Joe Dolce, former editor-in-chief of Details magazine and author of Brave New Weed, joins Pinchbeck to discuss his newly published handbook on psychedelics, released the day of the recording. Dolce traces his route from running press for the New York club Area in the 1980s through Harper's Bazaar to Details, and says he returned to psychedelics partly to loosen the hardening categories of middle age and partly because intelligent friends kept asking him unanswerable practical questions about ayahuasca, ketamine and MDMA. He describes the neuroscientist Gul Dolen's work giving MDMA to octopuses and her theory of reopening critical periods, which he argues shifts attention from the trip itself to preparation and integration. Pinchbeck recounts his iboga work in Gabon and his interest in paranormal effects.
Guest: Joe Dolce
In brief
- Dolce argues that the current information environment around psychedelics is dominated by marketing, and that he wrote a practical handbook because people must learn to use these substances themselves rather than wait for cultural guidance.
- He presents Gul Dolen's critical-period research, including octopuses becoming affiliative on MDMA despite lacking the brain structures usually credited for the effect, as displacing default-mode-network accounts popularized by Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind.
- Dolce contends that arranging inputs beforehand and doing integration afterward matter more than the psychedelic experience itself.
- Pinchbeck says his psychedelic work produced synchronicities, telepathy and other paranormal effects that pushed him from materialism toward an idealist position in which consciousness is the foundational reality, a stance he considers unusual within the current psychedelic movement.
- Pinchbeck invokes George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant to argue that political frames become entrenched neurologically, which is why people cannot simply reason their way out of them.
- Dolce describes himself as an infrequent flyer who is not religious but has a spiritual life he sees no need to define, and both men note that harsh or industrial experiences can be as valuable as beautiful ones.
Full text
I was always, you know, I've always heard that it was a near-death experience or compared to a near-death experience, which always scared me. But then I realized, oh, the near-death experience is a beautiful thing. And maybe death is pretty good. I don't know. Maybe it's a huge relief from this from this burden of life that we that we have that we inhabit. Do you know Andrew Gallamore? No. He has a new book out about DMT and I'm gonna talk to him tomorrow actually with Jim Fatim sorry J uh um what's his name with with another friend who's a professor Jeffrey Krypal and I started reading his book and it was like the whole history of DMT I was like man I just know this already like where's the new stuff you know um you know a lot look the new stuff I think is people are always coming into these things And I I I'm sorry, but I just don't think people know a lot about psychedelics from the questions I get from some very smart people who are very experienced with lots of things.
Oh, totally. Totally. In fact, in fact, um I've realized the biggest mistake I made in my life actually as a as a as a writer, you know, communicator was I I just have a certain type of mind where like I I figure something out, I write about it, and I'm like, "Okay, that's done." Yeah. you know, everybody's gonna get what I said. It's all going to make sense and, you know, we can move on from there. So, when I wrote Breaking Up in the Head, I was like, "Okay, that, you know, I figured that out with the psychedelic thing and, you know, no reason to worry about that anymore." Um, and I moved on to other topics.
But, you know, actually, like I'm reading this book by George Leoff right now, uh, don't think of an elephant. Have you heard of it? I've heard of it. I haven't read it. Yeah. I think it's very important. Um, so he he is a cognitive linguist and he writes a lot about frames and framing. Yeah. Kind of like the right the right has understood framing way more than the liberals or the left. Much better. Absolutely. Yeah. They put tons of money into it. This is where their genius kind of goes. That's why we think, you know, people on the liberal left side tend to think that, you know, the right wing is kind of stupid, but actually no.
They're just focused on this framing thing. And Leoff points out that when you have a frame and sort of get stuck in your in your neurology, you know, so it's not like, you know, so all these people who are like, you know, deep in the Trump MAGA rabbit hole, you know, it's not like they can easily back their way out of it because it's almost like a neurohysical um complex in a way, you know. Um so and here we are in that neuroysical complex. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. So, so in that sense, you know, if I'd been smart, I would have written, you know, other books about psychedelics.
I mean, I did ultimately write a book about Iaska, but I would have repeated myself a lot more and and in different, you know, kind of like u uh for different audiences even or something like that. Anyway, um well, it's called being a you know, when you're a journalist, I'm sorry to say, the attention span is short and you know, we assume people are as short attentioned as we are. So, it's one of the problems. But, you know, listen, peop, some people know a lot about psychedelics, and I find that they're the kind that go to conferences, and then there's the rest of the world. Yeah.
And that's one of the reasons I wrote this book is because really smart people I knew were saying things to me like, "I have a heart condition. Can I take Iasa?" Or, "Gee, I'm using ketamine for depression. Is do is this for the rest of my life? Or honestly, can I take MDMA and go to a rave and cure my trauma?" Yeah. And it was like, well, you know, I don't really know. I I think I know, but I don't really know. I'm going to find out. And when I dug in, I I found um I just lost you. I'm back. Okay. I just found lots of information and, you know, lots of it good and more of it bad and lots of it marketing.
A lot more marketing. So I thought, all right, maybe maybe there's room for when I was writing Breaking Open in the Head, there was no marketing whatsoever. It was like you couldn't even people would just ridicule you or or or you know mock you if you tried to talk about psychedelics. Seriously. Um probably even you, Joe, in your in your details magazine days. There wasn't No, we did a Oh, no, no, no, no. We we covered we covered raves, man. No, we covered the thing and we did and we got a lot of push back, let me tell you. I mean, mostly from the lawyers really.
