Welcome to our latest Reality Sandwich interview. We’re incredibly excited to be sharing an exclusive conversation with Paul F. Austin, the founder of Third Wave, an organization that’s truly at the forefront of the modern psychedelic movement.
From the moment we first heard of Third Wave’s mission to provide research-based education, vetted provider access, and membership in a global community for psychedelic pioneers, we knew this was a conversation we wanted to share with our readers. Austin’s organization is revolutionizing the way we perceive and engage with these powerful substances and their transformative potential for personal growth and societal evolution.
Austin is not only an innovative thought leader but also a hands-on advocate, committed to dismantling the stigma around psychedelic use. His work with Third Wave is helping to shift the narrative around psychedelics, fostering an ecosystem where they are respected, understood, and appropriately integrated into society for their therapeutic and transformative potential.
In this interview, Austin shares his journey that led to the creation of the Third Wave, the experiences that have shaped his understanding of psychedelics, and the hurdles he’s had to overcome. He also discusses the importance of making credible, research-based information about psychedelics more accessible, and paints a vision of the future where these substances are a respected part of our collective toolbox for mental health and personal development.
Prepare to have your perspectives challenged, your knowledge broadened, and your understanding deepened.
Meet Paul F. Austin, Founder of Third Wave
Reality Sandwich: Tell us a little about yourself, Paul.
Paul Austin: My name is Paul Austin, the founder of Third Wave. We started Third Wave in 2015 as an educational platform to help destigmatize and rebrand psychedelic substances. There was still a lot of stigma around these medicines and a lot of misunderstandings about their potential. We wanted to provide an objective lens on the benefits of these medicines and how they can be used responsibly and with intention. As well as cover some of the risks and challenges.
There’s a lot of great science and research and academia that’s coming out on psychedelics and there’s a really big rave and festival culture that’s always woven in psychedelics but there hasn’t been that bridge for broader culture. And so the Third Wave intends to create that platform to educate a broad populace. Over the last few years, we’ve expanded to help connect people with vetted, trusted providers in the psychedelic space. We have a free community, and users can download the Third Wave app and connect with other like-minded folks around the world.
RS: When did plant medicine first become a part of your life?
PA: My origin story is at the age of 16 when I started to smoke cannabis. That was my introduction to psychoactive substances before I ever drank alcohol before I ever drank coffee. My first psychoactive was cannabis. And, I grew up in a pretty traditional family in West Michigan – a more conservative part of the United States.
And so, when my parents found out that I smoked cannabis for the first time, my dad looked at me and said, “This is the most disappointed I’ve been since my brother died in a car accident.” So clearly defending that propaganda from the war on drugs was very immediate and present.
Even throughout that process, I was using cannabis with integrity. I thought cannabis was super fun and interesting. It helped me to socially connect. I wasn’t doing it that often by any stretch of the imagination.
Three years later, the same friend that introduced me to cannabis introduced me to psilocybin mushrooms. I had my first experience with psilocybin in the basement of the home where I was living at university and had a nice experience. It was nostalgic and sensual – we watched Pink Floyd’s, The Wall, kind of like the classic first psychedelic trip. But I didn’t have that “holy shit” psychedelic experience until five months later when I did LSD for the first time with a few friends. It was a beautiful early May day, 75 degrees in West Michigan. I felt connected to everything around me, letting go of any shame or guilt about drug use.
I ended up working with LSD about 10 or 15 times over the next couple of years through my junior and senior years at university. And it was very influential in choosing the path post-University. I realized I didn’t want to live a conventional lifestyle. I’d much rather chart my path to do things my way. So I ended up moving abroad. I moved to Turkey when I was 21 where I taught English for a year, and started to learn a lot about becoming a digital nomad and working online. This is in 2012, so still pretty early in the digital nomad day.
I then ended up traveling to 70 countries over the next probably four or five years, just exploring Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, Africa, and different spots. And within that time frame, I noticed that psychedelics were becoming more and more talked about. Michael Pollen, Joe Rogan, and Tim Ferris were starting to publish Podcasts. More research was coming out, and cannabis was being reevaluated. And so, in 2015, I started to microdose, and I realized that this could help a lot of people. Let’s start an educational platform that educates people not only on micro-dosing but psychedelic use in general.
