In Aldous Huxley’s 1933 dystopic novel Brave New World, human society is portrayed several centuries into the future, schismed into two parallel worlds. On the one hand, Huxley portrays a ‘civilised’ society which he described in stark utopian terms of a hierarchical caste system of Alphas, Betas, Gammas, and Epsilons.
Within this world, each category of human is genetically engineered to be perfectly happy and complacent with the tasks expected of them. Alphas, the top tier of the managerial caste, are themselves subdivided between Alphas and Alpha Pluses, with the latter permitted to interface with ‘The World Controllers’, of which, we are told, are ten in number.
While test tube (see: CRISPR) babies have long been the only legal way of making humans, free love is rampant and is even taught to young children in primary school. In fact, in Huxley’s fantasy, if one is not practicing promiscuous sex and frequent orgies, it is a sign of severe mental disorder.
In the unfortunate case that any of those higher managerial caste members should find themselves ill at ease with this peculiar form of social organisation, or asking questions about what existed before historical records began (in the year of Ford), or wondering why things happen to be as they are, an infusion of soma would solve the problem.
Huxley’s Soma
Huxley’s Soma was a psychedelic drug which transported the drug user into a state of ecstasy and altered consciousness, enhancing the feelings of pleasure, sensual lust, and detachment both quickly and efficiently.
One of the characters in Huxley’s novel describes the drug in the following terms:
Now-such is progress-the old men work, the old men copulate, the old men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think or if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time shoud yawn in the solid substance of their distractions, there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon; returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction, scampering from feely to feely, from girl to pneumatic girl, from Electromagnetic Golf course to …
So, what is this Soma, exactly?
In the Sanskrit Rig Veda, published during the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, Soma is portrayed as both the liquid of an unnamed plant used in initiatory practices and a god. The effect of the consumption of this mysterious concoction is a divine state, and sense of immortality, which is described by its consumers in the following terms (8.48.3, as translated by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton):
We have drunk the soma; we have become immortal; we have gone to the light; we have found the gods. What can hostility do to us now, and what the malice of a mortal, o immortal one
Within Zoroastrian literature, a plant akin to Soma is also described in the form of ‘Haoma’ which is described as both a ritual drink, plant and god. When consumed, the Zend Avesta describes the effects to be “speed and strength to warriors, excellent and righteous sons to those giving birth, spiritual power and knowledge to those who apply themselves”.
In the Bhagavad Gita (written in the 1st century BCE), we find Soma again described by name where we read in Chapter 9, verse 20:
Those who drink the juice of the pure Soma plant, are cleansed and purified of their past sins. Those who desire heaven, attain heaven and enjoy its divine pleasures by worshipping me [Soma] through the offering of sacrifices. Thus, by performing good action, one will always undoubtedly receive a place in heaven where they will enjoy all of the divine pleasure that are enjoyed by the Deities.
Experts have speculated that Soma may have been one of several hallucinogenic formulas, and most likely an entheogen such as psilocybin (i.e. magic mushrooms).
Rebranding Psychedelics for the New Age
An ‘entheogen’ is itself a newer word, coined in the early 1970s by J. P. Morgan Vice President J. Gordon Wasson. He is also the CIA-funded father of magic mushrooms, having done the most to popularize the drug in the mid-1950s working closely with drug promoter Henry Luce (head of Time), and leading psychiatrists of MKUltra such as Henry Murray and Sidney Gottlieb. This was accomplished through the 1957 publication of Wasson’s article ‘Seeking the Magic Mushroom’, which documented the bankers’ CIA-sponsored 1955 hallucinogenic pilgrimage to Mexico.
Wasson’s highly publicised report in Life, and his nationwide speaking tour to hundreds of universities, served as a guidebook for millions of young beatniks and hippies who would follow his footsteps into their own drug-induced initiation ceremonies in the coming decades.
These countless young admirers of Wasson would learn to shed their outdated beliefs in nationalism, family traditions, morality, and God in favour of a radically new, sexualised, drug-laced spirituality.
Apparently, the only people over 30 whom the burgeoning new age movement were expected to trust were those old people giving away free drugs. One of those young disciples of Wasson was a man named Terrence McKenna, who throughout the 1980s and 1990s did the most to promote psilocybins through his Green Earth Foundation, which found vast patronage from none other than Laurence Rockefeller (then head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Esalen Institute research, SRI projects, and the Disclosure Initiative). McKenna distinguished himself by not only promoting psilocybins, but also added his own thesis that benevolent aliens communicate to humanity via these mind drugs.
Why did Wasson felt the new word ‘entheogen’ was needed? It had less to do with science and more to do with branding, since the term ‘hallucinogenic’ was too closely associated with mental illness (often a consequence of too-frequent use of drugs). The word ‘psychedelic’ had also proved unsatisfactory for the post-1968 drug branding due to the close association with the word ‘psychosis’, also a consequence of prolonged drug use.
Coming out of the MKUltra mind control experimentation program of 1953-1974, an array of new drugs were brought into the US which appeared to be novel innovations with names such as LSD-25, DMT, and magic mushrooms, but were, in fact, simply derived from studies into an already known array of ergots (wheat fungus), mushrooms, and other plants used continuously in mystical practices across diverse cultures.
