“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”
― Terence McKenna
Psychedelics comes from the Greek words ψυχή (psychḗ) meaning ‘soul, mind’ and δηλείν (dēleín) meaning ‘to manifest,’ or it can be summed up as “mind-manifesting.” The word itself is self-explanatory; anyone who engages in psychedelics may have a profound experience that can alter their mind and perceptions.
A psychedelic experience shouldn’t be taken lightly. This experience, often referred to as a “trip,” is a journey that allows a person to experience the world with heightened sensations—whether visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory, or gustatory. This trip is so profound that many report it as life-changing. But how can this happen?
Usually, someone experiencing a life-changing trip is confronting their own illusions. In daily life, we sometimes forget or deny these illusions. Perhaps it’s the illusion that no one loves us, leading us to sabotage our relationships. Or the illusion that we don’t love ourselves, causing us to indulge in self-harming habits like smoking or drinking alcohol. An illusion is something that deceives us, something we don’t want to see—often a lie we tell ourselves that keeps us from being happy.
During a psychedelic trip, you may face these illusions or negative thought loops. You can’t turn your back on them; you have to confront them. You must understand what these illusions have done to you, what the consequences are, and where they are leading you. For instance, if you have the illusion that no one loves you, you might realize that you keep sabotaging your relationships because you don’t love yourself, and you will understand that if you continue down this path, you could end up alone. To dispel the illusion, a person should return to love, because love is the strongest force in the world.
A person who can return to a state of love will continue their trip in a blissful state, and sometimes, this can change their perspective or even their life entirely. This is why psychedelics have been used to treat people with clinical depression and PTSD.
Bitcoin is a psychedelics
It’s not hard to imagine Bitcoin being considered a psychedelic. The network that Bitcoin uses resembles the network of fungi or magic mushrooms, known as mycelium. You can explore the correlation between Bitcoin and fungi in Brandon Quittem’s in-depth explanation, “Bitcoin is The Mycelium of Money.” According to Quittem, Bitcoin is a decentralized organism, just like a magic mushroom. Bitcoin doesn’t have a centralized brain; instead, it thrives through a root network similar to mycelium. This network constantly feeds and evolves based on its surrounding environment. Just like Bitcoin, mycelium lacks a centralized brain. In Bitcoin, the network itself acts as an apex predator, absorbing, learning, and adapting to its environment. Because of these characteristics, it is nearly impossible to kill mycelium, just as it is almost impossible to destroy the Bitcoin network.
Psychedelics like magic mushrooms contain psilocybin, which, upon ingestion, can create a mind-altering experience. Psilocybin can change someone’s perception, distort their sense of time, and induce a spiritual experience. While Bitcoin doesn’t contain a chemical compound (at least not yet in its evolution), “ingesting” the Bitcoin orange pill can somewhat provide a similar kind of psychedelic experience.
Someone who has taken the Bitcoin orange pill will have their mind altered. We’ve been living in a constant bad trip inside a fiat world—a world filled with illusions that condition us to obey, conform, and consume in every aspect of our lives. The fiat world wants us to watch TV and stay asleep. Nothing describes this better than the 1988 movie “They Live.” Interestingly, in the movie, the main character Nada’s sunglasses are called the Hoffmann Glasses—a nod to Albert Hoffmann, the first person to synthesize lysergic acid (LSD), a psychedelic substance.
Once you start going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, it’s like putting on Hoffmann Glasses—you see the world in a new light. You realize that our current lifestyle is designed to perpetuate the fiat system. And much like on a psychedelic trip, once you see this truth, it’s almost impossible to ignore. You’re confronted with the reality that the fiat system is damaging our society, relationships, and health. Bitcoin provides a wake-up call, just like psychedelics—it’s time to change and tune in.
People who experience the Bitcoin psychedelic start to observe the world around them, identifying what’s wrong and how to fix it. They also begin to experience time differently. Psychedelics distort time, making a few minutes feel like an eternity. Similarly, Bitcoin reshapes our time preference. We’re so accustomed to operating with a high time preference, seeking immediate gratification and discounting the future. Bitcoin shifts our mindset to a low time preference, where our actions are geared toward benefiting our future selves. Most Bitcoiners have a positive outlook on their future; they are more optimistic about starting families and building communities.
Psychedelics are also known for dissolving the ego, leading people to lose the concept of “I” and focus less on individuality. Similarly, Bitcoin has this effect—those who have journeyed down the Bitcoin path often see themselves as part of a collective, working together toward a common goal. This is why so many Bitcoiners are also psychonauts. It’s easier to understand what’s wrong with the world after taking psychedelics, and it becomes even clearer once you explore the Bitcoin rabbit hole.
Taking psychedelics requires courage; it’s not an easy task. If you have a bad trip, it gets incredibly real. The only way out is to understand that the answer to everything is love: love for yourself, love for others. Bitcoin takes us on a similar journey. Some might consider Bitcoin’s volatility akin to a bad trip—it tests us as human beings, challenging whether we will succumb to fear or thrive with conviction. But in the end, holding Bitcoin is an act of love: love for ourselves, love for our families, and love for our future. @Americanhodl3 spoke about this so eloquently in this clip.
The Struggle of Psychedelics
Despite their remarkable properties and potential to cure, many psychedelics have been classified as Schedule I substances by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), considered more dangerous than opium, which is listed as a Schedule II substance. According to WHO data, approximately 500,000 deaths are attributable to drug use, with more than 70% of these deaths related to opioids.
The war on drugs is more accurately a war on consciousness. The War on Drugs was announced in 1971, coincidentally the same year the U.S. stopped pegging the dollar to gold. Drugs were deemed so harmful to society because, for the first time in history, people stood up against their government and refused to go to war.
Bitcoin is facing a similar struggle, but instead of a war on drugs, we are witnessing a war on currencies. As the dollar slowly loses its status quo, the world is dividing into those who choose Bitcoin and those who choose fiat. One offers a fair monetary system, while the other does not. One provides opportunities for your future, while the other steals from you. Which one will you choose?
Final words
And one last note: if you are currently on a Bitcoin psychedelic journey, Timothy Leary, a famous psychonaut, offers a powerful framework. Leary’s famous slogan, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out,” can be applied to navigating the Bitcoin psychedelic experience.
“Turn On” means to activate your neural and genetic potential—become aware of the many levels of consciousness and layers of Bitcoin: cryptography, thermodynamics, economics, politics, distributed systems, and more.
“Tune In” means to interact harmoniously with the world around you—express your unique perspective on Bitcoin, externalize and materialize it, and build a Bitcoin community around you.
“Drop Out” means to detach yourself from the fiat world—stack sats diligently, HODL, and gradually transition to the Bitcoin standard, using Bitcoin as your unit of account.
Bon voyage, have a pleasant trip, and remember: “All you need is love,” my friend.