Mind-altering adventures are becoming a huge - and unregulated business in the FT
“The pursuit of sleeker, longer-living, generally better versions of ourselves has begotten a global industry that was recently valued by McKinsey at $1.5tn.
Increasingly those wanting to change their lives are doing so by changing their minds. The controlled ingestion of consciousness-altering plant compounds, for years a vanguard trend, is now edging towards the mainstream, and taking on the contours of a major industry.”
The Netflix series “How to Change Your Mind” based on Michael Pollan’s book just came out and both are very good and popular. Lucy Walker did a great work creating the series.
We aren’t talking about the hippie crowd anymore.
Business leaders and CEOs are going in secret to retreats, medically supervised experiences and ceremonies with indigenous or trained facilitators.
There isn’t a single day that I don’t hear about new retreats, new retreat centers, new business people having tried and saying it was “life-changing” if it was done seriously.
The FT says it’s a “huge unregulated” business that is just in its infancy.
It needs everything and reminds me of the beginnings of the Internet 30 years ago. I do believe the movement will be as transformative as the Internet was. The reason is simple, it’s about living better and longer and everyone is interested in that.
It is not just about “psychedelics” it’s about well-being in general and changing the way you think and live entirely as Joe Dispenza beautiful explains in this video because stress is killing us, we need to change our behavior now.
Psychedelics are just one way to change our lives.
Meditation and other “spiritual” practices without taking any substance are also already a huge trend for those who don’t want to rely on something external (or illegal where they live) to take.
There are many issues and who to trust is the main one, both for “spiritual” and for psychedelics experiences.
Ancient technologies and knowledge from indigenous or monks are being rediscovered and more and more seen as important as new technologies.
I think it is a very big deal that the Financial Times writes about it despite the fact that it is illegal in most countries.
We are only at the beginning of a huge movement and birth of a whole new economic sector.
It is fascinating to see and this is why I write so much about this and spent so much time these last 5 years studying it.
In a society in loss of bearings where most people are in search of meaning, there is what I would call a sparadrad-type approach which consists in letting oneself go and telling oneself that one can cure the effects. And indeed when we are there, the business is not far away... "I am totally perplexed about this approach of spirituality. No questioning of a system which has shown its weaknesses and its limits. yes, "Ancient technologies and knowledge from indigenous or monks are being rediscovered and more and more seen as important as new technologies." But let's not forget that technology, homo-sapiens absolutely cannot adapt to it. anthropocentric in which we live leaves little room for the Living and what is alive in each of us. To use the term technology for spirituality is to find a way to say that the world cannot function on the the only source of science, nor even of the arts. But that an awakened secular spirituality makes it possible to find meaning. Innovation or technology without meaning is not progress. Rediscovered a sacred dimension at the crossroads of the art, science and spirituality is to rediscover hope in the present. The seeds of the future are in the present. Develop a deep vision to get back to feeling and trying to see things as they are. When I read you, I have the impression of navigating in "Samsara". I invite you to read for example "métamorphose de l'esprit" by Tich Nath Han. It seems important to me today to clean up imaginaries to build new narratives. The business of mindfulness is just business. People need more than "tout à l'Ego".