I have some exciting news to share: though I’d nearly given up on my book project, I recently received multiple offers of literary representation. I signed with an agent, and I could not be happier with her. She is a brilliant woman who believes in my work and wants to help spread a message about facing demons and waking the hell up.
Don’t let me get ahead of myself. The traditional publishing industry is a notoriously difficult space; there are no guarantees. Still, landing a capable agent is typically the most low-odds part of the process, so the Stoke Level is high, my friends. These past two months, I’ve been deep inside proposal revisions.
Tomorrow, I leave for Natura Care Program’s two-week retreat with our very first cohort of participants. There, we will immerse in nature, meditate, practice yoga, spend time in sacred silence, and participate in three yagé (ayahuasca) ceremonies, using shamanic and contemplative practices to enhance holistic recovery. We are proud that the majority of our cohort received scholarship assistance from generous donors, like Project New Day and Paul Stamets, making this work accessible to anyone who needs it.
My book and NCP are both progressing well and I’m feeling extremely fortunate right now. Yet this all has left me with less time for the newsletter, which is perhaps my most cherished project of all—indeed, the progenitor of all the others.
For nearly two years, I published here every Friday, which undoubtedly helped hone my craft. For the last year, my cadence has been bi-weekly—okay, maybe more like once every third week. Today I suspect many of you have inboxes flooded with Substack newsletters, now from some of your favorite legendary writers. Substack is dominating the space, which I’m thrilled about, because its ease-of-use helped me summon the courage to publish my writing online four years ago now.
In an increasingly crowded (and polluted) information ecology, I believe quality trumps quantity. I will not send you an essay to simply to maintain a publishing calendar—that’s my philosophy of late, at least. That said, after the retreat, I hope to publish some of the pieces I’ve been slowly sculpting. I also have some exciting upgrades planned for both the newsletter and the community.
Today I’d like to share seven ‘recommendations’—things to read, to watch, to hear that I think, maybe, will make your day or night or life a little more interesting.
1: Michael Pollan has brought How to Change Your Mind to Netflix, which marks a major milestone for the psychedelic movement. This series is an incredibly solid entry point: it’s what you send your parents and friends who are curious/concerned about psychedelics, etc. It also adds tremendous legitimacy to the therapeutic value of psychedelic interventions to combat addiction. The very first episode discusses how Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, had his spiritual awakening via psychedelics, as I’ve written about.
The publication of Pollan’s HTCYM book has been widely cited as the catalyst for today’s Psychedelic Renaissance. This bears truth—it’s the book I sent my parents in early recovery to help them understand my studies of ayahuasca and addiction. We owe Pollan enormous gratitude for bridging Boomers and youth, rationalism and mysticiscm. Yet, it’s worth noting that it’s incorrect to attribute the resurgence solely to him—there’d be no Psychedelic Renaissance without the individuals who have been quietly doing this work for years. The curanderas, policy advocates working to decriminalize nature, indigenous lineage-holders of sacred knowledge from the forest, medical researchers, psychotherapists who risk their careers to guide people in need, early voices in the addiction space expanding the notion of ‘legitimate’ recovery, psychonauts, and so many more.
The psychedelic movement has always been ‘underground.’
2: Perhaps unsurprisingly, when the “intellectual dark web” thinkers (“IDW,” aka Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein, etc.) emerged to prominence c. 2018, I closely followed their work. Rebel Wisdom has chartered the rise and fall of the IDW, focusing on renegade psychologist Jordan Peterson in particular. Peterson rose to fame as a Jungian, bridging mythology, religion, and the classic WASP ethos of personal responsibility in the vintage of Emerson and Thoreau. But it’s now more accurate to call him a culture warrior for the Anti-Woke Right. His arc is a fascinating case study in what happens to a media figure who becomes absorbed by algorithmic audience capture dynamics and finds himself on the far end of a Narrative of Sense. Agree or disagree with him, Peterson was once a voice for Reason (in an ontological sense). He can no longer claim that mantle.
I became especially interested in Peterson when he retreated from public life due to benzodiazepine dependency, a brutal affliction I know well. I documented “high-functioning” addiction case studies like Peterson and Tony Hsieh here:
Much to my dismay, Peterson has never once owned his addiction, careful to always label it as a dependency, blaming doctors for initially prescribing benzos (which, alas, is a real problem, but c’mon, man).
His career has descended into painfully formulaic forays into highly ‘clickable’ trolling of trans and other marginalized communities, going so low as to issue some of these attacks personally, calling out people by name simply for having been brave enough to live their lives the way they want to live them. This could not be further from his original message, again, the classically Western ethos of self-determination and self-reliance.
His arc is also a case study in what can happen to ‘intellectuals’ moving through cultural philosophies—in his case, initially pushing back against the shadow side of postmodernism, calling for a bridge between traditionalism and modernity. But then recently, it seems he’s wholly descended back into tribalistic levels of awareness, where his critics say he’s always been. For integral theory nerds out there, Ken Wilber breaks down Peterson’s rise and fall from an integral lens.
3: Sparkling water. Really, really good sparkling water. I’m not kidding. No metaphor. We booze-free folk do love our bubbles. I’ve finally found it.
4: A massive umbrella study suggests that serotonin does not play as big a role in depression as previously thought, which some take to imply that the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression is myth. It’s been fascinating to watch the (online) psychology/therapy/researcher world react to this. Responses range from “researchers have always known that chemical imbalance narrative is a myth” to “we won’t be able to explain how SSRI’s work until we know more about quantum biology (because if serotonin is not a factor in depression, how does one account for the clear benefit individuals experience from SSRI/SNRIs?) to “Tom Cruise was right!”
I’ve also seen psychologists point out that Dr. Moncrieff, who led the study, is notoriously anti-psychopharmaceutical, and sometimes, when you look for something, you find what you are looking for. (Armies create wars, as medicines can create disease.) In any case, for malaise as complex as depression and addiction, I’m hopeful that a bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach becomes more commonplace.
5: There’s no such thing as an addictive personality. I found this from Holly Whitaker’s recent newsletter, “Can you moderate alcohol?” which is so good, that I think I’ll just link folks to it when they ask me this question. No one is better at busting our social conditioning around alcohol.
6: Deep Fix community: join us on Discord, for our next book club read (we are voting on Louise’s picks), or at our next dialogue. Post LDW Bay Area meetup is in the works as well, reach out if you’re local.
7: Several weeks ago I had a tweet go viral. So, obviously, I need to show you.
P.S. Though this doesn’t count as a recommendation, it is in the spirit of recommendations: I am receiving more and more requests for trusted referrals from folks seeking support/growth. I’d like to find a way to streamline this process and provide a solid resource. If you are a coach, therapist, counselor, executive advisor, expanded states of consciousness guide, integration specialist, or any type of practitioner, I am compiling a list for a “Deep Fix Directory.” If you’re not already in the DFx community and if you’d like to be vetted and potentially included, please fill out this form.
Thanks for reading Deep Rex. You can support my work by sending this to a friend or by hitting the heart button below. 🖤
Thank you for the Deep Rex! I look forward to the myriad other spinoffs you may conjure up, particularly Deep Lox - a study of bagels and their toppings.
I especially appreciate the narrative arc of Jordan Peterson, as this particular internet thing has brought about a quiet incomprehensible consternation that you have resolved by providing this context.
May your literary labours be fruitful, your tweets be viral, and your newsletters full of news!
As someone who suffers from treatment resistant major depressive disorder and has tried a ridiculous assortment of medications with very little luck over the decades, I found Johann Hari's 2018 book 'Lost Connections' to be an eye opener and a huge paradigm shift away from the seretonin deficiency model of depression.