It all began with a book review. Last year, I read an article by David Aaronovitch in The Times of London about Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. The book concerns a resurgence of interest in psychedelic drugs, which were widely banned after Timothy Leary’s antics with LSD, starting in the late 1960s, in which he encouraged American youth to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” In recent years, though, scientists have started to test therapeutic uses of psychedelics for an extraordinary range of ailments, including depression, addiction, and end-of-life angst.
Aaronovitch mentioned in passing that he had been intrigued enough to book a “psychedelic retreat” in the Netherlands run by the British Psychedelic Society, though, in the event, his wife put her foot down and he canceled. To try psychedelics was something I’d secretly hankered after doing ever since I was a teenager, but I was always too cautious and risk-averse. As I got older, the moment seemed to pass. Today I am a middle-aged journalist working in London, the finance editor of The Economist, a wife, mother, and, to all appearances, a person totally devoid of countercultural tendencies.
And yet… on impulse, I arranged to go. Only after I booked did I tell my husband. He was bemused, but said it was fine by him, as long as I didn’t decide while I was under the influence that I didn’t love him anymore. My eighteen-year-old son thought the whole thing was hilarious (it turns out that your mother tripping is a good way to make drugs seem less cool).
I had a foreboding that, besides whatever psychedelic experience I might have, there would also be a lot of chanting and holding strangers’ hands. I’m an atheist and devout skeptic: I don’t believe in chi or acupuncture, and have no time for crystals and chimes. But, mindful that it’s arrogant to remain aloof in such circumstances, I decided I would throw myself into whatever was asked of me.
And so, I not only did yoga and meditation, but also engaged in lengthy periods of shaking my whole body with my eyes closed and “vocal toning”—letting a sound, any sound, escape on every out-breath. I looked into the eyes of someone I had just met and asked, again and again, as instructed: “What does freedom mean to you?” I joined “sharing circles.” All this was intended to prepare us for the trip. The facilitators talked of the importance of your “set” (or state of mind) and of feeling safe and comfortable in your “setting” (where you are and who you’re with).
One of my fellow trippers had taken part in a psilocybin trial at King’s College London. He and three others received at random either a placebo or a low, normal, or high dose of the drug in pill form. It was obvious, he said, that he was the only one given the placebo. To make bad trips less likely, the researchers had advised the participants not to resist anything that happened: “If you see a dragon, go toward it.” The misery of sitting, stone sober, in a room with three people who were evidently having a fascinating time was why he had come on this retreat. “They all had dragons,” he told me. “I wanted a dragon, too.”
People who have taken psychedelics commonly rank the experience as among the most profound of their lives. For my part, I wasn’t searching for myself, or God, or transcendence; nor, with a happy, fulfilling life, was I looking for relief from depression or grief. But I was struck by something Pollan discusses in his book: studies in which therapists used trips to treat addiction.
I’ve never smoked and have no dramatic vices, but the habits of drinking coffee through the morning and a glass of wine or two most evenings had crept up on me in recent years. Neither seemed serious but both had come to feel like necessities—part of a larger pattern of a rushed, undeliberative life with too much done out of compulsion, rather than desire or pleasure. It is the middle-aged rather than the young who could most benefit from an “experience of the numinous,” said Carl Jung, quoted by Pollan.
Aaronovitch mentioned in passing that he had been intrigued enough to book a “psychedelic retreat” in the Netherlands run by the British Psychedelic Society, though, in the event, his wife put her foot down and he canceled. To try psychedelics was something I’d secretly hankered after doing ever since I was a teenager, but I was always too cautious and risk-averse. As I got older, the moment seemed to pass. Today I am a middle-aged journalist working in London, the finance editor of The Economist, a wife, mother, and, to all appearances, a person totally devoid of countercultural tendencies.
And yet… on impulse, I arranged to go. Only after I booked did I tell my husband. He was bemused, but said it was fine by him, as long as I didn’t decide while I was under the influence that I didn’t love him anymore. My eighteen-year-old son thought the whole thing was hilarious (it turns out that your mother tripping is a good way to make drugs seem less cool).
***
One day, after closing that week’s finance and economics section of The Economist, I boarded a Eurostar train to Amsterdam. The next day, I met my fellow travelers—ten of them in all, from various parts of Europe and the United States—in a headshop in Amsterdam. Per the instructions we’d received, we each bought two one-ounce bags of “High Hawaiian” truffles—squishy, light brown fungi in a vacuum pack—at a discounted price of 40 euros, and headed off for four days in a converted barn in the countryside.I had a foreboding that, besides whatever psychedelic experience I might have, there would also be a lot of chanting and holding strangers’ hands. I’m an atheist and devout skeptic: I don’t believe in chi or acupuncture, and have no time for crystals and chimes. But, mindful that it’s arrogant to remain aloof in such circumstances, I decided I would throw myself into whatever was asked of me.
And so, I not only did yoga and meditation, but also engaged in lengthy periods of shaking my whole body with my eyes closed and “vocal toning”—letting a sound, any sound, escape on every out-breath. I looked into the eyes of someone I had just met and asked, again and again, as instructed: “What does freedom mean to you?” I joined “sharing circles.” All this was intended to prepare us for the trip. The facilitators talked of the importance of your “set” (or state of mind) and of feeling safe and comfortable in your “setting” (where you are and who you’re with).
One of my fellow trippers had taken part in a psilocybin trial at King’s College London. He and three others received at random either a placebo or a low, normal, or high dose of the drug in pill form. It was obvious, he said, that he was the only one given the placebo. To make bad trips less likely, the researchers had advised the participants not to resist anything that happened: “If you see a dragon, go toward it.” The misery of sitting, stone sober, in a room with three people who were evidently having a fascinating time was why he had come on this retreat. “They all had dragons,” he told me. “I wanted a dragon, too.”
People who have taken psychedelics commonly rank the experience as among the most profound of their lives. For my part, I wasn’t searching for myself, or God, or transcendence; nor, with a happy, fulfilling life, was I looking for relief from depression or grief. But I was struck by something Pollan discusses in his book: studies in which therapists used trips to treat addiction.
I’ve never smoked and have no dramatic vices, but the habits of drinking coffee through the morning and a glass of wine or two most evenings had crept up on me in recent years. Neither seemed serious but both had come to feel like necessities—part of a larger pattern of a rushed, undeliberative life with too much done out of compulsion, rather than desire or pleasure. It is the middle-aged rather than the young who could most benefit from an “experience of the numinous,” said Carl Jung, quoted by Pollan.
by Helen Joyce, NYRB | Read more:
Image: United Archives/Carl Simon/Bridgeman Images
