GABRIELLE PELICCI TALKS
PSYCHEDELICS AND CREATIVITY AT SXSW
DISCLAIMER: NO PSYCHEDELICS WERE CONSUMED WHILE WRITING THIS ARTICLE.
Written by Katie Karp
Image courtesy of Jim Figora
On the afternoon of Friday, March 8, in a dark, windowless ballroom at the Austin Convention Center, Gabrielle Pelicci lit up the room. She wore a yellow jumpsuit as bright as her ear-to-ear smile. Though she was onstage in front of hundreds of strangers, she spoke with ease and appeared radiant. The secret to her glow? Psychedelics.
In only thirty minutes, Pelicci discussed her journey to discovering psychedelics or, as she put it, how “they found her.” Her talk “Fueling Our Imagination & Creativity with Psychedelics” specifically honed in on how mushrooms, peyote, and ayahuasca open doors for creativity.
While she opened her speech by asking her audience to inhale and exhale to get comfortable and “let go of the hustle and bustle of SXSW,” she laughed and said that she “wanted to sneak shrooms under people’s chairs.”
Pelicci not only made the audience feel relaxed, but she also delivered an effective and organized speech partly due to her easy-to-follow slideshow with bullet points, images, and funky art.
A University Professor of Holistic Health for over fifteen years, Pelicci is no alien to public speaking. Her crash course on the history of hallucinogen use ran through some of the most critical periods for psychedelic drugs, including the “Stoned Ape Theory,” the use of plants in the Paleolithic era, the culture explosion of the 1960s, and the War on Drugs in the 1970s. Although she only briefly touched on these historical periods, which span across a vast timeline of thousands of years, it allowed the audience to gauge how the use of psychedelics has weaved in and out of society, and the periods in which it has been used have been highly expansive periods. Any correlation? Pelicci thinks so.
Photo courtesy of @drgabbypelicci on Instagram
Not only did Pelicci discuss the general history of psychedelics, but she also discussed her personal history with psychedelics. Born in the mid-1970s to parents who were straight-edged in terms of recreational drug use, Pelicci vividly recalls being taught by her father and the media that drugs – all of them – were bad. She graduated from Catholic School and college, and then went on to receive her Ph.D. Pelicci then ran a successful wellness center. While she had a fine-tuned resume and looked good on the outside, she shared that she was hurting inside. No prestigious degree nor pretty dress could heal her suffering from anxiety and depression.
When the pandemic struck, Pelicci was newly unemployed and fresh out of a breakup. She had time on her hands and spent it writing and traveling. In New Mexico, she met a beautiful woman who grew and gave her peyote. While in Guatemala, she attended two ayahuasca ceremonies. In her SXSW speech, she shared that she felt deeply connected with these plants and they guided her to write All This Healing Is Killing Me: A Memoir.
Not only has she consumed psychedelic drugs, read about them, and wrote a book about her usage of them, but Pelicci’s amazement of these plants continues. Last year, she attended many talks and conferences focussed on the use of psychoactive drugs. Her undying belief in their benefits is backed by history, experience, and scientific studies. Pelicci cautioned that these drugs must be consumed properly, and she even provided four specific action steps for precautionary consumption. She also suggested consulting with a therapist or professional to ensure maximum safety and expansion.
Her passion and credibility on the subject make even the greatest skeptic curious about reaping the benefits. Pelicci strongly believes that people find their way to psychedelics in their own time. Before closing with another short breathwork to mirror the beginning of her speech, the speaker professed, “If you’re in this room right now, you should be.”