The New Year in 1936

In the month of January, my social media feed is typically filled with optimism about the new year. Resolutions, which rarely last more than a few weeks, are nobly declared. People share their hopes for a brighter future. 

But this year, there’s one thing everybody seems to agree on: 2024 is going to be a doozy. Perhaps the most chaotic one in our lifetimes. Although you probably don’t need convincing, here are some interesting facts I gathered from various commentary: 

• It’s not only America that’s having a consequential election. This year, 40% of the world’s population will be voting in national elections. That’s 3.2 billion people across 40 countries. 

• War is raging all over the world. Tensions are boiling. Some say we’re already in WW3, we just don’t realize it yet. 

• 22% of companies are planning layoffs and may let go of 30% or more of their employees. 

Unfortunately, history suggests that we are nowhere near the end of this crisis. Even if 2024 proves the most chaotic one so far in our lifetimes, it probably won’t be the last. 

It’s like we’re living in the year 1936 (also a leap year). Last October, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. Later this year, a civil war will break out in Spain. Fascism is rising across Europe. But that’s just something you skim through in the newspapers while you drink your black coffee and smoke your Lucky Strikes. You’ve got more pressing things to concern yourself with. 

Here in America, things are pretty dire. And have been for some time. It’s an election year. Although the country will vote in a landslide to re-elect FDR, there’s not exactly a consensus about the job he is doing, or the direction of the country. Many call Roosevelt a dictator. Some think he’s a communist. Others, a fascist. 

The New Deal sounded great, but it hasn’t actually brought the country out of the Great Depression. The stock market crashed seven years ago. Maybe this is just the way things will always be. We had our high times during the twenties, but nothing lasts. And even those weren’t so great for many.

A lot of Americans are exploring alternatives to liberal capitalism. The Communist Party is an actual organization and is gaining members. There are others who think fascism is a good idea. There was a plot, three years ago, by disgruntled veterans to overthrow Roosevelt.

But five years from now, a few weeks before Christmas, the national mood will shift overnight. The entire nation will set aside their differences and mobilize against a common enemy. We’ll emerge victorious, and create a world unrecognizable from the one we’re living in now. 

At least that’s how it happened last time. 

Chronologies of Fourth Turnings

My latest obsession has been the fourth turning theory of history by authors William Strauss and Neil Howe. The idea is that Anglo-American history has transpired in four (roughly) 20-year cycles, or turnings, which make up a (roughly) 80-year saeculum. Or a long life.

These turnings go all the way back to the 15th century, and have repeated through the American Revolution, the Civil War, and WW2. Events today are playing out on schedule. The four turnings consist of a high, awakening, unraveling, and crisis. You can guess which one we’re in now. 

I just finished Howe’s follow up book, The Fourth Turning is Here, and am struck by how long he predicts our current crisis to last. Howe calls it “The Millennial Crisis” and believes it started in 2008 with the Great Recession. For a millennial like me, that event happened when I was 18. As an 18-year-old, I was focused on other things. So for basically my whole adult life, we’ve been in a crisis.

But where in the crisis are we? Like seasons in nature, the seasons of history don’t correspond to an exact timeline. Sometimes winter comes early, sometimes late. Sometimes it is harsh and sometimes mild. On rare occasions, it lasts into summer.

But there are key elements of crisis eras that give some indication of where we are in the cycle. And according to Howe, we’re a little more than halfway through the current one. 

The Precursor

Crisis periods have a precursor, or an emergency that temporarily galvanizes society. For a moment, it seems as though this emergency will unite and galvanize society. But it occurs during the previous unraveling period, and because of that it falls apart. The precursor to the American Revolution was the French & Indian War. For the Civil War, it was the Mexican War. And for the Millennial Crisis, it was 9/11. 

For a moment after the attack, the world rallied around the US. And the US rallied around the Bush administration. But the War on Terror fit right into the unraveling period. It was dysfunctional, alienating, and divisive. It fed into the polarization and populism that would become the signature characteristics of our Millennial crisis. 

The Catalyst

The catalyst is a watershed event that produces a sudden but lasting shift in the social mood. For the American Revolution, this was the “coercive acts” of 1774. For the Civil War, it was the Southern secession following Lincoln’s election. For the Great Depression/WW2, it was the Stock Market Crash of 1929. 

According to Howe, the catalyst for the Millennial Crisis is the Great Recession of 2008. 

The Regeneracy

A regeneracy is an event that reunifies community and energizes civic life. Sometimes there is more than one regeneracy during a crisis. For the Revolution, it was The Battle of Lexington and Concord. These were the first shots fired between the British and the rebels. For the Civil War, it was Fort Sumter. For WW2, it was FDR’s first inaugural address where he uttered the famous words, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

A regeneracy doesn’t necessarily unite the whole country. The American Revolution was really a civil war, and Lexington & Concord united both the loyalists and the rebels against one another. 

For the Millennial Crisis, Howe says the regeneracy is most likely the 2016 election. The results shocked most of the nation. For Trump supporters, it was a victory. For those who opposed Trump, they organized into “the resistance.” The election energized civic engagement, whichever side you are on. 

Consolidation

The consolidation is the moment when everyone understands that they are engaged in a true struggle for survival. For the Revolution, this was the creation of the US Constitution, which then split people into virulent Federalist and Anti-Federalist camps. For the Civil War, this was the Emancipation Proclamation. For WW2, it was the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

The consolidation of the Millennial Crisis is yet to come. We can speculate on all the different scenarios of how that could unfold. But some sort of major event will take place within the next few years that will focus all the tension that’s been building over the last 16 years. 

Climax & Resolution

Next comes the climax, which is a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and the triumph of the new. For the Revolutionary period, this was the ratification of the Constitution. For the Civil War, it was a series of Union victories in 1864 that tilted the tide of the war. For WW2, it was the military victories in Europe and the Pacific. 

Then there is the resolution, which is the triumphant or tragic conclusion that separates winners from losers and resolves the big questions. The new order is established.

For the Revolution, it was the presidency of George Washington and the voluntary, peaceful transfer of power. For the Civil War, this is the passage of the 13th Amendment banning slavery and the surrender of Lee to Grant. In WW2, this was the series of agreements and organizations that would set the tone of the post war era: United Nations, Bretton Woods, World Bank, etc. 

At some point, our crisis era will resolve itself. A worldview will emerge triumphant. And a new order will be established. 

And You May Contribute a Verse

Everyone can agree that times are dark right now. And history suggests they will get a whole lot darker. But this was all inevitable. Those who sacrificed during the Great Depression and WW2 are no longer with us. A new generation will need to do the same.

Soon, our time will come. 

In times of crisis, heroes are made. Ulysses S Grant was a “failure in everything except marriage and war.”1 He was a 39-year-old living in obscurity with financial and drinking problems when the war broke out. He went on to lead the Union to victory and later become president. 

