The First Psychedelic Wives Club
September 19 is Magic Mushroom Day: Women Have Been at the Root of It
Did you know that September 19, this week, is Psychedelic Mushroom Education Day? You would think we’d get the day off!
I played a gill-size part of the movement that made ‘shroom education something we talk about in public.
The turning point for me was in 2006. I attended a conference — the first ever, on the topic of women and psychedelic drugs.
It was called “SheShamans” and it was under 100 people — featuring pioneers like Adele Getty, Cynthia Palmer, Karen Vogel, Valerie Corral, Anne Zapf, Sandra Karpetas, Kat Harrison, and Jane Straight.
I encourage you to look up every name: talk about heavy hitters. I couldn’t believe I was in their midst.
I led a workshop about drugs and sex, although I don't know if "led" is quite the right word. I consider myself a cosmic neophyte!
The idea for an all-women’s conference on psychedelics was born about a year earlier, in a women’s bathroom, at a virtually all-male conference on the same subject!
It was a wonderful conference, to be sure. We listened to men like Sasha Shulgin in full radiance. I more in one weekend than my entire secondary and college science education.
However! While a handful of us “girls” were using the can, we started joking that SURELY there must be room on the dais for experienced women to make a noteworthy presentation.
We knew that every man who spoke had one, if not several women, who had been their partner in research, innovation, creation. The unacknowledged queens.
Right there we decided: “No more complaining! Let’s really do it.”
So we did. We planned a women’s psychedelic seminar.
There are so many life passages in female lives that hold a unique relationship to psychedelics. —It’s one thing to imagine a carefree hippie chick kicking up her heels on an acid trip. It’s quite another to be a serious scientist and explorer, or a healer, who contemplates what this world means to puberty, conception, childbirth, mothering, caretaking, menstruation, menopause— and dying.
Yes, we decided to include one workshop on acid and dying — it was the most memorable seminar, the most meaningful, I’d had in years.
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Photo: Rosemary Sarah Woodruff (Leary), 1935-2002, portrait from Afghanistan, 1971
I was asked to lead a workshop about drugs and sex. It was the first time I have ever had a chance to talk openly to women about sex and psychedelics. What an honor.
Drugs in general, and psychedelics in particular, bring up female issues that we never read about in scholarly journals or hear debated at drug policy or entheogenic seminars.
I started our session from the premise that there is a taboo for women to give in to intoxication and ecstasy, no matter how brief a sojourn.
When a man is high and horny, he's just another horny-high dude— but when a woman gives up her "responsibilities" to follow lust and outer consciousness, it's as if she has turned in her badge of virtue forever.
Even women who feel at ease talking about their drug use, rarely feel comfortable talking about the sex they have, or want, when they embark on a trip.
When had I ever talked about women and drugs outside the dilemma of addiction? Never.
It's time to move beyond the image of the Drug Nymph . . . in fact, that's what I wanted to call my workshop. Move over, “nympho junkie!” There's a psyche-naut amazon who has something to say.
There are a number of relevant questions and gateways that psychoactive drugs offer to women's sexual lives and relationships. My head is still spinning from all that I heard— and that is my sober assessment!
My workshop was defined by a generation gap.
About half the women at the conference were first-generation acid queens, dyed-in-the-cannabis originals. It was amazing to see how their work has developed over the years— as artists, cultivators, historians, and caretakers. Many of these women have been the backbone of their local hospice movements, medical marijuana co-ops, spiritual and therapy communities. Behind that brownie recipe was the hand that rocked the world.
The other half of the crowd were the younger generation, who had an entirely different gateway into psychedelics. Their soundtrack is 21st century. MDMA and its derivatives were more likely their entrée to psychoactive experience, rather than Owsley's finest.
These young women may have missed the "Mr. Natural" windowpane, but one of the advantages of skipping the 60's is that they avoided the hangover that came along with it.
The younger women had such a fresh attitude about the possibilities of drug research, policy-making, and even the interpretation of what a "drug experience" is, in the first place. They were also geeks. . . much of their counter-culture is informed by virtual community.