Yeah, we did cover raves, but I and the idea that you you would take psychedelics for for a serious inner investigation of consciousness. We did it. What's that? We were able to do it at details, but we, you know, was still with issue. But, you know, that was then, this is now. Yeah. Um yeah, I just I just found when I published breaking open the head in 2002, it had been like 20 years or more uh 25 years since since the culture was able to particularly on the east coast uh have have any kind of serious referendum on the value of psychedelics or the visionary experience.
And when it was covered in the press, it always had this sort of mocking kind of cynical tone to it. Oh yeah. or very negative or always talking about, you know, how it was frying your brain basically. And you know, interestingly enough, like in the late in the late 70s and early 80s when I first started started using psychedelics, I mean, I was having a grand old time with them. But even the war of drugs, it it stopped me from using them for a while, too. It was like, wait, I may be putting this young mind at risk, so I have better I better slow down a bit.
Yeah. Yeah. A young mind is terrible thing to waste. So, let's let's uh before we jump in. So, first of all, I apologize. Some of you may have gotten an email from me where I had Joe's bio a little bit wrong, but it was very confusing. I actually asked your publicist to send me a bio and I don't think she did or I missed the email or something. So, I was like, uh oh, it's like an hour before the thing and I got a bio out. And, you know, it did say that you were the editor of details, but it also said you were an Australian singer.
And I was like, I didn't know this about Joe that he was like, I am not a You really never want to hear me sing. I'll tell you, you'll be very lucky if you never seem very Australian either. So, and really I'm not Australian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I met that guy. He we met one he once wrote read something I wrote and wrote me a letter from Australia and then he came to New York and I said, "Well, let's have breakfast." And he was a lovely guy and he's still alive and I think he owns a health food company now in Australia. But how did whoever wrote that bio that I picked up on the web conflate the two of you?
Like we have the same exact name, Joe Dol. No, I know. But but it was it was just weird. It was like Joe Doli, Austrian singer, songwriter, and editor of details. Well, let's blame AI, shall we? Always. Why not? Always. So So let's So let's go back into your past. Where are you from? I'm from New Jersey. Don't hold it against me. New Jersey is great. Lots of my favorite people came from New Jersey. I know. We got out. We escaped. You got out. You got out. And so then you got into somehow you got into like downtown New York or journalism or what happens? You just got You got involved.
Oh, I got I got really lucky. I after after graduate school, I um I became the PR director of Area, which was a huge huge nightclub in the 1980s in New York City. That was my very first full-time job. Thank you very much. And that was because one of the owners and I were both uh working in the kitchen of the Broom Street Bar. He was the dishwasher. I was the I was the omelette maker. And we rubbed butts two days a week very closely. and he and his brothers were starting this nightclub and I just happened to be there one day when the phones were ringing off the hook and I picked up the phone and they said, "Do you need a job?" And I said, "Well, yeah.
I just finished graduate school." And they said, "Okay, come." And then they said, "Can you write a press release?" And I said, "Well, yeah. I have a degree in journalism. I can do that." And that's how that all began. So I had a great amazing I I grew up in Soho. My dad had a loft on Green Street. We used to go to the Broom Street Bar. um where they have all the chalk, all the chalk boards and everything. I probably made you omelets. You may very well made us omelets. So uh so that's good. So area was a legendary club in New York. Amazing. In like what ' 80s 90s?
'8s. Oh only like the from 1983 to 86 or 87. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. So then you were like a you had cache in the nightife. You knew all the the the DJs, everything. How did what what happened then? Were you writing journalism? No, I started then I I left and I became a freelance writer which was just miserable. Um and eventually I lied my way into a job at a magazine at Harper's Bizaarre. I became an editor at Harper's Bizaarre, the arts and entertainment editor. Luckily, I had written for them and they liked the way I wrote. So I walked into this job and then I diggled around in magazines and eventually landed at details as a senior editor where I worked for almost nine years and I was the editor-inchief for three and then fired and then I became um what I do in my everyday life is a media trainer, presentation coach.
I help people speak in public, help take good ideas and help them give voice to them and along the way but I keep writing. So, I tend to write about illegal substances because I find them really fascinating. And I I'm really into like the ex, it sounds so pretentious, I don't like to say it, but I like to explore consciousness. So, I'm a meditator. I sit in silence on the regular. Um, and I'm very interested in the way the workings of the mind. Um, and I have found psychedelics one of the windows into the way the mind works. Um, and that's why I I, you know, have been up and down and on and off with psychedelics throughout my life, but I've always found them fascinating and always wondered what is this showing us about consciousness and how it works.
And now I think neuroscience is actually starting to to peel back some of those layers, which is really cool. Totally. Um, and uh, so you uh, started out where you did you started in psychedelics in college like I did or uh, you you and I are probably around the same age. I went to Northwestern in Chicago in the late 70s and 80s and Chicago was a huge distribution hub for both MDMMA and LST. Yeah. The people who were uh you know you know like MDMA was uh somebody had an idea to sort of scale it, right? And he started this enterprise where they manufacturing in Texas and then they had an 800 number and people could call in and order great quantities of it.