In 1884, Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Civil War veteran and future Supreme Court Justice, reflected that: “...in our youths, our hearts were touched with fire.” As war began to break out between the Union and the Confederacy, naive young men enlisted in the army so they could see some action before the whole thing boiled over. William Tecumseh Sherman insisted in these early days that the conflict would be a long, bloody affair. People thought he was insane. 

On December 6th, 1941, it was inconceivable that America would get involved in any of the conflicts happening overseas. But one day later, after Pearl Harbor, the national mood changed completely. All the able bodied men went off to war. Women went to work in the factories. People rationed their food. The nation mourned the loss of over 400,000 young men. 

A consolidation is coming soon. Most likely it’ll be something unpredictable. Because it usually is. But I’m confident we’ll make it through and the American experiment will continue. 

After the crisis is resolved, Millennials will get to work rebuilding the country and establishing the new order. We’ll bring the nation into a new modern age, driven by technology, consensus, and collective action. We’ll finally address the issues that actually matter.

Just as the Greatest Generation built the suburbs to accommodate all those Baby Boomers, we’ll figure out a way to address our current housing crisis. But we’ll do it in a way that encourages walkability and clean air. 

We’ll figure out sustainable forms of transportation, urban planning, and agriculture. No more bankruptcies from education and health care bills. We’ll have a congress that doesn't look like a gerontocracy. It’ll actually do something instead of partisan fighting and dysfunction and grandstanding. We’ll create a society that values service to others above personal gain. We’ll look after our neighbors.

Our society will be far from perfect, and a later prophet generation will have an awakening, which will question all the institutions and values and technology that we worked so hard to build. They’ll grow up in the new order, and won’t understand the sacrifices we made. And society will unravel once again. And a new generation, many years from now, will have to endure a new crisis. This time of a different nature.

As Whitman said, “The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” 

A few months ago, I wrote that things were about to get weird in America. Boy did that prove true. Not that they weren’t already. And I’m sure they will only get weirder. 

The events of October 7^th, and the reaction here in the United States, was an X (twitter) rabbit hole I could not take my eyes off. The culture warriors never miss an opportunity to capitalize on a tragedy.

In real time, you could watch battle lines being drawn. Longtime political allegiances abandoned. In many corners, the deaths of innocent people were implicitly celebrated. In others, explicitly.

This is what happens in the absence of shared beliefs. It’s what happens when we don’t have a basic understanding of what America is and what we stand for. It’s all disintegrating before our eyes. At lightning speed.

But have we been here before? A fascinating book from 1997 suggests we have.

I. The Fourth Turning

Living in the east again makes me more aware of the changing seasons. As the last of the fall colors fade and the nights become long, dark, and cold, I reflect on the nature of change. I recently finished The Fourth Turning, by Neil Howe and William Strauss, which is all about change and the seasons of history.

The idea is that Anglo-American history has transpired over the centuries in four turnings. Each turning is roughly 20 years. The four turnings combined make up a saeculum, which is roughly 80 years. About the span of a lifetime.

The First Turning is a HIGH. Our last high started in 1946 and ended in 1964. America emerged from World War II as the dominant world power. There was a relatively even distribution of wealth and a strong middle class. There was a collective faith in institutions and a general consensus about how society should be run: Keynesian economics, anticommunism, and service to your community and your church.  

For obvious reasons, the high was not all roses. Hence the AWAKENING, which is the second turning of the saeculum. Our last awakening was the Consciousness Revolution of 1964-1984: Civil Rights, the Counterculture, The Sexual Revolution, The Women’s Movement, and The Gay Liberation Movement. 

While a lot of positive change came out of the Awakening (and while it must’ve been one hell of a ride), the changes from that period were not all good either. Hence the UNRAVELING, which is the third turning.

Our unraveling took place from 1984-2008. The burning of draft cards in the sixties led to the tax revolts of the eighties. Hippies became yuppies. The individualism of the groovy LSD-fueled sixties led to the “greed is good” ethos. The modest, GI-bill bungalows of the post-war period were no longer adequate. McMansions were in. The AIDS epidemic. Nirvana. Rodney King. The fall of the Soviet Union. The War on Terror.

Following an unraveling is the fourth and final turning, the CRISIS. We are in a crisis now. Author Neil Howe has placed the start of our current crisis period in 2008 with The Great Recession. As the theory goes, we still have a few years to go. The crisis will end around 2028, or even later.

The last American crisis started with the stock market crash of 1929 and ended with World War II. The crisis before that ended with the Civil War. The time before that? The American Revolution.

How will this one end? The 2024 Presidential Election? The 2028 Election? Another Civil War? An AI Revolution? A major economic crash? World War III? They all seem like good contenders.

But if history continues in the same fashion, the country will rally together against a common enemy. They will sacrifice their individual needs for the greater good. Civic engagement will become a new priority. Institutions will be reformed and strengthened. The 2030s will be high times. And the cycle will repeat.

II. Generational Archetypes

The authors identified generational archetypes, which correspond to the various turnings. The reason for the differences in generations has to do with which turning they are born into and come of age during.

The generation that comes of age during the crisis is called the HERO generation. This was most recently personified by the Greatest Generation. They grew up during the crisis period of the Great Depression and then sacrificed themselves in the war against fascism (both abroad and at home).

According to the theory, the Millennials will become the heroes of this crisis period. I know, I can hear the snickering back there.

The generation that comes of age during a high is the ARTIST generation. This is the Silent Generation. They were too young for World War II and too old for the counterculture. They came of age during McCarthyism and were largely conformists who valued safety and security. The nonconformists of the generation were the Beats.

The Silents fought in Korea. That war everybody forgot about. Joe Biden is the only Silent president we’ve had. It skipped from Great Generation members Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Senior to Baby Boomers Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, and Trump.

Gen Z will be the next artist archetype.

The generation that comes of age during an awakening is the PROPHET generation. These are the Baby Boomers. They didn’t have to sacrifice during the Crisis like their parents did, and therefore didn’t have the same attitudes of conformity and rigidity. Naturally, they rebelled.

The prophets excelled at many things. It was the greatest era ever for music. They explored new realms of consciousness. They stopped an unjust war. They created the personal computer. They were great at rebelling against institutions (think Berkeley Free Speech Movement of 1964). But they’re not very good at running them (think expansionist universities today with astronomical tuition and crippling student debt).

The generation that comes of age during an unraveling is the NOMAD generation. This is Generation X. They were born during an Awakening. It’s a time when people are more interested in exploring their consciousness and different marital arrangements. So, child rearing is not really a priority. Gen Xers (“latchkey” kids) were left to roam all day without parental supervision. Cultural depictions of children during this time were not very positive. Like in Rosemary’s Baby or The Exorcist.

