When to Trust a Vision – Full MAPS Talk
Vision is not a message to monetize—it’s a mystery to steward.
Dear Readers,
I just got back from MAPS 2025, where I gave this talk: “When to Trust a Vision.” It’s something I’ve felt in my bones for years—maybe lifetimes—waiting for the moment to speak it out loud.
This isn’t just a talk for psychedelic spaces. It’s for anyone who’s ever had a deep knowing arrive unannounced. A dream. A whisper. A sense. Something so clear and wild and inconvenient you almost didn’t trust it.
I share stories—from a botched ceremony that turned sacred, to a message from my deceased grandmother that broke me open. We talk oracles, community, humility, and the wild process of learning to become someone who can actually hold a vision.
And yes, apparently, becoming someone who can hold a vision also involves lipstick.
If you’re navigating your own unfolding—if you’ve been asking what’s real, what matters, and what’s yours to carry—I hope this meets you there.
In Everything We Trust,
Sylvia
When To Trust A Vision
The last time I spoke at MAPS, I presented right after Amanda Fielding. She was about to speak when suddenly she came off the stage, looked me directly in the eyes, and confessed—half-laughing, half-worried—that she was “a bit too enhanced” and wasn’t sure she could talk. But after a moment of centering herself, she delivered a flawless discourse on the foundations of psychedelic science and why humanity needs them now more than ever.
Amanda was speaking from vision. Many visions, in fact—gathered over a lifetime of exploration.
Rick Doblin, too, operates from vision—a single, unwavering one. If you’ve experienced healing through MDMA, you are living evidence of that vision. So, take a moment in your heart and send him your gratitude. Rick’s vision won’t cross the finish line on capital alone—it will require the collective prayers of our community. So send him one now.
Which brings me to today’s inquiry: When do we trust a vision?
There’s a quote I love from Black Elk:
“For a vision to have power, it must be performed on earth.”
What does that mean for us—ordinary, imperfect humans, shaped by ego and identity—when we are also designed to receive visions? We are vision-making machines. Psychedelics can sharpen and illuminate those visions with breathtaking clarity. And yet, we’ve all seen the flip side: the spiritual narcissist who follows ego-fueled visions to the point of delusion. For every true visionary, there’s a guy at a party claiming he’s God after a DMT breakthrough—without noticing he forgot to put on pants.
I live by vision. It guides much of my life. But I’ve stumbled plenty along the way and made many mistakes in working from visions.
A few years ago, I was leading a ceremony overseas for a group of mega powerful women. I wanted them to like me. I wanted to be a “good facilitator.” But two hours in, and no-one felt a thing. One even tapped her watch and asked if it was okay to grab a glass of rosé.
Then one of them came up to me and said, “I think I know what’s going on. Mind if I speak to the women?”
I had never handed over the ceremony reins to someone else—certainly not someone I barely knew—but something about her presence compelled me. What happened next was miraculous.
This woman opened a channel—something ancient, oracular. The energy shifted instantly. Everyone entered a shared healing space. She had become the lead, and I, the receiver. The Oracle of Delphi had appeared in my ceremony. The actual spirit of the oracle herself.
The Delphic Oracle—the Pythia—was once the spiritual center of the ancient world. Kings and generals consulted her on all matters of state. She sat on a tripod, inhaling ethylene gases rising from the bedrock, and spoke visions interpreted by a surrounding council. She wasn’t alone. Her visions were refined in community of priests.
When the Oracle spoke in my ceremony, she had a message—for me. Let’s be honest: in the moment it felt less like a sacred temple experience and more like a scene from Kill Bill. This vision was coming through a woman from Berlin who liked to drink Negronis and chain-smoke Gitanes. But still—it was real. I could never again doubt the legitimacy of vision after hearing her counsel to me, so precise, so utterly accurate.
That moment catalyzed my study of the Delphic tradition. I began to ask:
In what kind of world did kings consult chemically enhanced visions?
The Oracle served for nearly 2,000 uninterrupted years. Originally a cult of Gaia, the symbol of Delphi was the python—before it became a temple to Apollo. The priestess lived in celibacy and renunciation. I don’t think we need such austerity today—but her life reminds us that to trust vision required discipline, practice, and community.
Visionaries don’t operate solo. The Oracle always worked with a council.
No one’s vision lives apart.
A vision is not yours. It is a thread of the collective. You are simply the first to hear what the universe is whispering.
Three Delphic maxims were inscribed at the temple:
“Know thyself”
“Nothing in excess”
“Surety brings ruin”
These aren’t abstract. They are practical tools for refining a vision:
Know thyself warns us against ego inflation and spiritual bypass. Yes, your vision might tell you you’re divine—which is the actual truth of your soul— but if you’re shouting “I’m God” at a party, you might be having a manic break.
