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Keith Williams
Associate professor of Educational Studies at Athabasca University researching Indigenous philosophies, sacred plant medicines, and psychedelics.
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Oct 9, 2026
Episode 63: The Relational Nature of Psychedelics: Indigenous Knowledge & Healing w/ Dr. Keith Williams
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20:22Matt HamelHOST
And it sounds like having maybe more of a balance, not trying to shoehorn psychedelics into a biomedical prevailing model, uh, but finding like, what is that balance and how, what is that process like of keeping indigenous knowledge, uh, you know, front and center in how we contextualize, you know, this healing opportunity that's available for people.
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20:49Keith WilliamsGUEST
And I think, you know, like I don't, You know, I mean, I think the Western science and the Western biomedical model has been critiqued plenty, and there's a lot of room for critique.
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21:02Keith WilliamsGUEST
But of course, nobody can deny the strength and power of that approach and the validity of that approach.
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21:09Keith WilliamsGUEST
But I guess more than anything, what I'm hoping, especially with this paper and my work more broadly, is that is that there will be room for a plurality of approaches and Yeah.
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21:25Keith WilliamsGUEST
And I just think, you know, particularly if, if, um, if the traditional, um, keepers of that knowledge are, are, are, um, are recognized, their authority is recognized.
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21:39Keith WilliamsGUEST
Um, you know, I think that's really, that's the way to go rather than, you know, limiting what's available to, um, yeah, to, to something that, you know, may not serve everyone, especially people, especially yeah may not serve everyone we'll just leave it at that and and you know overall like really I think you know getting back to your earlier question about borrowing from indigenous knowledge or or or you know appropriating elements of indigenous culture and bringing those into the psychedelic assisted therapy field I think From my perspective, what I would say would be far more respectful and meaningful and authentic would be for practitioners to say, okay, well, what is it really that I appreciate about what's happening here in the indigenous world? What is it about that? And without necessarily having to go and take those songs or those practices or those types of feathers, but to say, okay, well, how can I establish relationships with the more than human where I live to service my healing practice? Because essentially, that is at the core of indigenous healing.
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28:06Matt HamelHOST
I mean, it really, it seems to me that, you know, you mentioned the word flourishing, I think, and that there's this sense of, again, healing through these plant medicines, but also, you know, that relational aspect to one's healing journey as also a sort of bridge to flourishing and, you know, not just overcoming know difficulties like psychiatric illnesses traumas but also you know that connecting to you know and relating to other human life other non-human life as this vehicle again to like flourishing and you know meaning and you know actively positive uh life outcomes and i'm curious if you know I've kind of, if you think that I've sort of pulled that or conceptualize that in line with some of the things you've been talking about, or if you have any other, you know, divergent ideas on that.