White supremacist says MDMA dissuaded him from extremist beliefs

Scientific research on psychedelics remains quite limited. In a way, while our understanding of substances like MDMA and psilocybin has expanded in recent years, scientists are still catching up on the decades when such drugs were strictly banned — even in the scientific community.

This means that extraordinary discoveries are always to come at a time when policymakers and research institutions are becoming increasingly receptive to the therapeutic and medicinal value of psychedelic drugs.

A newly published book explores a possible breakthrough. In “I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World,” journalist Rachel Nuwer delves into the case of a prominent white supremacist who says he was liberated from his bigoted beliefs after participating in an MDMA study been.

The white supremacist, whom Nuwer identified only as Brendan, had participated in a double-blind trial conducted by Harriet de Wit, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Chicago, in early 2020.

In an excerpt from Nuwer’s book, published by the BBC last week, de Wit described her surprise when she and her research assistant Mike Bremmer read Brendan’s answers to her questionnaire.

“Strangely, at the bottom of the form, Brendan had written in bold, ‘This experience helped me resolve a distressing personal issue.’ google my name “Now I know what to do,” Nuwer wrote. “When Bremmer and de Wit saw this cryptic message, they were concerned. “We really need to look at this,” de Wit said. They Googled Brendan’s name and came up with a disturbing revelation: Until a few months ago, Brendan was the leader of the Midwestern US faction of Identity Evropa, a notorious white nationalist group that was renamed the American Identity Movement in 2019. Two months earlier, activists from Chicago Antifascist Action exposed Brendan’s identity and he lost his job.”

Nuwer wrote that de Wit was “very worried,” but after she sent her assistant to talk to Brendan, he realized that “a homicidal rampage was the opposite of what Brendan had in mind.” Brendan told a stunned research assistant that “love is what matters most” and “without love, nothing matters.”

After hearing de Wit’s story, Nuwer said she needed to look into Brendan’s story herself.

“MDMA alone does not appear to be able to magically rid people of prejudice, bigotry or hatred. However, some researchers wonder whether it could be an effective tool for getting people who are already somehow prepared to reconsider their ideology to change their way of looking at things. While MDMA cannot address the root causes of prejudice and division on a societal level, it can make a difference on an individual level. In certain cases, the drug may even help people see through the fog of discrimination and fear that separates so many of us,” Nuwer wrote.

Nuwer describes Brendan’s experiences in the double-blind trial in the BBC excerpt:

“When Brendan saw a Facebook ad for some kind of drug trial at the University of Chicago in early 2020, he decided to apply just to have something to do and make some money. On one of the visits he was given a pill. He didn’t know, but he had just taken 110mg of MDMA. At the time, Brendan was “still in the denial phase” after his identity became public, he said. He was wracked with regrets – not for the bigoted views he still held, but for the missteps that had gotten him into this predicament. About 30 minutes after taking the pill, he started feeling strange. ‘Wait a minute – why am I doing this?’ Why am I thinking like this?’ he began to wonder. “Why did I ever think it was okay to jeopardize relationships with almost everyone in my life?”

“At that moment, Bremmer came to pick up Brendan and start the experiment. Brendan was sent on an MRI, and Bremmer began tickling his forearm with a brush, asking him to rate how comfortable it felt. “I’ve found that it makes me happier — the experience of touch,” Brendan recalls. “I’ve started to value it more and more.” As he savored the pleasant sensation, one powerful word came to mind: connection. It suddenly seemed so obvious: Only the connection to other people counted. “It’s something that can’t really be put into words, but it was so profound,” Brendan said. “I didn’t see my relationships with other people as clear boundaries with different entities, but rather as something that we are all one.” I realized that I was fixated on things that don’t really matter and are just so messed up, and that I had completely missed the point and purpose. I hadn’t absorbed the joy that life has to offer.’”