Did Rod Dreher Read The Return of the Dragon and Forget to Give it Credit?
Interesting coincidences between his recent article and my book
In May of 2018, Rod Dreher, writing for the American Conservative, wrote an article that was mostly positive about psychedelics. It was titled, “A Christian Approach To Psychedelics: Why hallucinogens can teach us more about mysticism and spirituality than we think”. I came across that article as I was wrapping up work on a book all about the negative effects of psychedelics (and DMT specifically) and how Christians should not use them (i.e. Return of the Dragon) and decided to send Dreher an advanced copy hoping he would find it helpful and also – to be honest- hoping he could help with a blurb or a shout out of some sort. I emailed him an eBook and an Audio Book for him to review. But he never responded. I figured his inbox must be pretty crowded so I tried reaching out on Twitter. But he didn’t seem to see the Twitter message either. So I forgot about it. He was one of about 100 people with big platforms I sent advanced copies to and the Dreher effort didn’t stick in my mind.
Until this morning when a friend alerted me to a new article for The American Conservative posted January 10, 2023. This article was titled, “Temptation Of The Psychonauts: Exploring the realm opened up by DMT is to put your soul and your sanity in grave peril”. This seemed like a giant pivot from his 2018 position. Had he read my book? Did it reference the Return of the Dragon? The answer to the second question is, no. It did not reference my work at all – at least not directly. But the answer to the first question … if he didn’t read my book, his change in thought is a coincidence of epic proportions. The movement of the entire article is incredibly close to the outline of the Return of the Dragon going from his initial discovery of DMT and Joe Rogan, to the studies showing that it was good, to the strange proposal that it was another dimension, and finally to the shocking and scary proposal that people are seeing real entities that are demons.
It is hard to believe that Rod Dreher went from publishing a mostly positive article on psychedelics a couple years ago to echoing my dire warnings about DMT without being exposed to the ideas in my book (that he coincidently had in his possession).
In addition to the general outline being the same, there are many phrases that are suspiciously similar throughout the article to phrases in Return of the Dragon. Rod Dreher starts his article with, “This is going to be a very weird post, but we live in very weird times.” That sounds strangely familiar to my own wording early in the Return of the Dragon, “The next few chapters may get a bit weird …” As mentioned above, early on Dreher partially credits Joe Rogan with the rise of DMT writing that it was, “…popularized by DMT enthusiast Joe Rogan on his massively popular podcast.” This is very similar to the wording early in Return of the Dragon where I write, “Joe Rogan, with his insanely popular podcast, has brought the use of psychedelic drugs [into public view].” Later Dreher asks, “The obvious question is: are these users truly being transported into a different dimension of existence? Or is it all in their head?” This is another interesting choice of wording because I used the same wording in The Return of the Dragon, “If it is not possible that the experiences can be dismissed as “all in the heads” of the participants…let’s consider what it might be that they are seeing…Many have speculated that perhaps hallucinogens allow us to see into a dimension that we would not have otherwise had access to.” Dreher later says of psychedelic drugs saying, “they really do open one up to malevolent discarnate intelligent beings -- "demons," if you prefer.” Again this is similar to my own wording, “…when you practice [psychedelics] you are meeting evil and very real entities ……the spirits are demons.” Dreher speculates that maybe the ancients knew better than we did writing, “The idea that we know so much better than primitive peoples in the world today, or sages of the past who warned sternly not to go to these places (the Bible, for example, is crystal clear about the dangers of this stuff), is utter hubris, folly born of pride.” Again this sounds surprisingly like my own thoughts, “The object of this book is to draw our attention once again to what the ancients knew…We think we are more advanced than the ancients but what if — at least on this question — they understood things better than we do?”
What are the odds that Rod Dreher did an about face on psychedelics and happened to come to the conclusion in my book right after receiving my book and yet without reading my book? What are the odds that his wording, outline, and his citations (e.g. Graham Hancock, Michael Pollan, Rick Strassman) are all so similar? I think they are not good.
Finally, there are some other suspicious things. There are a few additional pieces of information that his article has that are not in my book. For example, he discusses a recent New Republic article on “psychonauts.” And he cites a recent thread by a tweeter named Owen Cyclops. But it is interesting that I have had long threads discussing both of those things recently on Twitter. This could be a coincidence (these were both widely shared) but it is just another coincidence. Further, the article ends with some letters to the author (unsigned). One of them quotes a reader who references the Orthodox Priest, Father Seraphim Rose’s book The Soul After Death. In that letter, it highlights that Rose writing about out of body experiences largely agrees with the premise of the article (and my book). This is another shocking coincidence because I recently published an article to my substack citing discussing Father Seraphim Rose’s book and how closely it matched my own work! Again… what are the odds?
I noted on Twitter when I spotted this that I am grateful the message of the dangers of psychedelics is getting out. Dreher has a much bigger platform than me and can do it better than I can right now. So I guess that is good. But I don’t understand what is so hard about giving credit to a new author? I am always happy to give credit to the people who have influenced me. Why take someone’s ideas and not at least give them a shout out? How would that hurt him?
[Emphasis mine throughout the article]
Interesting coincidence….? Funny thing, this morning before reading this I was with the men at Saturday coffee and one brought up the scripture of Jeremiah 23:30 which says: “Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another.”
If we are paying attention to the culture, while holding the word and Spirit, I think we will be on that cutting edge of what’s happening, and we should find confirmation with others as we ourselves are seeking the Truth out. This is why I like Lewis’ writing — it rings true with what I am seeing, giving me confirmation and support to those ‘warning bells’ I hear.
I also read Dreher’s book “Live not by lies” when it first came out and found it timely and helpful. Many things rang “true” in it as well, and yet, I question some of his insights and conclusions whether in the book or elsewhere. What I do recall finding a bit strange though is that it is book that plays off of Solzhenitsyn, thus the title ‘Live not by lies’. So the writing uses another’s writing for an end purpose, sort of like an “assist” in a “goal”. I understand that’s not a very uncommon way to write a book, but I do prefer original thought. At least the author has first sought out truth and experienced a personal ‘revelation’, and after that sought collaboration and confirmation.
Thoughts and words, like meals, are best prepared and served from those who have spent long and hard meditating on the things we speak and write about. A repackaged word does not have the import and life an original does. Out of the possibly 500 restaurants in my home city, probably 95% use the supplied frozen food that comes from just two companies. I always try to find the home-made.