Good work again. Thorough and backed up with plenty of evidence. One side note, your citation of Langlitz & Gearin references pgs 182-183 in Dr. Sidney Cohen's "The Beyond Within", if you go to page 188 (mine is the 1967 Atheneum edition), he specifically compares "brainwashing" techniques to psychedelic therapy and I know his book is about LSD, but he goes on with a bunch of assertations that are relevant to all psychedelic/MDMA therapy in that chapter. From page 193: "But more important, the LSD technique is so dramatic and powerful that it fills whatever occult needs some therapists may have to be a mighty, all-powerful figure. Such therapists can hardly be expected to guide their patients toward psychological maturity when they themselves have major unresolved problems.", From page 199: "...the therapist must believe in his brand of therapy if favorable results are to be expected. Naturally those who have faith in their type of therapy will be biased in their judgements of patient improvement. The patient himself is not necessarily a good judge of the therapeutic effect." A book worth reading, and 60 years old too.
A lot of books about LSD were written 60 years ago by therapists that were working for the CIA. Their opinion of what could be done with it were vastly different from what most people thought it could be used for. The CIA wanted it for brainwashing, etc., and believed it mimicked a person suffering from severe mental illness. Other doctors, writers, etc., believed it was an incredible drug that could be used to break free from the systems we are forced to live in and to experience the world as it truly exists, in infinity, in the ever present now. There are amazing uses for these medicines if we approach them from the right viewpoint and do it responsibly. Read “ACID DREAMS” if you need a great source for what the CIA was up to. ✌🏻
I am grateful that the author is raising awareness around a subject that can easily be swept under the rug in our enthusiasm for a miracle cure. But I feel like what constitutes an exploitative cult (remembering that the term cult has been used to describe devotional groups across many practices) needs to be laid out more clearly before applying the term to MAPS so forcefully. Some widely agreed-upon characteristics of an exploitive cult include:
1. Charismatic leadership: Cults often have a charismatic leader who demands unquestioning loyalty and obedience.
2. Exclusivity: Cults often promote an "us vs. them" mentality, claiming to be the only path to truth or salvation.
3. Isolation: Members are encouraged or required to cut ties with family and friends outside the group.
4. Control: The cult exerts significant control over members' lives, including their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
5. Manipulation: Cults use various forms of psychological manipulation, such as guilt, shame, and fear, to keep members in line.
6. Exploitation: Members may be exploited for their labor, money, or sexual services.
7. Dogma: Cults often have a strict set of beliefs that members must adhere to without question.
8. Persecution complex: Cults often claim that they are being persecuted by the government, media, or other outside forces.
9. Difficult exit: Leaving the cult is often difficult, as members may face harassment, shunning, or even threats of violence.
It's important to note that not all new religious movements or alternative groups are necessarily cults. The key distinguishing factor is the level of control and harm inflicted on members.
In any event, I wish the article had started with a clear definition of what constitutes a cult in the author's view, and had then been structured around the specific ways in which the evidence supported applying the term to MAPS, etc.
In my personal experience, having taken part in a number of healing groups over the past 20 years, I'm always on the lookout for: a charismatic leader who cannot be questioned; a deliberate effort to separate me from those I love, and a deliberate effort to separate me from (substantial amounts of) my money. I have not experienced these elements in the various Grof-inspired altered state work that I've benefited from as a patient. Do I feel like the devotion to altered-state work as a panacea can sometimes feel uncritical? Yes. But as a trauma survivor who is hyper-vigilant around these issues, this has not been my experience with HB, etc.
I am fully supportive of raising awareness around the potential for harm, but I am not convinced that MAPS operates as an abusive cult considering the above. I hope these issues are explicitly addressed in all psychedelic therapist training, and in all communities devoted to altered state healing work.
The greatest red flags to me are the Control and Exclusivity characteristics which you describe above. MAPS exerts considerable influence over survivors as they have the power to giveth or taketh away a treatment that’s been presented, in many cases, as a survivor’s last resort other than suicide. If that’s not control, I don’t know what is.
There’s also the exclusivity element. If you’re able you receive MDMA you are lucky because it’s not something everyone can access. I’ve already experienced this with soon to be MDMA providers. They say, we’ve got a waiting list. Everyone wants this treatment. So, on a psychological level it engenders a sense of FOMO fear of missing out on a chance of a lifetime.
