Appalachian Reckonings: The Pearl Institute

Appalachian Reckonings is a new series from Appalachian Psychedelic Society, where we share the stories of people and organizations in Appalachia who are reimagining, remembering, or reframing the region in profound ways.

Credit: Stephan Pruitt / Fiasco Media

After Hurricane Helene ravaged Southern Appalachia in September 2024, the Waynesville, NC-based Pearl Institute opened its doors for the community. Offering free trauma support therapy, The Pearl’s team, already committed to its vision of affordable, cutting-edge mental health treatment, mobilized to serve over 100 individuals who came through the doors.

The timing of Helene almost coincided with The Pearl’s annual fundraiser and party, The Gathering of the Pearl, held the week before in the vibrant event space at Highland Brewing Company, the oldest brewery in nearby Asheville (and another organization that activated to help neighbors after the storm).

At the Gathering, the Pearl’s third, attendees celebrated the promise of psychedelic therapy, albeit more cautiously than in previous years: the FDA had denied approval to MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD a few months prior. The Pearl, a site of expanded access trials for MDMA-assisted therapy, had been ready to come fully online once the therapy was approved.

On Thursday, September 18, the Pearl will return to Highland to host the fourth annual Gathering. The theme this year? Web of Renewal.

Kim Turpin, the Pearl’s Marketing and Development Director, came up with the theme right after last year’s Gathering, before Helene made landfall and reshaped the region’s geography. “It was because of the delayed FDA decision,” she says. “That was real for us. We were in a holding pattern. We didn’t expand our ketamine services; we held tight. That made it a real jolt.

“It’s easy to say ‘you shouldn’t have had your eggs in one basket,’” she continues. “But if you’re going to be the site that will roll out MDMA-assisted therapy and be a training site, you don’t want to spread yourself too thin. Then the decision happened.”

The team was worried the Gathering wouldn’t draw previous years’ audience numbers, but it sold out. “We had so much support and love, and this community came together,” she says. “I knew we had really created something at that point. I thought to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, we are creating a web of renewal and connection. We’re not going to walk away from this.’”

The theme gained new layers of meaning when the hurricane hit. Against a backdrop of extreme challenge and loss, including the loss of over 100 lives, residents joined together to share resources, help each other, and start the long work of rebuilding.

A Light in the Mountains

Clinical and Executive Director Dr. Raymond Turpin has been playing the long game for most of his life. A decades-long interest in the healing potential of psychedelics resulted, in 2020, in the Pearl’s formation deep in the heart of Appalachia. Waynesville, with its idyllic, walkable main street and Blue Ridge backdrop, is a far cry from the image most people have when they think of the psychedelic movement, which is largely bicoastal, urban, and liberal.

The idea of the Pearl existed for years before it was started serving patients. In 2004, the Turpins founded Jackson County Psychological Services, a behavioral health network that served rural children and families across 34 schools in Western North Carolina. Working in partnership with school systems, DSS, juvenile justice, and local law enforcement, the program reached over 3,000 low-income students and families annually. As part of the team’s efforts, EMDR became a reimbursable treatment in the region, a decision that shaped rural mental health policy across North Carolina.

The Turpins’ community ties furthered their vision of the Pearl, and carried many of their supporters and donors, like the Evergreen Foundation and the 30th Judicial District Alliance (who provided the organization’s first physical site), over to the project.

The Pearl’s focus on psychedelic-assisted therapy still required a great deal of education for the public they serve. Appalachia has a higher number of veterans than the national average, a population with higher diagnosed rates of PTSD and addiction. Residents also lag behind non-Appalachian rural areas in education level, employment, and income and poverty, while often valuing cultural resiliency, distrust of official systems, and local and regional isolationism, creating challenges related to communication.

The Pearl has weathered skepticism on the local front as the national backdrop has also shifted. But from their current location – a house on a quiet side street, complete with Southern wraparound porch and hanging ferns – you get the sense that all will, eventually, be well.

Credit: Stephan Pruitt / Fiasco Media

Held in the Web

Kim sees the Pearl not just as a beacon for Western North Carolina, but for the South more broadly. She points to the attendance at the Gathering, which has steadily drawn more far-flung guests and speakers as it has grown. “Last year I heard people from three different psychedelic societies talk about how excited they were to see each other at the next one,” she says. “At that point I told Raymond, ‘Mission accomplished. We have become a networking party.’”

This year’s Gathering of the Pearl will begin with a rooftop party for sponsors and speakers featuring Asheville’s Free Planet Radio. The main party, which starts at 7 p.m., includes food, speakers, an auction benefitting the Pearl, info tables highlighting harm reduction and psychedelic society resources, and music from the J Lloyd Mashup Band with special guests Mike Barnes and Jeff Sipe.

The lineup of speakers, a special draw for the event, features luminaries, elders in the movement, and some of the Pearl’s own patients. This year’s keynote speaker, Bryan W. Hubbard (Americans for Ibogaine) has garnered a deserved reputation as a compelling speaker, and is himself Appalachian and grew up in Virginia, in a family with a coal mining legacy.

Other speakers include MAPS founder and president Dr. Rick Doblin, author and retired religion professor Dr. Chris Bache, psychiatrist Dr. Michael Mithoefer, pharmacologist Dr. David Nichols, and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) Director of Strategy and Development Gina Giorgio. APS will also be stepping on stage – and we’ll be representing at a community table for psychedelic society resources (so come say hey!).

This is the kind of community the Pearl is creating – and it’s not in an urban center or a state where psychedelics are already decriminalized or legal. It’s right here in Appalachia. “The Gathering is about not only coming together to support the advancement of psychedelic medicine, but also as a community coming together and sharing a collective hug as we weave a web of healing and renewal,” says Kim.

Let’s make it a bear hug, y’all.