It doesn’t take a third eye to see that, at long last, Americans seem primed to turn on. If you’ve heard yourself utter the phrase “plant medicine” when what you mean is “shrooms,” if you’ve found yourself absently Googling “ayahuasca retreats” the way you used to look for beach getaways, if you’ve got a friend who flew across the country to take a “heroic dose” of psilocybin in the care of a shaman and you felt the sharp prick of jealousy…you are, well, hardly alone.
We’re talking senior citizens (“…psychedelics are wasted on the young,” author and mushroom mainstreamer Michael Pollan told AARP) and moms (“Magic Mushrooms Helped Me Cope With Postpartum Depression,” writes Good Housekeeping). We’re talking business executives looking for creative inspiration, and guys who wouldn’t be caught dead in a tie-dye searching for a little magic in their lives, be it a psychological breakthrough, a mystical experience, or just a mind-blowingly bananas weekend.
I’m one of those looking for a little magic. Twenty-five years ago I left my somewhat steady diet of mushrooms, blotter, and MDMA behind me (kids, career, fear I’d been pushing my luck). But lately, along with the rest of America, I’ve been itching to hop back on the psychedelic horse after years of looking longingly at the saddle.
And guess what? My time has come. But I’m not deep in the Peruvian jungle holding a feather and chanting in a language I don’t understand. No, I find myself on a Santa Monica sidewalk, staring at a brick building—wedged between a hot-yoga studio and a clean-ish looking youth hostel—home to Reality Center, which offers hour-long psychedelic experiences.