Well, one of the distribution hubs was in Chicago at that period in time. So, um, we had a fairly good supply of it at Northwestern. Some of us anyway. Yeah. So, you had those experiences and obviously there was the night life and so on. And, um, and how did you get around to writing this book on psychedelics? Kind of. Well, honestly, I mean, well, a couple of reasons to tell you the truth. One is I am a man of a certain age. And somebody once I read this quote like aging, you know, aging isn't really about the the hardening of the arteries. It's more about the hardening of the categories of your own mind and how we become so habituated to our own way of thinking and our own beliefs that we're right or whatever.
Okay, which is I've known and I've known this to happen. I see it in my friends and I see it in myself, right? Um, and at some point in a couple of years ago, I thought, I'm getting a little too oified here. I need to do something. I need to break this up a little bit. Um, and I told you all those books on your shelf behind you. And I've read them all. Oh, yeah. And many many more. But I've um, so I I I began I told you I'm a meditator. I sit in silence. And sitting in silence is extremely profound and also extremely difficult.
Have you ever done it? Sure. I mean it's a well for 10 I do it for 10 days. It's it's it's a lot of deprivation and after after 10 days you come out and the world is sort of sparkly and it feels extremely different from the way you went in and after one of those experience I sort of thought you know this is like psychedelics maybe I need to reinvestigate. So I started again um so that was one reason to sort of unstick my own self. The other reason was, as I said, a lot of people my age, all ages, all professions at some point started asking me questions.
I had written Brave New Weed seven or eight years ago. It was this great non-fiction journey through the world of cannabis. And I think they thought I knew a lot about everything because I knew a lot about weed. But they're not the same. I didn't know. I didn't know if you could take MDMA and go to a rave and treat your depression or if you needed uh to if you needed ketamine every day if you were taking it when it came in the box, you know, like like Mind Bloomer or Joy, right? I didn't know um if if I could strain your heart if you go to a ceremony.
And all these people were asking and I started looking around and there's a lot of information and it's a lot of information and it's a lot of good information and a ton of bad information like I said before and a lot of marketing. People are selling a lot right now. Okay. Courses and I mean I guess I'm selling because I have a book but I was just kidding. Books aren't really books aren't really a way to a fortune. Okay. Um, let's be really clear, right? If if nobody knows that, you now know it. Um, so anyway, I started thinking, wait a second, maybe it's time for a reappraisal of of psychedelics and let's really look at indigenous wisdom.
Let's look at hippie lore and practices. Let's look at what neuroscience has to say and maybe there's a way to draw all this together. And in fact, I came across a neuroscience who's now at Berkeley called Ghoul Dolan, who do you know Ghoul? She's really interesting and she's really famous for giving octopuses MDMA and then seeing what happened. and her in her research is fascinating because it takes a lot of the neuroscience. I don't want to get too deep in this because people will turn off, but a lot of the neuroscience is all about brain scans and f MRI imagery and the anatomy of the brain.
And what she learned is that octopuses respond to MDMA the same way humans do. They cuddle. These are not friendly animals. They're pretty hostile. But guess what? their brains don't have a nuclear encumbence or an amygdala or a prefrontal context. They're like it's more like slugs. So she started looking at a more molecular level and has come up with an astounding theory about opening critical periods which I won't go into but basically says that look if you can arrange the inputs you can have a better experience and if you figure out the integration properly it can be very meaningful and very powerful. And she's now about to test uh psychedelics with stroke victims.
Not only does she think it has cognitive ability to change, but it can also change motor skills. So people who have had strokes, right, they lose their speech or they lose their motor after about 60 or 90 days. Her next experiment will be giving psychedelics to people who had strokes to see if they can regain relearn motor skills or or verbal skills, which is that's an amazing experiment and let's see what happens. Um but it really changes all the ideas that say Michael Pollen wrote about and how to change your mind all that you know default mode network stuff. It really makes you sit back and look at it very differently.
Um so that made me think well maybe there is something to be written more seriously about setting up the inputs and working on the integration after maybe the trip isn't the only thing right. That's cool. It's quite interesting. Like when you did Ibe I wanted to ask you when you did Iain in Ghana in Gabon many years ago Gabon right what happened after the journey like was there a period of sitting around I mean I know it's a long very long journey but how did how did you deal with what happened after uh well I mean I don't know if you you probably don't remember the book but it was it wasn't like best circumstances like the um the we didn't really have that great uh connection with the uh the naganga, the shaman. And uh we ended up doing a second ceremony, a kind of like a closing ceremony with a different uh group of buidi um where you know we ate less of the aboga um and went through some other sort of ritual practices.
Uh but um yeah, I mean I got into this stuff before this whole focus on integration and kind of psychological kind of like before before psychology had become, you know, in therapy kind of had become so predominant, how people are, you know, understanding the value of it. And to be honest with you, it's not still not totally my thing. I'm more interested I don't know where you stand on this but um you know I think one reason why I'm a bit of an outlier uh in some ways is that you know I noted when I went through many psychedelic experiences that there were sort of you know psychic and paranormal effects supernatural effects and so on and so you know I began to get very interested in those um whereas a lot of you know I mean I don't remember where pollen lands but you know a lot of people in the contemporary psychedelic movement are still like more or less in in a scientific materialist uh worldview and ultimately more in a idealist worldview. this idea that consciousness is actually the the the the you know the underlying foundational reality and everything we experience is actually kind of an aspect or projection of consciousness taking a sort of temporary um seemingly materialized form you know which which also very much aligns with like Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhism in general or eastern mysticism and so on. Um, so yeah, I don't know.