The question for me is how are survivors suppose to navigate this brave new world on a way that feels empowering as opppsed to exploitive? How do survivors feel a sense of freedom and autonomy from the ‘undue influence’ of MAPS?
Again, can't thank you enough for your courageous efforts to bring the MAPS scam to an end. I hope and expect this to become a major turning point in the so called psychedelic renaissance. I have watched Doblin's scam from the very beginning, It has always amazed me how many people fell for his glib and obviously insincere espousal of the marvelous effects of MDMA and other psychedelic drugs so he and his cult could profit egotistically and financially. There are so many things wrong with American psychedelic drug policy that cause these sometimes sacred drugs to be weaponized, commodified, and criminalized, while their spiritual, scientific, recreational, and therapeutic virtues are squandered. The first thing that needs to change is the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, which not only wrongly classifies these drugs as having "no medical use and a high potential for abuse," the CSA also places the authority to regulate these drugs to the DEA. It is in effect a martial law. We can clearly see the effects of this dysfunctional law n the history of MDMA. MDMA was an orphan drug for most of its life. That is, no pharmaceutical company owned it. Merck first conceived it in 1914 and tested it, I think, as an appetite suppressant. Finding no special properties in animal testing, the drug was released into the public domain. There it sat until the 1950 when Alexander Shulgin and others tested it, for things we don't know, at the top secret Edgewood Arsenal for chemical weapons. According to the official story, it was found to have no special properties, a story I do not believe. Then in the 1960s Shulgin and Gordon Alles began to look into it again. Slowly at first the substance began to work its way into the underground psychedelic community of therapists. Shulgin began to instruct clandestine chemists how to make it, and acquire the precursors. I organized a few chemists in the early 1980s and with Shulgin's help, began to produce it, with the hopes that this marvelous drug, with unique therapeutic properties would help our society gradually open to the more profound mysteries of the classic psychedelics that had become eclipsed during the hysteria of the 1960s. We intended to learn from those errors, Leary was to blame, for excessively promoting these drugs in the wrong context. My project turned on many hundreds of volunteers who were asked to describe their experience in a natural setting and submit a written report. Above all, they were asked to keep this substance secret. It was being used discreetly and had not attracted the attention of the DEA. There was no reason to make it illegal, until Doblin entered the scene. Of all the people my project turned on, he was the only one to violate the oath of secrecy. He called the government, and the media, the Partnership for a Drug Free America to announce the existence of this legal love drug. In so doing, he won the graces of the government, and the media who sensationally proclaimed him the Timothy Leary of the 1980s. Almost overnight MDMA, which became known as Ecstasy, went from a secret tool to the most popular recreational drug in the world. I happen to know, though direct personal experience, that Charles Schuster, the psychopharmacologist at the University of Chicago, provided the government with the main justification for making MDMA a Schedule 1 drug was in fact involved in a conspiracy, a secret arrangement with "the government." He told me, the government asked him to declare with no research to support his claim, that MDMA caused damage to nerve cells in the brain. A dramatic announcement of this supposed nerve damage came on May 31, 1985, at the University of Chicago, where just weeks before Schuster and I were discussing how to demonstrate the drugs unique therapeutic properties.... Charles Schuster, for his willingness to do what the government told him was rewarded with a promotion to head the National Institute of Drug Abuse.....Once Doblin helped to popularize MDMA it very quickly, in a matter of months, the most popular recreational drug in the world. All over America, and Europe, young people were treated to this substance in trance-like music conditions. Soon it became clear that the commerce of MDMA was mostly Israeli organized crime, with links their intelligence apparatus, Mossad.... while Doblin commenced his MAPS scam. If MDMA were placed in Schedule 3, as the law judge Francis Young recommended, it would have been more available for research, clinical uses, and for independent chemists to produce. But the Controlled Substance Act authorizes the DEA to reject the recommendations of the scientific or medical community, and that has to change.... I will be writing more about modern psychedelic history, which is poorly understood, due to misleading mainstream narratives vigorously promoted in the media and in books like Michael Pollan's. The true history of these drugs is really a lot more interesting, and complicated. You won't understand it however, if you are allergic to so called conspiracy theories. US drug policy is a farce. Drugs are made illegal not because the government wants to protect people by forbidding their use. Drugs are illegal because that way organized crime with links to secret government agencies can control the market. Alfred McCoy's classic book, originating from his PhD thesis at Yale, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, is a good place to start understanding the depth of the problem. Our beloved psychedelic drugs are swept up in this government sponsored criminality too.....
