Stephanie Karzon Abrams dancing between realms

Science trained the SoCal music label owner, but she just might end up an author

There was a unifying moment about halfway through my conversation with clinically-trained psychedelics consultant and music label owner Stephanie Karzon Abrams. We connected over the the imagined space where medicinal and recreational merge. The idea of “healing” set our language aglow.

“We need to redefine the word,” insisted Montreal native who’s living a tad outside Los Angeles. “We need to re-associate it with wholeness.”

Not brokenness. Ordinarily, I prefer these print renditions of these Sojourn conversations—especially to this sonically subpar session—but the gorgeous kismet in our voices is worth hearing with one’s actual ears.

Kenneth Reinhardt

Karzon Abrams’ Beyond Consulting has clients that are plant medicine companies, non-profit psychedelic initiatives, biotech companies, and clinics. Public Secret is the electronic music label and art collective that I begin the talk with.

My interview with the clinical pharmacist has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Donnell Alexander: When I was doing all my research, I came across on YouTube these amazing aerial shots, these locales that just seem like… nature's peak performance. [Laughter] Interesting dance music, and it’s Secret Sessions.

I’ve wanted to ask you about Secret Sessions. And what is Public Secret?

Stephanie Karzon Abrams: The music label and artist collective is called Public Secret.

DA: Literally how did you get there and what am I looking at?

SKA: [Laughter] So, I'll take you back a little.

I grew up in Montreal, Canada, and a longtime friend Max Mignot—he’s a music artist and producer, DJ—he moved to my neighborhood when he was nine. We’ve known each other since then. And he’s traveled quite a bit in his music career and exploration and he started throwing these events in St. Bart’s, on the island.

First party was a secret party on a beach called Public. So, that’s how that name came to be. But it quickly became part of the social entertainment culture on St. Bart’s and St. Martin and grew quite a bit. He took it to Mexico and had this event series—but also was building an artist collective. A few years ago, I went to visit, saw what he was doing, and I was like, It’s a no brainer to do this in L.A. We got to do this in L.A. So, we threw our first event in Venice after the pandemic, and it was a huge success.

And these Secret Sessions, you know, we wanted to do something different. Instead of always partnering with venues, being in bars and clubs, we wanted to curate something really special. People really connect over music, but then the space that’s curated around them—the environment—is so influential in that feeling of connection.

So we decided to start throwing these Secret Sessions and essentially, we pop up—renegade—in unique locations. We drop a pin—or coordinates—to our guests and we throw these really cool music events. They're very small and intimate, which is nice because people really get to connect for real. When you're in a crowd of a thousand people, you might not get to talk to very many people. But when you're 50 to a hundred people, chances are you've connected with pretty much everyone by the end of the set.

The one that we put up on YouTube in Mexico and then another one in Topanga, these little secret spots… yeah. [Laughs]

DA: When you do these events, it can’t be word of mouth. You [must] have a closed list. Are you texting people? How do they know to show up? How do they get there?

SKA: We’ve built a bit of a mailing list and a following. We share it directly with our community on social media. We send out a newsletter. We text people personal invitations as well. It is a bit of word of mouth for those. We want to keep them under control because these locations can’t accommodate 500 people. We try to keep it contained. Typically about, I’d say 50 to 75 people.

We just did one up the coast, close to Santa Barbara on a beach, and it was really tucked away, which was really cool. We were hoping for a sunrise, but it was so foggy. We didn’t get the sunrise, but we got the good vibes.

DA: How do you get to them?

SKA: If you're talking about the one in Topanga, that one looks like it's way up in the sky, right? Luckily for that one, you can drive up most of the way into the canyon. Then we had to hike 25 minutes with all of the gear in wagons, which was a mission. But 20 to 25 minutes was doable with the wagons. We had a good crew of strong people.

Everyone else who attended, they thought it was really cool to go on a hike and then come upon this like giant platform in the mountains. We even got like hikers and just runners that had no idea that just fell upon the event and they were super, super excited to find it.

DA: I’m going to lean into the how-you-got-there thing and more of the general sense of your life, because I’m looking at you as this person who’s an undergrad studying biopharmacology in Montreal. How do you get from Montreal to doing what you're doing now here.

SKA: I studied biopharmaceuticals and clinical pharmacology and I started with a clinical role in the hospital. I was in the ICU with the pharmacy team and we were focused on head injuries and severe concussions. That's where I started and it was very fascinating work.