Not so with my childhood. Baby Boomers dominate the culture. So, when they decided it was time to have children, there was suddenly a national interest in children again. Ah, The Millennials. We were given a lot of attention. We were constantly told how special and great we were. The “Baby on Board” sign became commonplace in minivans on their way to soccer games. Parents were deeply invested in our future. And still are, even though we’re in our 30s now. 

When the climax of a crisis takes place, the generations come together in unique ways. Last time, the Greatest Generation became the GIs and Rosie the Riveters of WW2 (i.e. Millennials). The reliable, straight-talking managers were a Nomad archetype, the Lost Generation, born between 1883-1900. This included Harry Truman, Dwight D Eisenhower, and George Patton (i.e. Gen X). The elder leaders were a Prophet archetype born between 1860-1882 and included FDR, Douglas MacArthur, and Winston Churchill (i.e. Boomers).  

This is all assuming that we make it through this next crisis. As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself. It rhymes. There’s no guarantee that the American experiment will continue. Last time it took 600,000 deaths to work it out.

What will it take this time?

III. Turn, Turn, Turn

I find comfort in the idea of the Fourth Turning. Of seeing the trials and tribulations of history as part of the natural cycle of life. Just like wildfire is a necessary element for rebirth in the ecosystem, crisis serves its purpose. 

We’ve had it good here in America for too long. We got greedy. Selfish. Divisive. Overfed. And concerned about stupid things. We took it all for granted.

But maybe that was all written in the cards.

We don’t appreciate what we have because we aren’t the ones who fled the Dust Bowl and fought the Nazis. Those who did are no longer with us. The memory is fading. Maybe crisis is a necessary element to make us appreciate the gift of life. And the importance of the American experiment. If we make it through the crisis, our descendants will only know the high times.

And then they’ll have to learn it all over again.

In his latest book, The Fourth Turning Is Here, Neil Howe references this poetic summary of the cycle from Jean De Meun, a French author in the 13th Century:

A Personal Update

It’s been one hell of a stifling, muggy summer here on the east coast.

Summer is often a chaotic time for me, and this year I could not be more content with the arrival of fall. The nights are becoming cold, the sky is a clear blue, and there’s a stillness to the air.

It’s like the first moments of an afternoon meditation session. The stresses and the thoughts swirling around my head settle in the presence of the mantra. Things slow down and become a bit clearer.

A large part of my summer neuroticism came from my venture into home ownership. Ram Dass once said, “If you think you are enlightened, try spending a week with your family.” I think we could amend that to “If you think you’re enlightened, try buying a home in America.”

Homeownership is like a religion here. A rite of passage. Something one must do. The indigenous people took peyote or sent the young to spend a few nights alone in the wilderness. In modern America we take a 30-year debt with big banks based on an interest rate set by an irresponsible Fed. And if things continue, this coming of age ritual will be reserved only for the aristocracy.

Ah well. We’ll see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be.

Besides reminding me how far I am from enlightenment, the whole process has also delayed a piece I’ve been meaning to write on fascinating polling data published recently by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. One which seemed to land very quietly in the psychedelic space.

Silence in the Echo Chamber

When the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics dropped their survey of American attitudes towards psychedelics in July, it didn’t seem to get too much attention.

Perhaps it’s because I’m no longer very active in the digital psychedelic space. Or it was bad timing after Psychedelic Science, the highly publicized, largest-yet psychedelic conference in Denver. I saw no reason to attend that event, but enjoyed commentary by writers like Jules Evans and Jamie Wheal.

Ed Prideaux is another writer who is on my wavelength. In a chat recently, Ed told me how he finds the rhetoric around psychedelics just plain… boring. I have to say I feel the same way. Even though people have profound, transformative experiences under psychedelics, talking about it all the time can get dull. Irritating even.

But the movement is spreading, that’s for sure. The other day, I got a LinkedIn connection request from somebody whose profile says “Psychedelic Medicine Advocate” and whose banner reads “Psychedelics for Everyone.” After accepting the request, I got a (presumably) automated message about his mission to share the healing power of psychedelics with me.

Are the AI bots pushing psychedelics now? I just can’t help but have a bad feeling about it all.

What makes me uneasy is this emerging “psychedelic evangelism.” I’ve always been wary of religious and political zealots of any persuasion. In this case there’s this vision of a rosy, utopian “psychedelic future.” It’s a future where all people are connected to each other and to the planet. It’s a nice idea that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

But unfortunately it’s just that.

Stanislav Grof said that LSD is a “nonspecific amplifier of the unconscious.” Psychedelics are merely tools. They can be used for good or evil. Throughout history, they’ve been used for all sorts of more sinister purposes: tribal warfare, hunting, remote attacks, and CIA brainwashing.

And yet this psychedelic evangelism gets pushed over and over in online spaces and in-person events like Psychedelic Science. The movement risks becoming an echo chamber, where certain catechisms get repeated and celebrated without scrutiny:

Psychedelics make better people

Mushrooms will change the world

We’re eradicating mental illness

As it turns out, the average American is not exactly on board.

Reality Check on the Psychedelic Utopia

If you checked any of the headlines after the UC Berkeley poll was released in July, you’d think the psychedelic movement was taking over America.

High Times and the San Francisco Chronicle touted the survey’s most encouraging aspect: 61 Percent of Americans Support Legalizing Psychedelic Therapy. To be fair, this is a marvelous achievement and demonstrates how far the culture has come from the peak Drug War of the 1980s & 90s.

But it also shows how journalism has become lazy and superficial. It feels like articles are getting published to push an agenda rather than explore nuance and truth. The coverage looked only at the first few pages of the survey, picked out the rosiest pieces, and moved on.

The analysis left out a lot of details that complicate the psychedelic utopia narrative. These details are important and should be examined if we are serious about re-introducing psychedelics into Western culture.

The survey, which was the first of its kind, featured a diverse pool of people between: male and female, liberal and conservative, religious and non-practicing, and various racial ethnicities.

Some of the more encouraging findings include:

• 78% support making it easier to research psychedelics

• 61% support regulated, legal therapeutic access programs for psychedelics

• 56% say they support obtaining FDA approval for subscription use

What’s notable is that “expanding research into psychedelics” is the only measure that was supported by a majority of participants who have no first-degree connection to psychedelic use.

It’s also worth noting that only 7% “somewhat oppose” and 11% “strongly oppose” making it easier to research psychedelics. More on that later.

This must be the part of the survey where most journalists stopped reading. But if you spend some time going through the rest of it, a more complete and interesting picture begins to emerge.

Stop Saying “Psychedelics Are Going to Change the World”

Although a majority of respondents support legal, therapeutic access to psychedelics, almost half of them also believe psychedelics are NOT good for society.

And 63% say that psychedelics are NOT something for “people like me.”

As the proposals stray further from the use of psychedelics in research, the percentage of those who declare they “strongly oppose” those measures increases.

