“I believe loving money is one of the greatest gifts you can give humanity at this time,” said Azrya Bequer, one half of a husband-and-wife duo behind BEQOMING, an outfit earmarked “to serve the 0.1% of the wealthiest people in the world to start making better decisions for our planet and our future generations” — through facilitated ayahuasca ceremonies.
Why now? Psychiatry is in crisis, commentators observe: in total contrast to the advances of physical medicine, and despite tens of billions of dollars invested in treatments and research, outcomes remain broadly stagnant. It is a field in search of a silver bullet.
But squaring the circle of the world “out there” has been psychedelia’s perennial problem. “It’s all in the mind, ya know,” George Harrison’s acid cartoon blurbed in 1968’s Yellow Submarine, to the trumpets of All You Need Is Love. The cost-of-living crisis, inequality, institutional decay — the more material drivers of our distress — received little mention at the Symposium. There was talk of trauma, the inner healer, the true self. Or, for pharma firms profiting from a brain-centric, diagnostic view of misery, there is “chemical imbalance” and “brain disorders”, leveraged by overstretched references to “neuroplasticity” and pretty pictures of brain scans. Even the Department of Defence is directing $26.9 million towards novel psychedelics for veteran PTSD, whose battle scars they reduce to a “neurophysiological dysfunction”.
MindMed’s former CEO, JR Rahn — now CEO of a “People-Powered Pharma” outfit called LOVE Inc. — put it this way: “Forty percent of the country is suffering — that’s a big, big market.”
That market is greedy. Reportedly in keeping with the FDA’s regulatory requirements, plans are in place, in time, for MAPS to administer MDMA to children as young as seven. “The sooner you treat people for their trauma, the more benefits when you come to talk about insurance coverage and all,” Doblin said. “The more lifetime benefits there are, the more suffering you avoid.”
It’s tricky territory. A psychoactive as powerful as MDMA would seem precisely contraindicated for children, whose developing brains may render them susceptible to long-term changes and dysregulations. Doblin is firm and provocative. “The prohibitionist argument leaps from problems that can be caused by daily or frequent use of marijuana, or other drugs, to arguments for abstinence”, he said over email. “Daily use of marijuana in high school can be problematic but that doesn’t mean the message to adolescents should be to never use marijuana.
“For adolescent patients with PTSD, their brains are already warped by their PTSD, so not using MDMA to protect their brains doesn’t make sense”, he said.
The mission is not without its own traumas, however. Strikingly, at least four participants in MAPS’ MDMA trials experienced significant deteriorations in their wellbeing that were neither chased up nor reported in their much-vaunted paper, published to mass media attention in Nature. Across psychedelic culture, victims of sexual assault and rape claim they have been told to keep silent to avoid drawing stigma to the Mission.
No psychedelic drug is yet approved by regulators, though MDMA stands at the penultimate Phase 3 stage. More banal realities can be stubborn. Despite complacent claims, including from Professor Nutt last month, that psilocybin is “the most effective antidepressant” — and “we don’t need [controlled trials]” — an Imperial College head-to-head of psilocybin versus an SSRI indicated no significant difference, even after a six month follow up. Press teams and media downstream — even The Daily Mail — spun these results in a more sympathetic tone: that “psilocybin performs as well as antidepressant”. Brought to trials desperate for help — and inflated by PR pumped by research departments about “brain resets” — the patient may experience striking collapses in mood as mushroom euphoria dissipates and depression returns, or if the promised mystical experience fails to manifest.
These are just some of the under-explored problems with “therapy on acid”. Patients are also vulnerable to hyper-suggestibility, sexual abuse, exploitation, and risks of guru complexes among therapists, who can programme their clients with their own worldviews. These issues were rarely mentioned at the Symposium. Reportedly contacted by representatives in Rwanda, Doblin has elsewhere spoken of seeking to dissolve the animosities of Hutus and Tutsis with MDMA. An outfit known as Unlimited Sciences, a “psychedelic research nonprofit” launched to “inform public perception, education, policy and practices”, is raising funds for a study on the outcomes of mainly-female Saudi refugees at an ayahuasca ceremony: a population for whom such bioethical issues are likely aggravated.
