My relationship with altered states of consciousness began far earlier than most people might expect. As a child, around the ages of ten, eleven and twelve I was exposed to powerful psychedelic experiences involving substances such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms. These experiences occurred prematurely and without any meaningful understanding of what I was stepping into. In some cases, the quantities consumed were many times larger than what would generally be considered a full dose for an adult. The result was profoundly destabilizing alterations in consciousness, total loss of ordinary identity structure, overwhelming fear and confusion, and states that I now recognize as forms of premature ego dissolution.

For me, the result was fragmentation. At an age when my identity, nervous system, brain chemistry, emotional body, beliefs about life, and sense of self were still developing, I simply did not have the capacity or awareness to understand or metabolize these experiences. Looking back, I feel as if they represented early fractures in the developmental process of my emotional and psychological bodies—highly significant and destabilizing events that would leave lasting imprints on my life. For many years afterward, I stayed away from psychedelics completely. I knew they were extremely powerful, and I was confused and terrified by them.

Yet despite the confusion, fear, and destabilization they created, those experiences served another purpose. Although I would not fully understand it at the time, those early encounters with psychoactive substances had opened something within me. In the decades that followed, that opening would gradually express itself through an ever expanding curiosity about reality, life, death, existence, and the deeper mysteries of the universe. In many ways, the same experiences that left me fragmented also helped shape a lifelong search for understanding. One that would consume much of my thoughts and attention throughout my life and to this day.

Descent and Return

Over the years, as life continued to unfold and new experiences continued stacking, both beautiful and challenging, substance use remained a consistent part of my life. What began as early experimentation leading to heavy recreational use involving alcohol and cocaine eventually progressed into increasingly destructive patterns involving prescription opioids, heroin, fentanyl, and crack cocaine. Alongside this progression, many unresolved emotional, psychological, and developmental challenges continued to accumulate beneath the surface, contributing to periods of profound struggle, disconnection, and suffering.

After years of difficulty, multiple treatment attempts, and exploring many conventional approaches to recovery, I eventually found myself confronting a possibility I never expected: returning to the psychedelic territory I had avoided for more than 20 years following my early childhood experiences. What drew me back however was not curiosity, recreation, or experimentation—it was necessity.

As my struggle with opioid dependency deepened, I found myself being called toward ibogaine treatment, a psychedelic plant medicine from Africa that had attracted much attention for its potential role in addiction recovery. In many ways, it represented a return to the same domain I had chosen to stay away from for more than two decades, the same domain I never fully understood, and the same domain that had both fractured and humbled me leaving me me carrying unanswered questions for much of my life. Consciously stepping back into that world was one of the scariest and most difficult decisions I have ever made. But this time, the context was different. There was meaningful intention behind it. There was a profound purpose for meeting these experiences once again. And deep down, i knew it was what needed to happen.

An Expanded Perspective

From this work with Ibogaine my perspective on psychedelics would begin to change. What I once saw only as frightening mind altering experiences, I eventually came to recognize as encounters with forces and states of consciousness that deserved far greater respect than I had originally approached them with.

My work with these medicines would eventually expand to include Hapeh', Sananga, Kambo, Iboga, Ayahuasca, Bufo (5-MeO-DMT), and other ceremonial practices, alongside years of committed integration. Looking back, I can see that this process played out as a gradual expansion of capacity. Each stage invited me to engage with different layers of my being and development. At various points the work involved healing aspects of my physical body, nervous system, emotional world, addictive patterns, limiting beliefs, relationship to myself and others, and even my understanding of life, spirituality, consciousness, and reality itself. Along the way I was repeatedly invited to confront deeply rooted fears and insecurities, cultivate resilience, deepen self-awareness, dissolve illusions, strengthen my capacity for trust and surrender, and develop a greater ability to consciously engage with increasingly profound aspects of myself and existence.

