Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Claire Clark
Guest: Mike Jay
Episode Title: Mike Jay, "Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind" (Yale UP, 2023)
Date: January 6, 2026

This episode features a conversation with author and curator Mike Jay about his latest book, Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind. The discussion explores the intellectual, cultural, and scientific history of self-experimentation with psychoactive substances—how these experiences contributed to foundational theories of mind and consciousness, and the shifting societal and scientific landscape surrounding drug use from the 19th century to today.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Mike Jay’s Background and Entry into Drug History

• Philosophy to Media to Drug History: Mike describes a "picaresque" personal journey, starting with philosophy at Cambridge, moving into film and early digital media, then shifting towards writing and internet communities.
• Influence of Early Internet and Academic Mentors: He was drawn into drug history after witnessing open drug discussions online—a sharp contrast to mainstream portrayals. His mentor Michael Neave and association with the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine provided foundational historical perspectives.
• Early Publications: Jay’s anthology Artificial Paradises (1999) began as a collection of first-person drug experiences, which became the sourcebook for much of his later work. Curating the High Society exhibition at the Wellcome Collection cemented his position as a leading figure in drug history.
  • Quote:
    “I started digging around into the history of drugs and particularly this kind of history from below, the history of the drug experience, drug users.” (07:19)

The Genesis and Organization of Psychonauts

• Focus on Self-Experimentation
  • Jay’s fascination lies with first-person accounts of mind-altering drug use—something central, yet often overlooked in scientific history.
  • Quote:
    “What's interesting, I think, about self-experimentation with drugs... is that you're generating this subjective testimony that can't really be got in any other way.” (09:06)
• The Meaning of ‘Psychonaut’
  • The term originated in the 1940s with Ernst Junger and evolved to describe those who explore mind states through drug use, often outside the boundaries of institutional science.
  • Jay seeks to reclaim the word to encompass historical scientists as well as modern outsiders.
  • Quote:
    “In this modern usage, psychonaut is quite well known, but it tends to refer to renegades and rebels... But I wanted to use the word and take it back to the time when institutional scientists and establishment figures self-experimented with drugs...” (11:44)
• Organizational Structure of the Book (13:29)
  • Jay avoids a strict chronology, instead organizing history around themes reflecting present-day interests:
    • Cognition & Enhancement (Cocaine): Explored through figures like Sigmund Freud.
    • Consciousness & its Limits (Nitrous Oxide, Anaesthetics): Investigated via figures like William James.
    • Imagination & Creativity (Hashish, Peyote): Links to artistic and literary innovation.
    • Transition to Modernity: The shift to drug control in the early 20th century, and the later psychedelic era.
  • Quote:
    “I kind of picked three themes of interest and three types of research... all kind of culminate in the last years of the 19th century.” (16:21)

Before "Drugs": Psychoactive Use in the 19th Century

• Contextualizing the ‘Pre-Drug’ Era
  • The modern idea of ‘drugs’ as illicit or problematic didn’t exist. Substances like cocaine, cannabis, and heroin were legally available in pharmacies.
  • Distinctions between scientific and casual use were porous—many scientists were also poets or novelists, skilled in descriptive language.
  • Social and Class Dimensions: The trusted self-experimenters were nearly always white, male professionals—a dynamic Jay calls “the Cartesianism of the genteel.”
  • Quote:
    "Trying to describe an altered state of consciousness is a literary form as much as a scientific form." (20:57)

Freud and William James: Scientific Titans and Self-Experimenters

• Freud’s Cocaine Experiments (24:19)
  • Freud’s early cocaine work has been simultaneously minimized by admirers and sensationalized by critics.
  • Jay offers a nuanced account, noting Freud’s literary style and his fusion of first- and third-person perspectives in Uber Coca.
  • Freud’s move from objective measurement to recognizing the psychological impact of euphoria (which shapes later theories) is highlighted.
  • Quote:
    "A mental effect might have a physiological response is clearly something. That's when the Freud that we know picks up a few years later." (28:55)
• William James’ Nitrous Oxide Experience (29:36)
  • James’ mystical experiences with nitrous oxide profoundly influenced his theories of consciousness, pluralism, and religious experience.
  • His accounts provide a “wonderful way into his thinking”—he insisted that altered states are not mere illusions but alternate valid realities.
  • Quote:
    "Our normal waking consciousness is only one form of consciousness. And there are all kinds of other forms.... You can't say that they're wrong.... They're just as valid as any other form of experience." (30:53)

The "Return of the Psychonauts": Psychedelic Science and Counterculture

• The Psychedelic Era as a Renaissance (32:17)
  • The 1950s-60s revival of psychedelic research echoed 19th-century exploration, until new federal regulations (randomized control trials, exclusion of subjective experience) pushed self-experimentation to the margins.
  • Alexander Shulgin is highlighted as an exemplar of post-institutional psychonautics—merging lab synthesis with first-person reports, much like early figures.
  • Quote:
    “That was really the end of the psychonauts because that was the point at which subjective experiences of a drug became irrelevant, at least in medical terms, if you're trying to make this drug into a medicine.” (34:48)

Language, Policy, and the Future: "Post-Drug" World

• Rethinking the Category of ‘Drugs’ (37:53)
  • Jay argues for moving beyond the loaded and imprecise language of "drugs" towards more specific, less moralized terms (stimulant, psychedelic, etc.).
  • This linguistic shift could enable more rational, harm-based policies and reintegrate substances like caffeine and alcohol into the broader conversation.
  • Quote:
    “If we didn't use the word drugs anymore, what would we say? Well, we'd say things like stimulants and sedatives and psychedelics. We'd be a little bit more, you know, kind of specific in our meanings.” (38:40)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The history of self-experimentation... you're generating this subjective testimony that can't really be got in any other way.”—Mike Jay (09:06)
• “Psychonaut... a type of scientist who goes around collecting these drug-induced experiences... like a butterfly collector with a net going around to capture these states of consciousness.”—Mike Jay (10:15)
• “Trying to describe an altered state of consciousness is a literary form as much as a scientific form.”—Mike Jay (20:57)
• “Our normal waking consciousness is only one form of consciousness.”—Mike Jay, paraphrasing William James (30:53)
• “That was really the end of the psychonauts because that was the point at which subjective experiences of a drug became irrelevant, at least in medical terms...” —Mike Jay (34:48)
• “A post drug world would not need a new language, but the recovery of an older one.”—Mike Jay (37:53)

Key Timestamps for Segments

• [02:03] Mike Jay’s Background and Path to Drug History
• [08:41] Conceptual Roots and Focus of Psychonauts
• [10:13] Definition and History of the Term "Psychonaut"
• [13:29] Book Organization: Themes and Drug Types
• [18:24] The ‘Before Drugs’ Era
• [23:17] Freud and William James as Protagonists
• [24:19] Freud’s Self-Experimentation and Influence on His Theories
• [29:36] William James and Mystical Consciousness
• [32:17] The 1960s Psychedelic Revolution as a Return to Earlier Values
• [37:53] Imagining a Post-Drug World: Language and Policy

Tone and Language

The conversation balances scholarly rigor with engaging storytelling and intellectual curiosity, weaving together biography, history, and cultural analysis with accessible examples and literary references.

Summary

Mike Jay’s appearance on New Books Network provides a rich, accessible overview of the themes, structure, and stakes of Psychonauts. By tracing the subjective history of psychoactive drug use—from 19th-century scientific adventurism through the psychedelic era to the present—Jay invites listeners and readers alike to reconsider how language, culture, and science shape our understanding of drugs and the mind. The episode is essential listening for anyone interested in the intersections of science, literature, consciousness, and social change.