Working with Dhammarato has sped up my progress in quite amazing ways. I had sporadically and mostly accidentally reached the “higher” formless jhanas and cessation, but now I can say that in many ways strengthening the factors of the 1st jhana has been far more helpful for me than obsessing over those “higher” experiences and trying to reproduce them. The 1st jhana is the path to Nibbana that the Buddha taught, and if you want to live a more pleasant and rich moment-to-moment life in any circumstance you find yourself in, growing yourself in the skills of the 1st jhana is absolutely crucial. This is first and foremost about raising your baseline consciousness. If you want to get the true potential out of psychedelics, you’re not going to have an easy or fun time with an underdeveloped baseline. 
  Psychedelics and dry insight practice taught by western Buddhism are plenty fun and can contribute to a lot of growth, but they aren’t the most important pieces to the puzzle of living the best life, in my opinion and from my direct experience. I hope that those of you out there who do deal with suffering regularly will take the time to watch this talk with Dhammarato. The spiritual path doesn’t have to be riddled with dark night of the soul periods if you are practicing correctly. He teaches for free, typically on all weekdays, and is surprisingly easily to reach. Let me know by PM if you’d like his contact information. His YouTube channel has over one thousand talks with seekers like myself. 
  Dhammarato also has weekly Sangha meetings for both UK and US groups on Skype. One of the most beneficial things on my personal spiritual path has been to surround myself with many others who are also in the process of developing themselves spiritually.