If I Were Starting Psychedelics Today, Here's Exactly What I'd Read

Welcome to The Psychedelic Blog. Bestselling essayist & Psychedelic cultural analyst examining how altered states shape relationships, grief, death & meaning.

This week: 6 rules I wish someone had given me before I started exploring Psychedelics.

Every week I get some version of the same question:

“Where should I start with Psychedelics?”

It’s a good question. The problem is that most of the advice online is terrible. It’s ideological, oversimplified or coming from people who became experts 6 months after their first Bufo trip.

If I were starting over today, these are the 6 rules I’d follow.

Imagine someone saying: “Sports are dangerous.” Any rational human would immediately respond with: which sport?

• Formula One?

• Golf?

• Tennis?

• Boxing?

• Football?

• MMA?

The category tells you almost nothing. “Psychedelics” is the same mistake.

• LSD ≠ MDMA

• MDMA ≠ Ibogaine

• Ibogaine ≠ Psilocybin

• Psilocybin ≠ Mescaline

• Mescaline ≠ 2C-B

• 2C-B ≠ Bufo

Comparing a Bufo journey to a microdose of Psilocybin is like comparing a ride on the Artemis II Rocket to a ride on a horse & buggy. Different mechanisms, risks, purposes & contraindications.

If someone is posting about ‘Psychedelics’ without specifying the actual compound, they’ve revealed they know nothing about this subject & should not be taken seriously.

Everyone talks about “setting an intention.” Almost no one talks about setting a goal.

Why are you interested in Psychedelics in the first place?

Where do you hope your life looks 5 years from now?

What’s missing from your life today?

Those questions matter far more than whether you take Psilocybin or LSD.

Someone trying to get off SSRIs, someone grieving the loss of a parent, someone exploring consciousness & someone simply looking for a meaningful experience aren’t asking the same question. They shouldn’t necessarily arrive at the same answer.

Once you’re clear on what you’re actually trying to accomplish, everything else starts to make more sense: which substance to research, what dosage range might be appropriate, what setting is best & whether a Psychedelic is even the right tool in the first place.

I am not on social media, but every so often a friend sends me an IG post from some charlatan preaching about the right way to use Psychedelics or a proprietary protocol they developed...with ancestral wisdom, of course!

Complete & utter bullshit.

Learn from researchers, clinicians, experienced facilitators & long-form books. Not someone selling a $997 “ancestral activation container” because they ate Mushrooms in Tulum twice.

One of the biggest myths in Psychedelics is assuming that Indigenous & ancestral use was sacred, benevolent & directly applicable to the modern world. Categorically false...claims parroted by people who have never bothered to study the actual history of these substances.

If you don’t understand where these substances came from, you’re missing half the story. Read the history before you read the latest clinical trial.

One of the hardest parts about learning Psychedelics is that nearly everyone has an agenda:

• The biotech crowd wants every substance to become an FDA-approved medicine.

• The spiritual crowd insists they’re sacred tools.

• Indigenous activists argue modern use is inherently exploitative.

• Countless others think every experience needs to be framed through trauma & healing.

None of those perspectives are automatically right just because they’re passionately held. I would avoid becoming loyal to a camp, instead, become loyal to the evidence, even when it contradicts what you want to believe.

That's a much harder way to think, but it's also the only way I've found to avoid getting swept up by whatever narrative happens to be fashionable at the moment.

If I could go back & start over, I’d spend far less time on YouTube & podcasts and much more time reading books. Long-form writing forces nuance in a way social media simply can’t.

If you only read one: This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan.

If you want the science: The Drug Users Bible by Dominic Milton Trott.

If you want the history: PiHKAL by Alexander & Ann Shulgin.

If you want to understand consciousness: The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.

If you want harm reduction: The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide by James Fadiman.

I'd rather recommend 1 excellent book than 50 mediocre podcasts. The internet rewards certainty, books reward nuance. If you're serious about understanding Psychedelics, start there.

Psychedelics have given me some of the most meaningful experiences of my life. They’ve made me a lighter, funner, happier, less anxious, more creative, kinder person. They’ve also taught me that certainty is usually a sign someone hasn’t studied the subject very deeply.

• Stay curious.

• Read more books than Instagram stories.

• Question your own assumptions as aggressively as everyone else’s.

And remember: learning Psychedelics starts by realizing there is no such thing as “Psychedelics.” There are only individual compounds, each with its own history, pharmacology, risks & benefits.

Start there & everything else gets a little easier.

This week’s Sunday Insider: The myth that transformed Bufo from an obscure Sonoran Desert secretion into modern Psychedelic Culture's most misunderstood medicine.

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