I was sort of curious where you stand on all of that. If you have a uh, you know, mystical, esoteric, spiritual, religious, or just sort of secular, atheistic kind of like I am not religious. Yeah. Right. Um, but I do have a spiritual life, which is sort of beyond words, and that's fine with me. It's like I don't feel like I really need to define it too much. Um, but I know it's there. Um, and It it manifests in many many forms. Not and certainly not in relation to God. Um I don't have any relation to the supernatural though. And I imagine you did before you were doing psychedelics, which is No, no, no.
I had zero relationship. I didn't believe in it or anything. Oh, really? Yeah. So, how do you think it surfaced? Where do you think it came from? Uh well I think it was really um I think it's if you if you go if you if you if you explore you know visionary plants through a kind of indigenous shamanic path that's often those kind of experiences are very common. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean synchronicity telepathy um shamans telling you things about your past and your life that they couldn't possibly have known known. Yeah. objects appearing and disappearing. Um um yeah, basically all the things that they write about, all the mystical, you know, writings, all that stuff, you know.
Yeah. I I think it's the most I mean that's the sort of part of religion that I'm most drawn to is are the mystics basically. But I myself don't have many mystical psychedelic experiences. I mean, sadly, I always wished I had more, but maybe my mind is too small. I don't know. I accept it. Did you try 5 M DMT for instance? Loved it and I've done it several times about five times. It's always been a white out for me. It's never been um I mean it's been very be I love it. It's my favorite. You know, for for those who don't know, there's actually two types of DMT or Dylamine.
There's NN DMT and 5 MOD DMT. Both are produced by many different plants and other sources. Um 5DMT also is found in in you know in intense quantities in a um toad the venom from a toad uh in the Soran desert and whereas NNDMT tends to create like multi-dimensional sort of hypergeometrical prismatic kind of hallucinations or kind of you really feel like you step into a whole reality dimensional reality that's like that. Um, five of me I would you know I I I find it a little bit there's one part of it passage where it's kind of like Islamic patterning. Yes. like on the mosques or or you know mandalas or you sort of go into but it's like you there's no separation between you and that soa patterning that's going off in all directions forever and that that usually happens for me on the way down as it's dissipating through my system and it's a very beautiful for me it's very beautiful and and very I don't very soothing and very comforting.
Yeah, I was always, you know, I've always heard that it was a near-death experience or compared to a near-death experience, which always scared me. But then I realized, oh, the near-death experience is a beautiful thing. And maybe death is pretty good. I don't know. Maybe it's a huge relief from this from this burden of life that we that we have that we inhabit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, to me it seems like a experiential confirmation of um kind of you know ideas that Buddhism talks about like the the void or nirvana or non-duality when you're that that final state there's no no longer subject object. So there's it there's experience without an experiencer and the experience is one of total bliss.
Yeah. So it feels like this whole idea that you know tantric Buddhism talks about that nirvana is samsara is something that you can have a direct experience of. You know I I think the key word is total because um I think until that experience almost everything was mitigated by ego and when I had that m that melding that loss of ego and that this was total that it's beyond words isn't it? It's like oh wait I am that Islamic patterning patterning. I am these shards of light that are making the most beautiful thing. Um it's it's it's yeah it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. And I I saw from your book that you also explored obviously IA when you when you sort of had your psychedelic second childhood and that was much more my third childhood really.
That was much more like a DMT experience for me. I didn't have machine elves, but a lot of imagery. Um, for mostly for me, it's not beautiful imagery. Like people say that they, you know, they have like um, you know, they'll see the jaguar from the jungle. I didn't have that at all. My all my experiences have been more like industrial than than inspirational. quite harsh and and um not not scary and not unpleasant but but not beautiful or ecstatic. Do you enjoy Alaska? Oh yeah, I've had a massive range of experiences. I haven't had a number of years now. I want to get back to it.
But yeah, I mean uh you know William Burroughs only had like terrifying experiences like I think you know Naked Lunch which people tend to think was about his heroin experiences was actually completely based on his Iawaska experience. Yeah. Kind of like shifting cities and bodies in the streets and you know deformities and so on. Um yeah I mean there's a whole range u yeah so I mean do you have like a ongoing uh practice around psychedelics or like you No I think I call myself an infrequent flyer um uh which is which suits me you know I don't I don't use psychedelics on the regular. I use them I try to use them as intentionally as I can.
I would say with my partner we we use MDMA like every six or eight months sort of not uncommonly just to sort of uh get to the things that aren't said and be able to say them and have them received with a fair amount of equinimity. Um, and I find that very very helpful in in in the you know in the in the PTSD of everyday life and in the you know in the difficulties of having a relationship with somebody really. Um that's one. So I was that's the one thing that I have ritualized and sometimes we'll we'll mix in a little ketamine at the end to sort of ease the coming down of things. Um make it a smoother landing.
Um, and then try to try to take the next day and be soft, you know, be be What about you? Do you have a ritualized use? Uh, at this point, no. Um, uh, I'm still trying to figure out how to reconnect particularly with Iawaska. Uh, actually, one of my favorite things to do on, you know, but it's not a ritual. Well, maybe it is a way is to take uh different psychedelics to go to the museum. like uh the Met Metropon Museum is a wonderland if you take a little bit of something. What do you I like 2C 2CB has been interesting for me in museums.