For instance, only 11% say they “strongly oppose” expanding research, while 31% strongly oppose decriminalization and 34% strongly oppose religious and spiritual use.

Some other key takeaways that complicate the narrative:

• When it comes to awareness level of psychedelics, there’s a notable trend towards white, liberal, highly educated people with little to no religious practice

• Conservatives, as well as those with a regular religious practice, fall well below average for their overall support

• African-Americans hold the lowest levels of support among the demographics surveyed

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Return to the Original Path

Decades ago, the OGs of the Renaissance made a calculated decision. They understood that what was tried in the sixties counterculture was never going to work. If psychedelics were going to be introduced to a country in the height of a War on Drugs, it would need to happen from within the establishment.

They understood that if they could show people in a clinical context that psychedelics have the ability to heal those who are suffering, they could loosen the public perception and slowly re-introduce these compounds into the culture.

And it worked.

The only reason there’s a Renaissance is due to this unglamorous work of the past decades. It’s clear from the data that the average American supports this application of psychedelics. Liberal and conservative. Religious and non-practicing.

Once you venture into the territory of the spiritual, or changing society, they are not so sure. And many start feeling strong opposition to those claims.

While the medical model is not without its problems, it seems clear that it’s the most effective way to change the minds of the average person. And it would be smart to stick to that original path, while addressing some of its shortcomings.

As the Psychedelic Renaissance moves further away from the realm of science and more into religious evangelism, it risks losing its credibility. It also becomes more of an echo chamber, and less receptive to challenging ideas.

Evangelists don’t want to hear facts that counter their beliefs. Instead, those beliefs get repeated and reinforced into dogma. I think this is the reason why this survey has received so little attention. Especially the more sobering elements.

I’ve never been interested in speaking to the converted. When I first started making Psychedelia, the whole idea was to introduce psychedelics to the average American. And that’s still my focus today.

When you live in places like Oakland or New York City or Denver, it’s easy to think that the rest of the country is going along at the same pace as your peers. But half the country doesn’t agree with your politics. And it remains a religious and conservative nation in many ways.

If you really believe that “we are all one” and that “psychedelics are for everyone,” then you’re gonna have to learn how to speak to that other side.

I. The Pursuit of Happiness

It’s July 4^th weekend here in America, where we celebrate our independence with things like hot dogs, cold beer, and jet skis. 247 years ago, in what must’ve been a stifling Philadelphia home, Thomas Jefferson drafted our founding mythology. We are “…endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He wrote these words while an enslaved 14-year-old, Robert Hemings, fixed his tea and dressed him.

As I wrote about in my last article, this origin myth has been under scrutiny from a host of ideologies lately. I suspect this will only get worse in the coming years. I’m getting the sense that Marxism will have a resurgence and once again become a serious challenger. Though this may be because I’m attending a class on it right now and it’s at the forefront of my mind.

I’m struck by how radical of an ideology Marxism is. We tend to think of Marxists as being liberal (at least in America), but it’s rooted in opposition to liberalism. And liberalism is what our nation was founded upon: freedom of religion, of speech, of individual rights, and free enterprise.

The Marxist teachers in my class criticize Jefferson’s vision of humanity. To them, he is pushing off an ideal vision of the world to some vague point in the future. A point which, by design, may never come. They say we need revolution. And we need it now.

As John Stuart Mill said, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” While I’m sympathetic to the same concerns as the Marxists, I’m not convinced they have the answer. I hold the unpopular belief that the founding fathers had the right idea. And our job is to play our part in that ongoing evolution. Not to tear the whole thing down and start over.

But in case I’m losing you, the focus of this piece has nothing to do about politics. It’s about a particular line in Jefferson’s writing that I would like to challenge here:

“The pursuit of happiness”

II. Anthony Bourdain & Happiness on the Horizon

For many years, my sense of fulfillment and happiness always seemed to lie somewhere on the horizon. This manifested in different ways; relentless pursuit of a career in filmmaking, a need for external validation, and adventure seeking to name a few. I would get rushes of joy when things were going my way. But they would never last. For years I daydreamed about being born in a different time. A time when things were better. More fun. Simpler.

I used to think I was wired incorrectly, but then I was handed a life-changing book called, Mindfulness in Plain English. Its author, Bhante Gunaratana, introduced me to the basic ideas of Buddhism. Through my practice, I came to realize how pervasive and doomed the pursuit of happiness really is.

The documentary Roadrunner, about the life of Anthony Bourdain, is a perfect encapsulation of this. It’s a tragic warning of what can happen when the pursuit of happiness is left unexamined. Dave Chappelle joked, that “Anthony Bourdain had the greatest job that show business ever produced. This *** flew around the world and ate delicious meals with outstanding people. And that man with that job hung himself in a luxury suite in France.”

Bourdain had everything one could dream of. Money, fame, adventure, and a career doing what he loved. But he never confronted a hole deep within himself. In the film, we see his attempts to fill that hole over and over. As a young man he filled it with heroin. After becoming famous, he moved on to traveling the world, living on the edge, jujitsu, romantic partners, and self-righteous activism.

There’s a scene in the film that I found particularly striking. Bourdain sits in a psychotherapist’s office and says he wants to “…look out the window and feel that life is good.” The therapist asks him if he really wants to change. He sits there for a while and finally says, “I think it’s too late.”

It seems a lot of people feel it’s too late. More people are killed by suicide each year than homicide. The rates of drug overdose death are increasing. How many people (more subtly) eat themselves to death? Look at the endless pursuit of material wealth and the havoc it is wreaking on our environment. Visit Los Angeles and look up into the hills where all the celebrities barricade themselves from the outside world. Is it any wonder that divorce is rampant there, along with drug abuse, depression, and generally awful behavior?

If Bourdain and the Hollywood producers are that miserable, what makes you think you’ll be any different?

III. The American Dream & Wisdom of the Buddha

The whole promise of the American Dream is tied up in this fallacy of finding happiness on the horizon. The implication is that it’s something to be found outside oneself. But what happens when Manifest Destiny reaches the Pacific Islands of Hawaii and the northern edges of Alaska? How can we search for a better life when there’s no more western frontier? What do we do when there are more Christmas gifts under the tree than we know what to do with?

Has America reached the same place that Bourdain found himself in that hotel in France? He must’ve felt like he’d done and achieved all he could possibly dream of, and yet he was in the same place where he started. He must’ve felt like there was nowhere left to turn.

Fortunately, the answer to this problem is extremely simple and it’s been around for thousands of years. Buddhist philosophy states that human suffering comes from our attachment to a world that is constantly changing. Empires rise and fall. Relationships come and go. Wealth is built and lost. Beauty fades. We grow old and die. Our natural desire is to cling on to what we have and to pursue new shiny objects that will make us happy.

We chase wealth, career, romantic partners, material things, ideas about our children, and ideas about ourselves. These are all in a state of constant change, and the more we pursue our happiness through them, the more it eludes us. That’s why being successful doesn’t make you happy. And it’s quite possible that the opposite is true.

