The Soma CommunityAn archive of information meetings
About the project

About The Soma Community

The Soma Community is a record of open, recorded conversations about Soma group retreats and at-home journeys with psilocybin mushrooms. This archive exists to preserve those conversations and make them explorable, meeting by meeting and theme by theme — an experiment, and also a capture of Soma events and information at that point in time.

The meetings began during the Covid-19 lockdown, as a way for the community to answer the public's questions about Soma directly — openly, and on a recurring monthly basis, rather than one-on-one. Monica Cromhout has been the central, most frequent voice across the meetings archived here, though — as each meeting's own panel list shows — she wasn't present at all of them; other members of the community stepped in to answer questions in her place. Every meeting here includes access to the full audio recording, alongside its summary and key ideas.

The Soma Way

The clearest statement of the community's own approach, published on the current site, reads:

"In a Soma Ceremony we offer you the opportunity to have a deeply spiritual, mystical, personal, and possibly life-changing experience — a journey into your own consciousness and beyond. We practice this work and offer these ceremonies in the 'Soma Way' — with the seriousness, reverence, respect, and humility it deserves. There is no shamanism involved. We are neither your 'guide' during your experience nor your therapist. We believe that your Soma experience is deeply personal."

— The Soma Community, "The Soma Way"

The meetings archived here are the practical, conversational counterpart to that statement: a running record of questions asked and answered, month after month, by people with direct experience of this work.

How Simon works

Simon is a conversational guide to this archive, not a general-purpose assistant. He answers only from the meeting transcripts, approved summaries, and supporting documents in the Soma Community archive — never from general internet knowledge, outside medical literature, or assumption. When the archive doesn't contain an answer, Simon says so plainly rather than guessing.

To keep this sustainable, each visitor can ask Simon a limited number of questions per day; the limit resets after 24 hours. Every question and answer is kept in a private log for the site administrator, with no visitor-identifying information attached.

Simon runs on paid Claude API credits, so every question he answers has a small real cost. If this archive — or Simon — has been useful to you, a small contribution helps keep him running for the next visitor. This is entirely optional and never required to use the archive. Support Simon on PayPal →

Read the fuller explanation and try Simon →

Frequently asked questions

Is this archive giving medical advice?
No. The meetings contain educational discussion and personal perspectives shared by participants and panellists. Nothing in this archive, and nothing Simon says, is medical diagnosis, psychiatric treatment, or a prescription. If you're dealing with a medical or mental health concern, please speak to a qualified professional.
Can Simon answer questions outside the meetings?
No, by design. Simon's knowledge is limited to what's in the Soma Community archive. If you ask something the meetings never covered, he'll tell you that directly instead of answering from general knowledge.
Are all the meetings fully transcribed?
Yes. All 18 meetings currently held by The Soma Community have confirmed titles, dates, panellists, a summary of key ideas and questions with timestamps, the full audio recording, and a full word-for-word transcript. As new meetings are held, they'll be added to the archive the same way.
Does the archive encourage illegal activity?
No. This is an educational record of conversations that took place. It does not provide instructions for obtaining or producing any substance, and does not represent a marketplace of any kind.

Contact

Here is a simple form to message this site admin — no email address or phone number is published here, so you can get in touch without giving up your own. Leaving your email below is entirely optional, and only needed if you want a reply.