When Silicon Dreams of Mushrooms: AI, New Psychedelics, and the Uncharted Mind
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I was sitting at my drafting table last night, Minneapolis snow pressing against the glass, when I ran across articles about AI being trained to map molecular structures for psychedelic compounds. Machine learning is sifting through chemical space faster than any human lab ever could, predicting entirely new consciousness-expanding molecules we wouldn’t have stumbled onto in a thousand years. It made my chest tighten. Not from panic, exactly. More like that hollow, electric feeling when you realize the ground is shifting beneath your feet.
I’ve spent decades working with ritual as a creative practice. I’m not religious, but I trust symbols. I track the lunar cycles, I use selenite and clear quartz to keep my personal energy from getting knotted up, and I’ve used traditional psychedelics to break through years of artistic stagnation and the heavy, quiet drag of midlife depression. They opened doors. But they also left me staring at the ceiling at 3 AM, wondering if I was actually seeing something real or just my own nervous system short-circuiting.
From what I understand, these algorithm-discovered compounds could be more targeted, maybe less chaotic. That’s the promise. But I keep thinking about Carl Jung and his concept of the collective unconscious. Jung argued that certain archetypes and psychic patterns exist beneath the individual mind, waiting to be triggered. If an algorithm can map a molecule that unlocks those spaces without the biological trial-and-error of centuries of plant-based tradition, what happens to the ritual? To the reverence?
I guess I’m sitting somewhere between excitement and grief. The Moon has always been my guide for navigating the subconscious—it’s not about clarity, it’s about learning to walk in the dark. AI feels like a high-beam flashlight. It illuminates the path, sure, but it also burns away the mystery. I don’t know if that’s a loss or a liberation.
Honestly, I’m just trying to keep my hands steady on the compass. If these new compounds ever become accessible, I’ll probably try one. But I’ll do it with a bowl of salt, a lit candle, and a lot of questions. Does anyone else feel that weird tension between technological acceleration and the need for slow, intentional mystery? I’d love to hear how you’re sitting with it.
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