That was actually my inspiration for getting into psychedelic medicine, plant medicine research. I saw these these people, in the very acute phase of their injury, receiving all this medication to manage their symptoms. You have a lot of mental health issues after a head injury. The problem is, you stay on that you tend to stay on that medication in the long term.

People who suffer from the consequences of their head injury after several years experience depression, anxiety… they experience trouble sleeping. They can have sensitivity to light and sound. And it really affects their quality of life. So, these individuals tend to seek mental health medication to help manage all of that.

The problem is that they're not actually getting better. They’re staying in this state of managing their symptoms with band-aid solutions. When I noticed that, I thought to myself, Could psychedelic medicines help this population actually find a more curative solution?

In between those two things, I worked for Johnson & Johnson, in medical devices. I worked for them in Montreal for a year and I got recruited to come join the Los Angeles team. So that's how I got to California, back in 2017.

I was in the OR with physicians, helping them with different technology that the company had. But I also did what we call therapy awareness and market development. That was essentially me partnering up with these physicians and helping them get more patients, helping them educate other physicians, educate the patient population and find strategies to grow their practice.

If I fast forward to 2021-2022, when I was having these questions about psychedelics and helping people with head injuries, I kind of looked back at the experience that I had in the hospital. I looked back at this business health care experience I had at Johnson & Johnson, and I figured that I could bundle all of that to essentially help providers and people and do research in the space of psychedelics and plant medicine. That's what I did and that’s how I got to what I'm doing now.

I started Beyond Consulting about a year and a half ago. Our clients are plant medicine companies, psychedelic initiatives like nonprofits, biotechs, clinics, and it’s anywhere from strategy and operations to research and science solutions.

DA: Beyond Consulting is the essence of why I was hoping to talk to you. If we can get into the weeds a little bit, and this is my podcast isn’t specifically for the people in the industry, but what does it mean? What are you doing for them?

Nick White

SKA: I like to split up into two categories. If we talk about plant medicine companies, I've noticed over the past few years, the supplement industry or market is changing. People are looking to use plants, more natural resources to make supplements, for the body, the mind, the spirit—anywhere from performance to just energy or better sleep or better connection.

We tend to call these medicinal plants or functional adaptogenic plants. That could be functional medicinal mushrooms, mushrooms that are legal—those aren't the psychedelic kind. Or plants like Kana, which is a South African plant that could really help with mood and energy and focus. I'm noticing a lot of these companies lean on plants for supplementation. I also noticed that the market is getting saturated. I’m noticing that the industry is not very regulated.

You can come up with a supplement, slap a label on it and sell it, and nobody's gonna regulate what is in that supplement. I realized that conducting research or designing a research study for that plant product could be really useful because then you’re contributing to research, you are building consumer trust because you are showing that you’ve created this research project to demonstrate safety and efficacy and the benefits of your product.

And you're publishing the results. That could be in the form of marketing, social media, email campaigns. But you can even do it more formally and publish it as a white paper or a scientific publication. With these companies, I’ll get commissioned to design a project like this, run it, and then help them with the materials after: Do they want an article written? Do they want marketing materials? I’ll help convert the results of that study into what they need.

So that’s one thing that I do. I also get asked questions about how to formulate a product, what ingredients they should be looking at, what plants could be of interest for different uses. Because I’m a pharmacologist, I could answer those questions.

Then more on the business side or strategy side, I’ve been working a lot with providers, either therapists or doctors who want to set up a clinic. So, a brick and mortar practice, integrative medicine, mental health—especially when they’re looking to integrate ketamine-assisted therapy or other psychedelic-assisted therapies.

I’ve helped out with three clinics so far, helped two in the L.A. area, and recently just launched one from the ground up called Modern Medicine Services. I’ll also consult with nonprofits on anything from research to strategy, Biotechs or pharmaceutical companies within plant medicine or psychedelics will engage me on different consulting contracts. I’m just helping kind of bridge the science and the spirit of this industry is kind of how I see it.

DA: Well, that’s a good way of putting it. This is a question that just popped in because I'm so curious about the music. Are you able to take any of your background as a clinician to that part of your entrepreneurial efforts? Does any of that past life show up in your music work?

SKA: I come from a very musical family. I grew up playing instruments, the violin, the piano. I like to sing. I've always loved music.

