THE CONSCIOUS STEM JOURNAL.
Exploring Cannabis, Consciousness, Psychedelics & Spiritual Awareness
Research-backed articles
THE CONSCIOUS STEM JOURNAL.
Exploring Cannabis, Consciousness, Psychedelics & Spiritual Awareness
Research-backed articles
WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE OFFER
THE CONSCIOUS STEM JOURNAL
About the Editors
Kye — Co-Founder & Editor
Kye is an NHS-trained psychiatric nurse with a BSc in Mental Health Nursing and extensive frontline experience in acute and community settings. Although no longer in clinical practice, she continues to work at the intersection of mental health, consciousness studies, and integrative healing approaches.
She is currently completing an MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology, with academic and personal interests spanning spiritual crisis, non-ordinary states, holotropic theory, and plant-medicine–assisted transformation.
Kye has also published articles in several magazines and online platforms, contributing to public conversations around transpersonal psychology, mental health reform, and contemporary psychedelic culture.
Stu — Co-Founder & Editor
Stu brings over 30 years of business leadership experience, informed by a long-standing interest in psychedelics, cannabis medicine, and emerging cultural paradigms around altered states.
His background includes launching and managing successful companies and mentoring creative teams. Stu’s fascination with psychedelics and cannabis culture has evolved into a deep commitment to supporting evidence-based, ethically grounded exploration of these fields as they move into mainstream awareness.
CONSCIOUSNESS AND SPIRITUALITY
At The Conscious Stem, we explore consciousness not as an abstract philosophical idea, but as a living, evolving dimension of human experience. Across cultures and throughout history, people have described profound states of awareness, mystical experiences, visionary insights, expanded identity, and deep intuition that challenge conventional understandings of the mind.
Today, these experiences are being revisited through new lenses: neuroscience, psychology, plant-medicine research, contemplative practice, and transpersonal theory. We believe that consciousness is not a closed system, but a frontier, one that invites curiosity, humility, and courage.
Spirituality, in this context, is not tied to doctrine or belief. It refers to the search for meaning, connection, and authenticity; the sense of something deeper than the everyday narrative of the self. For many, spiritual experiences emerge during periods of crisis, awakening, or transition. For others, they arise through meditation, breathwork, psychedelic or entheogenic states, or encounters with beauty and mystery.
Our aim is to create a space where these topics can be explored with rigour, openness, and respect, a place where personal narratives, academic insight, and cultural critique can sit side by side. We are interested in:
- transformative and non-ordinary states
- spiritual emergence and emergency
- altered-state technologies (ancient and modern)
- plant medicines and psychedelic-assisted growth
- meditation, breathwork, and somatic practices
- the psychology of meaning, purpose and identity
- cross-cultural and indigenous perspectives
- the intersection of science, healing, and spirituality
We honour the complexity of these experiences. They can be ecstatic or destabilising, illuminating or disorienting. They deserve thoughtful conversation, not sensationalism, not pathologisation.
The Conscious Stem is a home for writing that bridges worlds: clinical and mystical, scientific and experiential, personal and collective. Our intention is to cultivate dialogue that expands our understanding of what it means to be conscious, human, and whole.
PSYCHEDELICS AND CANNABIS
Psychedelics and cannabis have re-emerged as powerful catalysts in the exploration of consciousness, healing, and human potential. After decades of stigma and suppression, research is once again illuminating what many cultures have long understood: these substances can open doors to profound psychological insight, emotional release, creativity, and spiritual transformation when used with care and intention.
At The Conscious Stem, we approach psychedelics and cannabis not as trends, but as agents of meaning, capable of reshaping how we understand the mind and ourselves. We recognise their potential for growth and the importance of responsibility, ethics, and grounded integration.
Psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT, mescaline, and MDMA have shown promise in supporting people through depression, trauma, addiction, and existential distress. Emerging research also highlights their capacity to facilitate experiences of unity, self-transcendence, and deep emotional processing. These states often reveal dimensions of consciousness that lie beyond ordinary awareness.
Cannabis, too, holds a unique and complex place in this landscape. Beyond recreational narratives, cannabis has a long lineage as a tool for ceremony, contemplation, creativity, and healing. As modern science rediscovers its therapeutic applicatiin for pain, anxiety, sleep, inflammation, and emotional regulation we also acknowledge the subtle role in opening altered perspectives and expanding intuitive insight.
Our aim is to explore these substances with nuance and clariy through science, culture, spirituality, harm reduction, and lived experience. We are interested in:
- psychedelic-assisted therapy and research
- cannabis medicine and cultural history
- plant-teachings, entheogenic traditions and indigenous wisdom
- microdosing, creativity, and cognitive flexibility
- spiritual emergence triggered by altered states
- safe use, preparation, and integration
- legal, ethical, and policy shifts
- personal narratives of healing and transformation
We reject sensationalism and simplistic narratives. Instead, we hold space for complexity: the beauty and the risk, the healing and the challenge. Psychedelics and cannabis can reveal extraordinary layers of consciousness, but they require respect, informed practice, and supportive frameworks to ensure that the insights gained become meaningful, sustainable change.
The Conscious Stem is a platform for thoughtful voices in this psychedelic and cannabis renaissance, writers, researchers, clinicians, seekers, and cultural observers who understand that we are at the beginning of a new chapter in the story of human consciousness.
Harm-Reduction & Ethics Statement
Harm-Reduction & Ethical Guidelines
At The Conscious Stem, we support the exploration of psychedelics and cannabis through a lens of safety, responsibility, and informed practice.
We do not promote reckless use or encourage anyone to break the law. Instead, we offer space for thoughtful engagement with these substances as tools for insight, healing, and expanded awareness.
We encourage:
- careful preparation and grounded intention
- safe and legally compliant contexts
- integration support before and after experiences
- respect for individual limits and vulnerabilities
- cultural sensitivity and awareness of indigenous traditions
We do not publish:
- unsafe advice
- promotion of illegal activity
- irresponsible or glamorising content
Our goal is to uphold a platform where exploration and safety coexist, where nuanced, ethical conversations can flourish.