I used to look up to Bourdain and other American writers with a dark nature like Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ernest Hemingway. I believed in a perverse and false idea that to be a true artist meant living in an arena of agnst and darkness. Nonsense. The best creative work comes from a place of inner peace, joyfulness, and without attachment to results. If you do creative work so you can become famous or get praised or get rich, you’re doomed.

What I find so powerful about the principles of Buddhism is that they form a practice that you can refine over the course of your lifetime. I’ve come a long way, but I also have a lot more to go. Time and time again, I return to the same basic truth. It's all about letting go.

By letting go of my self-importance, my bitterness, my desires, my opinions, and my notions of how things ought to be, I find inner peace. I don’t believe the universe cares about my problems. And neither should I.

A Final Word on Jefferson

Since I started this piece on a tangent, I’ll return to it for some final thoughts.

As difficult as it is for some to understand, the founding fathers were men of their time. As far as I can tell, the insights of the Buddha had not yet made their way across the Atlantic in the 18^th Century. But my sense is if they had, they would have had an audience in Jefferson. 

What draws me so strongly to the principles of Buddhism is its simplicity. It’s based on observable facts of the known universe. It doesn’t take a PhD to understand it. You don’t need a priestly class to decipher the ancient texts. You don’t need to worship the Buddha. You only bow to him in appreciation and respect of his insights.

Insights which are self-evident. Common sense.

Things are about to get weird in America. And it’s going to happen fast. If you’re not used to change, I’d recommend you get started. The vision of the founders is going to be challenged and may not survive. But the founders knew they were doing something radical that wouldn’t last forever. I say we keep the good parts and modernize the bad.

It’s called Americana mindfulness.

I. The Problem with Religion

“Religion,” wrote the Roman philosopher Seneca, “is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” I used to regard that utility aspect of religion as entirely sinister. But now in its absence, I understand how crucial it is.

I was raised, albeit gently, in the Catholic Church. This included CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) every week and mass on Sundays. Catholic mass is a rather odd affair. There’s an awful lot of alternating between sitting and standing. Adults mumble through hymns while white-haired, cloaked officials wave around incense and a basket for cash donations. I participated in the first four sacraments: Baptism, 1st Communion, Confession, and Confirmation.

As a child, I distinctly remember believing in an all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent force looking over me. I prayed to him at night before bed. Suspicion began to creep in when he did not respond to my calls to get a good grade on the next day’s math test, or whatever great challenge was presented to my adolescent existence.

George Carlin once joked that he too was Catholic, “until he reached the age of reason.” For me, that age was around 14 years old. These were the golden years of the atheism movement, and I devoured books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.

I wrote articles for my high school newspaper about the evil of religion and the urgent need to get rid of it. New information on the sexual abuses of the clergy were coming to light, as well as the Church’s efforts to cover it up.

It was also a time when I began learning European history, and the horrific legacy of the Church through the Inquisition, indulgences, and the repression of scientific discovery. It seemed obvious that religion was an evil force, rooted in ignorance, used by the establishment to solidify power, and that the road towards progress required doing away with these antiquated belief systems.

How naive I was.

II. Belief is What it Means to be Human

What the atheism movement did not account for is the vacuum left in the absence of these belief systems, however flawed they are.

In his book Sapiens, historian Yuval Noah Harari demonstrates the vital role that belief plays in the very foundation of what it means to be human. What separates Homo sapiens from the rest of the natural world is our ability to create and believe in fictional stories. No other species does this, and it explains how we conquered the natural environment in record evolutionary speed.

It was all about mass cooperation. A single human being in the jungle is a pretty ineffective creature. One-on-one and without tools, we’re no match against almost any animal. When we co-existed with other human species like the Neanderthals, they were much stronger in terms of physical strength. Where Homo sapiens excelled was cooperating in large numbers; through large scale hunting techniques, working together as a tribe, and developing tools.

Later, in order to build civilizations and nations, we needed to invent and then believe in utterly fictional concepts: gods, money, the law, art, kings, democracy, human rights. These are merely stories, and yet the functioning of our civilization depends on our collective belief in them.

This “mythical glue,” writes Harari, is the real difference between us and chimpanzees and “has made us the masters of creation.” He notes that when observing interactions in groups of human beings versus chimpanzees, there’s surprisingly little difference when that number is under 150. Once it passes that threshold, the differences become significant. And once it passes one or two thousand, the differences are enormous.

Take for example the modern company. In order to create cohesion among thousands of employees scattered around the world, you need to create a brand. A story about what the company is. There is design, mission statements, guiding principles, and leadership. Steve Jobs understood this ingeniously and created the alluring fictional story of Apple.

This is modern, mass cooperation. And we need it to survive.

III. A Civil, Holy War

The United States of America was founded on a fictional story, born out of the Enlightenment; That all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This was the founding mythology of our country, and as the centuries wore on, a new mythology was introduced: The American Dream. The idea was that America was a refuge for people all over the world to start a new life and make something of themselves.

Of course, the founding myths of America were flawed. The authors were slaveowners, and those descendants were deliberately left out of the American Dream through Jim Crow laws, segregation, and red lining. The settlers engaged in genocide of the Indigenous people from the moment they stepped foot in Jamestown. Whether or not to acknowledge this part of our history, and how to deal with it in the present, is one of the most contentious aspects of the culture war.

But it’s not the only aspect. Less discussed is the widening wealth gap and those left behind by neoliberal ideas and globalization. Home ownership, one of the classic pillars of the American Dream, is out of reach for many. Higher education is increasingly looking more and more like a scam. It’s becoming harder and harder to believe in a system that is increasingly rigged against the common folk, whether that’s a Trump voter in an Ohio diner or a debt-ridden college graduate espousing Marxism.

When a shared belief system is broken down, the human need to believe remains and people become vulnerable to all sorts of bad ideas. The ideology of the far left seeks to remedy historical injustices through tactics that resemble the religions of old. There’s an unquestionable orthodoxy, a sanctimonious way of being, and a casting out of non-believers by whatever means necessary. The far right feels that their traditional beliefs systems are under attack, and they’re willing to enforce those values through militias, kidnappings, and physical violence.

Many of our institutions are complicit in, and feed off, this chaos: universities, tech companies, legacy media, and Congress. This extremism has infested the public discourse with so much vitriol that we are no longer able to communicate with one another. Many Americans now view the other side as an existential threat to the nation. Nothing is sacred amongst the fervor of these ideologues: A statue of Abraham Lincoln lies graffitied and toppled in Portland, Oregon while the nation’s capital is raided and desecrated by an angry mob.

