There is a realm of human culture, little studied by academics, but a fascinating place to visit, or even to live. It’s been called the ‘occulture’ by Christopher Partridge, or the ‘cultic milieu’ by Colin Campbell, or the ‘Occult Underground’ by James Webb. All these terms refer to the subculture of New Age, alternative, esoteric ideas, practices, groups and people.
The occulture is a petri dish of fomenting, constantly transforming ideas and groups, which arise then dissolve, form into new species and hybrids. Most remain deep underground but some – like Qanon – go viral and become global epidemics. Sometimes an underground idea or group establishes itself overground and becomes what James Webb calls ‘the Occult Establishment’ - as Mormonism has, for example, or yoga in the US.
This is one way to think about the MAPS / Lykos story. MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Science) emerged from the 1970s underground world of drug-taking, boundary-breaking, transpersonal psychology, New Age spirituality, polyamory, magic, channelling, pet wolves and so on. For 40 years its founder, Rick Doblin, has tried to bring the occult underground into the overground, through legitimizing institutions like Harvard, the Pentagon, the FDA, Michael Pollan and so on, and thereby turn the Occult Underground into the Occult Establishment. Then the Age of Love will come, trauma will end, humanity will evolve, yadda yadda yadda.
I personally find the occulture fascinating. On one hand, it’s a jungly ecosystem of riotous biodiversity in which radical ideas and practices emerge, including some we now consider mainstream, like meditation, psychedelics, paranormality, cryptocurrency, longevity medicine and even AI…On the other hand, there’s a dark side – grifters, totalitarian cults, Multi-Level Marketing schemes, psychopaths, conspiracy theories, fascist tendencies and a whole lot of inane-yet-supremely-confident bullshit.
The jungle is not entirely safe, so it’s good to be a little suspicious. On the other hand, if you steer clear of the jungle entirely, you might miss some fascinating encounters. I enjoy the work of writers like Erik Davis and Jeffrey Kripal partly because of how they guide us through the occulture. What follows is a wild tale from the occulture, and a warning about choosing a retreat centre carefully.
Philippe’s story
Philippe is a 32-year-old French entrepreneur. He grew up as a teenager in Berlin, where he got very into substance abuse. He says:
I would drink alcohol until I got into a coma. I started smoking weed every day at 13. I started taking MDMA, cocaine. Hardcore use.
When he was 20, a friend introduced to a spiritual group called Peace Love Harmony Foundation, run by Chinese doctor-guru Zhi Gang Sha. He claims that the Divine appeared to him and gives him the ability to cleanse people’s karma, for a fee. ‘They offered these three-day workshops, starting at 9am and finishing at 3am.In the middle of the night, they offer you a special deal to cleanse your karma for 50% off the usual price.’
Philippe stayed in that community for four years, paying to train to become a Master. He ended up spending a total of around $40,000 to the foundation for blessings, trainings, transmissions and karma cleanses, money he earned working in a restaurant during that time. He says:
They were kind of a cult, not that they made you stay or forced you to pay or anything. You could say they exerted strong influence on people to give more money. And they’re not very open to criticism. But the group also has some wonderful people working in it. And I changed a lot for the better during my time there. Nothing is ever black and white.
He moved to Bali, drank too much booze, moved back to Berlin, and tried ayahuasca and 5-meo-DMT (Bufo) for the first time, with a small group in the occulture. Bufo was an eye-opener for him:
I tapped into the consciousness of infinity. And it did something to me. For two months after, I could hear people’s thoughts. I felt like I was on MDMA and LSD, for two months. But there was some ego involved as well. And after two months, I came down hard. I thought I was so enlightened that I could try cocaine again. I ended up getting addicted to cocaine for four years, sometimes doing two or three grams a night.
From 2017 to 2020 he was working in the restaurant in Berlin, addicted to cocaine, and in a toxic and occasionally violent relationship with a tattoo-artist. He got out of that by discovering the work of Joe Dispenza and getting very into meditation and manifestation. ‘I was meditating two or three hours a day’, he says, ‘focusing on shifting my vibration and opening up to a better life. And it worked! Within a year I’d made three million dollars’.
How exactly did he make three million dollars in a year? He started his own online meditation course…but that didn’t take off. Then he started investing a bit in cryptocurrency, and that started to do very well – he made $100,000 in a few months. Then he and a friend launched their own ‘meme coin’ in 2021, and that really took off. He says:
It made my partner and I three million dollaras each very quickly. Meme coins are 100% a Ponzi scheme, but people understand that. As long as you get out before it collapses, investors can make a lot of money. It’s in the gray area of legality and ethics.
Thanks to his meme coin, Philippe had become a millionaire before he turned 30. To celebrate, he flew business class to Mexico, and signed up for a Bufo retreat at a centre called Sowilo. His life had never been better.
After the paywall, things go south for Philippe, plus other interesting stories and links from around the occulture, including a new Rand report on psychedelics, and a story about a millionaire shaman with a big network of underground ceremonies…
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