Nothing in excess reminds us of balance. Civilized psychedelic life doesn’t look like microdosing ketamine every 20 minutes to maintain connection to source. The Pythia channeled visions just nine times a year.
Surety brings ruin means we must consult, collaborate, and stay humble. Visions need to be vetted in community to find their truest expression and none of us alone hold the certainty on anything ever.
Historically, vision and practicality were not separate. The hunter received guidance from psychedelics on where to find the game. Joan of Arc was led by vision at thirteen to reinstall the Dauphin. Steve Jobs built Apple after being inspired by LSD visions. Yet today, vision is marginalized and the frameworks in which they functioned have been erased. Intuition is dismissed. The modern visionary is often labeled neurodivergent or a witch.
Why?
Because in a society driven by extraction and control, the visionary is unwelcome. The Emperor Theodosius knew this when he shut down the Delphic temple with a “big beautiful law” to consolidate Christian power—and with it his tax base via tithing. He commanded the end of the Delphi, and the destruction of their temple. The oracles were buried—literally. A city was built on top of them, including a building materials quarry over what had once been the heart of their sacred temple.
Visionaries have been homeless ever since. Where does the visionary belong in a society that believes in science above spirit?
The visionary capacity has been diminished and “othered”. The modern visionary numbs her gifts because there is no culture for her visions to live in. Or the vision comes through a fragmented ego that reflects the fragmentation of society and runs a high risk of spiritual bypass.
Vision is not just marginalized, it is also untrained. Are you a visionary after one single psychedelic experience or ten or a hundred or none? Where can we restore the training required to consult a vision? Native American culture was very obedient to the visionary but that person went through profound rites of passage to prepare herself to deliver them.
That’s why I turn back to the wisdom of Delphi. Visions need community. They need accountability. They need time. They are seeds. We are the bridge between sacred and mundane—walking horizontally through daily life while reaching vertically into the divine. In community—the horizontal plane—a vision can take root. Like biodynamic farming, a vision must be ecological, holistic, and ethical—in harmony with cosmic rhythms.
Vision is not about personal transformation. It is about a surrender to truth.
Truth is uncomfortable. It’s not about “being your best self.”
Most visions stretch beyond a single lifetime, which is why they must be held in collective trust, just like we can preserve soil to last for generations.
One of our family stories is about my rabbinical great grandfathers death. He was with his synagogue when he predicted that he would die later that day and told them as much. He went home, lay down on the living room floor surrounded by his family, and said, “the angels are coming for me”, and then died. My grandmother, someone I rejected when I was younger because she always smelt like dried herbs from the medicinal concoctions she would brew, was often consulted by rabbis herself for her visions. “If you want to talk to God, they would say, ask Gohar—she has the direct line.”
She passed away when I was already a mother myself. I think that her last teaching to me was one day when I came to see her with my toddler son, exhausted and depleted. She turned to me from her chair and said, “Sylvia, you should really put on some lipstick.”
She was a visionary in her own right but after she passed away I didn’t feel especially connected to her. However, something strange started to happen in my visions after she passed away. I would often see an indistinct pattern, something akin to a butterfly wing or the grain of wood on a tree. I could never see beyond that pattern, leaving me with the chilling question of, what is behind this pattern?
For over a decade after she passed I never saw beyond that pattern. Then, one day, when I was in a deep process, my vision opened beyond that pattern and it revealed itself as a pattern in the crown of my deceased grandmother. The crown was made of pearls and feathers, and as the vision expanded, I could see that she presided over some kind of court of atonement in the astral realm from where she was gazing at—and in fact—judging me. She was weighing me, considering my worthiness to receive her wisdom.
She spoke to me then, saying these words: “Sylvia, in the past, I could not send you any deep visions because you were not ready to hold them. You were like a colander, having too little backbone to hold water. You did not even know the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. You are just starting to learn, and now you are becoming like a well made clay pot, ready to hold what I can give. From now onwards, I will guide you, especially your attention moment to moment. If you want to know what matters most and where to spend your time, you have only to consult the vision with me.”
That was the moment I understood: Vision is earned. It requires initiation. A strong practice. Integration. Community. And Prayer. And apparently, a little lipstick.
So I offer you this prayer:
May your visions come.
May they be held in integrity.
May they be refined in community.
May they serve something larger than yourself.
Because it will take vision for humanity to survive.
May you be one of those who hears what the universe is whispering—and dares to bring it to Earth.