We are witnessing the vacuum created by the breakdown of shared beliefs. While mythology can lead to dangerous and ignorant behavior, it is crucial to the cohesion of a nation. As Abraham Lincoln prophetically stated in 1838:

“All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth… could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years… As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

The new Civil War has nothing to do with geography. It’s more of a religious war. A war between deeply entrenched belief systems. Tech entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan has compared the difference between red and blue America to that of Sunni and Shiite Muslims. It’s becoming unthinkable to marry somebody from the other side. Florida and Oregon could become governed under entirely different understandings of what America is.

A New Mythology

I used to make fun of the Catholic Church, and of believers in general.

What I didn’t understand is how it created a sense of purpose, meaning, and community for my ancestors. It was a form of solidarity against the oppression of the British. It gave people a sense of right and wrong. It offered an explanation of the great mystery of our existence on the planet. It was a place for people to gather in peace. To join hands and sing.

I used to regard the secularization of society during the 1960s counterculture as progress. Now I worry it has created a vacuum that’s being filled with all sorts of dangerous and idiotic belief systems: Trumpism, wokeism, evangelical Christianity, cult spirituality, and QAnon just to name a few. We are returning to deep, ancient, tribal instincts. We’re tearing down the fundamental principles of our nation. That’s not progress.

We need a new mythology. Not a reactionary one. A story we can all believe in. Not a re-hashing of old traditions that weren’t working. One rooted in empathy, science, respect for each other, respect for the planet, and an emphasis on the common good.

Perhaps our collective understanding of America is splintered beyond repair. But in the event our fate is not yet sealed, repairing faith in that shared understanding of what it means to be American is our only hope.

Psychedelics are all the rage these days. In the span of a few years, they went from cultural obscurity to being heralded as a miracle cure for all of humanity’s ills. This transformation is largely due to the clinical research of the past two decades, which has shown enormous promise in a number of areas. But context is everything when it comes to psychedelics. The fast-tracking of their approval, both by regulatory agencies and the wider culture, leaves many critical questions unanswered about how they will be integrated into society in a safe, effective, and accessible way. Like so many discussions in our culture today, the conversation around these compounds is seriously lacking nuance. This is to our peril.

A Trojan Horse

No matter where you live, what part of the political spectrum you fall under, and no matter how much drug experience you have, you’ve no doubt heard about the surge of interest in the West around psychedelics. You’ve probably read many headlines touting their magical properties from establishment institutions like The Economist, The New York Times, and oddly enough, the National Review.

In 1964, a few buttoned up middle class kids raised on John Wayne and Audie Murphy dropped acid and joined Ken Kesey on his magic bus trip across America. Later, many heeded Timothy Leary’s call to reject the ethics of their whiskey-drinking parents and usher in a new age of peace, love, and understanding. That whole groovy wave crashed pretty quickly, and left in its wake Charles Manson, Altamont, and yuppies.

Today, a similar trend seems to be under way, although it’s of a completely different flavor and exists in a totally different political landscape. More and more ordinary people are drinking the kool aid: “microdosing moms,” A-list celebrities, NFL stars, and (former) English royalty. It’s the answer, they say, to everything plaguing our over-civilized modern life: PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders, and marital troubles.  

This transformation is nothing short of stunning. In less than a decade, psychedelics went from cultural obscurity and strict criminalization to being heralded as the savior of humanity. It’s the result of slow, methodical work by some very intelligent and dedicated folks, whom I’ve come to know and admire. The analogy of the Trojan Horse has been used to describe this psychedelic infiltration into the very core of the American establishment: the corporate media, the FDA, and pop culture. It's a marvelous achievement.

But after the glory of victory fades away, the invading army is left with a problem: they need to figure out how to rule. And it’s usually much harder than anybody anticipates. Like the Americans in Iraq after they toppled Saddam Hussein or the French Revolutionaries after they abolished the monarchy or Fidel Castro’s rebels after Batista was ousted, that’s when the real problems begin.

Oftentimes, revolutionary movements break into factions. Once they are no longer at war with the original enemy, they break off into tribes and begin fighting each other. Like the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks of the Russian Revolution, each feels that they alone carry the true heart and soul of the movement. Usually, the more radical group wins in the chaos. It brings about the worst aspects of our nature, and becomes a breeding ground for manipulative, selfish, and power-hungry actors.

Today, we’re at the dawn of a psychedelic revolution unlike anything ever seen. And it couldn’t come at a stranger time. So much of our lives have been (and are going to further be) upended by polarization, misinformation, and artificial intelligence. Will sudden, mass availability of psychedelic experience be the force that saves us from our own destruction? If so, who’s going to be the shepherd of this live-saving sacrament? The church? Your shrink? Big Tech? Big Pharma? At-home ketamine kits advertised on Instagram?

If psychedelics are as powerful as they appear to be in re-shaping our minds and the essence of our human experience, does this not introduce a new power structure for somebody to take advantage of? And do you really think that power will be left to nonprofits and underground healers with the best of intentions?

We’re witnessing a mass experiment in real time. And I can’t help but feel deep concern for what’s on the horizon.

I. The Early Research Days

I began documenting one of the early clinical trials with psilocybin way back in 2011 (long before it was cool). The trial was being conducted by the NYU School of Medicine at the time and was exploring the use of high dose psilocybin among people diagnosed with cancer and struggling with the anxiety of facing death. I was able to interview several of the participants in that study who shared how the medicine re-shaped their view of life and death. Their testimony was profound and moving.

My interest in psychedelics came about when I was a teenager fascinated with the counterculture of the 1960s. I read about Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception while I was in high school. In college I experimented with LSD and was struck by those early experiences. It seemed to reveal some authentic self within me, which was continually changing and growing, completely free from bullshit, unable to lie or accept others' lies, and guided by some profound sense of humor. The fact that a compound can re-shape your entire perception of objective reality was (and still is) utterly fascinating to me. 

But I was also deeply unaware of the dangers as well. One day I took too much (or maybe it was just bad acid). I had a severely bad trip. It looked like something out of a health class anti-drug propaganda film. That whole experience needs its own article to do it justice, but it left me shaken, confused, and traumatized for some time. When I heard about the clinical trial at NYU I was immediately intrigued because it provided such a contrast to my reckless teenage experimentation.

I began making a documentary about the clinical trial and the history of psychedelics in a research context. Looking back, the process was a way for me to make sense of what had happened to me during that bad trip, and to learn more about how these compounds are used properly. I then distributed that film independently, and along the way encountered many people who were transformed by these experiences.

I can attest to what’s now been said ad nauseum in the headlines: psychedelics, when used in the right context, have incredible potential to heal. It’s particularly helpful for those who have nowhere else to turn to in our current medical system; like military veterans and those with severe depression, anxiety, and addiction. Our society is failing to address the mental health crisis, and psychedelics are filling that need. 

