Safety protocol

The Steps of Initiation are gentle for most people most of the time. But meditation, breath work and long periods of inner attention can sometimes stir up more than a person expected. This paper says what to watch for, what to do, and who does it. It applies to every student and every guide.

The Steps are spiritual practice. They are not medical or psychological care, and nothing here replaces a doctor, a therapist or emergency services.

If someone is in danger now

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911.

If you are thinking about harming yourself, or you are in crisis, call or text 988 (the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline) at any hour. For support after a psychedelic experience, Fireside Project answers at 623-473-7433.

Then tell your guide when you can. You never need a guide's permission to get help.

The warning signs

Stop intensive practice and tell your guide if any of these happen:

• You sleep under five hours a night for three nights.
• You feel panic, or fear that does not settle with ordinary rest.
• You feel unreal, or as if the world is unreal, for more than a day.
• You see or hear things that other people do not.
• You have thoughts of harming yourself or anyone else.

Also tell your guide, without stopping everything, if:

• Old memories come up strongly and stay with you through the day.
• You feel numb, flat or cut off from people you love.
• Your body does something new and unsettling during practice, such as shaking, a racing heart, or waves of heat, and it does not settle afterward.
• You start to believe you have been chosen, are above others, or must act on a message from practice.
• You find yourself pulling away from friends, work or family to practise more.

None of these mean you have failed. They are known effects of intensive inner practice, and they usually ease when the practice is made lighter and life is given more ground.

What the student does

1. Stop the intensive practice. That means long sitting, breath work with retention, element work, and anything that moves your awareness out of the body. Keep only short, simple practice that steadies you, or none.
2. Ground yourself. Eat a proper meal. Walk outside. Feel your feet. Name five things you can see. Talk with someone you trust about something ordinary. Sleep if you can.
3. Tell your guide within a day, by message or in person. Say plainly what happened. You do not need to know why.
4. Get help if you need it. See a doctor or therapist, or use the numbers above. You do not need to wait for your guide.

Breath work is never done in or near water, and never while driving.

You may pause at any time, for any reason, without losing your place on the path.

What the guide does

When a student reports a warning sign, or the guide notices one in a shared diary entry or a conversation:

1. Reply within 24 hours. Listen first. Do not argue the student out of what they feel.
2. Pause intensive practice. Use the pause on the student's page. While paused, no stage can be confirmed. Agree on what gentle practice, if any, continues.
3. Help the student ground with the practices above, and agree on when you will next speak, usually within two or three days.
4. Refer out when it is needed. A guide does not diagnose and does not advise on medicine. If a sign lasts more than a few days, keeps returning, or is severe, encourage the student to see a doctor or a licensed therapist, and help them find one if they want help. Any thought of self-harm means sharing 988 straight away, and 911 for immediate danger.
5. Write a short safety note on the student's page: what you saw and what you did, in a sentence or two. No clinical detail and no diagnosis. The student can read every note written about them.
6. Tell the Temple's leadership (see "When to escalate" below).

A guide never pushes a student through a hard experience, never treats distress as proof of progress, and never tells a student to stop a medication or a treatment.

At a glance

Coming back after a pause

A pause lasts as long as it needs to. A student returns to intensive practice when:

• the warning signs have settled for at least two weeks of ordinary life,
• the student wants to return, and
• the guide agrees, after a conversation.

If a doctor or therapist was involved, the student decides whether to share anything from that care. The guide does not ask for medical records.

From the Portal onward, both of the student's guides agree before intensive practice resumes.

Returning often begins a little way back, with simpler practice for a few weeks. That is not a demotion. Stages already given are never taken away.

Ceremony and the Steps

The Steps are kept separate from the Temple's sacrament. Intensive practice pauses about a week before each ceremony and for two to four weeks after it. Anyone in the days after a ceremony who feels any warning sign follows this protocol and also contacts their ceremony facilitator.

No stage is ever given for anything experienced in ceremony.

When to escalate

A guide tells the Temple's leadership, by writing to contact@templeofhermes.org with "Safety" in the subject, when:

• any student has thoughts of self-harm or harming others,
• a student sees or hears what others do not,
• a warning sign lasts more than a week, or
• the guide is unsure what to do.

Send only what is needed: the student's name, the sign, and what has been done. Leadership replies within two days and may bring in a second guide or recommend outside care.

A student who is unhappy with how a guide responded can write to the same address. Concerns are read by people outside the guide's line.

Records

The platform keeps short safety notes and the pause, nothing more. Diary entries stay private unless the student shares them. The Temple does not keep medical records. See Informed consent for what is stored and how to download or delete it.

Questions about this paper go to contact@templeofhermes.org.