What do you use? 2CB is great or a little tiny bit of you know LSD and and or you know whatever. Um do you enjoy but do you enjoy a low I don't enjoy a low dose of LSD. I think it's really annoying. like it makes my brain itchy and I'm not happy. And if I'm not if I'm not flying there, if I'm not, you know, using 100 or 150 micrograms, I'm just not a happy boy. Interesting. Yeah, I kind of like it actually. I think it still amps up sensitivity and and and so on. Such is the nature of body chemistry. Isn't it interesting? Right.
Like I I for instance hate weed. Uh I I mean I like hash is the only format that I like but um if I try to smoke a joint into whatever I'm like completely unhappy you know but uh I love caffeine and tryptophines and so you don't have any ritual you you use other than maybe to go and appreciate art or at this point in my life? No. Oh, I mean I I was part of the Stoime I was doing that that was years ago now and uh part of me I would like to go back to that. Uh but you So that means you used you used a lot of Iawasa.
Were you going every two weeks to use it? There was a time when I was going every like two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Or every month. Did you But do you f So here's what I find interesting and maybe you can address this. This has always been a mystery to me. These substances are supposed to be ego dissolving. You don't strike me as a man with a dissolved ego. Certainly Timothy Liry, who took a ton of LST, certainly did not have a dissolved ego. Um, how do you do you think it's a permanent thing or simply a temporary situation? Uh, well, first of all, I think my is a little bit dissolved.
I think we got, you know, we don't know each other that well, but uh I don't have a lot of I mean I'm, you know, you know, the worst thing you could say about yourself is that I'm h is humble because it seems like humble. Totally. Of course. So furious. But um but um you know I think that though I think that psychedelics can can also exacerbate your egoic tendencies and make you more impulsive. I think like thing is that uh I mean did you see Jamie wheels talk we were just at the psychedelic science conference. We were together. We sat next to each other there.
Remember the whole thing about 80 his thing about the 8020 that like the first times you do the psychedelics you get like 80% of the benefit and then you're always like going back but you have these insights you have these breakthroughs but then later on I think in many cases people's egos kind of learn how to gamify the psychedelics. So you know you have the experience but your ego has figured out a sort of structure container around it kind of like what I was talking about with the framing and so on. So um um yeah so I think there was a time when they were exacerbating negative certain negative aspects of my character and I became more suspicious around uh the value of psychedelics uh you know past those early stages unless you're really doing it in a practice or something. Um so um um yeah but at at this point in my life you know I've had some some you know humblings and so on. So I you know try to stay humble but yeah I don't think dissolving the ego I mean the ego is only ever going to be temporarily dissolved the ego I think the idea of having no ego is is the wrong idea anyway point to you know kind of um have a sort of flexible egoic structure so you're aware that it's there.
It's like it's like it's like an aperture lens on on a camera where you you want to keep it you can open it to different degrees or whatever. But um um yeah, you can't really permanently get rid of it without just disappearing. You know, that would be it. You know, it it's never been a goal, but it's always been I think one of the misapprehensions about psychedelics is that they dissolve ego or they make people less egoic. I've never never found that to be the truth. As I I generally find it to be the opposite. People who use psychedelics can be very macho about it. Um, I've used this high dose.
I did this much this. I did that much that. So, I'm more experienced than you. And I think that's a misapprehension. I don't I don't think that's a great idea. Yeah. Um, well, I guess that's a question for you then. I mean, you know, having written this book and having gotten I mean, did you go to the Was this the first time you went to psychedelic science or did you go No, I was there uh 2023. I was there the first time around. I did a lot of reporting for the book there actually. It was very useful to be there, I'm sure. How are you? Because I've actually developed some kind of real cautions and concerns about the psychedelic movement, particularly now that we see a lot of the same sort of like techno libertarian kind of right-wing people kind of moving in, you know, because it became like a new, you know, multi-billion dollar market.
Yep. And um yeah, I'm kind of like it feels like along with everything else in our society right now, it's it's maybe gotten like twisted into like a strange direction. And what do you think? Well, I'm it's a really interesting problem worthy of an entire conference. I think really I mean I think what you're raising uh is is a crucial problem which is who controls these things and how do we how do we avoid what we tend to do in capitalism which is commodify and things up and sell them and and try to pervert them to our own ends and needs. Right. Or or just just to break it, it also can be a little subtler than that.
I think there are a lot of well-meaning people. you I met so many wonderful good souls at the psychedelic conference we were just at. Yep. But um you know there you're also starting a career you know you're building yeah a money-making enterprise whether it's in research or whether it's you know a company or whatever you know in relationship to you know your you know kind of like skill or or or technical you know credibility with these substances. So yeah, capitalism does come in even when people are, you know, have good intentions. You know, they do. And you know, look, I I I mean, well, there's so many to so much to unpack here really.
Um, you know, the techno rightwing, those people scare me for lots of reasons, for the obvious reasons. Um, and they will have some control. Like one of the reasons that Texas uh just gave $50 million to study Ibagane in vets, I think for was it for addiction or PTSD? I think it was addiction. I think it was addiction. um was because they can control it in a certain way like you have to go through a hospital and a lot of heart screenings to get Ibagane right so I think their misapprehension or their what they're thinking is this will not be a drug used on the street okay because they can control it through hospitalization so I'm not so opposed to that but I think they're wrong for example I know about two groups out of Mexico that are doing micro doing with Ibagane and it's quite interesting.