The modern iteration of this research began at Johns Hopkins in 2006 and was proceeding along quietly and carefully for several years. In many ways, I miss those early years. Researchers would hide behind dry PowerPoint presentations at conferences and never even allude to their own personal experiences. There was press coverage here and there, but it was much quieter than today. After what had happened in the sixties, it felt as though it was moving along at an appropriate pace. It seemed like it was all in good hands. 

That all changed when author Michael Pollan turned his attention away from his lettuce garden to psychedelic plants and fungi in 2018. The floodgates opened and the landscape has been changing at an ever-more rapid and dizzying pace. Almost everybody I meet now had no knowledge or experience with psychedelics prior to circa 2018. I hear the same story over and over. I wait politely for the words, “...and then I read Michael Pollan’s book…”

In a matter of a few years, they went from believing their 7th grade health teacher on how LSD makes you insane, to thinking that it will save our world. I don’t question the intentions of these people, but I believe their viewpoint is deeply rooted in naivety. The truth is much more complex and messy. And naivety can be dangerous, because it obscures the perilous grounds underneath. 

II. Lost Sacraments

From the erasure of soma in the Hindu tradition, to the Catholic Church’s crackdown of the Eleusinian Mysteries in the 4^th Century, to Nixon’s Controlled Substances Act of 1971, psychedelics have a long history of repression. When you understand this tumultuous history, there is simply no reason to believe that the current enthusiasm and regulatory progress couldn’t come crashing down. And quickly. 

In 1991, Terrence McKenna, the “Irish Bard” of psychedelia, gave a talk at Claremont College and offered a theory on a strange phenomenon that occurred throughout human history. He noted several instances where a psychedelic sacrament like soma, praised in the ancient Vedic texts, gets “lost” over the ages.

There are also places where psychedelics exist in the natural world but there is no known evidence of their use among the native peoples. How could this be? Native people knew everything about the natural world around them, which plants were poisonous, medicinal, psychoactive. How could they just leave morning glory seeds or psilocybin mushrooms be, as if there was nothing to see here folks.

McKenna’s theory was that a spiritual tradition formed around the sacrament and over time a priesthood or elite became the overseers of that tradition, heralding their power over the lower classes. Eventually, the common folk overthrew the priestly class, and the sacrament was banished from the culture. Lost to history. According to his theory, the sacrament then got discarded as a reminder of these obnoxious, misguided folks.

To me, this is the perfect analogy for what could bring down the psychedelic movement. This could happen as a result of a new power structure introduced by big business. Or it could simply be the result of the insufferable and misguided nature of many of the proselytizers of psychedelics today. 

III. The Problem With Proselytizers

My first experience with the followers of this movement started around 2019. By “followers,” I am making a clear distinction from the researchers and study participants I had come to know. At this point, I was finally finishing the edit of my film and I wanted to connect with what I thought would be its core audience. So, I began traveling to psychedelic conferences and spending time in these circles of the internet.

I attended a drug policy conference and was taken aback by what I witnessed. I was suddenly made aware of various rifts within a community that I had otherwise assumed was peaceful and united in their cause. Accusations were made of “psychedelic exceptionalism” and “cultural appropriation” and “colonialism.” There was a seriousness in the air that I found unfitting and strange. I couldn’t help but feel like I was looked upon by certain people with deep suspicion.

At first this just seemed silly to me, but over time I realize how incredibly ironic it is. One of the central frameworks of the psychedelic experience (at least in a western context) is mystical experience. There’s a transcendence of the ordinary experience of ourselves and the world around us. There’s a sense of unity and connection with all things in the universe. That’s a powerful experience to have and is helping a lot of people get over their depression, their addiction, or their fear of death.

But something must be seriously wrong when you have a group of people gathering around a compound that supposedly brings about unity and connection, and the decorum in the room is the recent 2022 Wonderland Miami event. Not all psychedelic conferences are like this. And you could say that this splintering is an inevitable result of psychedelics going mainstream. But from my observation, the tribal nature seems more pronounced in this particular group of people compared to the average. This is a huge concern. 

Psychedelics are supposed to break down your sense of ego and identity. Yet the supposed carriers of this torch have bigger egos than normal and are deeply entrenched in identity traps of us vs them? This casts serious doubts on one of the central tenets of the movement: that psychedelics make better people, and are going to heal and unite humanity. We hear this over and over again and it’s simply incorrect. 

A friend of mine told me a story that demonstrates this point. During the pandemic, he was attending and hosting virtual psychedelic integration circles. At the time, the ugly culture wars over masks and vaccines were in full force, and these arguments carried over into these discussions. He was mystified to witness a group of people gathered around mystical experience descending into accusations, conspiracy theories, and whatever other craziness was in the discourse at the time.

If the psychedelic renaissance is going to bring about a transformation of human beings away from our tribal past and into a more highly evolved new spiritual understanding, as they claim, then the people leading that movement need to be above petty tribalism. Otherwise, we would be led to the opposite conclusion: that psychedelics entrench us further in our identities and belief systems and tribal nature. If this is the case, given the current state of the world, we are in for serious trouble.

IV. Take Your Eyes off the Microscope

Alan Watts, who brought eastern philosophy to Westerners in the mid-20^th century, has one of the greatest quotes on psychedelics:

If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelics drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.

Although this quote is often repeated in psychedelic circles, the point seems lost on most people. Albert Hofmann, the chemist who accidentally synthesized LSD back in the 1930s, delivered a similar sentiment later in his life:

I must do what [Aldous] Huxley wrote to me in a letter. What you take in through visionary experience you must give out in daily life. And that is now the task which I try… the feeling to be a part of the universe, which I got from LSD experiences. This feeling is always present in my life.

Psychedelics can give you profound insights, but the whole point is that you learn from that experience and you come back and you apply it to your life. You become a better chemist, artist, architect, parent, therapist, or whatever it is you do. You don’t continue to live in the visionary experience. You have to integrate the experience through things like meditation, self-reflection, and therapy. And it can be a long road. 

There’s another predictable line I wait for when I meet people in these circles. And it comes almost every time: “so… how did you get into this?” There’s always something unsettling about the question. I can’t help but notice some wide-eyed, cult-like look in their eyes. Like I’m visiting a commune being asked about my “previous life” on the “outside.” I always sense some great expectation in their question, and never feel like my answer is satisfactory.

It turns out I would’ve thrived in Ancient Greece. Evidence strongly suggests that the kykeon, the ceremonial drink at the center of the Eleusinian Mysteries, contained ergot, which is the fungus that Albert Hofmann synthesized into LSD in the 1930s. Those who participated in this mystery ceremony did so only once, and were forbidden to speak about what they saw under punishment of death. 

I’ve often wondered about the reasoning behind this strict secrecy. My theory is that they understood the true ineffability of visionary experience. I think they felt that speaking about one’s experience (i.e. putting that which is beyond words into words) both diminished the power of that experience and corrupted the uninitiated by creating an expectation in their minds prior to experiencing it themselves. Not only did they not want you to talk about what happened, but they felt that doing so was one of the worst things a person could do.

