Elon enters the MDMA wars

Plus other links on psychedelic and ecstatic experiences

Welcome to the latest Tuesday round-up of psychedelic and ecstatic links from around the net. The first part is free, the rest is for paid subscribers only.

One month until the FDA decides whether to approve Lykos’ application for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, and the public spat over the application rumbles on.

As I wrote last month, Lykos and its backers have hired not one but four PR firms to generate public support and give the FDA ‘political cover’ to go against its own advisory committee and support Lykos’ application next month. A first salvo in the PR campaign was a letter by Heroic Hearts, attacking ICER for being a front for Big Pharma, and attacking media-advocacy organisation Psymposia for being veteran-hating pinkos.

That letter initially included a personal attack on one member of Psymposia (a woman), although when I and others warned this could put her at risk, Heroic Hearts removed that personal attack - thank you Jesse Gould for that, at least. However, it’s still a pretty outspoken letter, painting ICER as puppets of Big Pharma (which I’m told is absurd) and Psymposia as anti-veteran, which I have yet to see evidence is the case.

This week, Lykos’ supporters have called in the big guns. Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw made a video attacking ICER and Psymposia for hating veterans and supporting the status quo. My favourite bit is the graphic suggesting ICER are hoodie-wearing subversives along the lines of Anonymous. This morning, Elon Musk retweeted Rep. Crenshaw’s video, which has now been seen two million times in three hours. Besides being the richest man in the world, Musk also has the most followers on X - 188 million no less, most of which he gained since he bought X and changed the algorithm so his tweets appear in everyone’s X-stream.

This intervention is no doubt thanks to the Jurvetsons - Steve and Genevieve - who support (but don’t invest in) Lykos and who have donated to MAPS and Heroic Hearts. They are also friends with Elon Musk, in fact, Steve is on the board of SpaceX.

Will this media blitz succeed in persuading the FDA? Is attacking ICER and Psymposia the smart move? I have no idea, but if the richest man in the world can’t save Lykos then nothing can. And you have to say, 21st-century politics is weird isn’t it? 60 years ago, right-wing politicians demonized psychedelics while left-wing acidheads preached pacificism. Now right-wing politicians and billionaire oligarchs encourage the Pentagon and Veteran Affairs to fund psychedelics while left-wing hippies are the ones raising ethical concerns.

Of course, this is not the only weird thing happening in politics at the moment. With the liberal order apparently collapsing in real time, I am sometimes asked why I focus so much on psychedelics, as opposed to all the wicked problems in the meta-crisis - climate change, the decline of democracy, AI alignment, who should play left wing for England?

These are deep, perhaps unsolveable questions, and I’m a mere scribbler. I think I concentrate on the tiny village of Psychedelia because it’s so tiny. In a bewildering time for the planet, it’s a small corner of the world where perhaps we can work together and effect some small change at the micro level. Or maybe I am falling for the old psychedelic illusion, that we can escape history and float off into DMT hyperspace...Alas, politics keeps breaking in and harshing the buzz.

After the paywall, an update on Jonathan Robinson’s MDMA zoom therapy, a new RAND report casts doubt on the psychedelic industry, and author Sebastian Junger opens up about how an NDE changed his view of the afterlife. By the way, come to our free online seminar on psychedelic support groups next week on July 11th. Free tickets here.