They say it's a really fascinating substance to micro dose um and that it provides a lot of clarity um and a lot of direction in a way that micro doing with LSD or or or mushrooms does not. Um that's quite interesting. Um but it's also like I I also feel like well, you know, psychedelics aren't democratic or Republican. Um, so gee, if it can help people get over these terrible illnesses, I'm sort of all for it. Like go for it. get get get people out of their depression and you've seen people who are suffering with PTSD and it's a really awful you know it is so it's like drives people to suicide and I don't think I I am I am kind of a a leftist where I feel like a society based on like so much you know wealth inequality and depriving a lot of people of like you know black life and social services is is is a is a moral wrong totally so it is a little surprising to me because I had thought that because of psychedelics having this sort of de deconditioning element where it sort of breaks you of your ideological programming, it would tend to make people naturally more kind of sympathetic to the underdog or to the plight of the other.
Certainly indigenous I I I I think they might once used but you know somebody once said some one of the indigenous tribes have said this I believe that look the people who use psychedelics understand them but those who control them those who fear them they try to control them and that that's where we're at right now again and maybe always like yeah I think once you go through a psychedelic experience you will have a bit more empathy hopefully for your fellow people and for the planet. Yeah, but that's that's not it's not necessarily the case. And certainly those who are passing the laws and writing the grants, you know, likely have no experience of psychedelics. So we have the again we're at a similar disjunction. What were you going to say?
Oh no. I mean, you know, Elon Musk, I mean, a lot of the tech, you know, billionaires who turned to the right wing, yeah, have been, you know, exploring psychedelics at Burning Man, other festivals and so on. Um, Elon Musk being a very, you know, obvious case because he's talked about traveling with a kit with mushrooms and LSD and MDMA and so on. So yeah, I don't know. It's Well, you know, one of my problems with that is that talk about misapprehension. People I know are blaming ketamine for Elon Musk's character, right? I assure you that Elon Musk was that character before Ketamine. Okay? I mean, the guy is he's socially I don't I don't you know, what are we going to call him?
He's he's he's not a human like you and me. Okay. And his social skills seem to be pretty limited. Um, so let's I I feel bad for Kamine. You know, it's I don't know if you can say social skills are limited because he's clearly a master at winning power struggles and you don't end up the long-term CEO of like three or four massive companies. He's a brilliant guy. Oh, he's completely brilliant. But those are you want to hang around with him for a night? I would love to actually, but I mean um um yeah, I guess um I mean in terms of ketamine, I do understand uh because as somebody who believes in the supernatural and sort of paranormal aspects of psychedelics, you know, what one question, you know, is do they potentially open people up to things like spirit possession or demonic possession?
you know, so sometimes when you see Elon Musk, you know, in these videos of like him with the inauguration and so on, he he looks like he's really not there almost like something has walked in and like taken taken him over. And, you know, I wonder if it's if it's a possibility that um, you know, because we we in the modern west, he's probably, you know, he's more or less a sort of, you know, skeptical materialist, I would imagine, or um, so, you know, he probably would never imagine also probably has a lot of hubris because of all the wealth. probably never imagine that he could be like, you know, infested by a demon or or something that just walked in, you know, while he was in these other states, you know. Um, I'm not sure how to how to address that, but we certainly know that psychedelics can be used for malent, right? Isn't he the main example of using a ton of LSD to sort of turn people into really and do really crazy things, right?
We know that they are they are non-specific amplifiers and if those inputs are bad or evil or however whatever word you want to use to describe it, we know that they can amplify those things. Right. Yeah. That that we know. So, you know, whatever was in Elon before he started using whatever he used, I have no idea. I mean, I don't know the man at all, but I know I I I am familiar with one of his kids. I know. And um nobody's ever said a nice thing about him. I have a lot of friends who were friends with him and quite liked him. Okay. Some of them still are.
Um but let's go back to the uh so like you know what kind of um what did you learn writing the book that was like new information for you that got you really excited? Um I I think that that oh I learned a lot about um micro doing and I mean I had been doing it for a couple of years before I started but I really started digging it I mean there's nothing I've learned like there's no science behind micro doing a problem to study micro doing right it's like it's so subtle and do you ever micro do you ever try it yeah I tried it did it have any effect on you if it was it was very subtle I mean I you know the actual micro dose the light is it's not supposed to have a it's not perceptual no but the the underlying effect is what I have found to be absolutely amazing like it supplies me with energy and motivation things that are impossible to study they're sort of even impossible to characterize um but I haven't stopped doing it for five years and I'm not I don't intend to stop doing it um I thought I thought that was quite amazing um I I think the idea that they can be used intentionally. Um, I'm still exploring. Like, I'm still trying to figure out, all right, because I've had my own fair share of, let's call them challenging trips. And I thought, you know, the setup and the intention and all that stuff was really good and really pure and really, you know, sort of spot on.