They wanted you to take what you learned and apply it to the real world, through mathematics, architecture, philosophy, or leadership. I wonder what wisdom we’ve missed through our desire to constantly share our visionary experiences with others and create a whole industry around “healing.” Was this the same warning that Moses received from God about the perils of worshiping false idols? Perhaps this is how the original insights of the mystics get watered down and lost through organized religion. 

If you look at these communities online, you see that a lot of people adopt the psychedelic experience as their new identity. It’s written all over their social media handles and profiles – psilocybin-guy and DMT-Tripper. They adopt new clothing and hairstyles, and they talk about psychedelics nonstop. I believe this misses a critical point. You haven’t transcended your ego and identity. All you’ve done is exchanged it for a new one. And in many cases, the ego and identity become supercharged. 

This lack of historical understanding is even more pronounced when you examine the use of psychedelics in Central and South America. It’s very popular today to go down to Peru to partake in an ayahuasca ceremony to get over your “childhood trauma,” but this is a western cultural framework. Traditionally, psychedelics were used by shamans to enter spiritual realms and have encounters with saints and spirits. It was more about using psychedelics to access certain information or powers not normally available. This could be used to heal the sick, but it could also be used to search for lost members of the tribe, find game for hunting, or even warfare. 

Maria Sabina, the Mazatec curandera who introduced Gordon Wasson to magic mushrooms in the 1950s, remarked upon these conflicting frameworks. Wasson publicized his experience in a famous Life Magazine article in 1957, which brought hoards of westerners to Sabina’s village interested in eating the mushrooms themselves so they could “find God.” This had tragic consequences for her and her village, and she remarked on how this western search took away the original healing powers of the mushrooms. 

Psychedelics are merely tools. They can be used for personal growth, but they can also be used to prepare for battle or brainwash people. Just as a hammer can be used to build a house or destroy somebody’s skull, the psychedelic experience is completely dependent on the context in which it is taken.

The way they are being used in the 21st Century is unlike anything we’ve seen before in human history. In the past, that context was overseen by the church and it existed within a strict cultural framework. Today’s landscape is a wild west free-for-all. It’s very unclear who will play that role and what values will it be built upon. This lack of a cultural foundation puts the whole experiment on shaky grounds. 

V. Big Business & Perverse Incentives

Back when I began filming with the NYU clinical trial in the early 2010s, there was little conception of who would administer psilocybin therapy if and when the drug was rescheduled. Fast forward just several years later, and a strange new development started taking place: psychedelic capitalism.

Once Michael Pollan created widespread interest in psychedelics and the FDA designated psilocybin breakthrough therapy status for treatment-resistant depression, the floodgates opened to big business who saw opportunity. Seemingly overnight, for-profit companies started popping up all over the place and going public soon after.

I’m not anti-capitalist, but I struggle to see how big pharma and biotech companies are going to merge with the models established by the current clinical trials and underground healers. I don’t see how you can truly foster mental health transformation while satisfying the shareholders of a publicly traded company. I’m also mighty skeptical of the recent behavior of the industry at large; between the opioid epidemic, the massive prescription of SSRIs, and giving speed-like ADD medication to children.

Psychedelic therapy, when done properly, is enormously effective for certain outcomes. The participants I came to know from the NYU trial carried the lessons and insights from their single dose psilocybin session for years. There is not much need to repeat the experience. But isn’t this a terrible business model?

Furthermore, the therapy component is absolutely critical. These compounds are not therapeutic in and of themselves. The cost of therapy is high and would be one of the first places these companies would be looking to cut. This is an enormous problem. I’m not an expert on the pharma industry, but it seems the incentives are to cut costs and get repeat customers. And neither of these are compatible with successful psychedelic therapy. It’s not scalable. 

When you look at the scalable options, it all starts to sound like a sci-fi novel. Because compounds like psilocybin and LSD were discovered many decades ago, they have long been in the public domain. Drug companies make their money by developing novel compounds so they can then patent those drugs. Therefore, all of these companies are racing to come up with slight variations on good ole fashioned LSD and psilocybin. Perhaps it will last 2 hours instead of 6. Or perhaps it’ll come on in 15 minutes instead of an hour. On the surface, this feels a bit slimy and cheap, but there’s a layer far more complex and sinister.

Psychedelics reveal a lot about the mind. In certain contexts, they can re-shape how we view ourselves and the world around us. In therapy, this is the point. It can get us unstuck from negative and abusive thought patterns that keep us trapped in cycles of anxiety, depression, or substance abuse. This is the positive side of the trendy term “neuroplasticity.”

But could this re-shaping of our thoughts and perceptions be used for sinister purposes? What if the full force of VC-backed biotech firms, combined with exponentially growing AI technology, begins to hack the human brain and is able to manipulate it through newly discovered compounds? Who will control this new technology? And will they use it for mass mental health or will they use it as a new superpower to control the masses in the vein of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World? 

This might sound crazy, but I do not think it’s out of the realm of possibility. Psychedelics are enormously powerful. And it’s simple human nature that once that power becomes available, somebody out there will take advantage of it. The world is not ruled by angels. And without a collective cultural framework, who will be there to stop it?

The Beginning of the End

I spent ten years of my life making a documentary on the potential of psychedelics to heal people’s suffering and by extension, humanity as a whole. I still believe that when used properly, they do hold this potential. But I’m increasingly disturbed by what’s happening in the larger scene as psychedelics go mainstream, and I don’t think enough people are talking about the nuance of all this.

Ten years ago, the problem was misinformation from the War on Drugs and the cultural stigma around these compounds. This is no longer the concern. It’s the opposite. They are being overhyped, overprescribed, and their dangers are being brushed over. It’s all happening without a cultural foundation. And it’s happening in a modern capitalist environment, which has never been tried. A lot of the loudest people are amateurs, egomaniacs, and idiots. 

The culture also celebrates drug experiences in ways that I find immature and misguided. Our ultimate goal as a society should be sobriety. Various drugs can help get our lives back on track for a variety of reasons. But the goal should be to get to a place where you don’t need drugs anymore. Aspects of the movement stray away from that goal. And the newly introduced economic incentives are in direct opposition. 

In 1971, as the last wave of the groovy sixties receded, Hunter S. Thompson wrote the following in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling ‘consciousness expansion’ without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously… All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create… a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody-or at least some force-is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel.

Today, we are living in strange times. Psychedelics have the potential to ground us in some deeper, universal truth. But without a cultural framework to guide and harness that power, it seems unlikely. My expectation is that we are living in the beginning of the end of a new cycle of psychedelic repression. A new one for the history books. It should be interesting.

Thank you for reading this to the end! Special thanks to Jules Evans and Paul Antico for helping me with their insights. To watch my film Psychedelia, click here.