If you ever wanted a window into an underground weed rave, an autonomous zone, or the intersections between Buddhism and MDMA therapy, Michelle Lhooq's journalism is for you.
She's done marvelous profiles of everyone from Grimes to Michael Alig, but some of her most fascinating work involves deeply immersive profiles of the people on the front lines of protests and partying, and often, in Lhooq's work, the lines between those two worlds are blurred into invisibility. Her work explores both the radical potential in raves and drug culture as well as their limitations and dangers, holding and interrogating that complexity with sensitivity.
In our podcast interview, we spoke about the spiritual side of raving and psychedelics, the intersections between ecology and nightlife, and the rich potential inherent in the shared spaces created by collective ecstasy. We also talked about the commodification of weed and psychedelic culture and the unfortunate reality that most modern psychedelic therapies are only available to the 1%.
We also theorized about the strange future of post-pandemic parties, the cultural changes the pandemic might have catalyzed, the dissociative spirit of the postmodern condition, and the future of psychedelics.
"For too long, nightlife and partying has been associated with destructive behavior," Lhooq said. "But during the pandemic I think a lot of people turned to substances like psychedelics for mental health reasons, and with the legalization of these substances it became more acceptable to talk about them... So when we came out of the pandemic, what was so interesting to me was how many people who you don't think of as nightlife people would say, I miss dancing so much. I think there was a destigmatization of partying and dancing, and a recognition that this act is a form of catharsis and healing, and it's a primal aspect of human beings."
However, as always, Lhooq's perspective is thoughtful and multifaceted. She's always invested in creative approaches to the development of the human spirit, from "expanding the idea of what a rave can be" to exploring the "spectrum of sobriety" and beyond. All in all, she's inspired by "anything that helps you feel more connected to yourself, your body and the people around you, this feels like a healing modality," she said, a phrase that could be gospel of our modern era, so defined by dissociation and simultaneously by a desire for connection.
This week Christina Haack, star of the HGTV series Flip or Flop and Christina on the Coast, shared images from her tropical birthday vacation with her new boyfriend, Austin-based real estate agent Joshua Hall.
Coming so soon after Haack's divorce from English TV presenter Ant Anstead was finalized, the new couple has attracted lots of attention, and were spotted in the Los Angeles International Airport on their way out of town. But questions about the relationship between Haack — who turned 38 on Friday — and her new love interest may not be nearly as interesting as Haack's process for getting back into the dating scene — a process that involved psychedelic toad venom.
As Haack put it in her Instagram post about the new relationship, "I met Josh when I wasn't in a state of fear or fight-or-flight. I had taken time off social, hired a spiritual coach and smoked a Bufo toad (which basically reset my brain and kicked out years of anxiety in 15 mins)."
It should go without saying that Haack did not smoke an actual toad. Rather, the so-called "venom" (technically a toxin, as a true venom is delivered through the animal's bite or similar contact) secreted by the Bufo alvarias, or Colorado River toad, can be extracted and dried, then smoked or vaporized to induce a "spiritual" drug experience.
The drug, sometimes referred to simply as "toad," is one of a number of naturally occurring substances that have long been used to induce shamanic spiritual experiences often described as ego death or communion with the universe. These include psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca tea, and even the urine of Amanita muscaria-consuming reindeer.
The working theory for both how these psychedelic experiences occur, and how they can have a therapeutic effect, is that these substances encourage the formation of new connections between the neurons in the brain. This allows, for instance, information from the parts of your brain that quietly interpret patterns, make predictions, or generate imaginative scenarios to interact with the parts of your brain that produce your conscious sensory experience.
But these new connections also allow for the users' brain to be rewired on a semi-permanent basis, potentially disrupting and smoothing out the well-worn neurological patterns that produce clinical depression and anxiety. As Mike Tyson explained his experience with "toad" to Joe Rogan in 2019, "I look at life differently, I look at people differently. It's almost like dying and being reborn… It's inconceivable."
With ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms, the active ingredient is ingested, and continues to alter the user's experience as its absorbed into the blood stream through the stomach and intestines over the course of several hours. But because the 5 MeO-DMT in the venom of the Colorado River toad is inhaled as smoke or vapor, its mind-altering effects are delivered in a potent, transformative burst that lasts as little as seven minutes — though it may feel much longer for the user. That expedited process has led to the increasing popularity of "toad."
Mike Tyson on smoking DMT: 'Do you understand the toad?' | The Art of Conversation w/ Dan Le Batardwww.youtube.com
Of course, none of this is to say that these chemicals are miracle cures. Even with careful guidance, not everyone who takes these drugs for therapeutic purposes will achieve the desired results, and there are substantial risks that come with the territory.
For one, there is the nightmarish possibility of a so-called "bad trip" that includes all the intensity and immersive, mind-bending, time-dilating perspectives of a psychedelic experience, but one in which dark thoughts and horror pervade. While even these frightening ordeals can apparently provide a lasting benefit — with some users reporting that it can provide a context in which to work through issues and come out the other side — there is another risk without that silver lining: death.
There have been a small but concerning number of deaths associated with DMT ceremonies, possibly due to dosing issues or adulterants. And, last year, adult film star Nacho Vidal was arrested for the death of a man in his home near Valencia, Spain during a "toad" smoking ceremony.
Fortunately, Christina Haack's experience with 5 MeO-DMT and her "spiritual coach" seems to have been purely positive. It helped her to address her anxiety and feel ready to face a new relationship after a tumultuous romantic history both with Ant Anstead and her Flip of Flop co-host and first husband Tarek El Moussa.
So while she didn't actually "smoke a Bufo toad," it seems she did smoke "toad" to escape her "fight-or-flight" patterns and face the world with a new perspective. Hopefully, that spells good things for her future and her new relationship with Joshua Hall.
The story of psychedelics is intertwined with the story of music, and tracing their relationship can feel like going in circles.
For thousands of years, artists have been using naturally-grown herbs to open their minds and enhance their creative processes. Since LSD was synthesized by Albert Hoffman in 1938, psychedelics have experienced a reemergence, blooming into a revolution in the 1960s, launching dozens of genres and sounds that focused on acid, shrooms, and all of the portals they opened. Around the 1960s, scientists also began studying the relationship between psychedelics and music, and even back then, researchers found that, when combined, music and psychedelics could have therapeutic effects on patients.
More modern studies have discovered that LSD, specifically, links a portion of the brain called the parahippocampal—which specializes in personal memory—to the visual cortex, which means that memories take on more autobiographical and visual dimensions. Other studies have found that LSD can make the timbres and sounds of music feel more meaningful and emotionally powerful. Today, psychedelic music still thrives, and you can hear flickers of those early trip-inspired experiences all across today's modern musical landscape.
"There is a message intrinsically carried in music, and under the effects of psychedelics, people seem to become more responsive to this," said the psychedelic researcher Mendel Kaelen. "Emotion can be processed more deeply. It's a beautiful narrative. It's like a snake biting itself in the tail."
All that said, psychedelics can be as dangerous as the archetypal live-fast-die-young rock and roller's average lifestyle. They can destabilize already fragile minds and can encourage further drug abuse and reckless behavior. Often, psychedelic revolutions have coincided with colonialist fetishizations, apocalyptic visions, and appropriations of Eastern culture.
However, sometimes psychedelics and musical talent can come together in a synergy so perfect that it can literally create transcendent and healing experiences. Hallucinogens affected each of these following musicians in a unique way, but their experiences with hallucinogens produced some of the greatest music of all time.
Harry Styles — She
In his revelatory Rolling Stone profile, Harry Styles spoke out about how magic mushrooms inspired his most recent album, Fine Line. Inspired by Fleetwood Mac, the 25-year-old apparently spent a lot of time at Shangri-La Studios in Los Angeles tripping and listening to the old psychedelic greats.
