🫠 Psychonaut POV

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Florian Birkmayer is a man who follows his nose. He’s always been enamored with smells, but psychedelics revealed an intelligence beneath certain scents that couldn’t be ignored. So he developed a new healing modality, which he calls Aromagnosis.

We spoke to Florian about using aromatics as medicine, enhancing psychedelic therapy with essential oils, and creating a personal ritual around one’s sense of smell.

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When did you first realize essential oils could enhance psychedelic therapy? What led to that moment?

I've been interested in scent for a long time. Back in the '70s when the first commercial essential oil product, JHP, came out, my grandfather in Austria picked it up. There was also the sauna culture where they'd put different things on the rocks. That was sort of the prehistory that seeded my awareness.

In medical school, I started using various essential oils to help me concentrate and study. People would ask, "What's that weird smell?" And I'd say, "Oh, that's me." Then in residency, I remember mentioning I was interested in holistic treatments, and the other doctors would warn me to keep those kinds of opinions to myself. But once I opened my private practice, I had no boss to tell me what I could or couldn't do.

I started offering ketamine back in 2011. I'd already been using aromas to help people calm down if they were having a traumatic trigger. When I paired ketamine with aromas, it changed everything. The spirit of the plants would show up in a whole new way. Take Angelica, for example. In the ketamine space, it became a multidimensional being—a gigantic ladder where you couldn't see how far up or down it went. It was just enormous.

So in a way, the aromas came first; then came ketamine out of pragmatism. And now, when we do psychedelic therapy, there are four intelligences in the room: the client, the guide, the psychedelic molecule, and the aromatic molecule. The aromas—because they're made by plants like many psychedelic compounds—have their own wisdom to bring.

In your book, you talk about a holistic model of the psyche that makes combining aromatherapy with psychedelics possible. What is that model?

My model is rooted in Jungian theory but has grown beyond it in some ways. The nutshell is, if we're unconscious or blind in our awareness to parts of ourselves, then those unconscious parts will run the show. You know that old saying, "The greatest trick the devil ever played is convincing us he doesn't exist."

In my diagram of the psyche, the ego consciousness is grayed out and dashed. That's because the ego isn't actually stable. Are you the same person you were yesterday? No. A year ago? Clearly not. The ego wants us to believe it’s the only thing that exists and to ignore everything else, but this idea of a discrete self is an illusion.

Next we have to recognize the physical body is but one layer of the unconscious. To quote Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “We're not human beings having a spiritual experience; we're spiritual beings having a human experience.” We have to pay just as much attention to the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of ourselves, too.

The last component is the collective. Once you acknowledge there's a collective unconscious, you begin to pick up on all sorts of influences. Some might even call them entities or demons. I think the most practical aspect of the collective unconscious to pay attention to is our ancestry. It's mind-boggling how often people's life stories and traumas are recreations of past generations.

When clients are open to this model, the medicine—whether it's aroma or psychedelics—will often show them uncanny things that can unlock issues they've been stuck on. When you allow people to consider that their psyche doesn't end with them, that they weren't just dropped on this earth as a blank slate, they get a lot more out of psychedelic and aromatic work.

Can you share an example or two of how you've successfully used essential oils and psychedelics together?

One beautiful example involves an essential oil of Marigold—the same Aztec Marigold used in Day of the Dead celebrations. I had this gentleman in his sixties as a client, who was living in New Mexico. His parents died during COVID back on the East Coast, and he wanted to connect with them one last time. I gave him marigold during a ketamine session, and he had the most cathartic experience meeting the souls of his parents.

Another example is from a recent psychedelic session. I worked with a man who had lifelong attachment issues. As a child, he'd moved every couple of years and constructed a false “man’s man” persona to cope. Before he came to see me, his situation had gotten worse. Old triggers were resurfacing and manifesting as heart attack-like physical symptoms. We used Labdanum, which is known as the master of shadows.

Through his session, he was able to access an 11-year-old part of himself. There was a beautiful, emotionally sensitive young boy that had gone into hiding. This client was worried his intellect would prevent a deep experience, but he really surrendered to the Labdanum. He reconnected with that vulnerable part he'd buried for decades. In our exchanges since, he's said he feels very different and much better. It’s wonderful that he’s been able to stay in touch with his inner child.

As interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy grows, do you think aromatherapy will play a role in making treatment accessible to more people?

The short answer is yes. Aromas can be as mind manifesting and mind altering as other molecules traditionally labeled as “psychedelic.” The key difference is there's less externalizing. You can keep working with aromas; they don't give you that spell of needing an ego-dissolving experience. You're still here and still need to do the work.

Besides, this combination has a long history. Aromas have always been part of psychedelic therapy. The Ancient Egyptians used Blue Lotus, South American perfumeros use fragrances like Palo Santo, and in the Native American church, you meet with the spirits of Sage and Cedar. Even in modern research, like in the Johns Hopkins psilocybin for tobacco cessation study, Matthew Johnson used black pepper essential oil, though it's kind of buried in the published writings about this study.

I think using aromas and psychedelics together makes intuitive sense. People are becoming more interested in how aromas can help them and enhance other modalities of healing.

For our readers interested in bringing aromas into their work with psychedelics, what practical advice would you offer?

First of all, I recommend only working with aromas by smell. We use perfume test strips because they allow you to regulate exposure easily. You can bring it closer to increase the intensity or discard it if you don't like it. Diffusers are much harder to control. For the same reason, it’s best not to put oils directly on your skin.

When you’re selecting an oil, make sure it is alive, not synthetic, mass produced, or adulterated. When I smell an oil and it moves me, makes me cry, or opens my heart, that's the sign of an alive essential oil.

Especially for beginners, I like to say it's better to have a handful of good friends than 200 acquaintances. Work with a few oils, smell them daily, and develop a deep relationship. I created a psychedelic therapy support kit with five powerful oils: Rose for heart-opening, Vetiver for grounding, Labdanum for shadow work, Helichrysum for accessing buried emotions, and Galbanum for commitment to the path. That’s a wonderful place to start.

Anyone can develop sensitivity to aromas, but we've been acculturated to become blind to our sense of smell. It's about unlearning and practice, not any special talent. We can imbue these aromas with meaning through simple, intentional ceremonial practices. For example, I often anoint myself with an aroma in the morning. Then when I encounter the scent throughout my day, it becomes a reminder to reconnect to that mental and spiritual space.

Want more from Florian?

Subscribe to his AromaGnosis newsletter to hear about upcoming live online classes and aromatic journeys.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.