Former Tesla employee funds multi-million dollar Harvard psychedelic program

Thanks to an eight-figure grant from a former Tesla employee, Harvard will soon launch a new degree program focused on the use of psychedelics and their impact on various aspects of modern times.

Harvard University will begin conducting a new multidisciplinary study on “psychedelics in society and culture,” according to a press release. The course was funded by a $16 million grant from the Gracias Family Foundation, founded by former Tesla employee and Valor Equity Partners CEO Antonio Gracias.

Gracias, a long-time friend and colleague of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, was a director at Tesla from 2007 to 2021. A Quartz article states that Gracias’ company also served as Twitter’s informal CEO after Musk fired the original CEO immediately after acquiring the social media giant. The press release from Harvard states that the Gracias Family Foundation is interested in the possibility of using psychedelics for therapeutic purposes and is interested in providing funding for such endeavors.

“Harvard is the ideal place to explore the issue of psychedelics from new perspectives and provide a framework for their legal, safe and appropriate impact on society,” Gracias said in a statement.

Harvard’s press release states that the new psychedelic-oriented program will be taught as a joint effort between the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School. The goal of the program is to apply Harvard’s track record and professionalism to a subject often steeped in mysticism and bro-science, some left over from the somewhat chaotic psychedelic and psychedelic-adjacent movements of the 1960s.

In Harvard’s own words, the program aims to “transform the psychedelics research landscape by producing cutting-edge science and bringing together faculty, students, and experts to engage in the discussion about their far-reaching implications.”

“We are excited about the opportunity to bring together students, faculty and researchers on the important question of how psychedelics impact our society,” said Robin Kelsey, Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography and Dean of Arts and Humanities. “Harvard is poised to become the most exciting place for debate, discussion and innovation in this field.”

The new Harvard program would not be considered the first psychedelics-based area of ​​study at an American university, as there are already several psychedelics-based credentialing programs at certain other colleges, but this certainly represents a monumental announcement from an Ivy League university by Harvard The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School also launched an initiative in 2021 called the Project on Psychedelic Law and Regulation (POPLAR) to address the “ethical, legal, and social implications” of psychedelics investigate.

The recent news has been hailed by many as a much-needed step forward in the development of psychedelic education, including Michael Pollan, long-time advocate of psychedelics and author of several books on the subject, including “How to Change Your Mind,” which later became a Netflix book -Series.

“This is a visionary gift as it is the first to take the so-called psychedelic renaissance beyond medicine by recognizing the importance of the humanities in exploring the effects and potential of these remarkable substances,” Pollan said in a written statement.

It was not immediately clear from the press release exactly when the new program would be available to Harvard students or what type of curriculum would be applied to a relatively new and fledgling field of study. The press release said the program would “approach the field from a range of humanistic and social science perspectives, including law, politics, ethics, religion and spirituality, the nature of consciousness, and art and literature.”

The press release also said that the $16 million from the Gracias Family Foundation would be used in addition to funding the expansion of existing programs at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, as well as funding new fellowships at the CSWR and the Mahindra Humanities Center.

“One of Harvard’s greatest strengths is our ability to bring together experts from diverse fields to engage in lively discussions that advance scholarship from diverse perspectives,” said Bruno Carvalho, interim director of the Mahindra Humanities Center. “This initiative will give us the space to explore and enrich the public dialogue about psychedelics, including their potential and ethical and social implications.”