"Ah, yes. Did a lot of mushrooms here," he said in the interview during a tour of the studio. "We'd do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney's Ram in the sunshine."
Things even got a little violent, as they often can when dealing with hallucinogens. "This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place," he reminisced affectionately.
Kacey Musgraves' dreamy song "Slow Burn" was apparently inspired by an acid trip. Listening to the lyrics, you can hear the influence of psychedelics twining with country and singer-songwriter tropes. "I was sitting on the porch, you know, having a good, easy, zen time," she said of the songwriting experience, which she said happened out on her porch one evening. "I wrote it down on my phone, and then wrote the songs the next day with a sober mind."
LSD, she said, "opens your mind in a lot of ways. It doesn't have to be scary. People in the professional worlds are using it, and it's starting to become an option for therapy. Isn't that crazy?" Her affection for the drug also appears in her song "Oh What A World," which contains the lyric, "Plants that grow and open your mind."
A$AP Rocky — L$D
While A$AP Rocky's affection for LSD isn't a surprise given his propensity for writing about the drug, apparently the rapper has an intellectual approach to his psychedelic experimentation.
"We was all in London at my spot, Skeppy came through," he told Hot New Hip Hop about his experience writing LSD. "I have this psychedelic professor, he studies in LSD. I had him come through and kinda record and monitor us to actually test the product while being tested on. We did the rhymes all tripping balls."
Apparently his first acid trip happened in 2012. "Okay, without getting anyone in trouble, I was with my homeboy and some trippy celebrity chicks and…" he said in an interview with Time Out. When asked how long it lasted, he said, "Too long, man. Twenty-three hours. I was trippin' till the next day. When I woke up, I was like, Damn! I did that shit! That shit was dope. It was so amazing. It was a-ma-zing. Nothing was like that first time."
Acid changed his entire approach to music and success. "I never really gave a f*ck, man, but this time, I really don't give a f*ck," he said. "I don't care about making no f*cking hits." Instead, he focuses on creating. "It's so hard to be progressive when you're trippin' b*lls," he said. "You make some far-out shit!"
The Beatles' later music is essentially synonymous with LSD, and the band members often spoke out about their unique experiences with the drug. According to Rolling Stone, the first time that Lennon and Harrison took it was actually a complete accident. A friend put LSD in their coffee without their knowledge, and initially Lennon was furious. But after the horror and panic faded, things changed. "I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours," said Harrison.
Paul McCartney had similar revelations. LSD "opened my eyes to the fact that there is a God," he said in 1967. "It is obvious that God isn't in a pill, but it explained the mystery of life. It was truly a religious experience." Of LSD's effect, he also said, "It started to find its way into everything we did, really. It colored our perceptions. I think we started to realize there wasn't as many frontiers as we'd thought there were. And we realized we could break barriers."
Using the drug not only helped the band create some of the most legendary music of all time—it also brought them closer together. "After taking acid together, John and I had a very interesting relationship," said George Harrison. "That I was younger or I was smaller was no longer any kind of embarrassment with John. Paul still says, 'I suppose we looked down on George because he was younger.' That is an illusion people are under. It's nothing to do with how many years old you are, or how big your body is. It's down to what your greater consciousness is and if you can live in harmony with what's going on in creation. John and I spent a lot of time together from then on and I felt closer to him than all the others, right through until his death."
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Remastered 2009)www.youtube.com
Ray Charles — My World
The soul music pioneer allegedly once described acid as his "eyes." Charles was blind, but LSD is said to have allowed him some version of sight. Though he struggled with addiction, Charles eventually got clean, though his music always bore some markers of his experiences with the subconscious mind.
Actually, blind people on LSD and hallucinogens can experience hallucinations of different kinds, though it's somewhat rare. According to a study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, this happens because during a trip, "the plasticity of the nervous system allows the recognition and translation of auditory or tactile patterns into visual experiences."