I find Neşe's insights here to be especially activating. The points she's making are extremely important. I hope to see this conversation broadened considerably. It is needed at the most invisible and hardship affected intersections.
I would say it's a stretch to call MAPS a therapy cult. We need to keep in mind that this is a part of people trying to navigate a new field. While suggestibility is definitely a concern, implying it's part of MAPS' underlying agenda seems like a stretch. You could argue that some journalistic views are similar to cult behavior. But, we can't forget that these treatments align with the spiritual part of Doblin's mission. It's a sensible way to see how psychedelics can help with trauma recovery and mind growth through fresh views. He believes that this is an opportunity to help people expand their minds as well, and I think we can all agree that humanity is due for a mental upgrade. Understanding the risk of self-hypnosis is key. Even though MAPS/Lykos is being scrutinized now, it's a problem that will likely be faced universally.
Journalists are not mental health professionals working with a highly vulnerable population who are susceptible to undue influence. Behavioral control and thought control are aspects of authoritarian organizations. Do you think that trauma survivors might be in a highly vulnerable state when under the influence of a psychedelic drug? Do you think people who are desperate for relief and suffering might be willing to do whatever it takes to win the approval of those with power to offer them treatment? Would they tend to turn a blind eye to unethical conduct? Would they be willing to do anything (including testify at FDA hearing, raise money for the cause, March on Washington, send an email to their local congressmen, be uncritical and loyal in their praise and admiration of the work of the organization and be willing to overlook glaring flaws) in order to win the approval and attention of their leader, Rick Doblin, their savior?
You’re right, it’s not a cult, It’s a high control, top down organization which holds significant leverage and power over its loyal following so much so that it’s almost impossible to engage in reasonable deliberation of issues raised about the trial because the followers are too invested in the outcome and cannot be objective.
Lifton (1961) described “eight psychological themes which are predominant within the social field of the thought reform milieu” (Lifton, 1961, p. 420):
This is so tragically pathetic. Your bullshit "noble" narrative of "community organizing", "good science", "harm prevention", and "mitigating risk" are just masking your own axe to grind with certain people within MAPS and deeper envy and resentment. You should be ashamed of yourself for dedicating your energy in this way. I mean, you could've just posted about the legitimate abuses and limitations within MAPS without going to the FDA. Truly a despicable thing you've done.
I appreciate your insight and courage to write this piece. It’s a tough read while trying to discern, as someone else wrote here, how much of this harm is due to navigating a very new territory versus intentional action on the part of Doblin and MAPS therapists. I’ve seen and heard about similar abuses of power happening with charismatic psychedelic facilitators/leaders consciously entering dual relationships with clients for professional or personal gain. The increased suggestibility under MDMA was always dismissed especially using spiritual bypass and no one takes responsibility for the potential harm involved. I’ve also seen and experienced some spiritual bullying where untrained facilitators push boundaries under pretences that “you’re not trusting” or “your heart is closed”.
Thank you for your work on this important topic! Psychedelic-assisted therapy is uncharted territory both regarding patient and therapist safety: possible suggestibility and manipulation of patients, possible misinterpretation or false memories of therapist behavior in session, unclear ability to consent under the influence…) Unfortunately, while I fouled Kolft et al. 2022 stating ‘Findings indicate a complex memory profile but no heightened vulnerability to external suggestion in response to MDMA intoxication.’ i wasn’t able to find any other recent research showing suggestibility-increasing effects of MDMA or proneness to false memory formation. Maybe you could point me to the relevant sources? Thanks you so much!
