MysticMag features an exclusive interview with Paul F. Austin – a pioneering voice in the modern psychedelic movement—an entrepreneur, author, and coach devoted to transforming how we approach personal and professional growth. As the founder of Third Wave and the Psychedelic Coaching Institute, Paul has helped millions navigate safe, intentional, and skillful psychedelic experiences. His mission is to empower leaders and visionaries to unlock their potential through the conscious use of psychedelics as tools for healing, insight, and transformation. With features in outlets like Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, and the BBC, Paul stands at the forefront of an evolving field, blending ancient wisdom with modern ambition to shape humanity’s next evolution.
You’ve described psychedelic use as a skill that can be cultivated through clear intention, supportive mentorship, and courageous exploration. How do you guide individuals in developing this skill, and what foundational principles do you emphasize to ensure safe and transformative experiences?
Psychedelic use isn’t just about what you take, it’s about how you relate to the experience. At Third Wave and the Psychedelic Coaching Institute, we emphasize that psychedelics are amplifiers of consciousness. If someone approaches them without intention, context, or integration, that amplification can create confusion rather than clarity.
So we begin with three pillars: education, preparation, and integration. Education means understanding the compound: its effects, contraindications, and history. Preparation is about cultivating the right internal landscape, including intentions, creating a safe physical container, and building nervous system resilience. And integration is where the real alchemy happens: turning the insight from a peak state into embodied change over time. Whether we’re guiding coaches, leaders, or curious seekers, we hold the frame that psychedelics are best approached like a sacred art: disciplined, intuitive, and always in relationship with the mystery.
Your book, Mastering Microdosing, offers comprehensive insights into microdosing practices. What are some of the most significant benefits and potential drawbacks you’ve observed in individuals who incorporate microdosing into their daily routines, especially among leaders, creatives, and healers?
Microdosing, when practiced skillfully, becomes a powerful tool for subtle transformation. Among high-performing individuals—whether they’re founders, artists, or healers—I’ve seen microdosing enhance emotional fluidity, creative flow, and a more attuned connection to intuition. It helps interrupt the autopilot mode many of us live in and offers a gentle, sustained sense of presence and possibility.
That said, microdosing isn’t a panacea. The biggest drawback is when people use it as a shortcut, e.g. expecting transformation without the work. Without proper structure, reflection, and support, the practice can become another supplement rather than a true catalyst for change. That’s why our programs always emphasize the container around the practice: the habits, the coaching, the rituals that help microdosing become a mirror rather than a mask.
Through initiatives like Third Wave and the Psychedelic Coaching Institute, you’re working to build a global community around psychedelic education and coaching. How do these platforms contribute to the broader mission of normalizing and integrating psychedelics into mainstream wellness and personal development practices?
We’re at a moment where psychedelics are crossing an important cultural threshold: from taboo to tool, from underground to integrative wellness. Third Wave began as an educational hub, offering evidence-based guidance on safe, intentional use. That foundation allowed us to reach millions of people and slowly reframe psychedelics not as escapism but as empowerment.
With the Psychedelic Coaching Institute, we’ve expanded that mission by training practitioners who can steward these experiences with integrity. We’re building a new archetype: the psychedelic-informed coach who blends somatic intelligence, nervous system literacy, and transformational leadership. As more of these guides step into the field, psychedelics can be integrated not just in clinics but in boardrooms, communities, and homes.
Our aim is cultural literacy. Just like yoga or meditation, psychedelics have the potential to become normalized, respected, and wisely utilized as part of the modern toolkit for healing and awakening.
The Microdosing Collective aims to educate and advocate for the legalization of microdosing psychedelics. What strategies does the organization employ to engage with policymakers and the public, and what progress have you seen in shifting perceptions and regulations around microdosing?
The Microdosing Collective operates on a simple but powerful premise: people deserve access to safe, effective tools for their mental health and wellbeing. Our approach is twofold—first, we elevate the stories of everyday people who’ve benefited from microdosing: veterans with PTSD, mothers recovering from postpartum depression, founders navigating burnout. These human narratives are more powerful than statistics.
Second, we collaborate with researchers, clinicians, and public health advocates to build bridges with policymakers. The focus isn’t on hype but, instead, on harm reduction, education, and creating frameworks that ensure safety and accountability. While we’re still in early stages legislatively, the cultural tide is turning. Microdosing is no longer a fringe curiosity. It’s becoming a serious conversation in mental health, wellness, and even performance optimization circles.
Given the growing interest in psychedelics for personal growth and healing, what ethical considerations do you believe are paramount for practitioners and coaches in this space? How do you ensure that the expansion of psychedelic use remains grounded in responsibility and integrity?
We’re not just scaling a market, we’re also stewarding a movement. And that means ethics must lead the way. For practitioners, the core questions are: Am I trauma-informed? Am I operating within my scope of practice? Am I centering the client’s agency, or projecting my own framework onto their experience?
At the Psychedelic Coaching Institute, we train coaches to be facilitators of transformation, not gurus. We emphasize consent, cultural humility, and integration over peak experiences. And we teach our students that psychedelic work doesn’t begin or end with the substance. Doing this work with integrity is about the relational field, the trust, the attunement to what’s emerging in the other person.
Integrity in this space means remembering that psychedelics aren’t about escaping reality but about meeting it more fully. And our role as guides is to help others meet that reality with presence, compassion, and courage.
If you would like to find out more about Paul F. Austin, please visit https://www.paulaustin.co/
