacked time slots of presentations usually involved some precise coordination and a few miles of hustling by day’s end. Perhaps “walking it off” is all part of the integration process? Rick Doblin’s opening plenary kicked off in the Grand Bellco Theatre (5,000 seats, just like in 2023), but the closing plenary was bumped to a smaller ballroom with standing-room and a seating capacity of about 1,050 people, which seemed particularly telling. The line did impressively wrap through the Bluebird hallways, but the downsizing was hard to miss.

The layout of the exhibition hall wasn’t immediately impressive either, and the PS25 app proved to be of little assistance from an interactive floor map standpoint. Despite having a smaller footprint than the main one used in 2023, the hall had wide, empty buffer zones around the edges of the booth areas that gave everything a slightly scaled-down feel. Speaker presentations often overlapped awkwardly, with multiple speakers vying for time slots and disjointing communal discussions roughly centered around the same topics, but without the coherency of delivering on the intersection it makes with culture. At the back of the well-lit hall was still an impressive showing of psychedelic art across a variety of media from the likes of Tribe 13 Gallery and more, however there was certainly nothing like the immersive “Deep Space” of the previous show packed with art installations and performances in a blacked out room of its own, adorned with Burning Man art cars and massive sculptures that unfortunately feels like one of those “had to be there” situations in hindsight.

That all being said, Psychedelic Science is still by far the biggest and most comprehensive psychedelic conference in the world and there were undeniably positive facets, including an impressively eclectic lineup of exhibitor booths. Spiritual warriors, loud branding, polished clinics, cutting-edge science, nonprofit collectives — it was all there. Whether you came for sound baths, retreat sign-ups, networking, legal resources, or harm reduction tools, you could find your people.

While navigating Costco-style samples of products and services like gummies, beverages, light therapy, electric stimulation, and research chemicals may sound like an interesting way to spend a day, catching up with familiar faces and meeting new friends organically while walking the exhibition floor remains a vital part of the community-building aspect of events like this. It’s always great seeing Reggie Harris and Ian Bollinger along with other friends we’ve known since the earliest days of MUSHMAPS. Other booths like Bunk Police and Cluster Busters are always welcome additions as well, especially considering we’ve been fans and proponents of their respective work for quite some time. Walking up to a booth and giving a big hug to someone you’ve only ever spoken to online was a common occurrence, as was the case with our friends at Alkemist Labs and PsiloSafe.

The presence of diverse nonprofits, indigenous representatives, veteran-focused groups, and identity-based healing collectives showed that while this particular event may have shrunk in scale, its mission to broaden the scope of understanding psychedelics for the betterment of humanity is still alive and well. BIPOC leaders and an abundance of liberation revolutionaries continued to hold space for essential conversations around equity, representation, identity, and community healing for the stewards of this field. With the additions of the Black Liberation Sessions Track and stages, as well as the Chacruna Sidebar Conversations: Sacred Plants, Decolonial Dialogues, there were dedicated acknowledgements of the disparities in the industry, including the need for a devoted physical space at these events. The MAPS PS25 newsletter sent out on Thursday honoring Juneteenth also acknowledged prior shortcomings and the critical conversations that need to be heard as well as the work that still lies ahead with a public statement titled ‘From Disappointment to Action: Honoring Juneteenth and Centering Black Liberation’.

The day’s marquee discussions sought to acknowledge, affirm, and elevate black voices in the psychedelic space while also highlighting the ongoing struggles regarding freedom, safety, and access, with panels including ‘We Carry the Light: A Juneteenth Invocation Honoring the Ancestors on the Path to Becoming Good Ancestors’ presented by Hanifa Nayo Washington & Pamela Roundtree. After-hours meetups held by groups like Sex and Psychedelics and District216 were strong reminders that the movement’s integrity hinges on who is included, who is centered, and who gets to lead. These events kept the conversations going, offering warm, collaborative spaces to share research, trade ideas, and keep a steady pulse on the need for broader, more inclusive access. Even if the conference floor felt a little lighter this year, the momentum of the grassroots community is still fully intact.

Other impactful resources provided were in the form of speaker presentations focusing on plant medicine, studies, policy and legislation, workshops, culture and society, and other multidisciplinary topics. We were humbly ecstatic to be included, presenting at our first Psychedelic Science convention alongside so many esteemed peers. Our discussion entitled “Find Your Center” was presented on Wednesday on the Human Behavior, Culture & Society track. A non-exhaustive history concerning the past, present, and future of altered states propagated by entheogenic use, endogenously elicited experiences, and spirit provoking modalities such as breathwork, meditation, and sensory deprivation tanks were discussed in the context of what it takes to discover yourself.

What 2025 may have lacked in volume, it made up for in the quality of its legacy speakers. There was no Aaron Rodgers, Jaden Smith, or Andrew Huberman this year (less of an entourage effect, one could say). Instead, the true architects of the psychedelic movement showed up, spoke from the heart, and reminded us why this space matters. The key messages from these OGs resonated across the board: The battle for access and personal autonomy isn’t over. Reintegration with indigenous wisdom and cultural humility is essential for a future of healing. Rigorous science, transparency, and harm reduction practices must guide the path forward.

William Leonard Pickard: “Rose of Paracelsus” book signing, “Integration and Inner Wisdom: Honoring the Legacy and Future of Ram Dass” and “From the Underground to Artificial Intelligence: a Brief History and the Long Future of Psychedelics”

Chacruna Sidebar Conversations, Meetups and Presentation Spaces with Bia Labate and Lorien Chavez

Paul Stamets: “The Potential of Mushrooms to Support our Minds and Wellness” and “Paul Stamets in His Natural Habitat: How Mushrooms Can Help Save The World”

Carl Hart: “Psychedelic exceptionalism is killing us: A Conversation With Carl Hart”

Hamilton Morris, Gita Vaid, Liana Gillooly: “Ketamine Reality Check: Miracle, Mirage, or Misused?”

Dennis McKenna: “After the Revolution: Natural Psychedelics & the Right to Symbiosis”

Andrew Gallimore: “One and Many: DMT, the Multiverse, and Mystical Convergences in Christianity, Daoism and Hinduism”

And perhaps best of all? You could actually meet these people. Unlike other industries where celebrity thought-leaders are cordoned off by PR reps, the psychedelic world remains uniquely accessible. Running into Dr. Jon Dean at the coffee stand or chatting with Alex and Allyson Grey in the hallway is par for the course. You’re not just attending — you’re participating in the conversation.

Despite some recent regulatory slowdowns and a few stumbles from major players, the demand for healing, connection, and personal autonomy over one’s own mind and body continues to surge. The psychedelic wave isn’t receding anytime soon. Psychedelic Science 2025 may not have matched the explosive energy of 2023, but it didn’t need to. What emerged was a more grounded, reflective event that’s signaling the movement’s shift from breakthrough hype to long-term integration. It’s less flash, more substance(s). Fewer clickbait celebrities, more genuine and impactful conversations.

And that’s exactly where we need to be.