Joanna Kempner explores a movement on the frontiers of modern medicine
People who suffer from excruciating headaches have discovered that psychedelic drugs such as mushrooms and LSD provide relief from the pain.
With the title Psychedelic Outlaws, the new book by sociologist Joanna Kempner might sound on the surface like a paean to the brash LSD adventurers of the 1960s like Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary. In fact, the ‘outlaws’ Kempner shines a light on are a group of adults she describes as “regular people” with little or no interest in getting high on drugs. They suffer from a rare and excruciatingly painful condition known as cluster headaches and they have found significant relief from psychedelic mushrooms.
Joanna KempnerKempner chronicles the group’s underground efforts over decades to develop clinical-grade dosing protocols as well as its ongoing battle to obtain acceptance from medical and legal authorities. And she tells the story against the backdrop of the larger movement that has coalesced around the use of psychedelic drugs for mental health treatment.
It’s a story that Kempner, a professor in the Department of Sociology, School of Arts and Sciences, is well suited to tell. Her own experience with migraines propelled her to research and write her last book, Not Tonight, which explores migraines from a historical, societal, and personal perspective.
“This personal experience not only gave me a profound empathy for those whose suffering is overlooked by the medical community, it shaped how I approach my research,” she said.
Q: How did you first come into contact with Clusterbusters, the advocacy group at the heart of your book, whose members have found relief from psychedelic drugs?
A: In the course of doing research for my book on migraines I was attending an event in Washington D.C. called Headache on the Hill where people lobby around issues of interest. Suddenly this group of people came in and they looked really different. They were dressed casually, kind of loud, and dragging these oxygen tanks. A neurologist next to me gives me an elbow and says, “those are the patients who use psychedelics.”
Q: What about them impressed you and drove you toward writing a book on the movement?
A: Cluster headaches are often described as one of the most excruciating human experiences, surpassing even the pain of gunshot wounds. These attacks are relentless, often striking in the dead of night. Early on, I met a man who had never had more than 90 minutes of uninterrupted sleep. His eyes betrayed so much terror. I’d never seen anybody so afraid in my life. Unfortunately, it’s a look that a lot of people with cluster headache have.
As a sociologist, I have always been interested in what we don’t know: Forbidden knowledge, and the political suppression of science. In doing the research on migraines, I was seeking to find out why we don’t know more about a condition that so many people find disabling. Now, here’s the Clusterbusters, a group of people doing their own research on Schedule I drugs to address a disease that nobody else cared about. They weren’t waiting around for the government to change the laws. I found their approach refreshing.
Bob Wold, the founder of the group Clusterbusters.Q: How did they discover that mushrooms are effective?
A: A guy in Scotland realized that his recreational use of LSD coincided with a two-year remission of his attacks. He discovered there had been a historical relationship between the development of LSD and migraine medicine, and then started self-experimenting with magic mushrooms that grew naturally. By 2002, so many people were using his psychedelic protocol that they needed their own space. That’s when a man named Bob Wold stepped up and created Clusterbusters, not realizing that it would one day become the largest advocacy organization for cluster headache.
Q: When they take mushrooms to treat their condition, does it cause them to hallucinate?
A: The standard protocol they developed uses a low dose, and they have a whole bunch of safety information. They might get giggly and see brighter colors, but they are not ‘seeing God.’ A lot of the psychedelic therapy we’re hearing about now is meant for really intense trips. It’s nothing like that.
Q: What is one thing you hope readers take away from the book?
A: This might be an extraordinary story, but it’s also all too relatable. These are regular people—not psychedelic adventurers. They were just desperate for relief. So many of us know what it’s like to struggle to get the healthcare we need.
The main difference is that they stumbled onto a treatment that worked. I’m excited to see more research on psychedelics—they really do seem like they’re saving lives. But at the end of the day, there’s no magic bullet that will fix what is ultimately a social problem.
What good is an effective treatment if a doctor doesn’t believe you’re in pain? And how helpful is a miracle cure if insurance companies won’t cover its cost? So, I’ll leave you with a bit of Bob Wold’s wisdom:
“You can’t introduce transformative medicine into a broken healthcare system.”
