A Short, Strange Trip: An Untold Story of Magic Mushrooms, Madness, and a Search for the Meaning of Life in the Amazon

Tag along with clever guide John O'Connor as he leads us on a gonzo journey through the history of psychedelics, the Amazon rainforest, and into the cosmic dimensions of our own minds. This will be the trip of a lifetime.

March 4th, 1971: Deep in the Colombian rainforest, a motley crew of "psychonauts" prepared for what they believed would be the ultimate experiment. Convinced that a mixture of powerful hallucinogenic plants held the key to unlocking human consciousness, they soon found themselves entering hyperspace.

The return journey was... complicated.

Present day: Acclaimed journalist John O'Connor is fascinated by this forgotten expedition. What really happened in those jungle depths? Armed with decades-old field notes, new interviews, and a healthy dose of curiosity, O'Connor ventures into the same Amazon territory, retracing the psychonauts' steps through the remote Putumayo in search of a legendary hallucinogen called ukuè --and the truth about an "experiment" that's been quietly gathering dust.

Working alongside indigenous Uitoto people who bore witness to it all, O'Connor explores how humanity's relationship with psychedelics has shaped everything from ancient religion to modern medicine. But as he journeys deeper into both the rainforest and the cosmic dimensions these substances reveal, one question keeps nagging at him:

Were the psychonauts onto something truly profound--or just profoundly stoned?

Some stories are worth the trip.

John O'Connor is the author of The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, an NPR and Chicago Tribune best book of 2024. His articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Men's Journal, Financial Times magazine, Oxford American, the Boston Globe, and several anthologies. Born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan (the original home of Gibson guitars), he has an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and teaches journalism at Boston College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife and children.