Are you a psychedelic cultist?

Plus 9 other interesting stories I'm following

You may not know if you are or aren’t a psychedelic cultist, but don’t worry. Here’s my Psychedelic Cultism Questionnaire to find out:

To what extent do you agree with the following questions, on a scale of 1-5, with 1 meaning ‘not at all’ and 5 meaning ‘totally’

1. Psychedelic substances are ‘medicine’

2. Psychedelic medicines are animate, intelligent, benevolent and never wrong

3. Psychedelics lead to mystical experiences which are always good for you if you can heed their lessons

4. There is no such thing as a bad trip

5. Psychedelics have played and will play a crucial role in the spiritual evolution of humanity

6. All religions come from psychedelics - they are its true core and they will be rejuvenated when they return to their psychedelic root, as was written in the Gospel of Brian (PBUH).

7. Humanity can be cleanly divided into the psychedelically initiated and the psychedelically uninitiated

8. Psychedelics will help humans wake up and achieve a higher level of consciousness, when all or at least some of humanity will be closer to my lofty level.

Now add up your score!!!

1-16 = you are not at all turned on, in fact, you are a soulless automaton deeply disconnected from Source. You probably work for the FDA. I pity you.

17-25 = you are beginning to awaken from your slumber and understand the Way of the Medicine, but you’re still kind of square and have probably never done a dieta

26-35 = you are deepening into awakening and may begin to look down on people who do less Medicine than you. You vote MAHA.

36-40 = You know your DMT from your 5-meo-DMT, your Salvia from your Sangana. You don’t follow the Medicine. You are the Medicine. You’re some kind of goddam wizard.

A lot of people in psychedelic science, psychedelic culture and psychedelic industry believe in the religion of psychedelics, to some degree or other.

They are cultists, not in the sense of members of a totalitarian high control cult, but in the sense of being initiates in the religious cult of psychedelics, holding its core dogmas, and scoring 25-40 on my Psychedelic Cultism Scale.

A high-score or even a mid-score cultist will have particular views on psychedelic safety and adverse events - they will think adverse events are extremely rare and usually a person’s own fault because the blessed medicine is never wrong.

You can tell if someone is a cultist.

They’ll drop in a phrase like ‘trust the medicine’ or ‘see you on the Playa’ or ‘fuck Psymposia’ or some such telling remark. It’s like a secret handshake to other cultists.

One of us. Find the others.

I have heard, by the by, that several of the most senior scientists in the psychedelic field go to fancy resorts with some of the biggest philanthropic funders, once a year or so, to hang out, trip together, and map out the route to psychedelic utopia. This has been been happening for years.

I mean, talk about singing for your supper.

‘I admire your academic output, certainly, but before I endow your project with a multi-million-dollar grant, I need to see inside your mind. I need to trip with you. Can you dig it brother? Are you hip?’

Can you imagine having to take drugs with donors in order to get funding for your research centre?

Poor academics, what a head-fuck!

I’m picturing some middle-aged academic scientist in bermuda shorts schmoozing the Golden Circle at the beach bar in Playa del Carmen…’Do I take the medicine myself? Oh absolutely…oh yeah…big time. Oh…right now? Haha…er…well…naturally’

An hour later, they’re trying to manage an ego-dissolution while simultaneously impressing their rich hippy donors to advance their careers…

‘OK, don’t fuck this up, act groovy, it’s all on the line here, holy shit is that a UFO, keep it together man, oh Jesus, Christiana is looking at me funny, I knew I took too much guacamole at the buffet…’

In the old days, academics just had to publish a lot and fill out tedious forms to get funding. Now they have to put on leather spanks, go to Burning Man and dance to Diplo. Dance, middle-aged academic, dance!

Your NIH funding was cut by a ketamine-addled tech oligarch, so I’m afraid if you want to get any funding you need to…take ketamine with a tech oligarch!

In fact, the bigger the line, the bigger the grant, kapish?

Maybe that’s not all…maybe they have to strip naked and get in the hot tub…’Are you hip?’

For sure, they have to show that they are deep, soulful and in tune with the Perennial Wisdom of the Cosmos.

Perhaps most cruelly, they must discuss Brian Muraresku’s work with a straight face. ‘Certainly it raises some interesting points…sorry…I meant to say…it clearly proves that Jesus was tripping, no doubt, a work of genius, haha’.

Once they are invited into the Golden Circle, the scientists must pledge - perhaps implicitly but no less definitively - that they will make sure the Psychedelic Gospel is spread across the world.

If they play nice, they can have a never-ending stream of funding and career opportunities, they can become ‘rock stars of psychedelic science’.

If they don’t, they are outside the clique, and everything is harder.

I’m imagining the scene, various middle-aged psychiatrists, wearing black hooded gowns, kneeling in front of a circle of psychedelic philanthropists, as they intone…

‘I VOW TO SERVE THE MEDICINE!’

After the paywall, nine more interesting stories I’m following, including East Institute files for bankruptcy, a case study of an awful adverse event in a psychedelic training programme, accusations of anti-Semitism in psychedelia, and ‘what I learned from 700 ketamine clients’ . Plus don’t forget our free seminar on Australia’s PAT programme is next week, March 13th.