Renewed: Stories of Psychedelic Healing

Episode 1: vietnam war veteran Steve anderson

In 2022, we approached our friends at the Clarity Project with a concept for this short film series. Clarity Project is an organization working in Hawaii to decriminalize psilocybin (psychedelic mushrooms). Their focus is currently on legalizing it for use in a therapeutic setting with a trained guide. The Clarity team agreed to take a journey with us and find a military veteran diagnosed with PTSD that benefited from an “underground” guided psychedelic journey. Through their network, we were lucky enough to find two brave souls willing to share their story (Steve Anderson and his son Sean Anderson).

The sheer volume of promising research in psychedelics happening at top tier universities is hard to ignore. Cori and I have spent quite a bit of time researching and understanding the current dynamics as well as the history of psychedelics in our society. We felt compelled to use our filmmaking skills to help shine a light on this renewed research and momentum in this space.  The desire was to help get these promising tools and healing modalities in the hands of hard working mental health professionals. There are souls in this world suffering and the current mental health pharmaceuticals and treatment methods are failing them. It’s time for innovation and new progress in our understanding of the human mind.

On a personal note, I lost two family members during the pandemic to mental health related challenges. This film is dedicated to my aunt (Beau Diehl Pierce) and my cousin (Kyle Cummins). That’s a little window into my motivation in telling this story and wanting help mental health professionals gain new tools to use against treatment resistant conditions. When we lost Kyle, I was lost in pain and anger. In my clearer moments, I imagined the opioid industry as a dragon figure in my minds eye. I told myself that I would sharpen my skills as a filmmaker to strike a blow against this industry profiting off addiction and human suffering. We’ll call this the first strike.

Aloha,

Tristan Cummins

“Psychedelics have inspired new hope for treating brain disorders, as they seem to be unlike any treatments currently available. Not only do they produce sustained therapeutic effects following a single administration, they also appear to have broad therapeutic potential, demonstrating efficacy for treating depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorder, and alcohol use disorder, among others.” - Frontiers Media, Scientific Journal