Hi Reader,

Welcome to this edition of the Maps of the Mind newsletter.

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🍄 Music about tripping isn’t music for tripping

Last week I shared “Tomorrow Never Knows” by the Beatles. One of the landmark psychedelic tracks of all time.

But I wouldn’t put it on a session playlist.

Not for a high-dose journey, a therapy session or any deep dive inward, anyway.

That’s the difference most beginners miss. There’s music about tripping, and there’s music for sessions. Just as there’s a difference between recreational trips and intentional ones.

Music about tripping is made to sound like the experience. Swirling effects, backwards guitars, lyrics about expanding your mind. It’s brilliant to listen to. But in the middle of a session it can grab you, pull you around, or keep your thinking mind busy.

It can work for some people, some of the time. But there’s a reason research and ceremonial settings mostly steer clear of it.

Music for a session does a different job. It holds you. It follows the arc of the journey: gentle as it comes on, fuller at the peak, easing you back down. Few words, long tracks, plenty of space. Often it’s not what anyone would call psychedelic music at all.

Do a search for psychedelic music and you’ll often find the first kind.

I’ve been collecting the second kind for years. I first shared some on my blog back in 2019, and that post went on to become one of the most-read on my site. Since then they’ve come from the research teams, from guides and therapists, and from a group of facilitators who share the playlists they use with their own clients.

But they were scattered across Spotify, YouTube and SoundCloud, with no easy way to find the right one for the right session.

So I built one place for them. That’s Session Soundtracks: a library of playlists made for sessions, which you can search by substance, intention and mood.

It opens this Sunday, 15 November, at half price for the first week, with two of my courses free alongside it.

If you’d like the link a day early, just reply “send it” and I’ll send it to you on Saturday.

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And something to sit with this week:

👉 What music has pulled you deeper in a journey, and what has pulled you out? What was the difference?

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📚 Microdose of Wisdom

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🎵Psychedelic Supplements

Integration music from Spinoza

SPINOZA MUSIC ∞ CEREMONY INT... Ganesha Mantra - Unders & No... PREVIEW   ​

Beautiful power pop

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Where it started: 6 Music Playlists For Psilocybin Journeys, my blog post from 2019, still one of the most-read on my site.

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❤️ Love and mettā to you all,

John

John Robertson​
​Psychedelic Facilitator & Educator
Webdelics' Top 100 Psychedelic Thought Leaders and Content Creators​ 2025​
​Maps of the Mind​

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