Growing up, I was always very torn between, Am I going to be in the arts or am I going to be in science? I love to write. For a quick sec, I thought I was going to be a writer. And I always kind of had this flip-flop when I was young. It was hard for me to decide. I had passion for both areas.

So I haven’t left it behind. Rather, I've bridged these two passions and I don’t even see it as work anymore. I feel like it’s my vocation to stand in these two worlds at the same time. I have to say that being entrepreneurial and being creative are very much the same thing.

I feel like I use my creative brain in my business and in the work that I do. Then when I’m really focused on the music project, I bring in that entrepreneurial spirit to try to advance the music label and advance these artists that we support with artist development and other services.

I feel like they’re are two worlds that really coexist, especially when you’re talking about plant medicine and psychedelics, because these are things that are for mind expansion, and music, dance, communing with other people for music and dance, that is psychedelic.

You know, it doesn’t have to be a substance. It really is mind manifestation and mind expansion. So, I’m very much in both worlds. And they exist quite seamlessly.

DA: I have this complicated question that I thought of today: I’m older. I came up in the Reagan era and getting psychedelics was hard. You had to know some and you had to find a guide. In 2024, the way commercialization of the psychedelic experience works is you can find someone to guide you.

I’m thinking a lot about women in this space and the specific needs of them. You must think it’s a great thing, that there’s an ability to control who helps you through your trip now. And isn’t something that women need more than men?

SKA: I don’t think women need it more than men. I think human beings, period, need guidance in these types of experiences. I think that a lot of people can self-guide. A lot of people want another presence to guide them, another person to guide them. But it’s a spectrum right? It begins with you coming to terms with what you are seeking, because that will help you decipher how much guidance you need.

But whether you have someone to guide you or you’re self-guided, preparation and integration are just things that you absolutely need with these experiences. And what I mean by that is, How are you preparing yourself for this experience, even if it’s a casual one? Even if it’s something that you’re doing with your friends and it’s not because you’re suffering from severe depression or PTSD. Even if it’s for your pure enjoyment, there’s an opportunity for growth and healing and so there’s an opportunity for preparation. So, preparing your mindset—setting your intention—it could be something as quick and easy as journaling. Just writing something down that’s meaningful to you what are you hoping to call in, what are you hoping to achieve. What are your hopes for the day or the session?

After that it takes a couple of days to digest everything that you might have experienced. I think there’s a lot of value in identifying someone to be your sounding board or at the very least sitting down with yourself and writing these your impressions down, writing your thoughts down. That’s part of integration: How do you take that experience and weave it into the to the life that that will follow that experience? How do you make changes, long term?

Because this is about expansion. It is about growth. It is about betterment and cultivating values that make you a better person, a better friend, a better partner, sibling, a better parent. If you just have a psychedelic experience and you don’t do that work, then I feel like it’s just fleeting.

I say this all the time: Whether your container is a physician’s office, therapist’s office, whether it’s a ceremony or whether you’re in the desert with a few of your friends, there’s an intention, and there’s value in that intention. So, even your dance party can lead to profound ideas and knowledge.

The integration piece is just so important. And I think it is a privilege. You’re completely right, it is a privilege that today we can seek people who can help us, who can guide us, who can hold space for us. There are people who have taken the time to learn about the best ways to support someone through a psychedelic journey how to reduce harm, how to be a sounding board, how to be support. I think that’s amazing and it’s totally a privilege. Men and women can can benefit equally.

DA: The thing that's standing out to me about the Secret Sessions is that the setting is so important.

You said that you don't even think of it as work anymore. I think sometimes we’re at this place where we talk about what's medicinal and what's recreational. And then there's a place where it merges.

SKA: Yes!

DA: And I think that's what I felt when I looked at those.

SKA: I'm so glad you said that. That is so true. Words like “healing” are often associated with things like brokenness. But we need to redefine that word. We need to re-associate it with wholeness.

West Coast Sojourn likes to get out of The States. Before SKA, conversation guests have included Antonio Olmos from London; Mike Wise and Ati Sundari (separately) from Mexico; Keith Knight from Germany; and Alexandra Marshall and Dimitry Léger, from France and Martinique, respectively. There is also, of course, the Legend of Black Mexico project.