Wasson and Albert Hoffman (the Swiss-based Sandoz Labs chemist who discovered LSD-25 by extracting the active agents from ergots) were both authors of the 1974 bestseller The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, in which they conveyed their theories (undoubtedly shared by Huxley) that the “sacred brew” called Kakyon used in the mystery school at Eleusis which promised to make its consumers “die to live eternally” was, in fact, the base of their beloved LSD-25.
In his 1967 book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, Wasson makes the case that the ingredient for Soma was the mushroom Amanita muscaria. Dr. Matthew Clark has recently made the case that Soma may have been a concoction of several plants and mushrooms that included MAO inhibitors and DMT (dimethyltryptamine).
Whatever the case, Aldous Huxley was overjoyed to discover, only 27 years after publishing Brave New World, that his Soma had become a reality with the advent of the new drug culture.
Huxley was explicit that the status of Soma in his idealised world order would rise to the level of a religion, with each hit bearing a religious-like experience. He also said that the right to use Soma would replace the old outdated notions of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” outlined in the US Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
In the Brave New World the soma habit was not a private vice; it was a political institution, it was the very essence of the Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But this most precious of the subjects’ inalienable privileges was at the same time one of the most powerful instruments of rule in the dictator’s armory. The systematic drugging of individuals for the benefit of the State (and incidentally, of course, for their own delight) was a main plank in the policy of the World Controllers. The daily soma ration was an insurance against personal maladjustment, social unrest and the spread of subversive ideas. Religion, Karl Marx declared, is the opium of the people. In the Brave New World this situation was reversed. Opium, or rather soma, was the people’s religion.
Jordan Peterson: High Priest of the New Soma Religion
While such figures as Aldous Huxley, J. Gordon Wasson, Henry Murray, Henry Luce, Sidney Gottlieb, and Albert Hoffman served as the first generation of high priests or shamans of the new age drug-fused religion, a few notable second and third generation high priests are worth mentioning here.
Canadian Jungian psychiatrist Jordan Peterson has been among the loudest promoters of psychedelic drugs use in recent times. Having led the first major review of the benefits of psychedelic drugs with a focus on psilocybins on behalf of Johns Hopkins University in 2004, Peterson has been on the cutting edge of the Soma revolution, promoting all forms of psilocybins, ketamine, and ayahuasca. Peterson (who also worked with John Podesta in 2012-2013 for the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Sustainable Development) has emphasised the role of psychedelic drugs in shaping all religious experience.
In a recent interview with Johns Hopkins drug legalisation guru Dr. Roland Griffiths, Jordan Peterson emphasised his belief that the Christian sacraments were rooted in the psychedelic rites performed by the ancient Dionysian Cults and Eleusinian Mysteries, saying:
The Eleusinian mysteries were which upon in which the Greek society that gave rise to the West, let’s say, was embedded was deeply embedded within a psychedelic religious tradition that was actually an integral part of the culture not some peripheral element, but a central element that was also the case with the cult of Dionysius, the god of the wine, and that Christianity took many of the mysteries including the sacrament from the Dionysian cult and so … I certainly think that the Book of Revelation bears all the hallmarks of a classic psychedelic experience.
It is a loud irony that Peterson has been branded as an authority on Christianity, having inspired millions of young men to become Christian through his popular lectures on the Bible (as analysed through the lens of both Friedrich Nietzsche and Peterson’s idol Carl Jung). Considering Nietzsche and Jung both openly advocated the overthrow of Christianity and the restoration of gnosticism as a superior form of religion, we can only assume that Peterson’s promotion of a new drug-laced spirituality is designed to manifest Jung’s dream of a global religious reset.
Do you think I’m being too hard on the beloved Carl Jung?
In a 1912 letter to Freud, Carl Jung had himself described this revival of the gnostic mysteries as a replacement for Christianity, saying:
I think we must give it [referring to his new religion] time to infiltrate into people from many centers, to revivify among intellectuals a feeling for symbol and myth, ever so gently to transform Christ back into the soothsaying god of the vine, which he was, and in this way absorb those ecstatic instinctual forces of Christianity for the one purpose of making the cult and the sacred myth what they once were — a drunken feast of joy where man regained the ethos and holiness of an animal.
A Rogue Gallery of New Soma Priests
Podcaster Joe Rogan (a friend of Stanton Levay, grandson of Satanist Anton Levay, son of Temple of Set high priestess Zeena Levay and founder of the Satanic Thelemic organisation The Order of the Nine Angles) is another ‘intellectual dark web’ figure who has been elevated to the status of a modern spokesperson of psychedelic drugs, with his shows garnering tens of millions of views and attracting listeners from all age demographics and political camps. Rogan has emphasised the power of psychedelics to tap into religious experiences and direct communication with angels and demons.
Sam Harris, an atheistic neuroscientist who became a major voice in the ‘intellectual dark web’ alongside Rogan and Peterson, has also been a loud propagandist of Huxley’s Soma revolution, psychedelic drug legalisation for recreation, spirituality, and therapeutic purposes.