Good work again. Thorough and backed up with plenty of evidence. One side note, your citation of Langlitz & Gearin references pgs 182-183 in Dr. Sidney Cohen's "The Beyond Within", if you go to page 188 (mine is the 1967 Atheneum edition), he specifically compares "brainwashing" techniques to psychedelic therapy and I know his book is about LSD, but he goes on with a bunch of assertations that are relevant to all psychedelic/MDMA therapy in that chapter. From page 193: "But more important, the LSD technique is so dramatic and powerful that it fills whatever occult needs some therapists may have to be a mighty, all-powerful figure. Such therapists can hardly be expected to guide their patients toward psychological maturity when they themselves have major unresolved problems.", From page 199: "...the therapist must believe in his brand of therapy if favorable results are to be expected. Naturally those who have faith in their type of therapy will be biased in their judgements of patient improvement. The patient himself is not necessarily a good judge of the therapeutic effect." A book worth reading, and 60 years old too.
A lot of books about LSD were written 60 years ago by therapists that were working for the CIA. Their opinion of what could be done with it were vastly different from what most people thought it could be used for. The CIA wanted it for brainwashing, etc., and believed it mimicked a person suffering from severe mental illness. Other doctors, writers, etc., believed it was an incredible drug that could be used to break free from the systems we are forced to live in and to experience the world as it truly exists, in infinity, in the ever present now. There are amazing uses for these medicines if we approach them from the right viewpoint and do it responsibly. Read “ACID DREAMS” if you need a great source for what the CIA was up to. ✌🏻
I am grateful that the author is raising awareness around a subject that can easily be swept under the rug in our enthusiasm for a miracle cure. But I feel like what constitutes an exploitative cult (remembering that the term cult has been used to describe devotional groups across many practices) needs to be laid out more clearly before applying the term to MAPS so forcefully. Some widely agreed-upon characteristics of an exploitive cult include:
1. Charismatic leadership: Cults often have a charismatic leader who demands unquestioning loyalty and obedience.
2. Exclusivity: Cults often promote an "us vs. them" mentality, claiming to be the only path to truth or salvation.
3. Isolation: Members are encouraged or required to cut ties with family and friends outside the group.
4. Control: The cult exerts significant control over members' lives, including their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
5. Manipulation: Cults use various forms of psychological manipulation, such as guilt, shame, and fear, to keep members in line.
6. Exploitation: Members may be exploited for their labor, money, or sexual services.
7. Dogma: Cults often have a strict set of beliefs that members must adhere to without question.
8. Persecution complex: Cults often claim that they are being persecuted by the government, media, or other outside forces.
9. Difficult exit: Leaving the cult is often difficult, as members may face harassment, shunning, or even threats of violence.
It's important to note that not all new religious movements or alternative groups are necessarily cults. The key distinguishing factor is the level of control and harm inflicted on members.
In any event, I wish the article had started with a clear definition of what constitutes a cult in the author's view, and had then been structured around the specific ways in which the evidence supported applying the term to MAPS, etc.
In my personal experience, having taken part in a number of healing groups over the past 20 years, I'm always on the lookout for: a charismatic leader who cannot be questioned; a deliberate effort to separate me from those I love, and a deliberate effort to separate me from (substantial amounts of) my money. I have not experienced these elements in the various Grof-inspired altered state work that I've benefited from as a patient. Do I feel like the devotion to altered-state work as a panacea can sometimes feel uncritical? Yes. But as a trauma survivor who is hyper-vigilant around these issues, this has not been my experience with HB, etc.
I am fully supportive of raising awareness around the potential for harm, but I am not convinced that MAPS operates as an abusive cult considering the above. I hope these issues are explicitly addressed in all psychedelic therapist training, and in all communities devoted to altered state healing work.
The greatest red flags to me are the Control and Exclusivity characteristics which you describe above. MAPS exerts considerable influence over survivors as they have the power to giveth or taketh away a treatment that’s been presented, in many cases, as a survivor’s last resort other than suicide. If that’s not control, I don’t know what is.
There’s also the exclusivity element. If you’re able you receive MDMA you are lucky because it’s not something everyone can access. I’ve already experienced this with soon to be MDMA providers. They say, we’ve got a waiting list. Everyone wants this treatment. So, on a psychological level it engenders a sense of FOMO fear of missing out on a chance of a lifetime.
