hes so goffik
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) February 23, 2025 at 1:45 AM
I have to admit that I have never understood (beyond the ineviatable ‘this year’s fad’) why people should find it worthwhile to dose themselves with a dissociative anesthetic for recreational purposes. Wired, which has been doing amazing work, had an article on “The Ketamine-Fueled ‘Psychedelic Slumber Parties’ That Get Tech Execs Back on Track”:
… WIRED spoke to the cofounders of an organization that offers ketamine-assisted leadership coaching in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two speakers are identified by pseudonyms, which they selected for themselves. Aria Stone has a doctorate in psychology. Shuang Shuang is a spiritual coach. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Shuang Shuang: We fast-track coaching by really locking it in with the psychedelics. We deliver it to you on a cellular level…
SS: We call it an off-site, not a retreat, because we’re not retreating from anything. We don’t do them big—nine or 10 clients—partially due to the importance of confidentiality. Our clientele is primarily CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, CFOs, C-level founders of startups. All of them are in a pressure cooker.
Aria Stone: Those are the kind of leaders that come—people who have achieved so much in their life, and they’re like, “OK, what’s the next horizon? Because I’ve checked pretty much every box.”
SS: Here are all the loneliest people. They have to lead and go through so many things by themselves. They can come and see that they’re not alone, and let go of the burden of being so protected all the time. They just want to be people…
SS: Our off-site costs $2,600 for three days, plus a $350 fee for a medical assessment and ketamine prescription. Meals are included, but transportation and lodging are not…
AS: When we transition into the journey, we pull the BackJacks out.
SS: It’s pretty sweet. They have little nests, little beds. They’re all tucked in. They have blankets and pillows, and earplugs if the ambient music playing on the speakers gets too loud. They’re wearing eye masks, because ketamine is more of a dissociative medicine—there is this sense of naturally going inward and being quiet. There are a bunch of stuffed animals there that some people take for their journey.
AS: There’s this huge teddy bear holding a cup of the intramuscular ketamine.
We encourage clients to bring things that are meaningful for them—like a journal, photos of loved ones, loved ones that have passed, rocks. It’s just really loving, grounding, and open…
Cynic that I am, I’m reading about a batch of high-strung self-identified Achievers who’ve dropped three grand for the chance to ‘nest’ and have their hands held by solicitous counselors while they ‘increase their neuroplasticity’. How many of them would be just as ‘successful’ if they were, at this point, injected with Ringer’s solution?
But rose-petal-strewn weekend circles certainly don’t explain Elon Musk’s ketamine… habits. Being he’s Elon Musk, it may just be his narcissistic need to be Absolutely Different from every mere normie. As he sees it, he has a “real doctor” who prescribes ‘clinical doses’ for an unfortunate chronic illness (depression) that intermittently attacks him like a case of covid. And those ‘clinical doses’ apparently provide what he considers the best outcome: Manic bursts of non-stop social media postings attacking his myriad enemies and boasting of his own infallibility. Sure, weaker individuals might be tempted to dial back, intimidated by everything from liver toxicity to ketamine dick, but Elon Musk, God-Emperor of Mars and Lord of the DOGE, cares nothing for the meatsack currently hosting his magnificent consciousness!
And maybe, for Musk, for the moment, that feeling of invincibility is enough.
Late Night Ketamine Open Thread: Hi-Touching the Hi-TechPost + Comments (73)
