Psychedelics, Resistance and the Rise of the Bad-Ass Elder

How Expanded Conscious is Helping Reimagine Aging

Artwork by Lauren Meyer/Painter Dancer

Growing old has long had an image problem – but it’s a particularly bitter pill for aging boomers. We’re so invested in our youthful identities – and being old seems so un-cool.

But what if we were able to see older age as a distinct, powerful, and intriguing stage of life? A time for healing, growth, purpose and spiritual evolution – of pleasure and community?

And what if, by rejecting our society’s superficial, ageist and materialist values, we are actually performing a powerful act of resistance?

As hippies, social disruption was once a badge of honor. And expanding our consciousness helped us reimagine ourselves and a better world.

Maybe now, in older age we can recapture that rebel spirit. And actually show each other and the world what it is to be bad-ass elders?

Conscious Aging as an Act of Resistance

This is the challenge and the promise of conscious aging.

Instead of focusing on extending our lifespan, conscious aging invites us to go deep so we can live our remaining years with greater presence, purpose and authenticity, informed by acceptance of the impermanence of all things, including our own lives.

Conscious aging involves serious inner work, which may include:

· Healing and moving beyond our psychic wounds,

· Making space for suppressed parts of ourselves that yearn to be expressed,

· Finding insights into our personal histories and life writ-large.

· Confronting our inner ageist so we can accept the inevitable changes of aging without shame and resistance

· Finding community for mutual support and purposeful social action

· Getting a foretaste of what it feels like to relinquish control as a prelude to the ultimate letting go.

When approached intentionally, psychedelics can support all of these efforts.

Conscious Aging and Psychedelics

Twenty-five years ago, Ram Dass wrote about older age as a time of spiritual evolution in “Still Here – Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying”. Five years earlier, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi did something similar in his book From Age-ing to Sage-ing – A Profound New Vision of Growing Older.

Both authors came to their insights after having their consciousness’ expanded with psychedelics.

But in these works and just about every book I’ve seen about conscious aging, any supporting role that psychedelics might play is conspicuously absent.

And yet, starting from death-awareness and working backwards, the responsible, intentional use of psychedelics can enrich our lives in so many ways as we age.

Growing Old or Growing Whole

I recently read The Five Invitations, Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, where Zen Hospice founder Frank Ostaseski shares wisdom about the nature of impermanence from witnessing countless deathbed moments of truth.

“Intellectually, we may understand that our mother’s treasured vase will one day fall off the shelf, the car will break down, and those we love will die. Our work is to move this understanding from our intellect and to nestle it deep within our hearts.”

In another, beautiful conscious-aging work, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting From Role to Soul, Connie Zweig describes the diverging paths of growing old or growing whole, by intentionally stepping across a threshold and becoming an Elder. And that by doing so, “…we discover that aging can be a spiritual path.”

The foundation for our late-life development has been described in every spiritual tradition as ego transcendence, a shift in identity… from a separate sense of self to a transcendent, universal sense of self.

Both Ostaseski and Zweig point to a path of self-exploration, spiritual deepening and letting go of our identities to make room for something greater than ourselves.

Aren’t those all features of a well-prepared for and supported psychedelic experience?

Experiential Conscious Aging

There are also various workshops and retreats where one can open into a conscious experience of aging. Ron Pevny, author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, offers ceremonial spiritual rites of passage through the Center for Conscious Eldering.

From the retreat descriptions, there is no indication that sacred medicines are included in these ceremonies, although it’s easy to imagine them there.

That said, at the Modern Elder Academy, which offers a variety of workshops for embracing the opportunities of older life, founder Chip Conley recently acknowledged that psychedelics are on their radar.

With the obvious synergy between psychedelics and conscious aging, it’s not surprising to see these two realms starting to converge.

A Unique Moment

It’s important to emphasize that not all psychedelic experiences will lead to profound insights. And older adults interested in exploring psychedelics will need to do their due diligence, including assessing their medical and psychological histories and medications, beforehand.

But there is already an emerging movement of older adults exploring psychedelics to enhance their experience of aging – which I delve into in my forthcoming book, Psychedelics and the Counterculture of Aging. They are doing their homework, making their own risk/benefit assessments, and searching for meaning, pleasure and closure through the lenses of different medicines.

As I see it, this is a unique moment in history – when millions of boomers are entering older age, and in parallel, there is a greater understanding of how to approach psychedelics and more opportunities to experience them that are opening up to meet them.

While we may have been reckless with substances back in the day, this time around we tend to be more circumspect. And that’s not a bad thing…

Still, there may be a streak of rebellion ready to be resurrected – especially in these deeply unsettling times.

And just like psychedelics once helped us re-imagine youth, they appear to be a driving force for a new vision of elderhood.

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In future posts I’ll be looking at how the psychedelic field is orienting itself to meet the needs of older adults as they pursue their own journeys of conscious aging.