Clapton struggled with drug abuse throughout his life, and LSD certainly had an influence on him. While he was a part of Cream, he frequently played shows while tripping, and according to outontrip.com, he became "convinced that he could turn the audience into angels or devils according to the notes he played."
Before he was creating the ultimate dad rap, Chance the Rapper was an acidhead.
"None of the songs are really declarative statements; a lot of them are just things that make you wonder...a lot like LSD," said Chance the Rapper of his hallucinogen-inspired album, the aptly named Acid Rap. "[There] was a lot of acid involved in Acid Rap," he told MTV in 2013. "I mean, it wasn't too much — I'd say it was about 30 to 40 percent acid ... more so 30 percent acid."
But the album wasn't merely about acid; like much of the best psychedelic music, it was more about the imagery and symbolism associated with the drug than the actual drug itself. "It wasn't the biggest component at all. It was something that I was really interested in for a long time during the making of the tape, but it's not necessarily a huge faction at all. It was more so just a booster, a bit of fuel. It's an allegory to acid, more so than just a tape about acid," he said.
Jazz great John Coltrane was a regular LSD user who used the drug to create music and to have spiritual experiences. Though he struggled with addiction throughout his life, LSD was one drug that had a major artistic influence on him. While it's not known for sure if the album Om—which includes chanted verses of the Bhagavad Gita—was recorded while Coltrane was on LSD, many rumors theorize that it was.
"Coltrane's LSD experiences confirmed spiritual insights he had already discovered rather than radically changing his perspective," wrote Eric Nisenson in Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest. "After one early acid trip he said, 'I perceived the interrelationship of all life forms,' an idea he had found repeated in many of the books on Eastern theology that he had been reading for years. For Coltrane, who for years had been trying to relate mystical systems such as numerology and astrology, theories of modern physics and mathematics, the teachings of the great spiritual leaders, and advanced musical theory, and trying somehow to pull these threads into something he could play on his horn. The LSD experience gave him visceral evidence that his quest was on the right track."
Jenny Lewis — Acid Tongue
Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis wrote the song "Acid Tongue" about her first and only experience on LSD, which happened when she was fourteen. She told Rolling Stone, "It culminated in a scene not unlike something from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—the scene where Hunter S. Thompson has to lock the lawyer in the bathroom. I sort of assumed the Hunter S. Thompson character and my friend – she had taken far too much – decided to pull a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer and chase me around the house… At the end of that experience, my mom was out of town on a trip of her own and she returned to find me about 5 lbs lighter and I had—I was so desperate to get back to normal I decided to drink an entire gallon of orange juice. I saw that it was in the fridge and decided that this would sort of flush the LSD out of my system, but I didn't realize that it did exactly the opposite."
The Beach Boys' mastermind Brian Wilson was famously inspired by psychedelics, which both expanded and endangered his fragile and brilliant mind. After his first acid trip in 1965, an experience that he said "expanded his mind," Wilson wrote "California Gurls." After the trip, however, Wilson began suffering from auditory hallucinations and symptoms of schizophrenia, and though he discontinued use of the drug, he continued to hear voices; doctors eventually diagnosed him with the disease. Wilson later lamented his tragic experiences with LSD, stating that he wished he'd never done the drug.
Though it led Wilson on a downward spiral, LSD inspired some of his band's greatest work—namely the iconic Pet Sounds, which launched half a century of "acid-pop copycats."
The Flaming Lips — Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" is widely believed to be the product of lead singer Wayne Coyne's LSD experimentation. This theory is corroborated by the fact that the album's cover features the number 25 (and LSD is also known as LSD-25). They also frequently reference LSD in their music, which includes an album called Finally, the Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid.
the flaming lips yoshimi battles the pink robots part 1www.youtube.com
Jimi Hendrix — Voodoo Child
While there is still some general contention on whether Jimi Hendrix hallucinated frequently, nobody really doubts that he did. According to rumors, the legendary musician even used to soak his bandanas in acid before going onstage so the drug would seep through his pores.
According to one source, Hendrix did more than just play music while tripping. He was also an expert at (of all things) the game of Risk.