The question for me is how are survivors suppose to navigate this brave new world on a way that feels empowering as opppsed to exploitive? How do survivors feel a sense of freedom and autonomy from the ‘undue influence’ of MAPS?
Again, can't thank you enough for your courageous efforts to bring the MAPS scam to an end. I hope and expect this to become a major turning point in the so called psychedelic renaissance. I have watched Doblin's scam from the very beginning, It has always amazed me how many people fell for his glib and obviously insincere espousal of the marvelous effects of MDMA and other psychedelic drugs so he and his cult could profit egotistically and financially. There are so many things wrong with American psychedelic drug policy that cause these sometimes sacred drugs to be weaponized, commodified, and criminalized, while their spiritual, scientific, recreational, and therapeutic virtues are squandered. The first thing that needs to change is the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, which not only wrongly classifies these drugs as having "no medical use and a high potential for abuse," the CSA also places the authority to regulate these drugs to the DEA. It is in effect a martial law. We can clearly see the effects of this dysfunctional law n the history of MDMA. MDMA was an orphan drug for most of its life. That is, no pharmaceutical company owned it. Merck first conceived it in 1914 and tested it, I think, as an appetite suppressant. Finding no special properties in animal testing, the drug was released into the public domain. There it sat until the 1950 when Alexander Shulgin and others tested it, for things we don't know, at the top secret Edgewood Arsenal for chemical weapons. According to the official story, it was found to have no special properties, a story I do not believe. Then in the 1960s Shulgin and Gordon Alles began to look into it again. Slowly at first the substance began to work its way into the underground psychedelic community of therapists. Shulgin began to instruct clandestine chemists how to make it, and acquire the precursors. I organized a few chemists in the early 1980s and with Shulgin's help, began to produce it, with the hopes that this marvelous drug, with unique therapeutic properties would help our society gradually open to the more profound mysteries of the classic psychedelics that had become eclipsed during the hysteria of the 1960s. We intended to learn from those errors, Leary was to blame, for excessively promoting these drugs in the wrong context. My project turned on many hundreds of volunteers who were asked to describe their experience in a natural setting and submit a written report. Above all, they were asked to keep this substance secret. It was being used discreetly and had not attracted the attention of the DEA. There was no reason to make it illegal, until Doblin entered the scene. Of all the people my project turned on, he was the only one to violate the oath of secrecy. He called the government, and the media, the Partnership for a Drug Free America to announce the existence of this legal love drug. In so doing, he won the graces of the government, and the media who sensationally proclaimed him the Timothy Leary of the 1980s. Almost overnight MDMA, which became known as Ecstasy, went from a secret tool to the most popular recreational drug in the world. I happen to know, though direct personal experience, that Charles Schuster, the psychopharmacologist at the University of Chicago, provided the government with the main justification for making MDMA a Schedule 1 drug was in fact involved in a conspiracy, a secret arrangement with "the government." He told me, the government asked him to declare with no research to support his claim, that MDMA caused damage to nerve cells in the brain. A dramatic announcement of this supposed nerve damage came on May 31, 1985, at the University of Chicago, where just weeks before Schuster and I were discussing how to demonstrate the drugs unique therapeutic properties.... Charles Schuster, for his willingness to do what the government told him was rewarded with a promotion to head the National Institute of Drug Abuse.....Once Doblin helped to popularize MDMA it very quickly, in a matter of months, the most popular recreational drug in the world. All over America, and Europe, young people were treated to this substance in trance-like music conditions. Soon it became clear that the commerce of MDMA was mostly Israeli organized crime, with links their intelligence apparatus, Mossad.... while Doblin commenced his MAPS scam. If MDMA were placed in Schedule 3, as the law judge Francis Young recommended, it would have been more available for research, clinical uses, and for independent chemists to produce. But the Controlled Substance Act authorizes the DEA to reject the recommendations of the scientific or medical community, and that has to change.... I will be writing more about modern psychedelic history, which is poorly understood, due to misleading mainstream narratives vigorously promoted in the media and in books like Michael Pollan's. The true history of these drugs is really a lot more interesting, and complicated. You won't understand it however, if you are allergic to so called conspiracy theories. US drug policy is a farce. Drugs are made illegal not because the government wants to protect people by forbidding their use. Drugs are illegal because that way organized crime with links to secret government agencies can control the market. Alfred McCoy's classic book, originating from his PhD thesis at Yale, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, is a good place to start understanding the depth of the problem. Our beloved psychedelic drugs are swept up in this government sponsored criminality too.....