I've done it with guides. I've done it on my own both. And I've still had these challenging trips. Um, so I'm still trying to work my way through what is the real protocol for setting it up so that you have an experience, not that you can control, but one where you have a more beneficial experience. And I I haven't really come to it yet. I haven't figured it out. But I guess one one thing I have had since I've been doing them more is really the understanding that the difficult trip is not without its lessons. And and that's not trying to it's not trying to poly uh you know sugarcoat it here really but even in the difficult trips I've learned I've learned things afterwards.
Yeah. I mean I would think that the point is to actually have challenging or difficult trips like you know what are you going to do just like sit around saying kumbaya the whole time? I mean the point is to you know encounter stuff in your own psyche maybe also in the archetypes of the collective psyche you know that are moving that are that are you know need to be transmuted or confronted in some way you know if that's not happening then why not just take uh you know opium or something or laughing gap yeah um but but that's really fascinating and and and and also like everybody talks about integration these are some of I would say I've learned to have more questions Daniel than I have answers okay so Like everybody talks about integration but you know I still don't really know what it means. Okay. Yes you can talk about things or sometimes I have found just being alone in nature for a couple of days after a big journey was was very healing very healing on a level that I don't know I I I tend to be a person of words and I like to attach concepts to things and I have actually been freed of that a bit that is not satisfying as a writer.
It's very difficult and it's not satisfying as a you know as someone who has big lessons. I'm but I don't consider myself that kind of person at all. Um but I think that's a real that that's that's one of the best things and the most difficult things about psychedelics is that they really are beyond words. How do you how do you how do you talk about that? How do you think about that? Um let's see. M so yeah when I was when I was studying them for my books and so on yeah you would recognize there were certain experiences that you have that you just can't bring back in the language um um but on the other hand it you know I felt the fun of it approaching it as a writer was always trying to extend the boundary of what of what you can express you know um yeah like how do you talk about like the DMT trip or something or like it's Yeah.
Yeah. Go ahead. No, please continue. I want to hear what you're saying. Oh, no. I mean, um I think it's interesting the way language and rhetoric, you know, shape or even some ways construct or create reality, you know. So, like Terrence Mc Kenna comes up with this linguistic construct of the machine elves. Yeah. And there it is. or or Larry comes up with tune in, you know, tune tune, you know, tune on and drop out or tune and and and you know, these become kind of like the structuring elements for so many people's experience. Uh so you know when you as a writer I think when you have these types of psychedelic experiences you can really you can feel yourself on the edge of like trying to pull something you know new into manifestation that actually uh kind of affects you know not just on your life but on a lot of people's lives if you're able to really characterize it you know.
So, a lot of what I did in this book was to try to not talk about I used some psychedelic experiences within the context, but I really didn't want to talk too much about my own because I sort of feel like listening to other people's psychedelic experiences like listening to their dreams. I'm just not that interested. And why should I be? It's really their inner workings, you know? It's it's it's their thing to process, not that's actually no that's funny because that's not actually the uh position of indigenous societies at all. Tell me. Uh well like for instance among like uh which is a tribe one of the uh a shininka whatever like you know dreams are seen as like you know somewhat collective like yeah they are sh during the day and and their visions like when I did the the aboga experience uh they were like whatever your visions are they have to be shared with the tribe because they might have value for the whole community but they do but they have a shared ontology we don't have a shared ontology w around psychedelics.
So, so one of the things I'm thinking about now is okay, so there are the indigenous people and there are the plant medicines that they've used, but in terms of the west, there's LSD, ketamine, MDMA. These are substances that have come through labs and through our culture. And we still don't have a lot of rituals around them. And that's sort of our job is to create that. I think that's one of the things I've I I was left with after doing this book is what are we going to do? How are we going to ritualize this other than going to a rave? Which is great and I, you know, still enjoy it, but it's not the only way.
And I don't, you know, that's that's sort of what I'm thinking about is all right, what can we do now? What can we do to sort of make these our own? Totally. Totally. Um, got any ideas? Have you have you been to any rituals that you thought, "Yeah, we need to do that." Uh, yeah. I mean, I do have ideas. I mean, um, there I'm always forming them. I mean, um, actually last weekend I went to a, uh, kind of immersive theater, uh, event that some friends put on based on, um, some ideas from Jodarovski about psycho magic and so on. And, um, there were some mini rituals within the the theater piece.
Um, and that really intrigued me. wonder if like um you know of our culture a culture of just part of of spectators or consumers that's kind of over like we've done that for the last few centuries and and and the sort of new threshold is like um a much more you know participatory culture that um isn't just like handwaving you know maybe at the ritual or the sacred but actually can even like move into that you know uh actually be you part of that. I mean that that was for me was like the great appeal of Burning Man when you go for the first time. It's like Yeah, definitely. Everyone's a participant, you know.
I mean, um you know, Yeah. So, what were you going to say? Go ahead. Burning Same for me. I mean, Burning Man was life-changing. Yeah. And you know, I haven't been in in a couple of years. probably won't go again. But boy, wouldn't it be nice to have sort of experiences like that that you can join in without having to go to the desert? Maybe. Maybe you have to go to I don't know. Maybe you have to go to the desert. I'm not sure. Um but I I'm I'm really sort of yearning for those kind of communal experiences now. I don't have them. I just don't have them.
They're not They're not at my beck and call. So, you can invite me to one if you if you come across any. Oh, yeah. And vice versa. But I mean um uh I mean I think it's you know the problem yeah like everybody feels very alienated and atomized in our society right now. So um we don't really know how to bridge that. That's one reason why I think this like new authoritarianism has been able to take root so easily. How so? Why what's that? Why? Because people the right-wing uh creates containers for uh people to kind of like come back into um connection in a way that the liberal culture really doesn't do.