In the “Great Psychedelic Craze” of the Sixties, it was believed that LSD and cannabis could create a revolution. Draped in white robes and beads, Dr Timothy Leary told reporters that “the kids who take LSD aren’t going to fight your wars” or “join your corporations”. Looking around the Symposium was to see the death of a dream. Far from overturning power structures, psychedelic utopianism has been captured by the elite.
We listened to Christian Angermayer, the billionaire “Prince of Psychedelia”, who says he “finally understood Bitcoin” after his first psilocybin trip, and has since tattooed the molecule on his arm. He compared his therapists to shamans, drawing a straight line between the apocryphal drug cults of early Christianity and “ancient Egypt”. Angermayer reassured investors of market deteriorations in guru-like tones: “The market is a cycle like life is a cycle … as a company, if you are fully-financed, you almost have to say: okay, ignore the stock market, it does not contribute to your mental health.”
Just as mindfulness became McMindfulness, psychedelics has become McPsychedelics. The transition has not been universally applauded: two senior psychedelic figures described crying at the Symposium. “We thought we were getting Woodstock, but we’re getting Prozac Nation 2.0,” said Jamie Wheal, who was prophetic commentator on the psychedelic scene in 2019.
“How can we compete with this?”, asked Lauren Katalinich of the UK Psychedelics Society, gesturing woefully towards a Symposium room of grey fabric and black suits. Capital does as capital will. In its quest for new and fruitful markets to carve, it has gone from without to deeper within, and plumbed the fathoms of inner mind. Corporadelic firms post marketing photos of misattributed “shamans” on Twitter; “mystical experience”, a predictor for depression, sells. There is perhaps no psychedelic feature that couldn’t be captured and marketed: nominally-radical notions, like encountering hyper-realistic entities and God Himself on DMT, become news copy and advertisements to entice clients.
At its height in the Sixties, the Great Psychedelic Craze believed it could levitate the Pentagon through sheer “vibration”. For the Second Great Craze, the world of “net zero trauma” is its infinity point — where the trip is heading is anybody’s guess. Utopia translates as “no place”.
An earlier draft of this article described COMPASS Pathways’ Phase 2b trial as exhibiting a ‘red flag of suicidal thinking’ among patients administered psilocybin. This has been contextualised. An earlier draft also suggested that Unlimited Sciences were raising funds for a study to administer ayahuasca to Saudi refugees. This is not the case. Funds are instead being raised to study the population outcomes, with no input on administration.
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SubscribeThe Elite, consciously or not, always recruit minions to secure their position. Whether it is religion, the clerisy, approved forms of democracy, wars, or big business, strangely the Elite always come out on top.
The commodification of psychedelic drugs for health would inevitably lead to greater recreational use. That might be a positive thing or it might be a negative thing overall. I just keep imagining Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, with the constant consumption of a soothing, happiness-producing drug called Soma.
What is far more likely is that certain people take cocktails of various ‘psycho-active’ drugs and also alcohol and then go out and shoot-up a school.
I think the drugs used to treat mental illness are a more likely culprit
What else could a society that has become so disconnected from reality do, other than trip out?
Been there, done it, bought the t-shirt, bought and sold the t-shirt printing factory. The benefits are largely over-stated and are as nothing to what can be glimpsed through a commitment to intense meditation or prayer.
Michael Pollan gets to the heart of the matter, saying that the success of the renaissance will turn not on the trips or the studies but the maturity of the culture in relation to matters of mind, wellbeing, worldview, spirit.
