Other organizations paving the way for the de-stigmatization of psychedelics in Minnesota include Big Psych, a grassroots psychedelic education and activist organization focused on community-building, accessible education, and supporting self-sufficiency in psychedelic exploration. The group’s main priority is to help cultivate a psychedelic culture rooted in equity, reciprocity, and the freedom to choose one’s own path, whether that be spiritual, therapeutic, ancestral, or exploratory. Big Psych was co-founded by couple Jade and Stig Mycelia in 2020 and has been growing and engaging with members of the community ever since. 

“The Psychedelic Task Force recommendations, while a step forward, fall short in community autonomy and equal opportunity,” Jade Mycelia, founder of Big Psych Minnesota, told Filter. “Without funding and protections, local cultivators and community-run psychedelic spaces are limited in open development and innovation.”

“Greater inclusion of grassroots advocates could have ensured more equitable outcomes.”

“We deeply appreciate those on the task force who advocated for community-centered approaches,” Mycelia added, “and believe greater inclusion of grassroots advocates could have ensured more equitable outcomes.”

I’ve always been a pretty bold woman. Outspoken, ambitious, and willing to take risk. As a child it was climbing pine trees and collecting birds with broken wings to nurse back to health. In my teens it was an armor of attitude and blunt, unfiltered motions. My flame was a bit more untamed and farrell back then. Now in my late 20’s, coming up on my golden birthday at age 28, I’ve learned how to be mindful and cautious of my gift for risk, and I attribute much of this to my relationship with psychedelics.

“We value the ability for people to choose their own path,” Mycelia says. “We advocate for diversity of thought in the psychedelic space because there is no one way to experience psychedelics. You can follow your own path and develop your own techniques outside of the mainstream or traditional [healing modalities]. Being mindful of your needs and developing a practice that reflects your unique experience, while having the resources to support individual autonomy is important to us.”

Stig Mycelia

He is a Minneapolis native who moved to the Northside with his wife after high school. He paved a self taught path by learning to cultivate mushrooms in the comfort of his home space before entering the commercial cultivation world at Mississippi Mushrooms. He explored traditional forms of education at the University of Minnesota and concluded that this was not the space for him. Instead, he continued to explore the culture of cultivation as an independent study, and used these pursuits to ground his stance as a psychedelic activist.

The initiative was rekindled at a local psychedelics gathering a year later, the first annual Big Psych conference, which drew some 100 participants. One of the speakers was Marcus Harcus, a community organizer and non-profit lobbyist who was involved in cannabis legalization efforts. At the end of his talk, Harcus announced that anyone who wanted to participate in psychedelic law reform should text him, and he shared his phone number. Nielson and Ebert were in the audience and they did.

“The goal here is to offer a diverse plethora of perspectives on psychedelics,” said Jade Mycelia, co-founder of Big Psych. “A lot of times, there's only one medical modality that's being pushed forth and propped up as the one true way. And we want to really express and honor that there are so many different ways to experience psychedelics, and everyone's approach is valid.”

Big Psych is an activist and education organization that centers everyday people in the plant medicine community. We can evolve with cohesion and empathy by integrating traditional, scientific, spiritual, environmental, and communal explorations of plant medicine—the many ways of knowing collective anchor progress.