Dennis McKenna, brother of psilocybin guru Terrance McKenna, has taken up the mantle of his dead brother and has also become a voice of the new Shamanic priesthood extolling the virtues of psychedelics on podcasts run by Rogan, Peterson, and many more.
Like his late brother, Dennis McKenna has been especially passionate about reframing the Soma experience as something nothing short of communication with extraterrestrial/dimensional entities. The fact that Laurence Rockefeller poured tens of millions of dollars into UFO disclosure, financing operations tied to Robert Bigelow, Stephen Greer, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Linda Moulton Howe, and also Terrance McKenna should thus not be seen as separate topics.
Another co-architect of the ‘intellectual dark web’ and co-founder of Game B is evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, who has also come out in favour of society’s embrace of psychedelic drugs to expand our thinking and mental health, promoting it on dozens of platforms, including his own Dark Horse Podcast.
The list of modern propagandists of psychedelics and the new Brave New World Soma revolution is of course, massive, but it seemed useful to outline just a few among the most influential ‘intellectual dark web’ gurus who are shaping the world views of those citizens giving their support to Robert F. Kennedy’s MAHA plans for mass drug legalisation.
The Case of RFK’s Soma Revolution
In 2023, Robert F. Kennedy first made it known that he envisioned a USA covered in thousands of ‘healing centers’. These would be treatment facilities that provide treatment for physical, mental, and spiritual diseases where “our American children can go and find themselves and come back”. In these new centres, RFK pointed out that a vast array of legalised psychedelic drugs would be made available for therapeutic purposes.
It was at this time that RFK also pledged to legalise marijuana and psychedelics at the federal level.
In a July 2025 congressional testimony, RFK (now serving as US Health Secretary) described his belief in the importance of legalising a wide array of psychedelic drugs from MDMA, DMT, psilocybins, and ecstasy, stating: “This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting, and we are working very hard to make sure that happens within 12 months”.
RFK has worked closely with FDA chief Marty Makary. He has stated that accelerating the approval process of psychedelic drugs “a top priority” for the Trump Administration.
The Associated Press has also pointed out that “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and FDA also recently hired several new staffers with ties to the psychedelic movement”.
In June 2025, another Republican psychedelic promoter, Texas Governor Rick Perry, approved a $50 billion study on Ibogaine research, intending to accelerate full psychedelic legalisation.
The current Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins, has joined Kennedy in calling for a new paradigm in psychedelic drug legalisation on numerous podcasts. Both Collins and Kennedy have been working together on clinical research since February 2025.
Meanwhile, RFK’s ally and Surgeon General nominee Casey Means has openly stated that psychedelic drug use was integral to her “finding love”, and said:
If you feel called, I also encourage you to explore intentional, guided psilocybin therapy … Strong scientific evidence suggests that this psychedelic therapy can be one of the most meaningful experiences of life for some people, as they have been for me.
Taking a page from Huxley’s Doors of Perception, Casey has stated that “psilocybin can be a doorway to a different reality”.
In his endorsement of Casey Means, Trump stated:
Casey has impeccable ‘MAHA’ [Make America Healthy Again] credentials, and will work closely with our wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to ensure a successful implementation of our Agenda in order to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans.
As of this writing, three US states have fully legalised psychedelics (Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico) while many more states are currently moving fast towards legalisation with State-sponsored studies in place to justify it, legislation introduced, or decriminalisation already in place.
So where is this going?
We can see that the old system of control that required narcoterrorist operations managing heroine, cocaine, and fentanyl consumption appears to have run its course of usefulness, and a new paradigm of drugs is coming online. But is this new paradigm of drugs more in harmony with freedom, or simply a new form of evil which would enmesh a slavish human species ever more deeply into the structures of psycho-spiritual control under a new system of Alphas and world controllers?
Perhaps it is most useful to revisit the recorded thoughts of one of Huxley’s leading disciples, Timothy Leary, to answer this question. Leary, at the time a young professor of psychology at Harvard who headed the Harvard Psilocybin Project (with Huxley on its founding board) from 1960-1962 until he was fired, was recruited by Huxley to help shape the ‘Ultimate Revolution’ and lead the charge of the counterculture insurgency, which Leary described in his book Flashbacks: A Personal and Cultural History of an Era:
We had run up against the Judeo-Christian commitment to one God, one religion, one reality, that has cursed Europe for centuries and America since our founding days. Drugs that open the mind to multiple realities inevitably lead to a polytheistic view of the universe. We sensed that the time for a new humanist religion based on intelligence, good natured pluralism and scientific paganism had arrived.
Leary would give the CIA full credit for starting and initiating “the entire consciousness movement, counterculture events of the 1960s” by flooding LSD into college campuses across the country and investing millions in LSD research programmes.
On PBS’s Late Night America, Timothy Leary commented:
I’ve been an admirer of Aleister Crowley. I think that I’m carrying on much of the work that he started over a hundred years ago … He was in favour of finding yourself, and ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ under love. It was a very powerful statement. I’m sorry he isn’t around now to appreciate the glories he started.