The article is correct that there is this overzealous euphoria and utopia surrounding the psychedelic industry that needs to be more grounded in reality. But in the end, the war on drugs has always been flawed. If we are really honest, in what world are we better off throwing people in jail for choosing to use a substance we think is dangerous or not, even if they do end up addicted or if it is an unhealthy choice? Never forget illegality doesnt mean a drug isnt used. It just means pretending, it isnt. It probably makes more sense to regulate the industry, and slap on warning labels as we do with say model glue and alcohol than pretend drug use doesn’t happen everywhere, hide it due to weird social cultural norms and then, indirectly proliferate wealthy violent drug cartels. So yes, tech gurus and the wealthy pharma billionaires are overselling the savior but on the other hand, a fungi like a magic mushroom (psilocybin) doesn’t deserve to be associated with jail time and lifetime ostracism either. Its just not that big a deal. The healthy middle to me is to legalize it, regulate it and give folks the freedom to make their own damn decisions.
“We see studies from top institutions suggesting psychedelics can “decrease political authoritarianism”.
Again the familar delusion that one can have a political regime which is NOT ‘authoritarian’. This is a fantasy. There are only two political states of man: a ‘state of nature’ without ‘mind’ and based on physical force, or an ‘authoritarian’ state.
Re. the latter the key issue is ‘What is the source of the authority and how is it made acceptable to those upon whom such ‘authority’ is exercised (i.e. how does ‘consent’ manifest itself)? Surprisingly we are not the first generation to examine this question.
Then one has the correlative question of ‘What kinds of states can there be based on this worked-out notion of ‘consent’?
These outlandish quotes are merely just that…outlandish quotes. There are such quacks present in any industry and such quotes can be manufactured on demand to suit a narrative. They are used only as tools. It’s one reason why we can’t agree on anything anymore as truth becomes irrelevant.
The author asserts that Prof Nutt’s Lancet article is flawed, but does not provide any evidence, indeed any explanation – I’d be curious as to how it is flawed?
Me too.
Despite finding hippy/shaman nonsense completely off-putting, I took a lot of mushrooms in the past. I’m too old for proper shroom frenzies now though, and would certainly never do DMT. That said, I’m not averse to micro-dosing.
Psychedelics are a variation on transhumanism, with a significant profit motive driving the urgency.
I hope your MSc is better referenced. Twitter and other opinion pieces don’t count as substantive citations and in several places claims are made with no reference at all. You lost me by half way. It’s fair enough to question the efficacy of these drugs but if you want to do that then do it with integrity. In medical matters this is more important than ever.
John, your attempt to slander Mr. Prideaux by insulting him doesn’t speak well of your own integrity. I would be interested to hear which specific claims you take issue with, and I hope you have substantive citations to back up your counterclaims.
As someone who has first-hand knowledge of the incredible success that is being experienced with these methods of treatment, it is important to understand that the process only works while the patient is under complete supervision during their “trips”, which is how the industry is developing their product. The key difference with using this process is that it actually cures patients of their trauma vs. subjecting them to a lifetime of office visits that only attempt to deal with the trauma.
As with any medical breakthrough, the established hierarchy will attempt to downplay the efficacy of the new treatment to protect their financial interests. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to a psychology student’s opinions.
“It is important to understand that the process only works while the patient is under complete supervision during their “trips”, which is how the industry is developing their product.”
Citation? All science in this area is so far from conclusive. We do not have enough evidence to say any psychedelic process works. I also have first-hand experience and have no stake in who in the medical industry profits.
Speaking of financial interests, I think this piece demonstrates the considerable financial interest combined with religious fervor of a growing psychedelic industry that is already part of an established financial hierarchy. Like the parent comment, resorting to the ad hominem and insult of the author by virtue of his being a student is a tell to me.
I have a relative who is a PHD working with actual patients who have been cured of their trauma, via this therapy, after years of suffering. This person had spent 25 years as a psychiatrist, never curing anyone before, merely helping people deal with the symptoms for decades. Actually curing individuals of their trauma has been exhilarating to this person and has changed their life.