"Jimi would play Risk on acid, and I never — and me personally — ever beat him at all," said Graham Nash in an interview. "He was unbelievable at it. He was a military man, you know, he's a paratrooper, and I don't know whether you know that about Jimi, but no one ever beat him at Risk."
The Doors — The End
Jim Morrison was a documented LSD user, and it eventually led him out of his mind. "The psychedelic Jim I knew just a year earlier, the one who was constantly coming up with colorful answers to universal questions, was being slowly tortured by something we didn't understand. But you don't question the universe before breakfast for years and not pay a price," said John Desmore in Riders on the Storm: My Life With the Doors.
Morrison used many different drugs during his lifetime, but apparently LSD had a special place and he avoided using it while working. "LSD was a sacred sacrament that was to be taken on the beach at Venice, under the warmth of the sun, with our father the sun and our mother the ocean close by, and you realised how divine you were," said Ray Manzarek. "It wasn't a drug for entertainment. You could smoke a joint and play your music, as most musicians did at the time. But as far as taking LSD, that had to be done in a natural setting."
Morrison himself—a visionary who was also a drug-addled narcissist—was kind of the prototypical 1960s LSD-addled rock star. Alive with visions about poetry and sex but lost in his own self-destruction, he perhaps touched on something of the sublime with his art, but in the end he went down a very human path towards misery and decay.
Like many of these artists' stories, Morrison's life reveals that perhaps instead of using hallucinogens and psychedelics as shortcuts to a spiritual experience, one should exercise extreme caution when exploring the outer reaches of the psyche. When it comes to actually engaging with potent hallucinogens, that might be best left to the shamans, or forgotten with the excesses of the 1960s.
On the other hand, we might do well to learn from the lessons that people have gleaned from hallucinogens over the years—lessons that reveal just how interconnected everything is, that shows us that music and memory and nature may just all stem from the same place.
Who gave Harry Styles the right to be so genuine, so talented, so enlightened, and so utterly adorable? I'm so mad. I emerged from the One Direction craze almost completely unscathed and even managed to sleep on Harry's persona despite being a fan of his new music—until Rob Sheffield just had to step into that Tesla with a pen and a wide-open heart.
"The Eternal Sunshine of Harry Styles" might be one of the most flattering profiles that Rolling Stone has ever published, but it's well-written and persuasive enough to feel genuine. It might even make you fall in love. Here are some of the most infuriating details.
Transcendental Meditation and Psychedelic Adventures
Not only is Harry Styles a bonafide rock star—he's also on a spiritual journey. He practices transcendental meditation: that form of famous-person mindfulness pioneered by (my favorite filmmaker) David Lynch.
He's also into psychedelics. At one point in the interview, he and Sheffield go to Shangri-La studios, where Harry wrote a lot of his album while tripping, drinking, and enjoying the local ambiance. "We'd do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney's Ram in the sunshine," he said (and I totally have not been listening to Ram the entire time that I've been writing this article).
While I've never felt the need to try psychedelic drugs, I tend to have the best discussions with people who have, and one would imagine that Harry would make an excellent conversationalist. He's probably an environmentalist, too (there's proof that psychedelics make people feel more connected to the earth!), and he most likely has some very interesting theories about reality and the universe that this author would absolutely not love to hear about, preferably while getting stoned on a Malibu beach at 4 AM or something.
Trying to Subsist on Coffee Alone
"Man cannot live by coffee alone," says Harry in the middle of the interview. "But he will give it a damn good try."
As I'm on my fourth cup of the day while writing this, Harry, we clearly understand each other. (I also blame the entirety of this article on the adrenaline shooting through my veins thanks to Dunkin's $2 cold brews).
He Reads Murakami for God's Sake
Apparently, Harry has a fabulous (or at least, my exact) taste in art. "In February, he spent his 25th birthday sitting by himself in a Tokyo cafe, reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," writes Sheffield.
