THE PSYCHEDELIC ILLUMINATI GOES TO CHURCH

To worship the Godfather of MDMA's ghost

Greetings PSYCHO-nauts!

This month I’m bringing you a series of stories from the psychedelic frontier, as the industry barrels into what you could call the “Elon era” of right-wing psychedelia. Much of this reporting will be from Psychedelic Science, a massive conference that takes place every two years in Denver. Since pretty much everyone who’s anyone in psychedelics comes to this conference, there was no better place to get a sense of the trends and conversations driving the industry. These posts are for paid subscribers—THANK YOU for making this reporting possible!

The sun was setting behind the Rocky Mountains when I touched down at Denver International Airport, orange beams breaking through the clouds to cast a faint rainbow over the parking lot. The distant, rippling silhouettes of the mountains hugging the deep, bright sky gives Colorado a touch of majesty; it’s a place where you can feel the land’s dignity just by gazing out of a Lyft window. No wonder this is one of the first states in America where mushroom therapy is legal. In November 2022, a bill called Prop 122 decriminalized all plant medicines for personal use, while allowing adults to take shrooms at licensed healing centers. Technically, the retail sale of psychedelics is still illegal, but that hasn’t stopped a greymarket from thriving.

Walking to my hotel, I pass a sign for a vape shop openly advertising shroom chocolates right next to the conference convention center. While shops like these are popping up across America, the impunity with which they operate from the law is what stands out in Denver.

Conferences are invariably stuffy, soulless occasions, with long days spent in air-conditioned quarters listening to self-important figureheads drone on about their work. I’d rather be in the mountains, holding court with the bison and pine trees, but there I was, trekking across downtown Denver while on a mission: to take the temperature of a movement that seems to be losing its way. With the FDA’s recent rejection of MDMA therapy, Elon’s ketamine addiction driving his catfight with Trump, and RFK Jr. pushing for psychedelic legalization, it is getting pretty spooky out here in the psychedelic space—so what’s the tea?