Bryan Johnson’s live-streamed mushroom trip

An IFS analysis

It’s been an unusual few days for the psychedelic renaissance. Conor McGregor set the internet alight with his ‘I took ibogaine and met Jesus’ testimony. Paul Stamets and Rick Doblin were on the Wonder Summit cruise in the Antarctic with various high-net-worth folk. And Bryan Johnson, a transhumanist tech founder and centimillionaire, live-streamed a near-heroic dose of magic mushrooms live on YouTube, accompanied by some other oligarchs.

I didn’t hear much about the Wonder Summit but apparently it cost $8000-30,000. The Drake Passage crossing to the Antarctic was rough, from what I hear. It is the world’s deadliest stretch of water. There may have been a certain amount of purging.

Once they arrived at the Antarctic, the organization was apparently a bit chaotic. The line-up was a mix of scientists, investors / biohackers and media folk. I think for a $30k two-week trip to the end of the earth they could have got, I dunno, Stevie Wonder! Still, I’ve heard positive feedback in the comments. You have to hand it to Doblin: turning 72 and still out there at the literal end of the Earth raising funds. Dylan had Rolling Thunder, Doblin has Rolling Funder.

Back to Johnson’s live magic mushroom streaming. Johnson is the founder of Kernel, a brain-imaging helmet, though he’s now pivoted to being a transhumanist influencer and founder of the Don’t Die movement, and he sells a $333-a-month longevity protocol called Blueprint. His net worth is estimated at around $400 million.

He had announced a previous live-streamed mushroom trip two weeks ago, and got a certain amount of global media attention for that stunt. He said that, while tripping, he had a vision of interconnecting portfolios. Stock portfolios? He added on X:

Since the mushroom trip I’ve been having multiple spontaneous erections every day, something I haven’t experienced since childhood.

Apparently the live-stream didn’t work on that occasion and so, two weeks later, he tried again, this time in a six-hour extravaganza billed as featuring YouTuber Mr Beast (net worth $500 million); tech oligarchs Naval Ravikant (net worth: $120 million), David Friedberg (net worth $1.2 billion) and Marc Benioff (net worth $8.5 billion); plus a conversation between Hamilton Morris and psychedelic philanthropist Genevieve Jurvetson and a live DJ set by Grimes, musician and ex-wife of Elon Musk.

This, Johnson said, was a scientific experiment - the most quantified psychedelic experience ever, using his own Kernel brain-imaging helmet and a multitude of other tests, to see if psychedelics could boost longevity and be added to Johnson’s $333-a-month Blueprint longevity protocol.

My sources reacted with a certain amount of incredulity to the announcement. ‘Is this real?’ was the most common reaction. ‘So many feelings about this’ said one researcher. ‘Will they at least do so from a decrim jurisdiction or they don’t even give a shit at this point?’ There was even a betting market on Polymarket about what Johnson would say while tripping.

I also had mixed feelings about the event, which I watched (and yes, surely the joke is on me for actually sitting through this). Here’s an Internal Family Systems analysis of the event, with my various parts putting forward their takes.