RS: What are your thoughts about managing corporate interest in the psychedelic space?
PA: When I first started working with psychedelics I was a much different person. I started to work with psychedelics because I sensed that they could be very helpful on my path of personal development, and so, I’ve learned a lot about myself through the last 13 years. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to work with LSD even though it was and still is illegal. And so, I think there are a lot of beautiful positive aspects of all of the energy. Even if it is cannabis and pharmaceutical companies because I genuinely believe that most people are coming from a good place. They want to help others and all the investment that’s coming in helps to move the needle on legal policy.
It brings us back into a deeper lens of integrity and what I’ve noticed with a lot of the early energy, let’s say from cannabis and pharmaceutical industries, is that there’s very much a transactional consumerist mindset. And I think one of the greatest teachings from deep psychedelic work, is that in itself is coming from an unhealed place. A lot of what psychedelics teach us is the importance of relating and how important it is to relate to nature, land, ourselves, community, friends, and family.
It’s also important to look at what’s happening with cannabis to help us prepare for what may happen with psychedelics. There is a legal market, but the black market is alive and well. I believe that decriminalization of psychedelics is the best path forward.
Then we need to ask, who participates in this ecosystem? Because although many of us have done a lot of psychedelics and worked with plant medicines, these substances have intelligence in and of themselves. It’s arrogant to assume we are more intelligent. We need to look at these substances as allies, and not just drugs to be extracted and monetized for personal gain.
RS: What were early psychedelic resources you used to educate yourself?
PA: So the classic is Erowid, I think that was the only website that I knew about at the age of 19, but I just looked around a bit in there since the user experience isn’t too great. In college, I had a good friend who had done acid several times and was someone I trusted. So he just sort of told me the truth about it and broke down the stigmas of what the world tells you. He advised against doing a lot your first time and starting small. He was a good friend who gave me good information.
I didn’t learn a lot about the history of scientific research on psychedelics until maybe six months before I started Third Wave. I started to listen to Tim Ferris and other podcasts and I started to read a lot of books about it. So it wasn’t until I was 24 that I became educated about psychedelics and before that, it was just like a good friend that I trusted. I had quite a few experiences with LSD and psilocybin mushrooms. Most of my experiences were beautiful, but there have been some that were very difficult trips, and those were big lessons too.
Again, it comes back to why Third Wave. Because we needed a platform that could help communicate the potential of these substances for people who are not necessarily psychonauts or festival goers, or taking these things every weekend at a Dead show.
RS: Walk me through the experience of a person coming to Third Wave for the first time. What are your most popular courses? What are you finding people are initially attracted to?
PA: We’ve recently undergone a major rebrand, and as part of that, we’ve launched Third Wave’s community, which is an app that you can download. So the person’s invitation now is to join our app and start connecting with other folks. Beyond that, we have tons of excellent guides on the site. So if you want to learn about something, you’ll have not just the article but the footnotes with all of the references, scientific research, and other resources. We’ve also published over 200 podcasts over the last seven years on a range of topics.
We also have a mushroom grow kit – we send a grow kit to people’s homes, so they can learn how to grow their mushrooms. We also have a microdosing course that people want to deepen what we call the skill of psychedelics, or the skill of microdosing to accelerate behavioral change.
And then finally, we have both one coaching program and a practitioner training program. Let’s say you’re new to psychedelic and want some coaching on how to prepare for the experience and how to integrate afterward, this is perfect. We’ll pair you with a certified practitioner who has gone through our program to do just that. These practitioners have completed our coaching certification program, which is a nine-month program. That includes a six-day intensive in Costa Rica where we train you and how to assess and prepare clients, how to hold space, how to integrate, and how to coach them through microdosing.
RS: Are those with a traditional medical background entering the psychedelic space?