Something could be healing and all that could mean is that it's enriching. And joy is definitely that. I can't say it enough, but we have to shed the shame that we have around joy and enjoyment and pleasure and playfulness. Coming together to dance and listen to music and hang out with others and connect with others, that is just so enriching. I literally have an image of a cup just being filled and overflowing and bubbling. Having that experience is such an amazing reset on the mind. You don’t even need substances to experience the same effects that a psychedelic medicine will do for you in in that situation.

When we take some psychedelic substances—especially the ones that are more classical heart-opening kinds—you have this flux of serotonin and oxytocin and dopamine and all of these neurochemicals are increasing and blending with each other and it leads to this heart opening feeling, this feeling of connectedness to not only the people around you but to the entire world.

But music does that, Music and dance and and seeing other people enjoy themselves at the same time, it’s it’s been shown will stimulate the very same neurochemicals. So, when you say medicinal/recreational? Absolutely, they’re one in the same. It’s medicine. You know, they say laughter is the best medicine. It’s true.

It’s being with other human beings and connecting over something like music. It’s absolutely medicinal and it’s enriching. I feel that a lot of people feel shame about talking about their weekend. Oh, I went to this party and I danced and it was so fun and the music was amazing. It’s like you go to work and you almost have to hide this little piece of you from your coworkers. But we really need to reframe and shed that guilt because it’s part of the human experience to enjoy ourselves in these ways, whatever it is.

DA: What would be your ideal assignment?

SKA: You know, the infrastructure is not in place to do everything that we would really like to do.

DA: It could be psilocybin on the moon. I don’t know what your ideal project would be, but do you have a dream that you’re following or is this it?

SKA: I think I’m very much following my dreams right now. It’s funny because... things keep appearing on the road that I didn't necessarily have on my radar. For example, when I first started doing research in plant medicine and psychedelics I got a couple of opportunities to go present at conferences.

I realized that I really enjoyed them. I forgot that I enjoyed public speaking or at least speaking publicly about something that was important to me and advocating for it. And I started becoming just more invested in finding opportunities like that.

And as much as I really enjoy speaking to other people who align with what I’m saying, it becomes a little bit of an echo chamber, right? Because you're preaching to the choir. So, I realized that what I would really love is to have more opportunities to go to speak to people who don’t have access to the education and the information about psychedelics and plant medicines. And what does that mean? What does it mean for them? What does it mean for society? What does it mean for modern medicine and innovation?

I would love to have more opportunities to speak on a larger scale and globally and to go into other countries and be able to bring some of that education and information.

Right before I went to college in Montreal, you have these two prep years right before college and you pick a concentration. You can pick science. You can pick business. You can pick arts. I decided, last minute, to do liberal arts. I was like, You know what? I don’t want to be a doctor. Never mind. I just want to be a writer. I loved writing poems and short stories. I loved writing essays. I was just really into it. I was like, I’m gonna be a writer.

And of course I changed my mind again and then ended right back up in in health science and I stopped writing for a very long time.

When I pivoted my career out of corporate health care and got into psychedelics, something just woke up again in me and I started writing. I started writing about what I was doing for work, topics that were interesting to me. I started to keep a blog. And as of late, I’ve had more and more opportunities to write, to write for media outlets. So I guess this dream that has found me again,

Or, I found it again, is writing. Not just writing informational articles, but creative writing and maybe a book. Maybe a book is in my future.

I gave a TED talk a couple of weeks ago, which was an amazing opportunity. So grateful that the other speakers were so inspiring. And here’s something interesting. It was in a small town outside of Chicago. It was in Davenport (Iowa). It was two hours out of Chicago and that's a more conservative place. It’s definitely not California. And I gave a talk on psychedelics.

I gave a talk about how we live in a fragmented society, how people are suffering from mental health challenges, from chronic illness. And it’s very disconnecting from self and from the world. Even healthy people are disconnected despite living in a digitally-connected era. So I talked about the ancient history of certain psychedelics and kind of tied it to modern-day examples of how modern medicine is innovating.

But at the end of the day, the message was that we hold the power to reconnect. We are the medicine. And I wanted to make this talk as friendly and as approachable as possible because I knew the audience that I was speaking to. It was very fulfilling that at the end, when the audience can come up and say hello and ask you questions, there are people who express that when I started my talk, they were closed off or they didn't know what to expect or they saw psychedelics from a different lens.

But by the end of the talk, something had changed. They had a new outlook. They had dropped their judgment about it. You know, they were seeing it in another light.

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