Can ayahuasca change a man? The rise of trips against misunderstood masculinity
Psychedelic experiences, now in vogue among Silicon Valley’s elite, could be key tools for deconstructing men. But users and experts warn that the right attitude and supervision are necessary
Drugs, like any product, go through marketing phases. Just as cocaine, before it alarmingly permeated all layers of society, was perceived as a yuppie pastime and glorified as entertainment for the upper classes or an accessory for charismatic characters in the most commercial cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, and in recent years ketamine has come to be considered the drug of Generation Z, now the turn of rebranding has come to ayahuasca, an ancient Amazonian plant that has psychoactive properties after its decoction. We are no longer just talking about the exotic anecdote of the adventurer who spent a sabbatical year in the jungle or the murky ritual of another friend who became a hippie, but rather a kind of trend among Silicon Valley executives, a recurring topic of conversation in the sphere of podcasts of men talking to men (and lately certain men can’t stop talking), and a substance of renewed pharmacological interest for modern psychiatry.
