Pedram Shojai, OMD is a teacher, filmmaker, and former Taoist monk whose work focuses on consciousness, personal development, and disciplined inner transformation. Known widely as “The Urban Monk,” Pedram has spent decades exploring contemplative traditions, health practices, and methods for cultivating awareness in modern life, including as a doctor of oriental medicine.
Pedram joins the Psychedelic Coaching Institute as guest faculty, contributing his perspective on the importance of grounding psychedelic exploration within broader traditions of personal practice.
He will teach the upcoming cohort of the Microdosing Practitioner Certification how energy moves and gets stuck in the body, and how practitioners can work skillfully with activation and release, during a recorded session.
For Pedram, psychedelic experiences are not shortcuts to awakening but tools that must be approached with discipline, preparation, and serious inner work.
Through his writing, teaching, and media projects, Pedram explores how individuals can cultivate attention, awareness, and responsibility in a world filled with distraction and competing narratives. Psychedelic work, in this context, becomes one possible catalyst for transformation when paired with psychological, somatic, and spiritual development.
In the reflections below, Pedram shares his perspective on evidence-based progress in the field, the role of awareness in transformation, and why practitioners must commit to doing the full spectrum of inner work required to responsibly support others.
Questions with Pedram
From your perspective, what feels most important for the psychedelic field to get right in the next 5–10 years?
The field needs to establish legitimacy by doing evidence based work.
How do psychedelics intersect with your specific domain of work or inquiry? What feels most misunderstood or under-appreciated from where you sit?
My work centers on consciousness.
What I often see misunderstood is the difference between surface level “festival spirituality” and actually doing the deeper work required for transformation.
What do you think practitioners today most need to cultivate in themselves—not just learn intellectually—in order to work responsibly with these tools?
Practitioners need to do the work themselves.
All of it.
That includes psychological work, somatic development, and the counseling skills necessary to truly hold space for others.
Is there a principle, practice, or insight that has become central to how you approach healing, growth, or transformation? How did that understanding develop for you?
Awareness and attention are the core currency of transformation.
When you cultivate these capacities and learn to direct them inward, they become tools for understanding yourself and your patterns more clearly
This perspective developed through years of training and practice as a monk.
What’s a question you find yourself returning to again and again in your work right now? Why is it important to you?
A question I often reflect on is: How can we reset the hologram?
We live in a memetic cluster of narratives, misinformation, and distortion. The challenge is helping people step outside those patterns and see more clearly.
When you think about microdosing specifically, what do you see as its most responsible or promising role within the broader psychedelic ecosystem? Where does discernment matter most?
Within psychedelic assisted therapy, microdosing can be a powerful tool.
When used alongside other practices and approaches that we know are effective, it can act as a lever for deeper transformation rather than slow, incremental change.
What excites you about contributing to Psychedelic Coaching Institute’s training programs at this moment in time?
The industry needs to get this right.
What drew you to contribute to Psychedelic Coaching Institute’s training programs overall?
The invitation from the founder.
Pedram Shojai’s perspective reflects Psychedelic Coaching Institute’s emphasis on practitioner responsibility, disciplined inner work, and the thoughtful integration of psychedelic experiences into broader paths of personal development.
His approach highlights the importance of cultivating awareness, presence, and maturity in practitioners who wish to support others in this emerging field.
Learn more about the Psychedelic Coaching Institute’s Microdosing Practitioner Certification and other trainings.
