Both the renaissance in psychedelic research and the popularization of psychedelics in the mainstream wellness world are fueled by substances that remain for the most part strictly scheduled or distributed through the black market. Nonetheless, there is a pervasive sense that psychedelics have moved beyond “the underground,” whose subcultural narratives and informal as well as criminal practices no longer frame or provide context for their use or integration. For many scientists, therapists, influencers, and entrepreneurs, this is an unreservedly good thing. It is certainly a good thing for those psychedelic consumers who are less likely to be imprisoned or suffer serious social consequences.

But there were and are profoundly good and productive things about the underground and its stigmatization. Modes of living, thought, practice, culture-production and even “science” emerged in the gap between psychedelics and a mainstream defined by regulatory capitalism and official consumer culture—a distance that, while never pure, has now almost completely collapsed, with some sobering consequences. At a time of chaotic and competing psychedelic narratives, it is crucial that we acknowledge, remember, and integrate the positive contributions of the underground “tradition” and its elders, especially those still with us. This talk will emphasize two features of the psychedelic underground: the pro-social humanism of criminal activity, and the creative, experimental, and experiential religiosity that bridged modern subjectivity and the archaic/transpersonal.