In many ways, my intentional return to the psychedelic space in 2018 marked the beginning of what would become a nearly decade-long completion of an initiatory process that had begun during my early childhood encounters with psychedelics but was left incomplete and unmetabolized. What started as a premature and incomplete initiation followed by decades of distorted behaviour gradually evolved into a conscious path of healing, self-discovery, integration, and transformation that continues to unfold to this day. Through this progression I came to recognize that meaningful transformation often emerges not from any single experience, but through a gradual expansion of capacity supported by preparation, guidance, integration, and a willingness to consciously engage with the challenges and lessons presented along the way.

Furthermore, along this ongoing developmental journey, I have been able to place my early childhood experiences with psychedelics within a much broader context. While those experiences were undeniably significant, they were only one thread within a far more complex tapestry of influences that would ultimately shape my life, behaviours, personality traits, struggles, worldview, and relationship with addiction. They existed alongside many other biological, psychological, emotional, relational, environmental, developmental, and life factors that would also play meaningful roles in shaping the course of my life. For me, the medicines have served as powerful catalysts for accessing the deeper layers of my psyche, emotional body, and relationship to myself, others, life, and reality. A process which has been incredibly challenging yet profoundly liberating and continues to unfold to this day.

This realization became one of the inspirations behind Initiation.Rites: the understanding that powerful transformational experiences are often best approached not as isolated events, but as meaningful initiatory processes supported by preparation, intention, guidance, integration, and gradual progression.

The Birth of Initiation.Rites

In many ways, Initiation.Rites was born from my direct lived experiences of both sides of this work: the fragmentation that can result when powerful, consciousness expanding experiences are approached without adequate preparation, support, integration, or understanding, and the profound healing, clarity, self-awareness, resilience, transformation, and liberation that can emerge when these same processes are approached intentionally and within a well-supported framework. Additionally, part of the inspiration for this work comes from experiencing firsthand how initiatory frameworks and medicine-supported processes can help individuals process and integrate unresolved psychological and emotional material from their past while simultaneously cultivating greater self-awareness, resilience, purpose, direction, personal growth, and a deeper relationship with life and the divine. In this sense, initiation is not merely about healing what has been wounded, but about consciously participating in one's ogoing development.

This is why I feel called to this work—not because I read about the transformational potential of these sacred sacraments, but because I have personally experienced both the consequences of working with these tools irresponsibly and the benefits of approaching these powerful processes with reverence, preparation, guidance, and care. Initiation.Rites exists to offer a modern initiatory framework rooted in preparation, gradual progression, ceremonial experience, and ongoing integration—a framework that honours the individual, honours the medicines, honors the process, honours the traditions, and honours the profound responsibility that comes with supporting human beings through meaningful thresholds of transformation.

My initiatory journey

the story behind the vision, philosophy and creation of initiation.rites

Early Encounters with the Unknown

Additionally

• More than 7 years of dedicated work with ancestral medicines, ceremonial practices, integration, and personal transformation.

• Years of dedicated work investigating and bringing awareness to the emotional, psychological, relational, and developmental factors that shaped my life, behaviours, struggles, worldview, and relationship with addiction.

• Significant experience processing, expressing, and integrating long-held emotional and somatic material, including grief, sadness, anger, rage, fear, shame, resentment, and other unresolved emotional experiences, while engaging in nervous system regulation, self-inquiry, shadow work, identity reconstruction, and personal transformation.

• Thousands of hours devoted to the study and practical application of human development, addiction recovery, trauma, emotional intelligence, nervous system regulation, physical health, nutrition, lifestyle optimization, habit formation, spirituality, identity reconstruction, human behaviour, purpose, philosophy, consciousness, and the deeper nature of self and reality.

• Certified Kambo Practitioner through the International Association of Kambo Practitioners (2019).

• Completed Advanced Addiction Recovery & Psycho-Spiritual Integration Coach Training Program through Being True To You (2023).

• Facilitated 100+ holistic medicine sessions while supporting participants through preparation, ceremony, and integration.

• Ongoing commitment to personal practice through integration work, strength training, cold exposure, bodywork, spiritual inquiry, nutrition, advanced detox practices, and self inquiry/introspection.

• Founder of Initiation.Rites and creator of the Initiation Arc framework.

With Gratitude,

Carson Conn