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A riveting look at the tremendous promise and inherent risks of the use of psychedelics in mental health treatment through the lens of a New York Times reporter whose journalistic exploration of this emerging field began with a personal crisis.
When he signed up for a psychedelic retreat run by a mysterious Argentine woman deep in Brazil’s rainforest in early 2018, Ernesto Londoño, a veteran New York Times journalist, was so depressed he had come close to jumping off his terrace weeks earlier. His nine-day visit to Spirit Vine Ayahuasca Retreat Center included four nighttime ceremonies during which participants imbibed a vomit-inducing plant-based brew that contained DMT, a powerful mind-altering compound.
The ayahuasca trips provided Londoño an instant reprieve from his depression and became the genesis of a personal transformation that anchors this sweeping journalistic exploration of the booming field of medicinal psychedelics. Londoño introduces readers to a dazzling array of psychedelic enthusiasts who are upending our understanding of trauma and healing. They include Indigenous elders who regard psychedelics as portals to the spirit world; religious leaders who use mind-bending substances as sacraments; war veterans suffering from PTSD who credit psychedelics with changing their lives; and clinicians trying to resurrect a promising field of medicine hastily abandoned in the 1970s as the United States declared a War on Drugs.
Londoño’s riveting personal narrative pulls the reader through a deeply researched and brilliantly reported account of a game-changing industry on the rise. Trippy is the definitive book on psychedelics and mental health today, and Londoño’s in-depth and nuanced look at this shifting landscape will be pivotal in guiding policymakers and readers as they make sense of the perils, limitations, and promises of turning to psychedelics in the pursuit of healing.
Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent at the New York Times, where he has worked since 2014. He was born and raised in Colombia and has spent the past two decades covering some of the most important stories of his generation. His assignments included covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, serving on the editorial board of the New York Times, and running the newspaper’s bureau in Brazil.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro is a multi-award-winning New York Times journalist whose coverage of international and domestic affairs has twice been heralded by the Peabodies among many other prestigious journalism prizes including the DuPonts, The Gracies and the Murrows. She joined the NYT in 2022, launching the podcast First Person for the Opinion section of the NYT. She now interviews influential people for the New York Times Magazine. Previously, she was the first Latina to helm a magazine show at the public broadcaster NPR, where she interviewed world leaders and celebrities and regular people trying to make sense of a changing world. Garcia-Navarro started her career as a long-time international correspondent based overseas, in both the Middle East and Latin America, covering some of the most complicated and intense conflicts of our time. She is based in Washington, DC, with her husband, daughter, two dogs and a cat.
