PSYCHOSPIRITUAL
The psychological opportunities that have been most dismissed in Western Culture are the states we deem ‘mental illness,’ especially anxiety and depression, as well as the ecstatic and mystical states of primary religious experience. In both cases, we have pathologized the sensations from deep within our own bodies and those from beyond ourselves, which are resultantly experienced as aberrant, painful, and meaningless suffering. When we reject these callings, not only do they fester and aggravate, but we equally deprive ourselves of a possible source of growth and psychic fulfillment.
Since 2008, RSF has been funding research into the class of compounds known as ‘psychedelics’ as among the most promising tools for reinstilling access to vital and often repressed parts of our psychic lives. Psychedelics lower our perceptual filters and can provide meaningful expression to relinquished and unbidden material within ourselves and the world around us, allowing them to speak to us through the language of images, archetypes, and emotions, bypassing the defensive or socially conditioned mind.
RiverStyx Psychospiritual Programs
Clinical Research - With Major Funding from RSF
PSILOCYBIN RESEARCH
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Psilocybin for Cancer Anxiety - Johns Hopkins (2008 / year of first funding)
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Psilocybin for the Treatment of Alcoholism - NYU (2012)
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Psilocybin for the Treatment of Smoking Cessation - Johns Hopkins (2015)
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Psilocybin for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder - Johns Hopkins (2016)
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Psilocybin for Major Depression Multi-Site (2018)
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Psilocybin/LSD for the Treatment of Opiate Use Disorder - Johns Hopkins, UBC, UW Madison (2019)
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Psilocybin for Home Hospice Patients - Dana-Farber/Harvard University (2020)
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Psilocybin for Physicians with COVID Related Burnout - University of Washington (2021)
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Psilocybin for the Treatment of Alzheimers - Johns Hopkins (2022)
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Psilocybin for Environmental Leaders & Activists with Professional Burnout - Bend, Oregon (2024)
MDMA RESEARCH
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MDMA for PTSD / MAPS Phase 2 (2009)
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MDMA for Anxiety Related to a Life-Threatening Illness (2015)
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MDMA for PTSD MAPS/Phase 3 (2018)
IBOGAINE & AYAHUASCA RESEARCH
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Ayahuasca for Complex Grief and Bereavement Support - (Spain/ICEERS - 2017)
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Ibogaine for Opiate Use Disorder (Spain/ICEERS- 2019)
PRE-CLINICAL / PHYSIOLOGICAL:
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In-Vivo Psychedelics for Inflammatory Illness / Rheumatoid Arthritis - LSU (2022)
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Xyrem/GHB for Cluster Headache - Liden University (2024)
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Psychedelics & Pain Patient Survey - Yale (2025)
Spirituality Research Funded by RSF
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Psilocybin for Religious Leaders - Johns Hopkins / NYU (2015)
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Psilocybin for Long-Term Meditators - Johns Hopkins (2015)
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Roland R. Griffiths Professorship in Psychedelic Research on Secular Spirituality and Well-Being (2023)
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Christian Leaders Perception of Psychedelics Survey - Emory University (2025)
Qualitative Research Initiated/Supported by RiverStyx
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Subjective effects of psilocybin for cancer anxiety "Cancer at the Dinner Table"
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Subjective effects of psilocybin for smoking cessation
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Subjective effects of psilocybin for alcoholism
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Subjective effects of MDMA for the treatment of PTSD + End of Life Distress
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Subjective effects of psilocybin in Religious Leaders (in progress)
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Subjective effects of psilocybin on OCD (in progress)
* It is Riverstyx policy that it does not cover University overhead for research projects
Grantee Partners
"I know I won’t be alive forever, and I don’t know what happens after I die, but
I think there’s something heavenly about the [psilocybin] experience . . . I think it informs
my vision, but it wasn’t something that was calculated up here [pointing to
head], it’s something that literally went through my body. . . . It’s the closest
thing to an exalted experience that I’ve ever had . . . and a very heightened
sense of gratitude that despite, let’s say, despite the cancer and the diagnosis
and the surgery, I’m alive right now."
-Participant in the NYU Cancer Anxiety Study