The Ayahuasca Era: How Neal Brennan Finally Found Joy

EPISODE 56: Also, God.

The face of ayahuasca in America is Aaron Rodgers.

Which isn’t ideal, if you’re a reasonable advocate of plant-based psychedelics here, since Aaron Rodgers also happens to qualify as maybe the most disingenuous athlete of my lifetime.

Just this month, the Jets quarterback went on television to traffic in pedophilia conspiracies and also remind us that he does ayahuasca every offseason.

Like that guy who took mushrooms and tried to turn off the engines of a commercial jetliner, mid-air: not the greatest spokesperson for the revolution.

But there is someone else I’d been meaning to hear from, in contrast, on the subject of psychedelic curiosity, for a long time now.

Neal Brennan — standup comic, writer, director, co-creator of Chappelle Show — is not one of the greatest NFL players of all time. But I don’t know of another human being who’s had more profound experiences with ayahuasca than Neal, who’s now done it 15 times since the pandemic began.

And in today’s episode, Neal explains why we shouldn’t listen to any psychedelic spokespeople. How toad venom transported him to the time before the Big Bang. Why ayahuasca allowed him to feel actual joy, for the first time. How it is that a deeply cynical atheist is now telling me that he believes in God. And which song best describes his personal conversion.

(Please do watch/listen till the very end. It’s… beautiful.)

DKN/YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

With gratitude,

Pablo