#103 | Turn on, Tune in, Drop out. At 81.
Joy in living may offset the terror of dying. This joy will, in the future, be prescribed as a tab, baggy, or pill for supervised consumption.
"If you don't like what you're doing, you can always pick up your needle and move to another groove."— Timothy Leary
"Imagine yourself as a tree. And you've got your trunk, which is your connection to yourself. And you've got your branches which are your ideas going out. And then you've got your roots and you've got this layer of mycelium and you're connected to all these other people. And so to make your tree grow really strong, it's about your place in the forest. You're not standing alone." — Dr Rosalind Watts
In 1966, at the crescendo of the psychedelic counter-cultural revolution, Timothy Leary told the world to "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out." Leary called for people to dose up with psychedelics, tune into a deeper reality, and begin a journey of "discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change." [1]
Leary's message fed an already furious fire: Between 1950 and 1965, 40,000 had LSD therapy for neurosis, schizophrenia, and psychopathy. One thousand papers were published on the benefits of psychedelic-assisted treatments; even children with autism were given LSD in the name of science.
But out of fear and misunderstanding, the US federal government banned psychedelics in 1968; the British government did the same with LSD in '67 and psilocybin in '71. The research ended; papers were no longer published, and the revolution went underground. Today, psychedelic drugs are more illegal than heroin and cocaine, which are schedule 2, class-A in the UK.
If you were 25 in 1966, back when Leary told you to "Turn on", you'd be 81 today. And at 81, you'd be the average age of people in sheltered accommodation in the UK. I spend a lot of time in these communities. And I've seen first-hand that, among those in their 80s, mental health is not only a concern but a crisis. We're living in "crisis" Britain — isn't everything on the brink? — but honestly and tragically, mental health in older people is a disaster.
Globally, depression affects around 22% of men and 28% of women over 65 years old. It's also worsening as those in their middle age get older, and they are the cohort with the very poorest mental health — severe depressive symptoms are 2.55 times higher in those 45 to 59 years old compared with those aged 16 to 29 (5.38 for men and 1.75 for women). In the UK, 85% of older people with depression receive no help from the NHS.
Covid was cruel, and it was most hurtful to the most vulnerable. Even before the pandemic, older people suffered from an "epidemic" of loneliness — 1.4 million older people in the UK are often lonely. Then, for years, the outside world was locked out. My grandmother, who was in a care home during the pandemic, could only see her sons infrequently through a perspex screen — an insufferable and incomprehensible way to live; however, perhaps the only way at the time.
And, being terrified of being lonely when I'm old, this 1.4 million strikes me as a dreadfully high number. Importantly, loneliness is not the same as social isolation. People can be isolated (alone) yet not feel lonely; the opposite is also true, although less common. One problem with increasing isolation is consequent mental health repercussions:
"Loneliness acts as a fertiliser for other diseases," comments one US researcher. They go on, "The biology of loneliness can accelerate the buildup of plaque in arteries, help cancer cells grow and spread, and promote inflammation in the brain leading to Alzheimer's disease. Loneliness promotes several different types of wear and tear on the body."
Moreover, 80 per cent of older adults have one or more chronic health conditions, and 50 per cent have at least two. Loneliness exacerbates this deterioration.
A question begs when we have extraordinary amounts of loneliness across our society and deepening levels of depression. What tools help reduce — or end — this largely unnecessary suffering? Well, it's here that we return to Leary's message in 1966.
I was sitting in a retirement community in Leeds a year ago on an exceptionally dank and overcast day.
While I sat with a couple of the tenants, I made some off-the-cuff joke about dosing — that is, having a psychedelic experience. The tenants, who were all in their mid-eighties, caught on. "Dosing? We've been dosing!" they said. I was astonished.
The tenants (supported by their families) used psychedelics to cope with the struggles of isolation and depression. A couple of the tenants had had recent experiences. At first, it seemed like a puzzle. Why would some vulnerable older people take schedule 1, class-A drugs? After some reflection, it's all about feeling connected. As connected as they perhaps felt in 1966 when they heard Leary shout out to the crowd,
"You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind".
If you spend any time on the subreddit r/psyconaut you'll see psychedelic experiences chart different courses but leave the same footprints. These trips are presumably not in a medical setting, but they are intentional: to observe a more profound reality and to understand the self.
"There was a realisation that I [am] just a small part of a greater consciousness." Source.
"It was so strange but beautiful. I felt so many emotions and experiences. It was weird because it was showing me that the past and the future are all one. It would morph from the past to the future within a breathe and they were connected. It was showing me that I was all of these people on earth. That they were all one. That the animals, humans, plants and everything in between were all the same. All connected through this machine that was running them concurrently." Source.
"I asked if God was real, and all the voices all together like a choir all said/sang YES really loudly, followed by things like "and he loves you so much" and they couldn't wait for me to come home. That is where I questioned since I am an atheist and if God was real there was no way I was ever getting into heaven. The voices said of course we all come home, there is no hell, we are here to learn and anything 'bad' we do is because we were supposed to do it to learn something." Source.
There is something addictive about browsing 'trip reports'. And, from scanning dozens of them, you can catch a consistency in experience, an intangible feeling of connectedness, a sense that our separation is an illusion. Whoever we are, our daily misconceptions can be rewritten. And there is now research into the implications of these trips.
We're at the daybreak of a revolution in psychedelic-assisted therapy. And the first glimmer of dawn helps those who are terminally ill. I don’t need to point out that it's depressing to be terminally unwell. Alot of research centres on the potent ability to enhance the mental well-being of those suffering at the end of life.
As we saw, research froze when governments censored psychedelics in the late '60s and early ‘70s. Yet 2014 saw the first UK study "in more than 40 years to evaluate safety and efficacy of LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy". It was a double-blind, placebo-controlled study across 12 patients with anxiety associated with life-threatening diseases. The study, although small (a pilot), "show a significant reduction in state anxiety, as experienced on a daily basis." Researchers demonstrated a similar outcome in the paper "Pilot study of psilocybin treatment for anxiety in patients with advanced-stage cancer". They showed "a significant reduction in anxiety at 1 and 3 months after treatment". This 2011 study called for more research in this "long-neglected field".
Today, there's a maelstrom of research into the same space. Tim Ferris summarises much of it in his excellent blogs and podcasts. Psychedelic retreats are becoming normalised and even — shock — legal. In the Netherlands (where psilocybin truffles are permitted), Alalaho runs multi-day retreats. Similarly, there are retreat centres throughout the Republic of Ireland.
Few of us want to get old. We have a glimmer of conscious experience, and within what feels like minutes, it's snatched away. A natural appreciation of our unbelievable life comes right at the end of it, or arrives sooner through deep meditation. We might also glimpse this profound appreciation when psychedelics open the doors of perception to us.
Joy in living may offset the terror of dying. This joy will, in the future, be prescribed as a tab, baggy, or pill for supervised consumption. Pharmacists will prescribe to those who suffer most — those who are lonely, vulnerable, and depressed. The world presented above is described by Huxley's Island. Huxley notes, "Public health and social reform are the indispensable preconditions of any kind of general enlightenment." I think he's right.
[1] Leary explains in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks: "Turn on" meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers engaging them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. "Tune in" meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. "Drop out" suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. "Drop Out" meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily, my explanations of this sequence of personal development are often misinterpreted to mean "Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity”.
My week in books
FDR by Jean Edward Smith. FDR was an exceptional president; he overcame infantile paralysis to lead the USA out of the Great Recession and through victory in the Second World War. FDR loved people, hosted dinners every evening, and was profoundly charming. This is an epic biography. From FDR himself:
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little."
Live well,
Hector