PA: I would say yes because most of the emphasis in the psychedelics space has been on therapeutic medical and clinical applications. There’s been so much incredible research on the efficacy of a range of various clinical conditions. And yet what we focus on through the Third Wave is really what I call the betterment of the people. So we certainly have education and materials on how psychedelics are useful for PTSD, depression, addiction, and alcoholism. But our main focus is how taking psychedelics can help us to become better communicators – to be more honest and open and authentic. And achieve higher levels of performance and creativity to improve overall being, to be better leaders, whether it’s within our companies, families, or our communities.
So looking at that full range of what it means to be human. And so, a lot of the coaching program is more speaking to executives, health and wellness coaches, life and relationship coaches, et cetera. We have some clinicians, psychologists, therapists, social workers, and doctors who enroll in our program. But those are people who see the limitations of the therapeutic model and they want to be able to be applied in their full power and guide them through that full process of transformation, rather than just helping them get back to baseline.
RS: How does the Third Wave vet its psychedelic retreats and resource centers?
PA: Yeah, that’s a great question. So whether it’s ayahuasca, psilocybin, or even a ketamine clinic, there are several other medicines in our directory. We have retreats, we have clinics and then we have individual therapists, practitioners, and coaches specific for the treats. What we ask is that the retreats have at least a year of experience under their belt. Usually, either myself or people that I know, like people on the team, and people that are close to us, have gone to the retreat. And we always do a call with them. We check in with them, we get to know them, we ask them for their protocols, and we ask them for the experience that they’re facilitators. We do a deep check to ensure that this is an ethical center and they’re doing good work. That’s integrity.
For anyone looking for ways to vet retreat centers, my recommendation is to always set up a call with them, to review their website and to just make sure to ask them about their prep material. How do you prepare people before they come down here? Do you have a preparation program? Who are your shamans or your facilitators? Where do they come from? How long have they been doing this work? Are they indigenous? If they’re indigenous, that’s usually a good sign. Rather than just some of these neo-shamans who have, put up pop-up ayahuasca retreats wherever. And then ask them about their integration programs, do you offer integration? What is your integration process? How do you support people after they leave the retreat? And then finally, ask them If they can connect you with some people who have gone through their program before. Do your research and find the best place for you.
RS: What is the future of ketamine clinics and psychedelic health business models?
PA: That’s a great question. So, coming back to the point I made earlier that the centralized approach is having brick-and-mortar FDA approval and regulation. It’s a very centralized medical model. The centralized brick-and-mortar model of ketamine therapy has been shown to not be profitable over at-home mail and telehealth options.
Especially when patients are getting paired with a virtual coach or clinician who helps them with preparation and integration. So there are a lot of successful models, specifically ketamine decentralized models, where they don’t have a brick-and-mortar necessarily. I think ketamine clinics will still have a role to play for those who have a deeply therapeutic process to go through. Telemedicine ketamine is not good for someone who has complex problems or adverse childhood experiences in deep trauma that they have to work with. But the vast majority of people who are interested in this aren’t necessarily deeply traumatized.
I think there will be a small minority of people who utilize the ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin clinics as they roll out. These people will likely have very deep clinical issues that need to be addressed. But I think the vast majority of people will choose to participate in local ceremonies. We’ll choose to grow this at home. We’ll choose to do virtual coaching before, and after they’ll choose to find trip sitters and their local community who can just hold space for them and be present for them. I don’t agree with this hypothesis that the biotech industry is going to be this massive industry in this psychedelic space.
I think it’s too centralized to be industrial and it’s very much in the past and none of the future.
RS: Who are some of the nonprofit programs you work with or want to shed light on? Who’s doing right in the nonprofit space in the psychedelic community, in your opinion?
PA: So, two years ago, I founded a nonprofit called the Microdosing Collective, and the focus of the microdosing collective is to educate and create awareness. But most importantly, start to build a legal policy to support legal microdosing. In a lot of these jurisdictions, take Oregon for example – it’s legal to microdose but it might cost five hundred dollars because of all the regulation that’s been set up. And even in Colorado, with Prop 122 – everything is decriminalized, but there’s still no legally regulated, microdosing model. And I hypothesize that the vast majority of people who work with psychedelic substances in the next five to 10 to 15 years will do so only in these low-dose formats, whether it’s a microdose, or even, a slightly perceptible dose like a mini dose.