M so even if it's like you're a QAnon believer and you're like on 4chan and Rumble and so on and you're you sort of feel connected with all these other people or Facebook groups or whatever and then you I mean I watched some films about some of the guys who were involved with January 6 and you know it was clear that like they built a lot of community around you know QAnon and their guns and going out together and we have to support this and we have to stop that you know them protesting against for Black Lives Matter and so on. So it's um I mean Black Lives Matter I guess is an example on the other side but yet it feels like um at the moment uh the liberal and the left is tends to be very kind of like dispersed and sort of alienated from each other and and you know I mean we could I mean it's kind of an interesting I think a lot actually because you grew up came up in the same like 80s and 90s like New York media culture how in retrospect that culture with its kind of like ironic distance and detachment and cynicism and kind of materialism. I think also in a way was laying the groundwork for this um kind of you know fascist thing that's happen atomization of people and stuff also because when people have no no meaning to hold on to um they're going to gravitate to whatever's going to give them any sense of purpose you know and and so on. Um, and I mean that's what I when I wrote my first book, Breaking Up in the Head, I was so happy because I felt like I was also kind of like uh in an existential crisis where nothing seemed to mean anything. And when I had these transpersonal experiences, um, yeah, I felt more connected to the possibility anyway of like transcendence and and and the sacred and you know that that there was like a realm of like plant consciousness.
There were like other other other games in town besides like the western consumerist technological materialist kind of trip. Do you how do you feel about Will you hold off for a sec? I just want to close the windows. Too much noise. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Anybody has a question, feel free to drop it in the chat. Oh yeah, ask us some questions. But but are you are you hopeful about the future of of the psychedelics of psychedelics in the West? I mean, look, here's what I also think is that whoever controls them, fine. It's sort of why I wrote a book. I wrote a handbook, though, is like we all have to know how to use them individually because the culture is probably not going to be directing us in the ways that, you know, you and me or our friends want to be using them.
If they're if they become medicalized, okay, they're going to become medicalized. We're still going to use them in our own ways, right? We we still have to have authority over them in that way. Yeah. Um well, I feel like we're at the beginning of a much longer story. I mean, um good. I hope um you know, where it's really, you know, the sort of modern western, you know, scientific-minded person, you know, in a way was cut off from these direct visionary experiences and transcendent experiences until quite recently. Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it it's, you know, in many ways I have a lot of doomy feelings right now when I look at what's happening with um Trump and technofascism and the sort of global movement towards authoritarianism and AI, all the dangers that that caused and so on.
Uh I, you know, definitely concerned that we're moving into some kind of like, you know, I mean, Uvel Harrari talked about sort of like how this technology could allow for kind of unbreakable dictatorships and so on. I know. I know. That that's that's freaked me out a lot right now. But I mean um you know given longer time periods, who knows? I mean you know maybe um um yeah I mean you know maybe there'll be a turnaround and um the kind of west will figure a way to integrate transcendence and the visionary experience you know back into kind of an authentic uh tradition. I mean, uh, I'm very interested in like the western occult tradition, like people like Rudolph Steiner and Mad Levatsky and and Geraf and even Crowley and Julius Avola and so on.
I think that they're pointing towards kind of like a um contemporary path towards um transcendence in some ways on the in the West. Okay, let's see. I'm I'm not at all sure. I don't I don't I don't know how to think about our current moment and I certainly don't know how to think about the future. I really don't. And well that's a good reason it's good reason to enjoy the present. Exactly. It really is indeed. It is exactly exactly. Um do you have any plans to do any interesting psych any um psychedelic journeys in the near in the rest of the summer since we're both in New York here?
Our our time of good weather is coming short. I might have some plans, but uh you know there's still a little bit of uh uh forbiddenness with the topic, so I'll keep that a little vague, you know. Okay, fair enough. But um yeah, so you know, we've been talking for a while. Maybe we'll we'll fold up for today. It was Thank you so much for spending some time and chatting. Uh and yeah, I'm excited to get into I popped your Subject live cherry. Apparently I have to show my book cover in case because yeah, this book has been out for one day. So, I want to say to folks, listen, if you're interested in a handbook and a guide book, please feel free to check it out or look at the Substack or or buy the book, which would be very nice for a writer buying the book.
Um, and who's who is the publisher? Was Hashet or was No, no, Hashet is the corporate overlord, but it's an imprint within Hashet called Black Dog and Levthal. And they put a lot I have to, you know, let me give them credit where credit's due. They designed a beautiful cover. The interior pages are really nice. They also even did a detail like where I go through the substances. They, you know, marked them separately. They and they hired a a sort of an album and a poster designer to design the cover. So they they went they took the extra step. They they went the cover is beautiful.
They they took the extra step and went the extra mile. So credit to them and thank you for doing my very first Substack live. I really appreciate And you want info just uh call me up or whatever and I'll and I I'll certainly intend to. Thanks so much Daniel. Everybody have a great day. Thanks for listening. Thanks everybody. You Tube please join subscribe my You Tube channel and all that. Yeah, do that. And see you soon. See you soon. Bye.
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. Originally published on the Liminal News channel.