Sexually, some distinct differences came up, and they took me by surprise.
It started when I confided to my conference bunk-mate, "Jenny," that I barely knew who any of the other speakers were.
I would point at a name on the program, and say, "Who is she? I looked up her book on Amazon, and yeah, it's intriguing, but it's obscure! Why does everyone talk about her— and her— and her— in such hushed tones?"
Jenny laughed. I’d inadvertently hit one of the unspoken reasons we needed this gathering. She explained that many these women I'd “never heard of “ were the longterm companions, widows, and in some cases, discarded wives of the heaviest hitters in 60s iconography. It was like a “First Wives Club,” Acid-style. McKenna, Leary, Huxley, the list goes on and one.
These women had been invisible to me. Even though they were the psychedelic vanguard of their social revolution 40 years ago, they were also the sort of people who married, had children, and kept the fires burning for years— the wife toiling anonymously in the background, doing every duty you can imagine, while her charismatic husband took center stage. Very old-fashioned! The “wives” were scholars, researchers, herbalists, plant whisperers, scientists, and massive trippers themselves— but above all, they were caretakers.
The lesbians among their cadre were often closeted, in caretaker and gruntwork roles even as they were inventing and innovating. It amounted to invisibility all the same.
In their older years, some of the famous husbands had mid-life crises, and left their longtime partners for younger women.
"It's that thing men do that makes them feel better," Jenny said, rather kindly.
So the second half of life began. The older women were speaking up in their own names for the first time.
But it's hard to talk about on one's resumé. Who wants to be known as "Some Famous Dude's Ex-Old-Lady Who Gave Him Everything She Had"?
Among their peers these women are famous for their deep knowledge and perseverance.
To give you an example, let me talk about the Leary family story:
Tim had a lot of women, a lot of children, and a couple wives. Family, as chaotic as it was, was important to all of them. The history books talk about his most daring escapade, foiling The Man, and being sprung out of a California state prison by Black Panthers who whisked him away to Algeria.
But among this crowd, there is only one person responsible for getting Leary out of the clink, and that was Ro, Timothy's ex-wife, Rosemary. She was involved in psychedelic research long before meeting him. Roended up being in political exile far longer than her husband because of the risks she took. Many years. The respect this woman engendered among her tribe, particularly the women, is enormous, and yet she remained a mysterious footnote in the mainstream history books.
From her memoir: “After escaping from Algeria, and suffering through yet another arrest and release in Switzerland, I left Leary, searching for a country that would allow me to find some peace and sanity. What followed were years of adventure and fear in some very far-flung places. I lived underground as a fugitive for twenty-four years in Europe and the Americas, long after Leary was captured again and eventually released from the US prison system.”
Ro refused an amnesty offer from the FBI, if only she’d snitch. She paid the price. She passed away from cancer in Santa Cruz, not long after she was living in freedom for the first time in decades.
Not every couple in the acid wars broke up or became estranged. Some of the original couples are still together. They have endured as lovers despite various affairs. A few of these women confided to me that their continuing psychedelic connection reaffirms their intimacy as soul-mates and erotic partners.
Cynthia Palmer brought it up to me rather casually. She's in her 60s, with five grown children with Michael Horowitz. We lay naked by the pool, in the candlelight, listening to crickets. She just said, "Psychedelics can really help older couples."
I had to keep digging from there.
I gathered one story, and then the next. Relationships are profoundly affected by mutual trips. A hallmark of tripping is the expressive loss of ego. Status-conscious trappings melt away, like a comical tangent. Your notions of "what is beautiful" expand without boundaries. You look into your partner's weathered face, and see your life flash before your eyes.
Of course you can be fifty years old, look into your darling's eyes sober, and still be madly in love. It happens all the time.
And, if a relationship has serious problems, all the pretty colored pills in the world aren't going to help. A few moments of bliss won't keep the denial at bay.
But tripping together does add the "wow" factor, the childlike awe at your existence as a couple, as lovers bonded for life. If you are close to begin with, they make you closer. And, because psychedelics are not the kind of drugs that make you "forget," you remember these emotions long after the trip is over, and daily life resumes.