The vast majority of people are not going to do high doses of mushrooms, so we need to create a legal regulatory model that reflects the reality of how most people are going to work with these substances and right now, there are very few, if any jurisdictions that are considering how do we build a legal microdosing, regulated environment. And that’s what we’re doing through the Microdosing Collective and I think that’s essential because if we don’t have that, then the vast majority of people will still be doing this technically illegally. Just like we’ve seen in cannabis, we need to make sure that policy reflects the reality of where people are at.
I think the other nonprofits are the classic ones doing incredible work. MAPS or course, and the Heroic Hearts Project and what they’re doing to help Veterans Heal from PTSD with ayahuasca – it’s amazing. Same with the Mission Within which helps Navy SEALs heal through a combination of iboga and 5-MeO-DMT.
They’re all doing really good work and they’re focused on specifically vets and those who have struggled with sexual assault or PTSD. And I think it’s important, helpful, and necessary to support those people. Also, Usona is a nonprofit that’s doing good work. That’s another one that I would mention.
RS: Speaking of MAPS, there’s a big conference coming up in Denver that you’re going to be attending. Are you planning on speaking there? How is Third Wave involved, and what are you most excited about with the conference?
PA: Yeah, so it’s interesting in the psychedelic landscape, just like many other landscapes or industries. There are what I would call insiders and outsiders. Insiders tend to do things the way things have been done. And so at the MAPS conference, a lot of the speakers are, I would say more insiders. They’re people who are strict about psychedelics needing to be clinical. It needs to be therapeutic. It needs to be medical. They’re focused on that context or that lens of, how do we get people back to baseline?
And so, the lens that I’ve always come at this with, and that we’ve come at this with through Third Wave is: we’re going to create our paradise. We’re going to ensure that people can grow their mushrooms. We’re going to ensure people know how to microdose and so that tension has been a little bit tricky within the broader landscape. Because a lot of people would see what we’re doing is we’re supporting illegal drug use, and the way that I frame it is now we’re just creating a new paradigm where people have full sovereignty and cognitive liberty over the choices that they’re making. So they can work with these substances and medicines in an informed way.
So, the Third Wave as a brand and a company will have a booth there, we’ll have a presence. I will not be speaking, which I would say is a point of stickiness or contention in terms of my relationship with the broader psychedelic space. Where I find myself I suppose most useful is usually at non-psychedelic events and business conferences.
RS: What separates the Third Wave mushroom growing course and kit from others in the space?
PA: First and foremost, we have very professional videos that guide you through how to use the kit. The second part is the simplicity of using the kit. We’ve chosen that kit because it is very simple to use, it takes two weeks to myceliate the substrate, and then another two weeks for it to grow in the soil and you can just put it in a drawer or your closet. So it’s simple and easy to set up. And we also have a situation where once you get access to the course and the materials you are granted lifetime access. If you want to order another group kit it’s a huge discount and we’ll just continue that for the rest of time – forever. You can buy grow kits from us at a significantly discounted rate. Once you buy that first one to ensure that you can always grow your mushrooms, you always have your medicine supply, and it’s affordable to be able to do that.
So from a legal lens, we cannot include the spores with the kit – technically that would be illegal and we would be breaking the law. The way that we get around that is we send only the kit and then as part of the course materials, we refer you to top spore suppliers that you can order from to ensure that you have the spores in addition to the kit.
RS: Where would you like to direct people and what can we be excited about coming from the Third Wave in the future?
PA: Go to the Third Wave website and sign up for our newsletter, join our community, introduce yourself, and say hi. In terms of what’s coming in the future – that’s a good question. We just rolled out a brand new platform called the Psychedelic Coaching Institute which is the premier brand and platform to become trained in psychedelics. Then I have another book coming out this year called Higher: Psychedelics for Connection, Creativity, and Purpose that will be more or less the go-to book if you’re interested in psychedelics. It will answer a lot of fundamental questions and help folks understand the neuroscience behind psychedelics and help anyone interested become better educated on this incredible topic.