Forget Robert Pattinson's tired "date a girl who reads" refrain. Date someone who spends their birthday alone reading Murakami.
Harry also loves David Bowie, Joni Mitchell's Blue, and Stevie Nicks. I'm not saying this is anything more than a coincidence, but I happen to love David Bowie, Joni Mitchell's Blue, and Stevie Nicks.
Both Woke and Humble: Feminism, Black Lives Matter, and the Art of Genuine Allyship
On a serious note, if this interview is to be believed, Harry is the embodiment of a genuine ally. To be clear, "performative allyship" is that thing where people pretend to care about social issues, but they're really just trying to bolster their own image.
Sweet, self-aware Harry, though, seems to have transcended this entirely. "I'm aware that as a white male, I don't go through the same things as a lot of the people that come to the shows. I can't claim that I know what it's like, because I don't. So I'm not trying to say, 'I understand what it's like.' I'm just trying to make people feel included and seen," he said.
"I think ultimately feminism is thinking that men and women should be equal, right? People think that if you say 'I'm a feminist,' it means you think men should burn in hell and women should trample on their necks. No, you think women should be equal. That doesn't feel like a crazy thing to me. I grew up with my mum and my sister — when you grow up around women, your female influence is just bigger. Of course, men and women should be equal. I don't want a lot of credit for being a feminist. It's pretty simple. I think the ideals of feminism are pretty straightforward."
This is gospel for our times. Harry clearly listens to women and cares about people other than himself. He respects his young female fans, something that is near and dear to my own heart. "They have that bulls**t detector," he added. "You want honest people as your audience. We're so past that dumb outdated narrative of 'Oh, these people are girls, so they don't know what they're talking about.' They're the ones who know what they're talking about. They're the people who listen obsessively. They f*cking own this sh*t. They're running it."
Regarding the Black Lives Matter sticker on his guitar, he said, "It's not about me trying to champion the cause, because I'm not the person to do that. It's just about not ignoring it, I guess. I was a little nervous to do that because the last thing I wanted was for it to feel like I was saying, 'Look at me! I'm the good guy!' I didn't want anyone who was really involved in the movement to think, 'What the f*ck do you know?' But then when I did it, I realized people got it. Everyone in that room is on the same page and everyone knows what I stand for. I'm not saying I understand how it feels. I'm just trying to say, 'I see you.'"
So, maybe I'm praising a white dude to the high heavens for doing a rather minimal amount of listening and acknowledging his own privilege, but the bar is pretty low, OK?
Pink and Green Nail Polish: Performing Non-Toxic, Vulnerable, Queer Masculinity
Harry Styles is basically the Keanu Reeves of his generation, and here's why. They're straight dudes, yes, but they're also emotionally vulnerable and in touch with their feelings.
Aesthetically, they embody a fluid, gender-queer kind of masculinity that doesn't fit inside binaries or restrain itself to labels. Harry arguably does this more visibly than Keanu and in this, he's doing vitally important work.
After all, toxic masculinity may be one of the most poisonous diseases ever to descend upon humanity. Think about how many genocides began because of toxic masculinity. Think of how many angry men have started fires or wars or committed murders because of their own vendettas against the world and themselves.
In the era of "social justice warriors," many men have responded by criticism by becoming even more toxically masculine—i.e. the incels or anybody on 8chan—and speaking of this, so many mass shooters in America share a vicious hatred of women that arguably stems from their own insecurities or traumas. Hatred of women and hatred of the earth have a lot in common, too. You could argue that toxic masculinity and its relatives—rugged individualism, cutthroat competition, and relentless greed—are root causes of climate change, and therefore are going to cause the end of the world.
— (@)
But Harry is showing us that there is a different way. As Harry reveals, deconstructing masculinity and the binary prison that is gender is a positive, liberating thing for all people.
The Article Ended With Harry Hugging His Mom
At the end of the article, Stevie Nicks dedicates a performance of her song "Landslide" to Harry and his mom, and they hug for the entirety of the song. The sheer audacity.