A couple will often ask me, "Susie, we never do it anymore. My wife (or husband) never wants to have sex, and won't talk about it. I'm lonely, horny, and I can't go on!"
I can't hand them a line or two that's going to solve their dilemma with a snap of my fingers. I advise therapy. I try to figure out, from the clues in their letter, some helpful insights.
But after my workshop, I have to admit that I giggled at the thought of replying: "Here, take these two Ecstasy's and call me in the morning. —That frigid wife you keep ranting about? She's going to spill her guts. —Your cold, stoic husband? He’s going to turn into a touchy-feely love muffin. Every touch is going to melt your heart. You'll look into each others eyes and have an orgasm."
Now, of course I'm not that blithe. There’s just a grain of truth.
The comical part about tripping is that you may start out thinking you're going to bond with your spouse, and instead end up communing with a busy ant on the sidewalk. Now THAT is a revelation!
Therapists, psychiatric researchers, and healers of all kinds are interested in psychoactive experiences— always have been— because they give us a glimpse of what it's like to be empathetic, to be aware and sensual in the moment, to flood one's body with creativity and compassion.
Some will say that you ought to be able to create those moments for yourself, au naturel, through meditation, right livelihood, or earnest practice.
But why does it have to be an either/or decision?
If psychedelic plants and their chemistry were de-criminalized, why couldn't we do both? Be educated, instead of terrorized? Treat our dis-ease. Enjoy a vacation without leaving one’s living room? Enhance our consciousness as we see fit?
There is nothing behind our national drug policy besides elitism, prudery, racism, and desire to control people's lives in every aspect.
What if we pulled the rug out from under the lie?
I have another mischievous daydream. I imagine the the women’s fashion magazines, urging their readers, "Get close to your honey tonight! Forget the plastic surgery— take these magic beans instead! Have that deep talk and endless pleasure you've always longed for!"
But that would jeopardize the notion is that the beauty industry would ever drop their stipulation that attraction is predicated on superficial values.
It doesn't take a magic bean to realize that the reason lovers stay together in old age is because of their deep connection— realized without creams, fashion, or scalpels.
In other words, If you want to be in love forever, you have to deal with the love part— which resists all topical treatments.
At my SheShamans workshop, I asked every woman a few questions to answer anonymously on paper. My research project! I started with:
"What's your favorite drug with sex?"
Here's the answers I got, in order of popularity... take it as an anecdotal survey from a beautiful summer night!
1. Cannabis (BY FAR)
2. Ecstacy
3. Psilocybin Mushrooms
4. 2C-B
5. San Pedro cactus
6. 2C-T
7. Foxy Methoxy
8. Candy Flip (MOMA into LSD)
9. Marijuana and a single shot of espresso ( wildly popular and also got the biggest laugh)
10. GHB and marijuana
MORE!
EROWID
You'll notice all my drug links are from The Erowid Vault, which as they say, "documents the complex relationship between humans and psychoactives." What a godsend they are. Be prepared to spend hours getting the kind of science/medicine education you never got in high school!
MAPS
Another excellent resource is MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. They're a non-profit research and educational organization who assists scientists to design, fund, obtain approval for and report on studies into the risks and benefits of MDMA, psychedelic drugs and marijuana. They have up-to-the-minute news, politics, and research I like to keep tabs on.
WOMEN’S RESEARCH
Dr. Allison Feduccia’s course, Psychedelics for Women’s Health: Potential Benefits and Research is an incredible place to start, especially for healthcare pros. I want to take this year-long course myself. Serious training!
I’ve updated this story, “The Psychedelic Wives Club,” as of 8:00 AM P.S.T, September 16. My apology for the previous errors. I promise, I wasn’t high! Or wifely, for that matter. It’s all ready for you now.
MAPS? Why did I not know about this?
There’s so much to take in. I hurriedly read through this blog because I couldn’t wait to talk about MY experiences. So, I forced myself to settle down and read again, present with what you’ve written. I’ve been navigating psychedelics by myself for decades and for now, I have nothing to add to the conversation. I just want to listen. And I’m crying my damned eyes out.