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Shrooms aside, Psanctum Thrift is a place that might exist only in Portland.
The shop, which opened in 2023, is an extension of Psanctum, a psychedelics research, education, and narcotic harm reduction nonprofit founded in 2018. The organization’s on-site thrift store funds psilocybin-based therapeutic services, removing the cost barrier that often exists between those who desire psychedelic therapy and those who provide it. Psanctum also hosts speaker events, microdosing workshops, an annual conference, a learning library, and a weekly open mic.
Were a visitor to arrive uninitiated, however, they might overlook the psychedelic community energy and assume that Psanctum Thrift is simply a bitchin’ thrift destination—a place where vintage sartorial treasures share price points with all manner of functional secondhand goods.
We visited Psanctum Thrift to chat with co-founder Eden Woodruff, indulge in some exceptional shopping, and unpack the tremendous community impact psychedelic therapy and self-care thrifting can make.
WW: What’s Psanctum’s origin story?
Eden Woodruff: Myself and my co-founder, Tom Hatsis, founded Psanctum in 2018 as a psychedelic education and harm reduction organization. We have been putting on events since, including our open mic, which we do every Monday. It’s a variety show and a lot of fun. We started the thrift store in September of 2023—it’s our newest division within the nonprofit, raising funds for psychedelic-assisted therapy. It’s legal now, but it’s out of reach financially for most people. We’re trying to bridge that gap.
I understand that psychedelic therapy can be used to overcome hard drug addiction. Is that where Psanctum’s psilocybin therapy focus is?
There’s a lot of different things that can be good for—end-of-life anxiety, depression, regular anxiety—but you don’t have to have a mental health diagnosis. I would say that most people are going because they have some treatment-resistant depression or something they’ve approached from different angles, and it hasn’t worked for them. And, when you go in for a session, you’re actually not necessarily sitting with a therapist—you’re sitting with a licensed facilitator. They will be there to hold your hand through the experience, but you’re guiding it yourself. You’re just there with a trained sitter, essentially.
Was the thrift store always part of Psanctum’s plan, or did that evolve organically?
The thrift store came up because I am a lifelong thrifter, and I love living in Portland because it’s a mecca for thrifting. During the pandemic, I was walking through my favorite thrift store one day, thinking of different ways to help expand our mission. And it just occurred to me that with psychedelic therapy, the big hot-button topic was how inaccessible it was to people financially. And I just put two and two together and thought that we could raise funds for our educational and therapeutic aspect[s] with a thrift store. It would be a good mission for a thrift store, and I thought I would love running one.
Beyond thrifting and monetary donations, how can people become involved with Psanctum?
We do community resiliency events that discuss all types of things. Psychedelics are great, but if we can’t get our basic needs met, that’s not a really great way to foster somebody’s personal growth. We just have these constant stressors, we’re trying to address the basic needs first and not spiritually bypass that stuff. So we have discussions about money, housing, food systems.
The next event coming up is talking about how to escape the housing crisis, and it’s a collaboration with Strong Towns PDX. So our community resiliency events are a great way for people to get involved. And then the open mic is always welcoming new people. It can, at times, be more like a medicine circle almost than an open mic. We don’t serve drinks, so everybody gets undivided attention for seven minutes. And it’s just a very encouraging space; we clap for you even more if you mess up.
The store has a nice selection of used books, of both the basic bookstore and psychedelic variety, but tell us about your learning library.
My business partner Tom was entrusted with the last documents from the Timothy Leary archive. We have boxes and boxes—some of that on display here. We have a little case with his wallet, his parking ticket, some of the books he owned, letters written to him; we are archiving all of that and putting them on our website.
On a personal note, I just feel proud to be here. I feel excited to be adding something, hopefully, of value back to the city and these massive issues we’re facing. And so I hope to instill hope, and find a new pathway towards healing that. I would love to bring more people in to discuss that.
SEE IT: Psanctum Thrift, 4033 SE Milwaukie Ave., Apt. A, 503-477-4787, psanctum.org. 11 am–6 pm Wednesday–Monday.