I find Neşe's insights here to be especially activating. The points she's making are extremely important. I hope to see this conversation broadened considerably. It is needed at the most invisible and hardship affected intersections.
Can I ask that You actually explain the cult part specifically & in detail.
I’m not defending MAPS, but I only see You saying they are, not actually presenting evidence; by way of examples, of it.
I would say it's a stretch to call MAPS a therapy cult. We need to keep in mind that this is a part of people trying to navigate a new field. While suggestibility is definitely a concern, implying it's part of MAPS' underlying agenda seems like a stretch. You could argue that some journalistic views are similar to cult behavior. But, we can't forget that these treatments align with the spiritual part of Doblin's mission. It's a sensible way to see how psychedelics can help with trauma recovery and mind growth through fresh views. He believes that this is an opportunity to help people expand their minds as well, and I think we can all agree that humanity is due for a mental upgrade. Understanding the risk of self-hypnosis is key. Even though MAPS/Lykos is being scrutinized now, it's a problem that will likely be faced universally.
Journalists are not mental health professionals working with a highly vulnerable population who are susceptible to undue influence. Behavioral control and thought control are aspects of authoritarian organizations. Do you think that trauma survivors might be in a highly vulnerable state when under the influence of a psychedelic drug? Do you think people who are desperate for relief and suffering might be willing to do whatever it takes to win the approval of those with power to offer them treatment? Would they tend to turn a blind eye to unethical conduct? Would they be willing to do anything (including testify at FDA hearing, raise money for the cause, March on Washington, send an email to their local congressmen, be uncritical and loyal in their praise and admiration of the work of the organization and be willing to overlook glaring flaws) in order to win the approval and attention of their leader, Rick Doblin, their savior?
You’re right, it’s not a cult, It’s a high control, top down organization which holds significant leverage and power over its loyal following so much so that it’s almost impossible to engage in reasonable deliberation of issues raised about the trial because the followers are too invested in the outcome and cannot be objective.
Lifton (1961) described “eight psychological themes which are predominant within the social field of the thought reform milieu” (Lifton, 1961, p. 420):
milieu control,
mystical manipulation,
the demand for purity,
the cult of confession,
the sacred science,
loading the language:
doctrine over person,
the dispensing of existence.
This is so tragically pathetic. Your bullshit "noble" narrative of "community organizing", "good science", "harm prevention", and "mitigating risk" are just masking your own axe to grind with certain people within MAPS and deeper envy and resentment. You should be ashamed of yourself for dedicating your energy in this way. I mean, you could've just posted about the legitimate abuses and limitations within MAPS without going to the FDA. Truly a despicable thing you've done.
I appreciate your insight and courage to write this piece. It’s a tough read while trying to discern, as someone else wrote here, how much of this harm is due to navigating a very new territory versus intentional action on the part of Doblin and MAPS therapists. I’ve seen and heard about similar abuses of power happening with charismatic psychedelic facilitators/leaders consciously entering dual relationships with clients for professional or personal gain. The increased suggestibility under MDMA was always dismissed especially using spiritual bypass and no one takes responsibility for the potential harm involved. I’ve also seen and experienced some spiritual bullying where untrained facilitators push boundaries under pretences that “you’re not trusting” or “your heart is closed”.
Thank you for bringing this vital conversation forward.
Thank you for your work on this important topic! Psychedelic-assisted therapy is uncharted territory both regarding patient and therapist safety: possible suggestibility and manipulation of patients, possible misinterpretation or false memories of therapist behavior in session, unclear ability to consent under the influence…) Unfortunately, while I fouled Kolft et al. 2022 stating ‘Findings indicate a complex memory profile but no heightened vulnerability to external suggestion in response to MDMA intoxication.’ i wasn’t able to find any other recent research showing suggestibility-increasing effects of MDMA or proneness to false memory formation. Maybe you could point me to the relevant sources? Thanks you so much!